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Ethical And Unethical Analysis

Decent Essays

I've expressed elsewhere that ethics is fundamentally the objectification of one's sentiments onto objects. To provide a brief summation, outside influences provoke a emotional reaction in ourselves, which leads us to project our attitudes onto the world. These attitudes then become reified onto objects as though they were objective, but in actuality it is on the basis of our sentiments. If something produces a pleasing sentiment in us, then we tend to have a magnetic desire towards it. Likewise, a displeasing feeling makes us repulsed. On this basis, we tend to declare something as good if and only if it produces a sentiment of approbation in ourselves or in others. Thus, ethical statements are comparable to statements about colors which exist only in the mind.

The present concern is with producing an theory of ethics based on this metaethical analysis. Ultimately, what we call "the good" are the character qualities that produce pleasing sentiments in others. Our judgements are not based on one's actions, but rather on one's dispositional qualities that led them to do something. The problem with typical consequentialist theories of ethics is that they place too much emphasis on the consequences of the action without considering one's …show more content…

Specifically, I think Hobbes was right both about the subjectivity of virtue and the inherent self-centeredness of humanity while Hume is right as to the content of our sentiments. We all experience raw perceptions which provoke in us a special feeling. The raw sensation has either a pleasing or repulsive effect on us. We then project this feeling onto the object so that our feeling becomes synonymous with the perception. As the feelings of others similarly project, these attitudes become reified into the notion of public opinion. So what we call "the good" produces in us a pleasant feeling while what we call "the wrong" repulses our

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