Seminar: What is Ethics?

Talking Ethics Seminars have been scheduled this week for the following times:

Monday April 9 at 4-6 PM SLT
Wednesday April 11 at 7-9 PM SLT
Friday April 13 at 12-2 PM SLT

As usual, the location is Villa Bilbao Art Gallery, in-world at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zeuzera/98/181/114/

This week we'll be focusing on meta-ethics....What is Ethics?

I want to start out by saying the discussion was thought prevoking.

Now i have a question to pose:
If you have a person you consider a friend and good discussion for many hours, then they constantly poke fun at you in a discussion and you try to do the same you end up making them angry is it ethical? My intentions were to be funny but came off as hurt full.
I think in SL often there is a lot lost in translation...face value is missing.
Ethically i felt no wrong.
Yet they were deeply hurt and proceeded to yell at me for a 1/2 hour about how hurt they were. What i think is ethically limits are determined within one self and only your boundaries matter too you.

But ethically we can be shapped by whats around us especially as we were raised.

In the end my friendship ended badly no matter how much i tried to patch it up with this person i ended up making them more angry.

Ethics to me is acting consistantly true to ones own code of right/wrong.

Too vague to say, Kyle.

If I had to guess you probably did one of two things:
you disclosed something publicly that was told to you in confidence,
or your jest sounded more like "rude honesty wrapped in smilies."

The first, clearly is unethical, disclosing something private about someone else without their consent is a violation of trust, it's a betrayal.

If it's the second, then your 'friend' may merely be a bit too highly strung. Such a comment could result in anger because it shows you were thinking things your 'friend' did not think you would... which means they were wrong about you on something they feel is important. It can be rather unsettling, and results in them wondering what else they were wrong about you on too.

And, of course, there are cultural differences on what is or isn't acceptable as far as making fun of a friend.

Apologize sincerely if you think you were in error, otherwise ask why your friend thinks you crossed a line so that you can avoid it in the future.

If your friend can't find it in them to forgive an isolated social error, they're probably not worth keeping.

Sorry if that sounds more 'advice-like' than 'ethical' like.

I interpreted your question more as a "Is this fair?" not an "Is this ethical?" type, sorry.

Ethics should study what is good for people. Ethics isn’t just a collection of rules or goals.

An action is ethical if it is a means to what is good.

Good for who though?
Sleeping with your wife may be good, but it isn't ethical for others to do it

I think most ethics are based on causing minimum harm to others, rather than what's good for any particular person or group.

Ethics is a tool for judging the right thing to do in a given set of circumstances.

It is distinct from both morals, which are culturally imposed behaviour, and legal behaviour (it may be legal to shoot someone under some circumstances, but unethical, or potentially ethical but illegal), but is probably still a cultural artefact.

ethics is of the particular [the particle]
morals are of the consensus [the field]
so that ethics operates individually
while morals are collective conditioning
so that a suicide like socrates' was ethical
and a lynch mob thinks itself moral

within a finite existence both are limited
and can be confused with each other
the particle -when existent- being a tiny field
the field - when finite- being a large particle

ideally the particle is grounded in reality
the reality is non-existent - the zero point
which while non-existent is source for all existence
the ideal of the field is the infinite display of actuality
this actuality is all existence in full infinity

the zero point reality is true clear sourced ethicality
the infinite actuality is the full display possible and not
but as we live in finite manifestation - SL or FL
the local particularization of our being is in a finite display
and absorbs a miniature model of the consensus field - culture
this inner modeling of the outer consensus system
seems the basis of ethical action as if external
but is in truth a local system of moral behavior

if one knows and trusts the connect to ones reality
one can operate in full trust of one's ethical nature
and take the local moral code into account as information
rather than as rules of how to 'act' properly

Ethics are sourced from the one-pointedness of 'soul/atman/tao'
Morality the approved habits of local convention

Ethics is asking, inquiring, discovering what is right/wrong, good/bad, etc. Even pondering if there is such a thing as right or wrong. And if there is right and wrong, are they objective or relative?

Ethics are signified by the actions we take (or do not take). Compared to morality, which tends to be what we *SAY* we would do, Ethics tend to be what we *DO* soon after pondering, "is this the right or wrong thing to do?"

Sorcs Nolan

With the writers' permission, I'm posting some responses to the questions "What is Ethics?" and "What is ethical and unethical?" from Monday's seminar.

Saturnine Fei wrote:

Persephone Welles wrote:

Also, here's a link to an older thread in this forum On The Meaning of Ethics for more thoughts on this question. I will post responses from the other seminars later.

The terms "ethics" and "morals" (ethical/moral, unethical/immoral) are often used interchangeably, and the are very closely connected in meaning. Both of them refer to distinctions between right and wrong, particularly in relation to human conduct.

For an act to be "moral" may imply that the act conforms to an established code of conduct. Similarly, to say that an act is "ethical" may suggest that it is in keeping with principles of justice, fairness, and so forth. These are the "overtones," if you will.

At heart, though, the distinction between these seems best understood as a division between the parts and the whole. "Morality" refers to the specific principles that are adopted to guide conduct. An example might be a rule statying, "Don't lie." Ethics, on the other hand, refers to the considerations that lead us to adopt certain morals. In the example above, the ethical consideration which would give rise to my rule is the importance of honesty. So "honesty" is at the ethical level, whereas the rule "Don't lie" is at the moral level.

In this way, a person's moral code (their set of moral principles) is the same as the person's ethics. Thus, the two terms overlap greatly.

When we are studying ethics, or Talking Ethics, the following questions would be fitting. What moral principles should be adopted in a particular type of situation? What ethical considerations (justice, equity, etc.) should be taken into account when deciding how we ought to behave? What logical justification can be offered for a certain type of conduct? The goal is not merely to express opinions or share the moral principles that we happen to have adopted for ourselves, but to "test" those principles against the important things that ethics demands us consider.

Arete

Ethics are doing the right thing in an aware way; making choices that one understands the choices involved and consequences.

Ethics, following the societal standards that have been established and conducting yourself in a manner within those guidelines. If you are not ethical, it is extremely difficult to ever meet the ethical standards, and change to conform. You either are, or you are not.

Ethics and morality are generally used interchangeable in most contexts. Within a philosophical framework ethics is the the study of the underlying values that we have that help use determine right actions from wrong, good from evil. Morality on the other hand is the set of rules or guidelines that we use to govern our actions. Ethics is about theory and morals are about the application of that theory.

Randall Lynch

My definitions fall close to Sorcs, and opposite of Arete. I also like the idea of awareness. For me, morality seems to define the fundamental tenets of good/bad that we acknowledge and value. Ethics, OTOH is a set of circumstantial behavioral guidelines that we establish to hopefully guide our actions in accordance with our moral values.

Here are some more responses to the question "What is ethics?"

Namaste Breck wrote:
Sam Steuben wrote:
Todd Greer wrote:
LittleToe Bartlett wrote:
Khadijah Shan wrote:

Feel free to keep discussing and add your definitions below if I didn't get yours during the event.

Sel
(: