Introduction To Philosophy Of Ethics For Non-philosophers

In our everyday life, many a time we come across moral narrative in newspapers, research articles, lectures, seminars or public debates, which we fail to grasp and thus the communication barrier that takes place, hinders effective understanding of others moral standing or apt presentation of our outlook of the world to the world. So in order to have some background knowledge of the academic ethical language, let s have a brief look on the main kinds of linguistic ethical terms through which secularists or the west is defining morality today.

1. Descri ptive Ethics:

Descri ptive ethics simply describe the facts and figures of a moral choice being made, without mentioning whether it was a right choice or not. For example, if a news castor is informing you about a murder being taken place, he/she is just giving the information related to the event, irrespective of whether it was justified or an unjustified act. Such a case falls under the category of descri ptive ethics. In short it is about is rather than ought

2. Normative ethics:

It deals in terms of whether an action is good or bad, right or wrong, making moral judgments about a particular case. It is about what ought to be done. For example, abortion is morally wrong and thus it ought to be banned.

3. Meta-ethics:

It actually examines the nature of ethical language. It talks about what it means to be good or bad, right or wrong? If a statement is said to be morally true, then what does that truth mean? Etc

4. Intuitionism:

G.E Moore argues that good cannot be actually defined, whenever we try to define it, we move to some other meaning that is a bit different from what we are actually referring, For example, if we define something is good as being pleasant or tasty, or approvable is actually not a true definition of good. So, you know what goodness is by intuition, though it may not be defined. This approach to morality is generally known as intuitionism.

5. Emotivism:

According to this approach, a moral statement describes an attitude. It is actually not true or false in itself or in reference to what it describes, but in respect to its ability to express the emotions of the speaker, giving a subjective approach to morality.

6. Prescri ptivism:

This moral philosophy claims that moral language actually prescribes a course of action. If I say that something is good then it means I am saying that it should be done and followed as a course of action.

The above mentioned phenomena actually examine the status or nature of moral language used every where around us. We as Muslims have our own narrative and stance on morality, however, the above have been mentioned with the sole purpose of having a know how of different ways of thinking employed by people in the world, in order to make the moral claim of Islam more clear to those who are entangled in different trial and error methods made by human beings.

In the next session, we will in shaa Allah have a look on the basic possible bases for ethics given by the western philosophy in the quest to know its nature.