Basis of Ethics

The distinction between morality and ethics is: morality is about specific rules how members of a given society or community should (not) behave.
Examples : "Pregnant women must not eat shellfish"; "the father has the right to reject a newborn"; "Thou shalt not steal"; "If a shudra touches a brahmin, the latter has to perform a purifying ritual" ... and so on.

Ethics is the reflection about those rules, whether they are justified; which are the general principles to justify them.
Many people associate morality with (stupid) religion and ethics with (enlightened) philosophy, because ethical reflection involves the capacity to question moral rules, something religion usually discourages.
Personally I do not believe in ethical reflection because we always have to take some principles or basic values for granted, which cannot be questioned.

Morality is then pragmatic ethics. Pragmatism being an essential ethical value. How do the ethical values relate together. How they do must at least provide the rational choice on which to base moral rules. 'Prnciples or basic values'. I am inclined to define a triparatite choice for any remotely stable society - if that is what we want.

Quoting RW Standing

? If something is said to be right or wrong in Ethical terms, doing so must be based on values that have already been accepted.

I don't agree with that part. Determining that it's right or wrong to you could be when you cement your values in relation to the issue.

Right or Wrong for specific issues would be defined in relation to the end-values, or rather within them. if we do not relate basic values so as to produce end-values then 'right and wrong' becomes a fashion show. I think that reads clearly?

Quoting RW Standing

Right or Wrong for specific issues would be defined in relation to the end-values, or rather within them. if we do not relate basic values so as to produce end-values then 'right and wrong' becomes a fashion show. I think that reads clearly?

Does an "end value" (versus whatever else--"basic value?") distinction really hold water? What distinction are we supposing?

The basis of ethics is care. Things matter to us. Care about the well-being of others. Care about justice. Care about doing good.

Quoting RW Standing

If something is said to be right or wrong in Ethical terms, doing so must be based on values that have already been accepted.

In my opinion, the attempt to ground ethics in reason, understood as apodictic, autonomous, and universal, is fundamentally flawed. We must start with what is valued and accepted, but where we start is not where we must end. We cannot start from scratch. We do not reject values in toto but piecemeal, evaluating specific things in light of others that are not now called into question, but at some later point may be.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting tim wood

May be, but your opinion doesn't make it so. How about developing an argument, best with at least a little research and thought on the topic.

That is correct, but I have done quite a bit of reading and thinking on the topic.

Quoting tim wood

Let's take, for example, ethics and morals: synonymous, to start with. But some philosophers assign different meanings to the terms.

They do, but unless something turns on the distinction, I join those who do not put much emphasis on it. Those who do make the distinction do not all agree, some putting on one side what others put on the other.

Quoting tim wood

And, do you take ethics to have anything of an imperative or compulsive "should, had better" aspect?

Not in any absolute sense, that is, not if they are understood as apodictic, autonomous, and universal. The question of what I should do and what I taught my children that they should do and what would be better in a particular situation is part of ethics, but the answers are situated.

Quoting tim wood

Are all ethics mutable, changeable? Some? None?

I would say that ethical deliberation and determination are not independent of culture. That does not mean cultural relativism but rather that we cannot step outside of the ways in which we understand ourselves, our political and social relations, our values, and so on.

Quoting tim wood

You start with "care,"

We are social beings with the capacity to empathize. Babies are attuned to faces and what look like faces. They will smile in response to a smile, become emotionally upset in response to sad or angry faces, and often cry when someone else cries. Children have an innate sense of fairness. All of these things, however, can vary and are influenced by upbringing.

Quoting tim wood

... and history records that some people have cared about horrible things.

I agree. We have little or no control over how we are raised, but we may still be capable of moral deliberation, phronesis (practical reason or practical wisdom, prudence), and sophrosyne (moderation or temperance, but also wisdom and discretion). One may still be able to live an examined life.

