Secular Ethical Systems
Western Liberal Ethics
Western liberal democracies contain many different
beliefs, religions and cultures but there are some ethical ideas that permeate
Western society. Notably there is an emphasis on individual rights; this is most
obvious in the
Rights are not the only common ethical aspect
however. As many western countries have become increasingly multi-cultural
there is accompanying emphasis on cultural relativism not just as a description
of ethics but as an ethical principle; in other words that people should
respect the views of other cultures. This idea is by no means universally held
nor is it unproblematic.
Capitalist Ethics
In the Twentieth century thinkers have tried to come
up with an ethical justification for capitalism. They have mixed egoist ideas
with ideas about basic rights. The idea being that so long as you don’t violate
other peoples very basic rights (essentially the right to property) then you
should act in your own self interest. The idea is that if people act according
to rational self interest the combined effect will be beneficial to everybody.
To prove their point believers in capitalism can point to the high standard of
living and the long life span of people living in the
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a view of ethics from the 19th
century devised by a philosopher called John Stuart Mill from an original idea
by another man called Jeremy Bentham. They were trying to devise a rational way
of making ethical decisions. The idea of utilitarianism is to maximise
happiness or pleasure and minimise unhappiness or pain. Bentham thought this
could actually be done by assigning things different units of pleasure and pain
and then simply add up the possibilities. The action
with the maximum pleasure all round was the “right” thing to do. So given a
choice between giving one person 100 baht or 10 people 11 baht, the second
would be preferred because there would be 10 lots of 11 bahts
worth of happiness as opposed to 1 lot of 100 bahts
worth. Bentham’s idea didn’t really catch on and John Stuart Mill tried to
reform it. He realised that not all pleasure is equal and that it is hard to
compare the pleasure of a farm worker getting drunk on a Friday night with rich
man spending a night at the opera. Even so Mill used utilitarian arguments to
support many social reforms that today would be widely accepted as being
correct such a votes for women and better working
conditions for factory workers.
Utilitarianism is both a form of hedonism and
consequentialism. It is hedonistic because it matches good with pleasure and
bad with pain. It is consequentialist because it is concerned with ends.
Utilitarianism attempts to be objective particularly
Bentham’s form which hoped to be as objective as mathematics. It tends,
however, to become both relative and to some extent subjective because it
relies on peoples opinions of what constitutes pleasure or happiness.
Kant’s Categorical Imperative
Immanuel Kant is another philosopher who tried to
solve some of the riddles of ethics. Kant lived in the 18th century and was a
very religious man who followed a very conservative form of Christianity. He
was concerned however that ethics should not just be a matter of religion but
also a matter of reason.
Kant thought that ethics should be about duty. He
also thought that he could work out a basic fundamental duty that is true for
everybody. He called it a “Categorical Imperative”, in other words an
imperative (a statement with a “should” or an “ought” that had to by definition
be followed). Kant’s reasoning was very difficult and very complex and to hard
to explain here but his three versions of his categorical imperative are relatively easy to understand and sound like good moral
principles. We will look at just two versions of Kant’s Categorical Imperative
(as rewritten by me):
“Only hold such maxims as you would want to be
universally applied”: In other words your moral rules should be generally
applicable to everybody. So the maxim “beat people around the head with a
rolled up newspaper” sounds great when you have the newspaper and are doing the
beating but you really would not want everybody to follow such a maxim. So that
particular maxim fails as an ethical rule. “Be nice to strangers” does a lot
better a rule.
“Treat all individuals as ends in themselves and not
just means”: In other words be respectful of other people, don’t “use” or
“exploit” others because an individual person is in themselves an ethical end.
Kant’s rules fit very well with many modern notions
of how we should behave but they are so general that they give very little
practical guidance.