How to evaluate ethics?

[Neeliegya]

I realized that I have chosen an AOK that I understand very little on for this essay. Even after researching certain perspectives in more depth, I'm not sure how an essay using the AOK of ethics is written, especially one where you have an argument to evaluate on like PT 6: "There is always a trade-off between accuracy and simplicity".

How can I evaluate ethics if ethics consists of so many perspectives that so often conflict with each other? This is an incredibly elementary question to ask at this point of the course... But if there are so many perspectives, how can you ever claim that any of them is right or wrong or both right and wrong? Even if you go with the classic answer that "while this part is valuable, this other component still has to be considered", I still find this quite difficult to in examining the accuracy of any ethical perspective. Any insights?

[Elc]

That, my friend, would be ethical relativism.

 

You could mention ethical relativism and ethical absolutism and see how they relate to your point. If you are going on about relativism, you can why a certain perspective may be more pertinent to your explanation and hence more "accurate" in the real life context, and why. Kantian, utiliarianism, egoism, altruism and so many other ethical perspectives are available for your pick. Additionally, are you using the good ol' utilitarian approach to your debate? If so, you can explain how this perspective has an ultimate weakness in its inability to quantify "happiness" contrasting the absolute moral stance Kantian ethics has, etc, etc. 

Edited February 6, 2016 by Elca

[Vioh]

I realized that I have chosen an AOK that I understand very little on for this essay. Even after researching certain perspectives in more depth, I'm not sure how an essay using the AOK of ethics is written, especially one where you have an argument to evaluate on like PT 6: "There is always a trade-off between accuracy and simplicity".

How can I evaluate ethics if ethics consists of so many perspectives that so often conflict with each other? This is an incredibly elementary question to ask at this point of the course... But if there are so many perspectives, how can you ever claim that any of them is right or wrong or both right and wrong? Even if you go with the classic answer that "while this part is valuable, this other component still has to be considered", I still find this quite difficult to in examining the accuracy of any ethical perspective. Any insights?

 

I think here is exactly one of the reasons why you always have to define terms/concepts before you begin writing your arguments. You gotta define what "accuracy" really means within ethics. Does accuracy here mean something in terms of absolute "truths" (as in science/mathematics), or does it mean something along the line of logical accuracy? Or perhaps you can take a look at the accuracy of the facts/evidence that are used to support some ethical claims, etcetera. I've posted some ideas on this thread that might be useful for you, so take a look at it.