Normative and Educational Ethics :: Philosophy Morals Papers

The controversies in our time between teleological and deontological ethics which come peck to the problem from being to ought, referring to homo being or disposition, layabout be resolved completely by an adequate excogitation of human reputation. fetching up the ancient tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Stoa) again, we can re-examine the teleological conception of human nature as primarily instinctive and selfish, and say that human nature is constituted also by reason and that the instinctive nature is predisposed to be guided by reason or intellect. The essential order of the human soul, with the subordination of the instinct under the intellect, involves already some inseparable goodness, of which the intellect is aware (in the natural moral conscience) and for which the will strives (in a natural inclination). This is the basis for the moral right and for normative ethics. Thus, human nature is not selfish in itself. Although moral goodness as homos perfection is an ide al, it has in us already imperfect natural beginnings, a natural morality. In a certain sense, the moral ought of actions comes from geniuss being, from the natural moral goodness of which the intellect is aware in itself, and from its good intentions. I. Problems of FoundationSeen historically, the foundation problems of ethical norms and normative ethics form been treated, in modern times, in two opposite directions, the empiricist and the rationalistic way. The precedent is characterized as the aposterioric way, taking the criterion of morality only from the result of association feelings of usefulness and happiness , in contrast to the latter as aprioric, taking the criterion from a law of reason universal human duties antedate to all experience. Kants ethics tried to superate the aposterioric ethics of the English empiricists, claiming, with the rationalists, a law of reason apriori, but in doing so he did not watch over the way of pure rationalism. Rather he establis hed his position as a combination of both directions, the empiricist and the rationalistic one. They form the so-called cloth and formal side of his ethics. The moral law of reason, the famous categorical exacting, belongs to the formal side, whereas the objects of our actions are considered as material, i.e. as objects of our sensitive proclivity or vital needs which can be given only in the field of sensible apprehension. He denies with the empiricists any intellectual intuition and formulates the paradox of method (1) that no object or good can be the criterion a priori for morality, but only the categorical imperative, of which, if apply to actions, every object or good is a consequence.