Underlying Principles of Ethics

Deontologists say you should never lie. Consequentialists say its alright to lie if it serves a greater good to the moral community. We still feel uncomfortable about both when faced with the situation. Either action, lying to serve a higher purpose or telling the truth and allow worse things to occur, feels as if it has an element of morality and immorality in it. This is in fact the case because, unless there is some supernatural force determining what is ethical, then there is no one but we ourselves. Ethics can be likened to aesthetics in that both are based on appeal. What is aesthetic appeals to the senses and what is ethical appeals to reason. That is, ethics can be said to be a type of aesthetic judgment, not of perceptions, but of concepts. That is why psychologists tell us that moral development occurs concurrently with cognitive development. I propose that when we are making ethical judgments, we are picturing ourselves in the situation in question. Would we want this to happen to us? Thus giving to charity is ‘good’ because if we were on the receiving end we would be pleased. Likewise murder is ‘bad’ because we would not want to be killed. When we follow a concept to its conclusion we arrive at a feeling, much like music or visual images can evoke a feeling. Rather than a direct base reaction from sense to feeling, we must follow a logical sequence. We can follow this logical chain (and thus sympathize) with not only other cognizant beings, but any entity capable of feeling pain. Ethical actions are conceptually beautiful, not just when people are concerned, but even with animals. At play in our ethical judgments are also learned belief systems, which may act as a sort of superego for the conceptual aesthetic judgment process. Thus despite certain feelings about an idea, we may choose otherwise to conform to a standard. In cases where there are both positive and negative consequences of an action for someone, there seems to be less clear of judgment because we picture ourselves on the receiving end of both consequences.