Saltar navegación

Activa JavaScript para disfrutar de los vídeos de la Mediateca.

CEV 2ESO - 09 Material and formal ethical theories - Contenido educativo

Ajuste de pantalla

El ajuste de pantalla se aprecia al ver el vídeo en pantalla completa. Elige la presentación que más te guste:

Subido el 21 de julio de 2023 por César Pedro P.

26 visualizaciones

Material and formal ethical theories

Más información Transcripción

Descargar la transcripción

As you know, ethics is the part of philosophy that tries to answer questions about morality. 00:00:00
Ethics tries to give an explanation about how we should behave, what is right and what 00:00:08
is wrong. 00:00:13
In order to give us an explanation, ethics creates theories. 00:00:15
An ethical theory is a particular explanation, a vision, about what is right, what is wrong, 00:00:21
what we should do, how we should behave. 00:00:27
Maybe you remember that in previous years we have studied the ethical theories of Epicurus, 00:00:31
Aristotle and John Stuart Mill. 00:00:37
Let's briefly revise them. 00:00:40
Epicurus had a hedonistic theory because he thought that what is good produces pleasure 00:00:43
and what is bad is what creates pain, suffering. 00:00:49
So we should behave trying to create as much pleasure as possible. 00:00:54
Remember though that Epicurus didn't think about pleasures like eating or sleeping all 00:01:00
day. 00:01:05
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. 00:01:13
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 00:01:25
in always choosing the middle ground between two extremes. 00:01:31
Extremes are bad, Aristotle thought, they are vices, they won't make you happy. 00:01:36
You have to find the middle ground between an excess and a defect. 00:01:41
Not too much, not too little, the middle point, that is virtue. 00:01:47
If you get used to practicing virtue, you will become a virtuous person, your character 00:01:51
will change, and you will be happy, that's what Aristotle thought. 00:01:58
John Stuart Mill created the utilitarian ethical theory. 00:02:04
Utilitarianism says that an action is good when it produces pleasure, like Epicurus thought, 00:02:10
but Mill considered that pleasure should be calculated, taking into account what each 00:02:18
person feels. 00:02:26
So it's not about my personal pleasure, it is about everybody. 00:02:28
So whenever you are going to do something, Mill says, you should take into account how 00:02:33
much pleasure is that action going to produce in other people, and how much pain. 00:02:40
Are people going to be happy or unhappy with your action? 00:02:46
Your action is morally correct if it maximizes happiness, or, as Mill said, if it maximizes 00:02:49
utility. 00:02:58
This brief revision of Epicurean hedonism, Aristotelian eudaimonism, and utilitarianism 00:03:00
could be a good starting point to talk about the difference between material ethical theories 00:03:09
and formal ethical theories. 00:03:16
Not all ethical theories are equal. 00:03:19
Some ethical theories give you an objective in life, they tell you what to do. 00:03:23
They consider that human life has a supreme goal, a very important thing, that we should 00:03:29
strive to achieve. 00:03:35
If we achieve it, then that is correct and that is moral. 00:03:38
So good actions, actions that we should do, are those that take us closer to this basic 00:03:44
human objective. 00:03:51
As you would probably have guessed, the three theories that I previously explained, they 00:03:54
are all of them material, because they give you an objective in life. 00:04:00
For Epicurus, the objective is pleasure, individual pleasure. 00:04:07
For Aristotle, it is happiness. 00:04:11
For Mill, it is utility, social happiness. 00:04:14
So they are material ethical theories. 00:04:19
They are also material because they have a content, they tell you the rules. 00:04:23
As you would probably remember, Epicurus gave you the rules. 00:04:28
He thought that if you want to be happy with a lot of pleasure, you should behave in a 00:04:32
certain way. 00:04:38
You should, for example, avoid extremes. 00:04:39
You should avoid eating too much or drinking too much, because in the long run that will 00:04:42
make you suffer, for example, if you don't have money to buy that. 00:04:47
So he thought that a simple, moderate life would make you happier, would give you more 00:04:52
pleasure in the long run. 00:04:57
So he is giving you the rule that you should follow if you want to achieve the great goal 00:04:59
of achieving pleasure. 00:05:04
For Aristotle, it is the same. 00:05:07
He said, practice virtue, choose the middle point if you want to be happy, because that's 00:05:09
the great goal of human life. 00:05:14
Mill has the same theory. 00:05:17
He gave you the rules because he thought that you should always choose what makes the 00:05:21
maximum number of people happy. 00:05:28
Now what is the problem with material ethical theories? 00:05:32
Remember, material ethical theories have an objective. 00:05:36
So what happens if I don't agree with the objective? 00:05:40
Then the rules they give me are not valid for me. 00:05:44
They make no sense. 00:05:49
If I am not interested in achieving happiness, the theory of Aristotle is not for me, because 00:05:50
he is giving me rules to achieve an objective that is not relevant to me. 00:05:57
That's why we say that material theories are hypothetical, because they are only valid 00:06:02
if you accept the final goal that the philosopher is proposing. 00:06:07
And these material theories have another problem. 00:06:14
The problem is that, as they give you the rules, they are heteronymous. 00:06:19
The word heteronymous means that you don't make the rules by yourself. 00:06:25
The rules are already made. 00:06:30
They depend on the objective. 00:06:33
That's why some philosophers criticize material ethical theories and try to create a different 00:06:35
way to explain what is right, what is wrong, what we should do. 00:06:43
These different theories are called formal ethical theories. 00:06:49
Formal ethical theories don't give you an objective. 00:06:55
They don't have a content. 00:06:58
They don't give you the rules. 00:07:00
They place the focus on autonomy. 00:07:03
So for these theories, it is very important that you make your own rules and that you 00:07:06
choose your own goals. 00:07:12
They are called formal ethical theories because these theories are not telling you the material 00:07:14
content of what is right or wrong. 00:07:20
They are only putting emphasis on how the rules that you autonomously create, how these 00:07:22
rules should be created. 00:07:31
For a formal ethical theory, the key point is how should we make, autonomously, the moral 00:07:34
rules so that they are valid. 00:07:42
In a formal ethical theory, you make your own rules. 00:07:45
But not all rules are okay. 00:07:49
There are some rules that are valid, others that are not. 00:07:52
Well, the formal ethical theory tells you how to create these rules of your own so that 00:07:56
they are moral, they are valid, they are acceptable. 00:08:04
Idioma/s:
en
Autor/es:
César Prestel
Subido por:
César Pedro P.
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Compartir igual
Visualizaciones:
26
Fecha:
21 de julio de 2023 - 11:26
Visibilidad:
Público
Centro:
IES CERVANTES
Duración:
08′ 09″
Relación de aspecto:
1.78:1
Resolución:
1280x720 píxeles
Tamaño:
470.07 MBytes

Del mismo autor…

Ver más del mismo autor

EducaMadrid, Plataforma Educativa de la Comunidad de Madrid

Plataforma Educativa EducaMadrid