Gain a humanistic understanding of ethics -- knowledge that can make a difference in the quality of your life, the choices you make, and the "big" issues that confront you and your society every day.

Area VI of the COHE is designed to

Courses available in Area VI:

Area VI (ETH) of the COHE is designed to give you a practical, down-to-earth understanding of the fields of ethics and its relationship to humanist principles. The courses here will show you not only how these three domains relate to one another, but how they relate to the quality of your life, the choices you make, and the "big" issues that confront you and your society everyday.

The central question addressed in ethics is How should I (we, they) live? Humanism, as a distinctive worldview (a comprehensive set of ideas that helps us make sense of a wide range of important issues), also addresses this question -- and offers some interesting answers. But how should you answer it? Should you believe the answers found in humanism or in any other worldview? in Christianity, Judaism, mysticism, postmodernism, materialism? By what criteria should you evaluate the answers? Is it even possible for some answers to be better than others?

The purpose of Area VI is to help you understand the basic concepts and concerns in ethics, to show you how to think critically about the basic issues, and to guide you in your quest to answer the most vital questions for yourself.

A reasonable query at this point is, Why bother? Why think critically about morality when you already have definite views on moral issues? And why probe deep social issues you may have very little control over -- whether you think about them or not?

Well, for one thing, you are knee-deep in moral issues all the time, and you are steeped in their influence on social and legal issues a great deal of the time. No matter how hard you try, you cannot escape moral concerns. No one can. Even the decision to reject or ignore moral concerns is a moral concern.

What's more, whether you like it or not, you have a theory of morality -- a view of what morality is, and is not, that helps you decide what actions are right or wrong or what things are good or bad. Even if you think that there is no such thing as right and wrong, that in itself is a theory of morality. (It has, in fact, been a very influential theory in the history of ethical thinking.)

If you believe that right actions are those approved by a god, or based on some self-evident moral principle, or derived from some facts about human nature, or designed to promote the greatest degree of happiness -- you have embraced a moral theory. The question then is not whether you should have a moral theory, but which one you should have and why.

Escaping social and legal issues is slightly easier to do, but they also have a way of intruding into your life unexpectedly. Issues of justice, rights, duty, obligations, and punishment play out in society, politics, your neighborhood, your family, and your wallet.

Moral questions are "in your face" in another way too. In the twenty-first century -- perhaps more than at any other time in history -- theories about morality furiously compete. Each one cries out for your allegiance. Some religious groups, for example, promote what is known as the divine command theory of ethics, which insists that an action is right if God has commanded it. Modern humanists prefer a variety of moral theories, but exclude the supernatural from all of them. Many postmodernists favor cultural relativism, which says that an action is right if a society or culture approves of it. Some people live their lives by the theory called ethical egoism, the notion that an action is right if it benefits one's own self.

The assumption that underlies all this squabbling is that ideas matter, and moral ideas or theories matter more than most. They matter because they help to plot the course of people's lives. A poor moral theory leads to poor moral judgments. A good moral theory helps you make good moral judgments. Whether good or bad, ideas about morality influence what people do and don't do. To a large extent, the quality of people's lives is determined by the quality of their thinking -- especially their thinking on moral questions.

Of course, like many people you may decide not to decide -- that is, to accept whatever ideas about ethics were handed to you when you entered the world and forego any unsettling questions. This is always an option, but notice what this kind of blind acceptance does. It ensures that all of your ideas about morality come ready-made from your parents, your culture, your peers, or your government. If you merely absorb the ideas that help shape your life and never critically examine them, they are not truly yours. Your actions and choices based on these unexamined ideas, therefore, cannot be truly free. This predicament is the equivalent of living your entire life according to someone else's instructions.

Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the study of how we should live our lives. One main branch of ethics, called normative ethics, focuses on theories about how we should act and what things are right, wrong, good, and bad. In normative ethics, the emphasis is on questions such as

Is this action right or wrong?
Is this kind of person good or bad?
Is this policy or practice just or unjust?

Metaethics, the other main branch of ethics, probes fundamental questions not about which actions are right or wrong or what things are good or bad, but about what these concepts mean in the first place. In metaethics, the main concern is questions such as

• What does 'right' or 'wrong' mean?
• What is 'justice'?
• Can statements about morality be true or false--or are they just gut responses of approval or disapproval?

These general questions may seem pointlessly theoretical, but in the 5,000-year history of ethics, such theoretical queries have often yielded new insights -- even some shocking realizations--about moral concepts that most people take for granted.

Notice that the study of ethics is primarily a philosophical endeavor -- an enterprise that uses reasoning to analyze, clarify, and test ideas. Other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and history may also study ethics, but their focus is mainly on what causes people's actions. The field of ethics, on the other hand, is concerned with what justifies those actions -- what reasons there are to suppose those actions to be right or wrong.

Metaethics brims with penetrating questions that strike at the center of our casual assumptions about morality:

• Is morality objective (not dependent on anyone's state of mind), or subjective?
• Are there universal moral principles?
• Is morality based on scientifically discoverable facts about human nature? (That is, are naturalistic ethical theories valid?) Or is morality based on something nonnaturalistic, such as self-evident logical truths, intuitively grasped moral principles, or God's law?

Despite the popular notion that philosophy never goes anywhere -- except maybe around in circles -- there has been a lot of progress made in the philosophical study of ethics in the past three hundred years. It is now clear that some theories of morality are untenable. Some fundamental notions about the nature of right, wrong, good, bad, duty, and justice have been found wanting, while other ideas seem more supportable. Both religious and humanist theories of morality have been subjected to careful assessment, and the verdicts have not always gone the way many people expect. The problem is that most people haven't heard much about these developments -- even though the implications for their lifestyle and worldview can be profound.

Area VI: Ethics is an attempt to remedy this predicament. The course modules here may be the shortest distance between you and a practical understanding of ethics. Each course is formulated to help you understand fundamental concepts, to show you how to think critically about important issues and questions, and -- most of all -- to show you how to apply what you learn to your own life and choices.

The ETH100 Cornerstone Course, Sacred vs. Secular Ethics, introduces you to some major theories in both religious and nonreligious ethics. It provides you with the core criteria for judging the worth of ethical theories, explains the strengths and weaknesses of both kinds of moral thinking, and helps you decide if any theory is worth your commitment. It also poses and answers some of life's most provocative ethical questions.

The ETH100-1 Introductory Module explores the rationale for developing a workable moral theory and defines key concepts in the field of ethics.

The ETH100-2 Basic Module expands upon basic principles, defines and compares religious and secular moral theories, and offers criteria for judging the worth of an ethical system.

The ETH100-3 Comprehensive Module further categorizes moral theories beyond religious and secular, provides historic references, and provokes critical thought about challenges to morality. This module evaluates five moral theories (two religious and three secular) according to criteria developed over the course of the module.

Back to top