ETHICS: FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL ACTION

Ethics and moral actions are a learned behavior for everyone.  Religiously speaking, ethical and moral obligation are dictated through their religious beliefs. Religious or spiritual people looks to God, moral exemplars, and prophets for moral guidance. 

From a philosophical standpoint, ethics are split into three different categories: deontological;

telelogical and virtue ethics. Deonotological ethic is the ethic of duty and morality, treat others as you want to be treated standpoint.  This is an ethic that places emphasis on the morality of the actions made by each individual person.  In other words understanding what is morally required of us (our moral duty), this enables us to make the correct moral choices.  Immanuel Kant (pictured right) believed that our ethical demands are based on what we would expect of others.  "Do unto others as we would have them do unto us."

Teleological ethic, also referrred to as “consequentialism”  focuses on the consequences brought on by our actions, stating that we can make morally correct choices, if we understand what the result of choices will be. We are behaving morally, if the choices we make have good outcomes or consequences, but if our consequences are bad, then we are behaving immorally.  Virtue ethics is not duty driven like the deonotological or teleological, but focuses on bringing out the goodness of people, molding people to become the ideal moral character. 

Natural Law is another form ethical guidance.  "Natural law theory holds that human moral action is grounded in the essential structure of reality itself. (Livingston, 2009)  

Work Cited:

Livingston, James C. Anatomy of the Sacred Sixth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009.

 
 Pictures From: 
 http://www.philosophers.co.uk/immanuel-kant.html 
 http://rkb-ce.blogspot.com/2012/02/on-morals-and-morality.html