GEI 1108

PHILOSOPHY
• Is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence,
knowledge, values, reason, mind and language.
• Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved.

• Is it possible to know anything and prove it?

• What is the most real?
• Is there a best way to live?
• Is it better to be just or unjust?
 • Is a key branch of Philosophy , concerned with systematic
study of right or wrong human actions and conduct in the
backdrop of standards or moral principles set by society.

• May also refer to the rules of conduct recognized in respect

of a particular class of human activities.

• Ethics is a science of values.

• Ethics is a science of morality dealing with what is right or good in human

conduct. It is a normative science and it is the science of HIGHEST GOOD. It is
the science of moral good of man.
 ETHICS IS A SCIENCE

• It is concerned with a particular sphere of nature that

deals with certain judgments that we make about human
conduct. It also talks about systematic explanation of
rightness or wrongness in a man’s life.
 ETHICS IS A NORMATIVE SCIENCE

JUDGMENT OF VALUE
NATURAL SCIENCE
Natural Science is concerned with “what is the case”.
It deals with facts and explains them by their causes.

Normative Science is concerned with what ought to be done.

It deals with norms by which we can judge human actions.
Ethics do not deal with facts. It deals with values and
principles.
 ETHICS IS DIFFERENT FROM MORALITY
• Ethics and morality (morals came from Latin moralis, meaning custom or manners) are
often use interchangeably.
• In earlier times, the scholars used to call ethics a “science of moral”.
• Ethics do not teach how to lead a moral life.
• Ethics merely help us to justify the right and good which leads us to achieve our
goals.
• Morality deals with purpose, motive, intention and choice which are considered right
or wrong in the light of customs and manners.
• Ethics is usually applied to persons while morality is to acts and behavior.
 ETHICS IS A SCIENCE OF VALUES

• It discovers the forms of conduct or behavior, which have the character of

moral obligation.
• Deals with phenomena and it observes, classifies and explains them by
moral values.
• It distinguishes moral judgments from logical judgments and aesthetic
judgments and reduces them to system.
 NORMATIVE
SCIENCE

ETHICS AESTHETICS LOGIC

Goodness Beauty truth