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What is right and wrong? How do the concepts of right and wrong define our actions
in the view of society? Should it be this way, or should be free to act as we
please? What should we do when faced with certain situations, and do we even have
the right to decide what the course of action should be in that situation? Far
from being something that you rant about with your coworkers while waiting to
use the metal bender, these are serious questions that require serious thought.
These are the types of questions we seek to answer in the study of ethics.
Ethics is different from other academic pursuits. Unlike scientific subjects,
ethics and other philosophical areas of study have no concrete answers to offer.
If you're trying to calculate the rate of a commercial mortgage, you can
find you answer with a mathematical equation that is universally applicable
and will yield the same answers to everyone as long as no mistakes are made.
The same cannot be said for ethics. There are no absolute answers. Each person
will have their own unique solution for an ethical dilemma based upon their
experiences and character, and who is to say whether they are any more or less
right than anyone else?
The subject of ethics can be divided into several sub-groups, though none are
so well defined as to fit easy into a reusable plastic container, like a scientific
discipline would be. Meta-ethics is the name for the study of the meaning of
ethical judgments and whether they have any validity. It asks questions like
what it means when we judge something to be 'right' or 'wrong'
and what is says about us that we feel that way. It also asks whether we have
any right to make judgments on the morality or immorality of another person's
actions.
Another subset of ethics is normative ethics, which is what people traditionally
think of when they are introduced to the concepts of morality and ethics. Normative
ethical philosophers concern themselves with determining what is 'right'
and what is 'wrong.' They also study what makes something 'right'
as opposed to 'wrong' and how society has created the standards
we live by. What is the difference between pushing and a fall? Arrests are made
on the answer to these types of question, so this aspect is an important one. Are their different ethical standards in Canada than in Troncones, Mexico?
As time marches on, the study of ethics has become increasingly complicated
as more and more theories abound and the philosopher in each new debating round
slings muddy water upon the ideas and principles of his or her opponent. For
this reason, we endeavor not just to expand the study of ethics but to clarify
as much as possible what we mean by ethics, what ethics means to us as people
and how to apply ethical principles. Once you have completed sufficient study,
you will be able to go out into the world and exert your influence in the field
of applied ethics, which is how we use ethical principles in society.
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