ETHICS EXPLAINED

everything you need to know about ethics | by @benwardle_

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Is murder ALWAYS wrong?

April 16, 2020

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What is the good life? How do we determine right from wrong? Is liberty a good thing in life? Are humans biologically predisposed to selfishness? Everyday, there's a new post exploring an issue concerning social ethics, sex ethics & other contemporary ethical issues.

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2020 12
- April 2020 12

About the Author

Ben Wardle is a Religion, Philosophy & Ethics student studying in London. He is particularly interested in social ethics, sex ethics & the writing of J.S. Mill. He is also interested in emotional intelligence, Buddhist ethics & Aristotle's moral philosophy.

Is murder ALWAYS wrong?

An introduction to the deontology vs teleology debate in ethics. How do we judge the morality of an action? Is it in the act itself, or is it in the consequences that the act produces? Are there any acts that are always, without question wrong - or does whether an act is judged morally acceptable or not depend on the circumstances and the outcome? Take homicide for example, the ' killing of one person by another '. Our first thought is that this is always a morally unacceptable action - it is 'bad', it is 'wrong', it is'terrible'. We may say that it is morally unacceptable in any circumstances - it is intrinsically bad. But what if you found out the context in which the homicide took place - would this change how you assessed the morality of the action? What if police shot dead a terrorist who was about to massacre hundreds of schoolchildren? What if a victim of domestic abuse stabbed their abuser with a kitchen knife in a desperate act of sel...

IS WEALTH THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?

The question of 'what does it mean to live the good life?' is one that has fascinated philosophers for centuries. We all want to know what it means to live a 'good life' - a life that is happy, fulfilling, and achieves our purpose here on earth. Religions have taught that pleasing God and attaining salvation is the secret to living this 'good life', whilst societies have taught that fulfilling your duty as a citizen and making your contribution to the prosperity of the nation is the way to achieve fulfilment. In the western world today, it appears the the pursuit of self-interest and the accumulation of wealth is a sure sign of knowing that you have 'made it'. The more money you have in the bank, the more designer brands you have in the wardrobe, the more super-yachts you have in the harbour, the more trophy-wives you have in the bedroom - these all seem to be our measures of success in the modern world. Our television channels are bursting with lav...

WHAT IS 'HOMO DUPLEX'?

Forget 'Homo Sapiens', the new term on every moral psychologists list is 'Homo Duplex'. 'Homo Duplex', a term first coined by 19th century sociologist Emile Durkheim, refers to the idea that humans have not one but two sides to them: the individual and the collective. The 'Homo Duplex' argument suggests we each function on two levels - as an individual and as a society. We are on the one hand biological organisms driven by individual instincts and desires, whilst on the other hand we are social and collective organisms who believe we are 'simply part of a whole, whose actions I follow, and whose influence I am subject to'. So we each have two parts to our identity - our individual identity and our collective identity. But the question left to ask is this - how do we switch between the two? How do we differentiate between our individualism and our collectivism? According to moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the way in which we move fro...

KANT ON WHY YOU NEED DISCIPLINE

He is one of the most famous and influential philosophers in human history. But what did he really think of the human race and his fellow human beings? One of Kant's most famous philosophical musings is that 'man must be disciplined, for by nature he is raw and wild'. He believed very strongly that if we did not tame our primitive and animalistic desires and urges, they would take over our lives. We would be driven by impulses and emotions - and this, thought Kant, would be catastrophic for our morality and ethics. His words echo the argument made by Thomas Hobbes that the undisciplined life of man is 'nasty, brutish and short', with our original and untamed state of nature a 'war of all against all'. Morality, it seems, is a revolution against our innate selfishness and uncontrollable desires - it is only with discipline, training and obedience to authority that we can tame the beast within us. So how did Kant propose we could be discipl...

DAILY MAIL DOUBLE STANDARDS

The Daily Mail took a (very short) break from its extensive Covid-19 coverage this week to bring the nation some truly shocking news - the actress Kate Beckinsdale had dared to be seen in public holding hands with a younger man. The Mail was outraged to have seen her with 'ANOTHER toyboy' who - it was quick to inform its readers - was 'only a year older than her daughter'. The tone on the article was somewhat different to the way the very same news organisation had reported the news that Boris Johnson was to marry and have a baby with Carrie Symonds, who is no more than five years older than his youngest child. You may therefore be forgiven for asking if a slight inconsistency in the Mail's reportage could potentially have been found - whilst Boris Johnson getting someone 23 years younger pregnant (and having begun dating them whilst still married to his ex-wife, we might add) is a cause for national celebration, Beckinsdale's decision to go o...

