I’ve started this blog as a meditation on ethics in the context of business. Having suffered through a number of books on the topic, and having found them entirely unsatisfactory, I'm left with the sense that anyone interested in the topic is left to sort things out for themselves. Hence, this blog.

Status

I expect to focus on fundamentals for a while, possibly several weeks, before generating much material of interest. See the preface for additional detail on the purpose of this blog.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

What is Ethics?

In an academic sense, "ethics" is defined as one of the three branches of philosophy, the other two being metaphysics and epistemology. It's not my intention to take on a broader focus in this blog, but it seems worthwhile to explore the broader perspective, if only in a proscriptive sense - i.e., to focus the present study by examining similar considerations that will be "out of scope."

Metaphysics denotes the study of reality, and seeks to answer a fundamental question: how do we know what exists? It questions whether the things we accept to be "real" actually are. We may believe something to exist because or our sense perception (we can see and touch an object), or because we have a memory of it, or because we have been told of it by someone else - but it is also possible that we are deluded, our memory is faulty, or someone is seeking to deceive us.

Epistemology denotes the study of truth, and addresses the question: how do we know that which we know? It goes beyond the metaphysical consideration of mere existence to consider the way in which we validate information, through a process of logic, to determine whether a statement or conclusion is true or false. Just as metaphysics considers whether a physical object is grounded in reality, epistemology considers whether an accepted fact is grounded in logic.

Ethics demotes the study of right, and addresses the question: how do we know what action to take? It questions whether a course of action, intended or merely considered, is "right" or "wrong" - and, as a prerequisite to that assessment, what constitutes the "rightness" of a given action. This is the topic of the current study.

Correspondingly, metaphysics and epistemology are not the topic of the present study, but are presupposed by it. Ethics may seek to consider the question "is it right to grow wheat" (or in the context of business ethics, whether is it right to grow and sell wheat) without pausing to consider questions such as: "does wheat exist?" or "how do we know what makes it grow?"

These may be valid questions, to their respective branches pf philosophy, but are largely irrelevant to evaluating the ethics of a given situation.

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