Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1

This chapter begins by introducing the reader to the concept of ethics. It defines ethics as a system of studying the choices that people make in relation to what is right and wrong. People face ethical dilemmas on a daily basis and these entail taking decisions. For example, if a person is sick, he may be confronted with an ethical dilemma on whether to call in sick or go to work. Hence, the chapter emphasizes upon the need to establish a standard that would help people in distinguishing between right and wrong. It also stresses upon how imperative it is that these standards ignore the preferences and desires of a person in order to establish them as standards that are objective and morally standard.

Although a vast majority of countries across the globe have established perfectly functional and efficient legal systems, there is, perhaps, a greater need to establish ethical standards that distinguish between right and wrong. This is because legal systems, or law, cannot possibly function without ethics. Laws can only be enacted or repealed if people are able to make decisions on what is right and wrong. Therefore, it is imperative that laws are grounded on the study of wrongful and rightful conduct which, in other words, is ethics. The primary focus of ethics is on moral situations. These are situations that demand a choice of behavior that is related to human values.

The notion that religion and ethics are incompatible with each other is rather common. On the contrary, numerous experts on the subject iterate that ethics nay have, in fact, originated from religion. This is because religion religious thinkers have educated the larger society on moral issues for many centuries, teaching them the difference between right and wrong and motivating them to make the right choices.

Chapter 2

This chapter investigates the basis for deciding moral values. In this regard, there is a commonly held notion that the protocol for deciding moral values should be based on the view of the majority. A majority view is essentially 51% or more of the total number of people in a group. However, majority view cannot be regarded as the best way to decide moral values. This is because collecting the views of a majority and then converting them into a statistic to decide moral values would lead to the creation of a false impression of wisdom and authoritativeness, even though these qualities are seldom the result. Hence, the view of the majority is not an important factor when deciding moral values.

There is also the argument that the majority can err. Just as 1% of a certain population may have the wrong ethical standpoint on a particular issue, it is perfectly possible that a vast majority may share the same opinion. Such opinions are usually the result of ignorance, prejudice, shallowness or a combination of all. Hence, the ignorance of the majority must be regarded the same as the wisdom of the majority.

Numerous references from history can account for the fact ...