CHINA, CENSORSHIP & COVID-19

The shocking story of Dr Li Wenliang - who tried to warn medics about the Coronavirus in December and was promptly silenced by the Chinese government, and later died of the disease himself - will be one that is spoken about, written about and discussed by ethics students for many decades to come. It is a shocking, heartbreaking and anger-inducing story. Dr Li Wenliang had tried to issue the first warning about the coronavirus to his fellow medics back in December 2019. The doctor had tried to warn his fellow doctors on WhatsApp about the contagious nature of the virus, telling them to wear protective clothing in order to avoid infection. China's authorities quickly hauled him in and forced him to sign a letter agreeing with the Chinese government's assessment that he had been "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order", according to a BBC report on the story. He was one of eight people the authoritarian authorities were inv...

HARRY & MEGHAN ATTACK TABLOIDS

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have further stepped up their criticisms of the British tabloid press, sending an extraordinary letter to four of the biggest newspapers informing them that there will be "no corroboration" and "zero engagement" with their publications. In the letter, sent by the couple's new PR team to the editors of The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Mirror and the Daily Express, the couple wrote that they "will not be engaging with your outlet" because they refuse to "offer themselves up as a currency for an economy of clickbait and distortion". The letter marks the latest escalation in a long feud between the couple - who quit Royal life earlier this year and left the UK indefinitely - and comes just days before Meghan sues the Daily Mail's sister title the 'Mail on Sunday' for publishing a letter she sent to her father. In these letters, which were splashed across newspaper front pages in the UK, ...

OXFORD'S FREE SPEECH 'FAILURES'

Should Universities teach what you should think think or how to think for yourself? Has 'no platforming' gone too far, or is it essential to protect us from dangerous radicals? Oxford University has come under fire for its position on free-speech after pressure from trans activists resulted in a history professor being banned from speaking at a conference she had helped to organise. According to Sunday Times education editor Sian Griffiths, the universities minister Michelle Donelan has warned the government is prepared to change the law 'to compel universities and colleges to guarantee free speech'. It come after Selina Todd - a professor of modern history at Oxford - and Amber Rudd, the then Home Secretary, were both 'no-platformed' in the spacer of a week. Amber Rudd is quoted by the paper as saying: "What you have got is a highly politicised, small minority of activists who take it upon themselves to terrorise the majority of students who wou...

COVID-19: 35 DIFFICULT QUESTIONS

Serious questions about the origins, responses and lockdown exit strategies are being asked. Here are 34 of the most important questions the public deserve to know the answer to. The UK Sunday papers are this morning filled with difficult questions about the Covid-19 outbreak, with answers being demanded on the true origin of the coronavirus, the government's apparent failure to take the pandemic seriously, and the refusal of the government to disclose details about its exit plan for ending the so-called 'lockdown' of the country. A cover story on this morning's Sunday Times reads: "Revealed - how the government sleepwalked into catastrophe". A special report by the paper reveals how the government 'ignored warnings from scientists and lost a crucial five weeks in the fight to tackle the coronavirus...with complacency at the heart of the government ...". Similar questions are being asked across the Atlantic, where President Donald Trump is ...

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS TO FLOURISH

I want to transport you back over 2,500 years, to the times of Ancient Greek. Picture the scene; it's a gloriously hot and sunny day and we are out and about in Athens. The residents are going about their daily lives, and the students of Plato's Academy are engaged in rigorous debate about big moral questions and are challenging each other with philosophical conundrums. Perhaps the biggest of these big philosophical conundrums is a question that is still being asked - and we appear no closer to an answer - today: 'what is the meaning of life?' We all want to know the answer to this question, and it seems to be because of a human desire to find meaning and purpose in our lives. We want to know why we are here, we want to feel there is a reason for our existence. We don't like the suggestion our lives have no innate purpose or meaning at all, and that we are just biological organisms that have - by a complete random incidence of nature - evolved into 'homo sap...

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