Abstract
Is it possible to build ethics like a science? Many ordinary people think that this is impossible because there are too many subjective opinions and disagreements. Many scholars think that this is not necessary and some of them emphasize that there is no true science at all. However, is it so? Can the “impossible” or “unnecessary” theses, be proved? This chapter suggests the opposite. We can and should rebuild ethics as a science. First, it will help to significantly increase its analytical quality and achieve better theoretical progress. Second, it will upgrade the weak status of this discipline in society and business.
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Notes
- 1.
Compare an evidence from about 60 years ago: “Students of ethics are apt to be disappointed to find that, although the subject has been studied for over two thousand years, it does not seem to have produced any established system of truths comparable to those of mathematics and the natural sciences. Why is Aristotle’s Ethics still worth reading, while his Physics is of interest only to scholars and historians?” (Nowell-Smith 1952, p. 15).
- 2.
Moral questions and moral reasoning can be difficult to understand, and we have found that students often hold very skeptical or even cynical views. One hears claims such as, “It’s just a matter of how you feel.” “There’s no rational way to resolve moral disputes. One can only fight.” “Moral claims cannot be true or false.” “Morality is just a matter of social convention or prejudice.” (Hausman et al. 2016, p. 8).
- 3.
- 4.
According to Robert Solomon the majority of textbooks are full of eclectic survey of various approaches and finally “the message to students is too often an unabashed relativism (“if you are a utilitarian, you’ll do this, if you’re a Kantian , you’ll do that”)” (Solomon 1992, p. 318)
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Storchevoy, M. (2018). Why Science? What Science?. In: A Scientific Approach to Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69113-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69113-8_1
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