Ethics or moral philosophy is an area of knowledge whose object of investigation is human actions and their guiding principles.
Every culture and every society is established based on values defined from an interpretation of what is good and evil, right and wrong.
These interpretations are based on socially constructed moral values and it is up to ethics to dedicate themselves to the study of these values.
The term “ethics” has its origin in ancient Greece, in the word ethos, and has a double meaning that influenced the sense of ethics. On the one hand, ethos (spelled with the Greek letter eta) means customs, habits, or the place where one lives. On the other hand, ethos (with epsilon) represents the character, temperament and nature of individuals.
Thus, ethics is the study of the principles of actions, represented in social customs and habits and in the individual and collective character.
Today, many ethical debates focus on issues related to actions in a professional context, a branch of work ethics called deontology (or deontological ethics).
How does ethics influence the lives of human beings?
All human behavior is guided by a set of judgments (judgments) that determine its interpretation of reality and the value of actions.
Thus, human beings are able to act and, mainly, to evaluate these actions according to a set of culturally constructed values, which determine, in short, what is right and what is wrong.
Thus, ethics is responsible for building a knowledge tool to understand these sets of values.
Finally, the judgment of values, the basis of morality, is developed socially and acts directly in everyday life.
Morality as a set of rules that determine human behavior in a given historical period and ethics as the review of these moral bases and a projection of what is intended to be achieved.
Is there a difference between ethics and morals?
Despite not being a consensus among authors, in general, a distinction is made relating ethics to principles and morals to practice. Therefore, ethics can also be understood as a moral philosophy.
Thus, morality is the set of rules that is based on the cultural and historical values of each society, through practice or aspects of specific human conduct. While ethics is universal, morality tends to be particular, inscribed in a culture.
Both concepts should not be confused. Morality is based on subordination to customs, rules and habits determined by each society; ethics, in turn, seeks to substantiate such precepts, which can validate or challenge moral values.
For example, during most of human history, slavery was a morally justifiable practice. However, the advance of ethical questions (before moral) questioned this custom and influenced the first thinkers who were against the possession of one human being by another.
Currently, slavery violates the prevailing moral precepts and policies for the defense of human rights that guide the State.
Three fundamental thinkers to understand ethics
Since antiquity, philosophers, scholars and thinkers have tried to understand and analyze the principles and values of a society and how they occur in practice.
We can mention several thinkers, who at different times reflected on ethics. The pre-Socratics, the sophists, Plato, Socrates, the Stoics, the Christian thinkers, Spinoza, Nietzsche, among others, dedicated themselves to the theme.
Of these thinkers, we highlight Aristotle, Machiavelli and Kant, for each representing a turning point in relation to the production of the theme.
1. Aristotle
With the transition from naturalist philosophy from the pre-Socratic period to the anthropological philosophy marked by Socrates, knowledge turns to the understanding of human relations.
Thus, Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) brings advances to the development of ethics as a specific area of knowledge.
The philosopher sought to investigate the principles that guide actions and what would be a virtuous life.
In his work Ethics to Nicomachus , Aristotle writes about his understanding of the virtue and purpose of life, happiness.
Aristotle understands that ethics can be taught and exercised and it depends on building a path that leads to the greater good, identified as happiness.
For this, actions must be based on the greatest virtue and the basis for all others, prudence.
2. Machiavelli
Nicolau Maquiavel (1469-1527), in his work O Príncipe , was responsible for dissociating the ethics of individuals from the ethics of the State.
For Machiavelli, the state is organized and operates from its own logic. Thus, the author creates a distinction between moral virtue and political virtue.
This thought represented a very relevant change in relation to the tradition of the Middle Ages, strongly based on Christian morality, associating the government with a divine determination.
3. Kant
Immanuel Kant sought to develop an ethical model in which reason is the primary foundation. With that, the author contradicted the tradition that understood religion and the figure of God, as the supreme principle of morality.
Kant, in his book Foundations of Metaphysics of Customs , states that examples serve only as a stimulus, thus, one cannot create ethical models based on the classification of some desired behaviors or that should be avoided.
For the philosopher, reason is responsible for governing the will and guiding actions, without hurting the idea of freedom and autonomy, typical of human beings.
Kant finds in autonomy and reason, the source of duty and a fundamental ethical principle, capable of understanding and formulating rules for himself.
The categorical imperative proposed by Kant is the synthesis of rational operation capable of guiding human actions through order (imperative):
It acts in such a way that the maxim of its action can be taken as a universal maxim.