Too much! If you mention care as the basis of ethics then you have decided on what appeals to you and made this the basis of ethics. The genuine basis encompasses all the alternatives, and opposites, and contrasts, and then works out how the whole relates together in a rational model. Ethical values are all that relate to and define life. Ethical-political- social and as you will. This country today has lost the bigoted guidance of religion and has not replaced it with anything but populist wishful thinking. I cannot easily define end values as against basic values, other than observing that basic values are indefinite, such as Freedom. Taken by itself, out of any context of values, it is a recipe for irrational self indulgence and conflict. The only model that fitted in my estimation [without undue complexity] being [for graphic purposes] triangular with ambiguous basic values on the sides defining end values at the angles. Obviously there may be a number of sets of values. Naturally or not the end-value that represents me [in theory] is Altruism, which needs to be set against the other end-values in order to be defined in practical terms [tentativerly].
WORK out a model for 'life' and ignore the terms 'good' and 'bad' and demonstrate that for debate

Quoting RW Standing

WORK out a model for 'life' and ignore the terms 'good' and 'bad' and demonstrate that for debate

I've done precisely that. I can't just now post my formulation, because I'm awaiting a decision on publication of my manuscript, but as soon as my MS gets turned down-- which it inevitably will -- I'll let you gentle folks now my fabrication of what constitutes a moral act.

Quoting RW Standing

Too much! If you mention care as the basis of ethics then you have decided on what appeals to you and made this the basis of ethics.

Care and what may appeal to me are not the same. Without care one would have no regard either for herself or others. Any claims about what one ought to do have no persuasive power if one does not first decide she must do whatever it is she ought to do. How do we answer her question "why should I care?". We might help her to see that she does care, if not about this then about something else, unless of course she truly does not care at all. And here we reach the end of the road. If her lack of care were endemic then there would be no possibility of ethics.

Quoting RW Standing

Ethical values are all that relate to and define life.

Can there be ethical values, or any values for that matter, in the absence of care? To value is to esteem, to hold in high regard, to care about. What we care about we care for.

The basis is not what is built on that basis. If one were inclined to speak this way, we might say that care is the a priori condition for ethics.

Quoting RW Standing

? If something is said to be right or wrong in Ethical terms, doing so must be based on values that have already been accepted. What choice do the values provide ?

I suppose it depends on the values; on the way the values fit together or conflict in each particular case; and on the way the agent has learned to apply values, prioritize values, and resolve conflicts of value.

I will answer before long

Quoting Fooloso4

Care and what may appeal to me are not the same.

Doesn't he mean that care, as a basis of ethics, appeals to you?

Before the deluge. I started this off not with founding ethics in reason. But with using reason to classify and arrange ethical values diagrammatically. In the way they logically relate. In my opinion there are three fundamental forms of society in general terms. We cannot say that one or other is 'right' only perhaps what we find acceptable and is not self destructive. We can only talk of what is right and wrong in practical terms at the point at which we have already accepted one of these forms of society.

So far as I am concerned. There are ethical values that simply describe the human condition. Not cultural 'values'. There are pragmatics or moral rules based on how we employ the values.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Doesn't he mean that care, as a basis of ethics, appeals to you?

Perhaps, but the same could be said of any claim one puts forth regarding the basis of ethics.

Reply to Fooloso4

Yes. I think that was the point.

Quoting tim wood

Which is to say, if I read you right, that ethics/morality (EM) are not a priori.

From an earlier post:

Quoting Fooloso4

If one were inclined to speak this way, we might say that care is the a priori condition for ethics.

But that is not the same as saying that EM deliberations are a priori.

Quoting tim wood

I'm confident you know, probably better than I, that a whole branch - tree - of EM, as deontology, is based in reason. Arguably then a priori, but at a cost of being general instead of specific.

Yes, this is primarily what I had in mind when I said:

Quoting Fooloso4

the attempt to ground ethics in reason, understood as apodictic, autonomous, and universal, is fundamentally flawed.

