Ethical Theories: Determinism vs. Indeterminism

Ethical Indeterminism

Indeterminism posits that when we choose and act freely, we act independently.

This trend's origins trace back to classical Greece, the ethical relativism of the Sophists, and Plato's moral intellectualism. It regained importance from the eighteenth century.

Kant

Kant believed in different uses of the same reason. Human reason has two main uses:

• Pure Reason deals with understanding the physical world, where phenomena are inescapable, and freedom doesn't exist.
• Practical Reason deals with how we should act, the principles of human behavior, and the laws guiding behavior. Freedom exists only here.

Kant focused on the principles that move humans to action. These principles form our conscience, which governs our behavior and tells us if our actions are right or wrong.

According to Kant, only the human will can be good or bad, not individual acts. For example, cutting a leg to avoid cancer is different from torture.

Kant also stated that human reason operates through imperatives, which are of two types:

• Hypothetical imperatives are conditional: "If you want X, then you must do Y."
• Categorical imperatives are unconditional, universal, and without moral content: "Do X, you must do X."

An action is moral only when based on categorical imperatives, chosen without expecting anything in return. Otherwise, an action may be legal but not moral. For example, not stealing to avoid getting caught is legal but not moral. Not stealing because it's your duty is both legal and moral.

Autonomy and Heteronomy

Kant distinguished between autonomy and heteronomy of the will. The will is autonomous when it gives itself its own law and heteronomous when passively following external laws. Thus, theological ethics is always heteronomous.

Only an autonomous will obeying the categorical imperative is good.

Determinism

Deterministic theories argue that humans are not free. Our decisions and actions are within an inescapable chain of events. Human behavior is determined biologically, psychologically, and socially.

Hume and Moral Emotivism

Hume argued that morality cannot depend on reason, as reason's function is to understand relationships between ideas or events.

For Hume, moral judgments arise from the pleasure or displeasure a fact produces. This directs action as the feeling of approval or disapproval.

Thus, morality is found in emotions, not reason or facts. Hume's ethics is called emotivist.

Hume asserted the existence of universal feelings determined by human nature, ensuring similar emotions for similar events in all individuals (barring mental disorders).

Aristotle: Happiness as Rational Activity

Aristotle called the science covering man's moral activity "political," subdivided into ethics and politics. For Aristotle, the individual exists for the city, so the supreme good is the common good.

Humans always seek an end, understood as good. These ends are:

• Relative ends pursued to achieve ultimate goods (e.g., working for money to live).
• Absolute end, the ultimate goal of all human action (e.g., pursuing happiness).

Aristotle believed happiness is the supreme good. But what is happiness? How to achieve it? Aristotle discussed different views:

• The vulgar identify happiness with pleasure, which Aristotle said equates us with beasts.
• The educated believe happiness lies in honor, which Aristotle said is individual, not for the common good.
• Wealth accumulation serves to obtain other goods, not happiness.