WHAT IS ETHICS ? A very brief introduction to theories

In our case study of Sam the tribal council member and his travel, most people respond that he should not take his wife on the trip with him, and yet we see exactly that over and over and over. It appears that there are social norms where people find such behavior acceptable because 'everyone is doing it'. Clearly, social norms, what 'everyone is doing' is not the same as ethical behavior.

According to philosophers, there are three types of ethics. The first, meta-ethics deals with such questions as “What is the meaning of a good person?” We really don’t address the general issue of philosophy in our course.

Normative ethics are the study of standards for what is right or wrong, rules for acceptable behavior.
Applied ethics as one might guess from the name, involve applying the rules of ethical behavior to specific situations.

Ethical Relativism is the belief that what is ethical depends on the situation. Dr. De Mars is very against relativism, by the way. She has lots of arguments with people about this.

In, this course, we are interested in how ethical relativism impacts the tribe as a whole and what can be done to minumize the harmful effect of individual relativism. First, let's discuss one definition of ethical relativism:

Relativism is the theory that the truth is different for different people (not just that different people believe different things to be true). Ethical relativism is the theory that the truth about what is right and what is wrong is different for different people. Individual ethical relativism: the theory that right and wrong can be different for each individual, so ethical judgements are only expressions of individual feelings or opinions. Social or cultural ethical relativism: the theory that right and wrong are just whatever each society or culture says or believes is right and wrong. Click here for a link to more information on relativism.

Some political, corporate and religious leaders seem to believe in individual relativism. Leona Helmsley is reported to have said that only the little people pay taxes. While employees of a company or government would not be allowed to take home a computer for personal use or keep a company car, many leaders have these privileges. They justify their use of organization funds for their own purposes by pointing to the stress and responsibility of their own positions, or their own importance to the success of the company.

Next page: More on individual relativism