r/Ethics • u/pound_of_guillotine • 4d ago
Is it Ethical itself?
Does studying ethics make you ethical or a more morally good person. Does the knowledge of the study itself be included in the criteria of being good. Because to me the goal of studying ethics is to apply it to reality, that being to know good so that one can do good.
But, lets just say that we remove the doing part of it, that is we only have knowledge of good. That is, we don't apply. If so, does the knowledge of good count as good?
Because to me it seems a little bit confusing. because it seems that knowing good is good because of the possibility of application. But also, only knowing good is bad if its not done because of the obligation of doing? (Or is it? Idk about this, I think this is another broad topic which I don't know the name)
If we then Isolate the knowing, what will it be?
Is it neutral? It seems to me that that's the answer.
What is it though?
Does knowing ethics itself ethical?
excuse me if this is a little bit stupid or confusing. Im new at philosophy.
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u/Sea-Home-7763 4d ago
Well I think people who study ethics are probably better than average, but the causation on that might be reversed. People who value ethics in the first place are more likely to study it.
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u/Ok_Fruit8871 4d ago
A quote from The Karate Kid 2 film has stuck with me since my childhood. 'Ambition without knowledge is like a boat on dry land'. I think you could invert the order ambition and knowledge, mean roughly the same thing. Knowing ethics doesn't mean you are ethical, it just means you know it.
Humans are walking contradictions, hypocrites, we constantly use double standards on each other despite whining about them when they are used on us.
Application of ethics, is an attempt to keep our contradictions and hypocrisy from killing us all.
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u/Mysterious_Oil2761 4d ago
No studying ethics does not make you inherently good. Just as studying the Second WW and the rise of Nazism does not make you inherently bad.
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u/Defiant_Virus4981 4d ago
Let's say it that way: Most people doing evil things can give very extensive justifications (including ethical arguments) for why they are actually justified. Nobody is the villain in their own story.
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u/GSilky 4d ago
The pragmatist in me would ask how does someone confirm their belief in their ethics without behavior that demonstrates their belief? People say lots of things, it's what we do that demonstrates what we believe. So a person could study ethics, a behavior that at least shows an interest in pursuing the good life, but until they start acting out those ethics they determine best after studying, there is little proof that they actually believe those ethics are best, and the enterprise stalls.
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u/unseemlycandour 4d ago
I'd think of it like art. Anyone can make art, pick up a pencil and draw something, maybe not even meaning to. However when you devote more time to studying art and intentionally practicing it, you gain new and deeper understandings than you had before and can then make more complex works. However, some people get so caught up in the 'rules' of making art that they somehow lose the spirit of it.
I wouldn't say that the study of ethics in and of itself is ethical because ethics is more of a practice imo. Learning is an action, but like every action, motivation matters. You could intimately know what we consider to be ethical and still knowingly make unethical choices. You could study ethics because you have to for a class you're in without really trying to engage with the material beyond a surface level understanding. If you're only ever reading and never trying to actively engage with the world, what is the function of learning about ethical interactions? If you're not approaching the material with genuine intent then you're not trying to get to the spirit of the subject. So it depends.
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u/West-Working-9093 4d ago
Nope. I would say that having insight into what qualifies as good and then walking right over it is more than a tad worse than if you never understood the difference.
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u/Huge-Nectarine3975 4d ago
Today we're learning about gain circuit theory in signal processing for some reason it is in the context of ethics.
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u/Dr-Chris-C 4d ago
Well ethics are all ultimately stipulated, and studying ethics helps you more consistently build off of your stipulations, so in that sense yes. But because of the subjective nature, whether studying ethics makes you a better person just depends on what was stipulated.
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u/SouthernAbrocoma9891 4d ago
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”
Learning about ethics is great, but morality is needed as a basis for them. Ethics are policies. Morals are principles.
How do we effectuate them? Procedures are the exact actions to uphold ethics based on morals.
No. Learning about ethics doesn’t make you more ethical. In fact, it can do the opposite. People can learn some basics or isolated concepts about ethics without getting the whole picture. They make assumptions, get the wrong idea and come to conclusions that are the exact opposite. That combined with an incorrect context cultivate immorality and corruption. Essentially, people think they are doing good when they’re doing evil, while their proponents and they never see it.
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 4d ago
Ethics as branch of philosophy has several different school of thought on the topic which don't necessarily agree with one another.
What is ethical to stoic vs a hedonist aren't compatible.
Postmodernism just pretended that there is no actual good or evil and it's just opinion based on who is in control and has the power to force their morality on others.
If you study ethics, it's up to you sort it out all and make up your own mind what is moral and ethical.
A lot of western thought related to ethics is probably just going to be confusing. There are a lot of bad ideas. LOL
The Buddhist view on morality and ethics is probably one of the best takes and is very reasonable and applicable to life.
