Are ethics dynamic? Are there any principles that do not change?

[MariusIBDP]

I and my TOK teacher got into an argument about ethics. I've asked would it be important to write about in my TOK essay that ethics (one of the keywords of the title) are dynamic, i.e. that ethical principles change over time. She disagreed and said, that there are some principles that might change, but most of them stay the same. I've said that I believe there are few, if there are any, ethical principles that are always true and do not change, and asked her to give me an example.

Her example was: It is always morally wrong to kill another human being solely for your own enjoyment.

Even though it was a tough one, I replied that during slave-trading era, it was believed that slave owners are morally justified in doing anything they want with their slaves, including murder, as they were seen as objects, rather than humans.

She didn't reply to this and just shut the topic.

So, I wanted to ask you, IBS, what do you think? Are there any principles of ethics/morally correct/wrong stuff that always remain the same or are ethics completely dynamic? Also, comment on the example given, please.

[Award Winning Boss]

She was correct about the slavery thing.

It isn't correct to do that since you can't really rationally justify it, nor would you ever argue that what they did was ok just because they lived in a certain time. It's a principle. It doesn't mean that people don't break them.

For example, if person X raped person Y, at least 99% of people would say that it is always wrong. When you look at what rape is in its most basic definition, it's taking away the liberties of someone else just to exercise power or sexual desire. There is no way an onlooker could justify it was ethically correct. But if the rapist thinks it's ok, does that mean it is? Or just that he thought it was ok?

I do think that there are things that are completely wrong, no matter what context or situation it was in. But it just depends on how you define it. You couldn't say that 'killing' is always wrong because people will (rightfully) argue with the example of self defence. But if you were to say that the unlawful killing of somebody is always wrong, then you'd have a better position to argue from.

Also, if we were in a perfectly rational society then there would be a lot of things that are always wrong. But people are stupid and cruel unfortunately.

[MariusIBDP]

She was correct about the slavery thing.

It isn't correct to do that since you can't really rationally justify it, nor would you ever argue that what they did was ok just because they lived in a certain time. It's a principle. It doesn't mean that people don't break them.

For example, if person X raped person Y, at least 99% of people would say that it is always wrong. When you look at what rape is in its most basic definition, it's taking away the liberties of someone else just to exercise power or sexual desire. There is no way an onlooker could justify it was ethically correct. But if the rapist thinks it's ok, does that mean it is? Or just that he thought it was ok?

I do think that there are things that are completely wrong, no matter what context or situation it was in. But it just depends on how you define it. You couldn't say that 'killing' is always wrong because people will (rightfully) argue with the example of self defence. But if you were to say that the unlawful killing of somebody is always wrong, then you'd have a better position to argue from.

Also, if we were in a perfectly rational society then there would be a lot of things that are always wrong. But people are stupid and cruel unfortunately.

I think you've misunderstood what I was trying to say with that example. During that time, killing of slaves was considered morally okay not only by the slave-owner, that killed them, but also by the society. Society considered that it was your own choice what do you do with your own things and if you choose to destroy only for your enjoyment, it was considered okay. Slaves, even though they were humans, were considered to be things. That means that during that time, ethical principle was different in the society.

Nowadays, it's morally wrong to kill a person for your enjoyment, despite his social status. Doesn't that indicate that the ethical principle has changed and evolved over time?

I've even heard of a term speciesism - the belief that humans are more important than animals, which causes people to treat animals badly. The person I've heard it from is a strong advocate of animal rights and does not understand why humans consider eating meat of humans or drinking mother's milk is wrong, while eating meat of animals and drinking cow's milk is socially acceptable. Doesn't that indicate a beginning of a change in an ethical priniciple?

I'm pretty sure you would not like to live in a perfectly rational society Marriages & sex between infertile brothers and sisters would be as normal as homosexuality, since the same rational arguments apply. Your personal rights could be taken away, if it increased the well-being of the whole society. Also, there definitely would be no alcohol, tobacco, caffeine products or marijuana for entertainment purposes left.But yes, there'd be less violence and poverty

[Award Winning Boss]

I think you've misunderstood what I was trying to say with that example. During that time, killing of slaves was considered morally okay not only by the slave-owner, that killed them, but also by the society. Society considered that it was your own choice what do you do with your own things and if you choose to destroy only for your enjoyment, it was considered okay. Slaves, even though they were humans, were considered to be things. That means that during that time, ethical principle was different in the society.

Nowadays, it's morally wrong to kill a person for your enjoyment, despite his social status. Doesn't that indicate that the ethical principle has changed and evolved over time?

No, I understood what you meant.

The ethical principle of killing people for your own enjoyment as wrong, is correct to me. People's moral's beliefs have changed. Not the principle. I disagree with the idea that cultural relativism allows for some actions. If something is true, then it should have been true all the time and people were just wrong. You wouldn't say that slavery is ok just because other people used to do that?

I've even heard of a term speciesism - the belief that humans are more important than animals, which causes people to treat animals badly. The person I've heard it from is a strong advocate of animal rights and does not understand why humans consider eating meat of humans or drinking mother's milk is wrong, while eating meat of animals and drinking cow's milk is socially acceptable. Doesn't that indicate a beginning of a change in an ethical priniciple?

Peter Singer is a cool guy. There are things like this that are more open to debate. I didn't say every situation had an ethical principle that you can always stick to.

I'm pretty sure you would not like to live in a perfectly rational society Marriages & sex between infertile brothers and sisters would be as normal as homosexuality, since the same rational arguments apply. Your personal rights could be taken away, if it increased the well-being of the whole society. Also, there definitely would be no alcohol, tobacco, caffeine products or marijuana for entertainment purposes left.But yes, there'd be less violence and poverty

Why wouldn't I? Stop comparing incest to homosexuality. The reason why incest is illegal, isn't because people have an emotional reaction of 'ewww that's just wrong'. Otherwise, adultery would be illegal too. Incest is illegal because of the genetic problems that come with the possible offspring. The possibility of rape within the family. I'll probably be corrected, but homosexuality doesn't compare to incest. But for what it's worth, I don't really care if a brother and sister decide to have sex. Why should I care? As long as I'm not forced to join in or watch. I have no reason to care about what goes on between two consenting adults.

Secondly, I personally don't care about those things. But, isn't there a reason why we want people to smoke and drink less?

A perfectly rational society would be fine with me. There are non rational actions too. You don't have to be irrational to have fun.

[aldld]

If a moral principle changes over time, it isn't really a principle, is it? So are there even any principles at all?

Why do we think that murder is bad? It causes suffering and has negative effects on society. Why is suffering bad? Why do we care about what's good or bad for society? This path goes on and seems like moral skepticism which doesn't really lead anywhere useful. We could consider pragmatic values, but who cares about that?

Does it even matter if there are no fundamental moral principles? We can have a set of rules that everybody is expected to follow, perhaps not because they are morally right but for other reasons such as to make progress in society.