The Ethical ethics Is that part of ethics that refers specifically to values. Unlike the parts related to morality and social justice, axiological ethics does not focus directly on what we should do.
Instead, it focuses on issues of what is worth pursuing or promoting and what should be avoided.
To have a better concept, define the axiology and the ethics in a separated way. Axiology is the science that studies values and how these values are produced in a society.
Axiology seeks to understand the nature of values and value judgments. It is closely related to two other fields of philosophy: ethics and aesthetics.
The three branches (axiology, ethics and aesthetics) deal with value. Ethics deals with goodness, trying to understand what good is and what it means to be good.
Aesthetics deals with beauty and harmony, trying to understand beauty and what it means or how it is defined.
Axiology is a necessary component of both ethics and aesthetics, because one must use concepts of value to define"goodness"or"beauty", and therefore one must understand what is valuable and why.
Understanding the values Helps determine the reason for a behavior.
Main characteristics of axiological ethics
Axiological ethics is a specific field of study that presents certain distinctive features of its familiar branches within philosophy.
Here are the main characteristics of axiological ethics.
History
Around the fifth century and part of the sixth century a. C., it was transcendental for the Greeks to be well informed if success was sought. The intellectuals undertook the recognition of discrepancies between the statutes and the morality of humanity.
The student of Socrates , Plato , Promoted the belief establishing virtues that should be perpetuated.
With the collapse of the regime, the values became individual, making skeptical schools of thought flourish, forming in the last request, a passionate ethic that is thought to have influenced and shaped Christianity.
During the medieval period, Thomas Aquinas It sheltered a deviance between natural and religious morals.
This conception led philosophers to distinguish between judgments based on facts and judgments based on values, creating a division between science and philosophy.
Objectives exemplified
When children ask questions like"why do we do this?"Or"how do I do this?", They are asking axiological questions.
They want to know what motivates them to act or refrain from acting. The father says do not take a cookie from the jar. The child wonders why taking a cookie from the jar is wrong and argues with the father.
The father often gets tired of trying to explain and simply responds,"Because I say so." The child will stop discussing whether he values established authority (or if he fears the punishment of disobedience). On the other hand, the child can stop arguing simply because he respects his parents.
In this example, value is authority or respect, depending on the child's values. Axiological ethics poses:"Where do these values come from? Can any of these values be called good? Is one better than another? Why?"
Theory of values: main and general approach to axiological ethics
The term"value theory"is used in at least three different ways in philosophy.
In a general sense, value theory is a label that Branches of philosophy Moral, social and political philosophy, aesthetics and sometimes feminist philosophy and philosophy of religion - any areas of philosophy that encompass some"evaluative"aspects.
More narrowly, value theory is used for a relatively narrow area of normative ethical theory, in particular, but not exclusively, of concern for consequentialists. In this narrow sense, value theory is more or less synonymous with axiology.
One can think that the axiology is mainly concerned with classifying what things are good and how good they are.
For example, a traditional question of axiology refers to whether objects of value are subjective psychological states, or objective states of the world.
Specific theories of axiological ethics
Instrumental and intrinsic value
They are technical labels for the two poles of an old dichotomy. People seem to reason differently about what they should do (good ends) and what they are capable of doing (good means).
When people reason about the ends, they apply the criterion of intrinsic value. When they reason, it means that they apply the criterion of instrumental value.
Few question the existence of these two criteria, but their relative authority is in constant dispute.
Pragmatism and contributory goodness
Pragmatic ethics is a theory of normative philosophical ethics. Ethical pragmatists, such as John Dewey , Believe that some societies have progressed morally in the same way that they have achieved progress in science.
The Scientists Can investigate the truth of a hypothesis and accept the hypothesis, in the sense that they act as if the hypothesis were true.
However, they think that future generations can advance science, and thus future generations can refine or replace (at least some of) their accepted hypotheses.
Hypothetical and categorical goods
The thought of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) greatly influenced moral philosophy. He thought of moral value as a unique and universally identifiable property, as an absolute value rather than as a relative value.
He demonstrated that many practical goods are good only in the states of affairs described by a sentence containing a"yes"clause, for example, in the sentence,"the sun is only good if you do not live in the desert."
In addition, the"yes"clause often describes the category in which the judgment was made (art, science, etc.).
Kant described them as"hypothetical goods"and tried to find a"categorical"good that would work in all categories of judgment without relying on a"yes-then"clause.
References
- The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015). Axiology. August 13, 2017, of Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Website: britannica.com
- Findlay, J. N. (1970). Axiological Ethics. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-00269-5. 100 pages.
- Dewey, John (1939). Theory of Valuation. University of Chicago Press.
- Zimmerman, Michael. "Intrinsic Vs. Extrinsic Value". In Zalta, Edward N. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Dewey, John (1985) [1932]. Ethics. Southern Illinois University Press.
- Freedom as a Value: A Critique of the Ethical Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. Open Court Publishing. 1988. ISBN 978-0812690835.
- Schroeder, Mark,"Value Theory", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
- Kraut, Richard, 2007. What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Brentano, F. Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889). Trans. Roderick Chisholm, The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong (1969).
- Ted Honderich. (2005). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Google Books: Oxford University Press.