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There is a lot to it in the grey area. Don't kill, don't steal, don't cheat, don't eat baby seals, don't touch my grandma, that is trivial. The complex bit is f
by charles_f 4y ago
There is a lot to it in the grey area. Don't kill, don't steal, don't cheat, don't eat baby seals, don't touch my grandma, that is trivial. The complex bit is for everything that's less of a drastic decision.
Is it ethical to let a coworker make a mistake you saw so they can learn, at the cost of project progress, or is it ethical to help them and make sure you deliver what was promised to your stakeholders on time? What if you don't like the co-worker? What if you dont like stakeholders?
Is it ethical to slack off at work if you need that for your mental safety? Or is it theft?
And so on. Tons of little decisions that are not about life and death, but still very much about ethics, and that are not trivial at all.
- RivieraKid 4y agoMy view is that ethics is subjective, it boils down to how people feel. They often have various ethical systems and rules built on those feelings (or on axioms which feel right).
- mcguire 4y agoThat is true of all of philosophy (he says, at the risk of his Junior Philosopher's Secret Decoder Ring). The interesting part is the systems you build (hopefully using logic) around it.
- RivieraKid 4y agoI wouldn't even call it philosophy. It's more psychology or anthropology because you're studying emotional responses of the human species. If a serial killer feels that killing for fun is morally right and builds an ethical system on top of those feelings, is that philosophy?