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Drilling for the core of first principles in Philosophy: getting to the bottom or foundational starting points
Aristotle does this at the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics with the notion of the good as something sought by action on the part of a human being. Ethics falls under Practical Philosophy which involves taking action for the sake of attaining a goal. So we can ask what good attainable by action that a particular human being wants and begin a course of multiple questions of “why?”
Moral Philosophy or Ethics concerns normative accounts or theories about action in the context of human behavior.
Ethical Egoism
As the name indicates, this is an ethical account that concerns the welfare of the ego, the I, the individual self. An action is morally correct if it is for the betterment or interest of an individual. But further, it is morally correct only if it is for the betterment of interest of an individual.
(Philosophers compress these two into “if and only if” abbreviated as “iff.”)
The controlling First Principle of Ethical Egoism can be attained by reducing all the actions or proposed actions of an Ethical Egoist by “drilling down” to the principle that what is sought in each and every case is what promotes that person’s self-interest. (“It’s good for me.”)
Egoism and Rationalization of Action
Psychological Egoism describes human action as done only for the sake of the individual with an empirical claim that observation of human behavior verifies this. This is not a philosophical claim but a psychological or even anthropological claim. (“It’s just the way people are.”) Altruism claims that there is observable evidence in human behavior for people in many cases putting the interests of other individuals or of part or the whole of a society before their own. These are empirical claims.
Rational Egoism is closer to Ethical Egoism because rational considerations can be found putting our own interests first. (“It’s only rational to do what is good for yourself.”) This too is an empirical claim about what ordinary human reasoning can support.
Ethical Egoism is a moral theory about what we ought to behave or should do. We should do what is in our own beneficial self-interest. This is about my own personal benefit or it can be made into a universal principle by saying that should apply to all humans. (“If we each look after our own affairs and do what is best for each of us, in the long run it turns out best for us all individually.”)
What’s right and what’s wrong about Ethical Egoism according to you?
Does thinking about this push your thought into another direction?
Moral Relativism
This can be divided into three kinds. One is the empirical claim about human societies and their differences. Anthropologists find that it is not uncommon for societies to have distinctively differing moral norms or codes of conduct. This is Descriptive Moral Relativism about the diversity of cultural norms of conduct. Note that this is an empirical claim, not a moral or ethical claim about how humans should or ought to act or should conduct their affairs.
Keep in mind that the key terms in moral or ethical contexts are ought, should and synonyms for these. These terms indicate obligation for individuals or groups to act in a certain way. Recall our study of Kant on what we ought to do. He claimed we have moral obligations to act in certain ways. For him they arose out of our very selves as rational beings. He philosophically reasoned to these out of consideration of the good will.
Normative (regular norms of right action in some context) Moral Relativism makes a philosophical claim about how we ought to act, so it is an ethical or moral account of right action and obligations to carry out right action. Its content is in the principle that differences ought to be respected or even tolerated in moral matters. It denies the legitimacy of imposing norms of conduct practices in one society upon the members of another society.
Metaethical Moral Relativism is a broader principle stating that there is no universal morality of right conduct across cultures. This is itself a universal philosophical moral or ethical claim asserting that there are no universal moral principles or rules except itself, that is, the claim that there are no universal moral rules. But here is a philosophical problem: Can such a thing claim to be an account we ought to accept?
What’s right and what’s wrong about Moral Relativism according to you?
Does thinking about this push your thought into another direction?