As to the general and specific, the assumption is that if the general is sufficiently determined the specifics will be addressed by the general.

Quoting tim wood

And that leaves "situation." Reading into you, I infer that for you the situation is the given, the "from-which" that you depart from to consult such as you think relevant to resolve the situation that is always already yours.

Our situatedness is a given. I think it is more a matter of the "from within which" from which we can never completely depart. Of course the situation from within which EM discourse takes place today includes both the claim that the situation should have no bearing on EM deliberation and determination, and the claim that EM deliberation and determination requires consideration of circumstances. This last point holds both with regard to meta-ethics as well as applied ethics and ethics in general.

Quoting tim wood

In terms of EM based in reason, I would argue that the given is reason itself. One encounters the situation and seeks to apply reason to it, the process as it happens requiring some art and creativity, in the same way that mathematics can.

The analogy with mathematics is telling, for here we can see the difference between phronesis or practical or prudential reason and what might be called modern mathematical reason. Modern reason, based on the model of mathematics, is apodictic, autonomous, and universal. The proposition, one must not lie, is treated as if it is equivalent to the proposition 2+2=4. But many recognize the untenability of the rule that one must not lie and attempt to provide additional rules of exception.

Quoting tim wood

"Not independent of culture": agreed. But at the same time not subject to it absolutely.

Agreed.

Quoting tim wood

And I think the argument that reason could have been a means to transcend in thought if not in practice the evils of (that) culture would be compelling.

I am not so sure. Here again we can consider the comparison with mathematics. Our beliefs, attitudes, fears, desires, values, prejudices, and so on play no role in mathematics, but they do in EM. Certainly there were Nazis who were quite capable of reasoning, but if the regarded a race or group of people as sub-human, (the depictions of Jews as rats is telling), then whatever dignity and rights are due to human beings are not due to them. I do not think that reason would have changed their minds.

Quoting tim wood

Being on the deontological side, v. utilitarianist

I do not ascribe to either. I think that it is the shortcomings of these approaches that have led some contemporary ethical thinkers to return to Aristotle. This includes Nussbaum, although she is not strictly an "Aristotelian".

Quoting tim wood

I look for the greater good in the maxim of reason.

I think that reason is an essential part of EM deliberation and guidance but not in the form or maxims, but rather phronesis.

Each basic value contradicts one end-value while helping to define the others. The generalised description of the three end-values or forms of society, not set definitions may be set out as:
Servile: in which people [and communities] serve the ideology or its representatives.
Autonomy: in which people [and communities] serve their own interests independently.
Altruist: in which people [and communities] serve mutual benefit.
In practical terms there are any number of forms of hybrid society such as our own.

Phronesis is no doubt a good term that would define what the altruist society is

I'm looking to buy a book on Ethics. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm looking for something more practical, not the murder 5 people to save 100 or other such improbably scenarios. Something definitive and perhaps influenced by the European Enlightenment movement. Anyone have some recommendations?

Reply to RW Standing

What is the connection you see between altruism and phronesis?

You might find interesting Mozi's argument for impartial caring or impartial concern. The basic idea is that we should care equally for all without regard to personal benefit or relationships. See the section Mozi in the PDF of "Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy": https://www.academia.edu/37485268/P._J._Ivanhoe_Bryan_W._Van_Norden-Readings_in_Classical_Chinese_Philosophy

The rest of the book is interesting as well.

This whole debate has flown off at random.

Reply to RW Standing The fault is yours.

Quoting RW Standing

If something is said to be right or wrong in Ethical terms, doing so must be based on values that have already been accepted. What choice do the values provide?

A choice between moral or immoral action. But this choice is relevant to normative ethics, not meta-ethics (basis of ethics).

Quoting RW Standing

Before the deluge. I started this off not with founding ethics in reason. But with using reason to classify and arrange ethical values diagrammatically. In the way they logically relate.

And this is relevant to descriptive ethics.