LESSON 1: Introduction to Ethics

In the First Person: An Outline of General Ethics (2nd ed.) by Aldo Vendemiati

What is ethics?
Philosophical ethics can also be called?
Common definition of philosophical ethics
More appropriate definition
Moral philosophy
The science that indicates what man must do to be
good, that is, worthy of his own humanity
The science of what man should be, since the moral
life does not consist only in doing in a strict sense, but
in the orientation of all our activities in a determined
way, toward a determined human ideal

In other words: to seek a meaning for human

existence
How must we be to fully realize our human
Main ethical question
personality?
Rational investigation of man, the world, and God,
To do philosophy
seeking to know the truth
A thinker who seeks a rational basis for his judgments
without making an appeal to myth, faith or majority
opinion
What is a philosopher?
He does not draw arguments from the truth of faith

He keeps his discussion on a rigorously rational plane

Relationship of ethical theology and philosophical
ethics

Philosophical Method
Wonder
3 fundamental attitudes of philosophical inquiry Reverence
Loving desire
Implies the availability to listen thoroughly
The effort to be quiet in order to understand
(vs. preparing our argument while the other is
Reverence
talking)
The renouncement of any attempt to imprison
an object in something already known
According to the Greeks:
A thirst for truth
Loving desire
An interior yearning towards the mysterious
message enclosed in reality
Wonder
Minimum of philosophy

Moral experience This is from where we begin reworking our experience

to reach the clarifications and the in-depth study
proper to ethical/philosophical research
How is the reflection on our own life enriched? Through dialogue with our neighbors, spoken or
written
 No man is an island
In the shaping of that minimum-of-philosophy, each Education, social models, religious tradition,
of us has been conditioned by cultural influences language, economic situations, etc.
To be free from condition You first have to admit that you have been conditioned

The Obvious and The Evident

Obvious: admitted in an uncritical way without
reasoning about them; doesnt question if they are
fruits of knowledge, fantasy or prejudice
To be obvious is NOT sufficient criteria to be
Obvious vs. Evident
true

Evident: present in the act of knowing; evident to my

intellect
Evidence gathered directly from reality
Immediate Evidence Ex. Moral values can only be realized by
persons dont need anymore explanations
Mediation of a defined series of immediate evidences
Ex. Humility is a virtue can be
Mediated Evidence
demonstrated but some complex reasoning
is required
Task of philosophy Dismantling the obvious to gain access to the evident

Specific Characteristics of Philosophical Ethics

Greek word ethos use, custom, way of behaving,
character which corresponds to the Latin word mos,
moris; ethics and morality are synonymous
Concerned with moral experience
The object of all ethical reflection is specifically
moral experience draw consequences for human
action
Not to merely describe human actions
Normative vs. Descriptive:
ought/norm vs. just describing
Ethics describes human action but also prescribes
certain obligations and imposes certain
prohibitions

Normative science/technologies: if you want to

obtain such end, you must have recourse to certain
A normative-categorical science
means; end that man can choose for himself;
hypothetical norms
vs.
Morality: concerned with the end of human action
the end which man cannot determine for
himself; categorical norms; prescribe how someone
should act to be a good human being, that is, to be
worthy of ones own humanity