Activa JavaScript para disfrutar de los vídeos de la Mediateca.
EV 4ESO - 06 Material and formal ethical theories - Contenido educativo
Ajuste de pantallaEl ajuste de pantalla se aprecia al ver el vídeo en pantalla completa. Elige la presentación que más te guste:
What is the difference between material and formal ethical theories?
As you know, ethics is the part of philosophy that tries to answer questions about morality.
00:00:01
Ethics tries to give an explanation about how we should behave, what is right and what is wrong.
00:00:08
In order to give us an explanation, ethics creates theories.
00:00:14
An ethical theory is a particular explanation, a vision, about what is right, what is wrong, what we should do, how we should behave.
00:00:21
Maybe you remember that in previous years we have studied the ethical theories of Epicurus,
00:00:30
Aristotle, and John Stuart Mill. Let's briefly revise them. Epicurus had an hedonistic theory
00:00:37
because he thought that what is good, it produces pleasure, and what is bad is what creates pain,
00:00:45
suffering. So we should behave trying to create as much pleasure as possible.
00:00:53
Remember, though, that Epicurus didn't think about pleasures like eating or sleeping all day.
00:01:00
He was thinking about avoiding suffering, for example, avoiding fear and living in peace.
00:01:06
Aristotle, on the other hand, had a eudaimonic theory.
00:01:14
This means that the main goal of life for Aristotle was to achieve happiness.
00:01:19
Aristotle thought that happiness could be achieved practicing virtue, which consists
00:01:24
in always choosing the middle ground between two extremes. Extremes are bad, Aristotle thought.
00:01:31
They are vices. They won't make you happy. You have to find the middle ground between an excess
00:01:39
and a defect. Not too much, not too little. The middle point, that is virtue. If you get used to
00:01:45
practice in virtue, you will become a virtuous person, your character will change, and you will
00:01:53
be happy. That's what Aristotle thought. John Stuart Mill created the utilitarian ethical theory.
00:01:59
Utilitarianism says that an action is good when it produces pleasure, like Epicurus thought,
00:02:09
But Mill considered that pleasure should be calculated, taking into account what each person feels.
00:02:17
So it's not about my personal pleasure, it is about everybody.
00:02:28
So whenever you're going to do something, Mill says, you should take into account how much pleasure is that action going to produce in other people and how much pain.
00:02:33
Are people going to be happy or unhappy with your action?
00:02:45
Your action is morally correct if it maximizes happiness,
00:02:49
or, as Neil said, if it maximizes utility.
00:02:54
This brief revision of Epicurean hedonism,
00:03:00
Aristotelian eudaimonism, and utilitarianism
00:03:05
could be a good starting point to talk about
00:03:09
the difference between material ethical theories and formal ethical theories. Not all ethical
00:03:12
theories are equal. Some ethical theories give you an objective in life. They tell you what to do.
00:03:20
They consider that human life has a supreme goal, a very important thing, that we should strive
00:03:29
to achieve. If we achieve it, then that is correct and that is moral. So, good actions,
00:03:36
actions that we should do, are those that take us closer to this basic human objective.
00:03:45
As you will probably have guessed, the three theories that I previously explained, they are
00:03:53
all of them material, because they give you an objective in life. For Epicurus, the objective
00:04:00
is pleasure, individual pleasure. For Aristotle, it is happiness. For Mill, it is utility,
00:04:08
social happiness. So they are material ethical theories. They are also material because they
00:04:16
have a content. They tell you the rules. As you would probably remember, Epicurus gave you the
00:04:25
rules. He thought that if you want to be happy with a lot of pleasure, you should behave in a
00:04:31
certain way. You should, for example, avoid extremes. You should avoid eating too much or
00:04:38
drinking too much because in the long run that will make you suffer. For example, if you don't
00:04:44
have money to buy that. So he thought that a simple moderate life would make you happier,
00:04:50
would give you more pleasure in the long run. So he's giving you the rule that you should follow
00:04:56
if you want to achieve the great goal of achieving pleasure. For Aristotle it's the same. He said
00:05:01
practice virtue, choose the middle point if you want to be happy because that's the great goal
00:05:09
human life. And Mill has the same theory. He gave you the rules because he thought that you should
00:05:15
always choose what makes the maximum number of people happy. Now, what is the problem with
00:05:25
material ethical theories? Remember, material ethical theories have an objective. So what
00:05:34
happens if I don't agree with the objective? Then the rules they give me are not valid for me.
00:05:41
They make no sense. If I am not interested in achieving happiness, the theory of Aristotle is
00:05:49
not for me, because he is giving me rules to achieve an objective that is not relevant to me.
00:05:55
That's why we say that material theories are hypothetical, because they are only valid if you
00:06:01
accept the final goal that the philosopher is proposing. And these material theories have
00:06:07
another problem. The problem is that as they give you the rules they are heteronymous. The word
00:06:17
heteronymous means that you don't make the rules by yourself. The rules are already made. They
00:06:26
depend on the objective. That's why some philosophers criticize material ethical
00:06:33
theories and try to create a different way to explain what is right, what is
00:06:40
wrong, what we should do. These different theories are called formal ethical
00:06:47
theories. Formal ethical theories don't give you an objective, they don't have a
00:06:53
content they don't give you the rules they place the focus on autonomy so for
00:06:59
these theories it is very important that you make your own rules and that you
00:07:07
choose your own goals they are called formal ethical theories because these
00:07:12
theories are not telling you the material content of what is right or
00:07:17
run, they are only putting emphasis on how the rules that you autonomously create, how these
00:07:21
rules should be created. For a formal ethical theory, the key point is how should we make
00:07:31
autonomously the moral rules so that they are valid. In a formal ethical theory, you make your
00:07:39
own rules. But not all rules are okay. There are some rules that are valid, others that are not.
00:07:48
Well, the formal ethical theory tells you how to create these rules of your own
00:07:56
so that they are moral, they are valid, they are acceptable.
00:08:03
- Idioma/s:
- Autor/es:
- César Prestel
- Subido por:
- César Pedro P.
- Licencia:
- Reconocimiento - No comercial - Compartir igual
- Visualizaciones:
- 36
- Fecha:
- 5 de octubre de 2020 - 20:46
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Centro:
- IES CERVANTES
- Duración:
- 08′ 09″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 1.78:1
- Resolución:
- 1280x720 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 470.07 MBytes