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u/PacificSanctum 4d ago
Ethics is just a replacement for vaning Christianity . Religions (except Islam ) took care of ethics . But they don’t function anymore as folks don’t want to succumb to religion (personal freedoms etc )
Yet Ethics strictly speaking is more an analytical academic tool to find out what ethics (good and bad ) is actually about .
How are good and bad defined ?
How can “free” societies still be ethical ?
Do you give criminals a 2nd chance or not ?
It’s more an analytical science
The only ethical societies I know are Japan and Singapore , btw . All others suck (with regard to ethics ).
Folks are wild and want to let their primitive urges “out “
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u/ValuableLatter6913 4d ago
Yes I’d say knowing what is right is good itself, but whenever you fail to act on this knowledge it makes what would have been a neutral act from a place of ignorance to a wrong act of conscience disobedience to the ‘good rule’.
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u/OkExtreme3195 4d ago
I studied ethics quite thoroughly in university and privately. I came to the conclusion that the only source for any notion of morality are emotions which are inherently subjective. I am not quite sure if I prefer subjectivism, emotivism, or error theory as my meta ethical position, but they are all very similar in a practical sense, so it doesn't really matter.
The important part is that it didn't give me more moral guidelines than what I initially had, my own subjective sense of morality.
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u/MouseBean 4d ago
No. You can't be good by knowing good. You can only be good by being part of something else, by passing on your traditions, by maintaining your relationships. A bacterium can be perfectly good without knowing anything, without being capable of knowing anything.
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u/Happymuffn 3d ago
It depends on what you mean by knowledge.
Propositional knowledge of ethics probably helps about as much as learning about any human pursuit in depth, though it is helpful in reasoning through quandaries to know what others thought.
Procedural knowledge of ethics properly applied will make your choices more meaningful, and improperly applied will do the same.
Perspectival knowledge of ethics will encourage you to choose to take ethical action and communicate with others doing the same.
Participatory knowledge of ethics, is necessarily ethical itself. But it's practically impossible to teach.
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u/nila247 5h ago
YOUR purpose of studying ethic is to VIRTUE SIGNAL that you are now ethical. You are looking for PROFIT for YOURSELF already - without even starting to study. That pretty much par for the course of all "ethic studies" and all of their participants these days.
How about SKIP "studying" ethic and instead "apply" it on day one? It is not difficult at all and best of all - you get to be happy doing it. Our SOLE purpose is "make our species prosper". That's it. Really. Do good things yourself, help others do them, make more workers of the best possible quality you can. End of story. What's there to "study"?
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u/Shroomtune 4d ago
This might be a cop out and maybe I don’t understand ethics in any technical sense, but when a subjective term such as “good” is the end of an argument I kinda tune out. Whatever your definition of good is, I probably disagree. Not because of any particular point you might make, but because neither you or I have any claim of authority to do so.
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u/GSilky 4d ago
In ethics "the good" is the result of ethical behavior. The good life is the ultimate test for ethical systems. Now, obviously there are differing opinions on what the good entails, but every ethics system has this goal in mind. Ethics are how one lives the good life. You are right, it's subjective, however, it's taken for granted that the good life is a worthy goal and ethics get us there.
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u/Shroomtune 4d ago
So, you are telling me that I can’t construct an ethical system around doing evil? That restriction almost sounds unethical! Or would doing evil just be the “good” of my particular (and inevitably superior) ethical system?
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u/GSilky 4d ago
Does it lead to a good life of little worry? Ethics are best practices, so to speak, and if a person is fulfilled and content with what others consider "evil", so be it. The Hellenic philosophers already ran actions like deceit, dishonorable behavior, and other generally considered negative behaviors through the gauntlet. To probably nobody's surprised, applying logic to these possible virtues ended up with major questions about how content one who practices them would be.
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u/Shroomtune 4d ago
I am far too small to challenge anything called a Hellenic Philosopher, but I do wonder how something like deceit, so integral to human existence on its most fundamental levels, so much so I can’t see us as humans without it, would be found problematic. It would almost seem that they are caught up in what ought be said rather than what need be said. People mix terms a lot and I am probably doing that now, but so much of what is considered ethical behavior can be really bad for people. I’m thinking of things like the ethics of sexuality or gender or division of labor, resources, etc.
I’m sure we just disagree here, I find the study of ethics more neutral. It is separate from natural law because it is necessarily subjective. If it requires a species to think about it, it is flawed, because thought, our nearest expression to truth is but an approximation and it degrades from there into words and speech. Ethics can be good or bad leaning because one’s good is almost always another’s bad. It might trend good, but I think that can be explained by some natural law.
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u/sneezhousing 4d ago
Studying it knowing it doesn't make you ethical. Only ethical if you practice it