I just started reading a book on ethics in social work. I haven't ever concerned myself with ethics as a (philosophical) science before, but I can highly recommend it.
Let me tell you what I just learned as a novice.
Principles can be categorized in technical-normative principles and ethical-normative principles. Normative principles is just a distinction from descriptive statements that just describe, don't request and don't judge.
Technical-normative means that you should do something, because it helps you with your goals.
E.g. you should be nice, so people will be nice to you.
Ethical-normative means you do it because it alighns with your values.
E.g. you treat everybody with empathy because everybody deserves to be treated that way.
Now ethical-normative principles can be categorized in ethical and moral principles. Ethical here is the term for the super-category and the sub-category.
Ethical principles are about your individual values.
Moral principles are meant to be universal and unconditional.
The distinction here is not so easy anymore and sometimes is just about wording. E.g. when you are vegan "because you like animals" than that's an ethical decision. If you're vegan "because animals (should) have rights" its a moral one. Note that "universal & unconditional" doesn't mean that you can't have empathy, compassion and understanding for people who don't live by those values.
Now why are these distinctions important?
Because if you take an ethical principle as moral or vice versa, that can be a real problem.
An example for taking an ethical principle as moral would be "everybody should be in the Fediverse". Many of us joined the Fediverse for ethical reasons, but an ethical decision can also be not using social media at all. Also many of us would suffer if everybody, also unethical people joined the Fediverse.
An example for taking a moral principle as ethical would be "I as a moderator of a Fediverse instance don't suspend the nazi on that instance, who harasses people, because he should be confronted with people who think differently". No. The right to not be harassed is a human right, a moral principle, universal and unconditional.
I'm right now trying to find out for myself which of my own principles are technical, ethical or moral.
And in the future when arguing I'll try to distinguish between ethical and moral values and phrase my arguments accordingly.
#ethics #morals #philosophy #TIL #JustReading #AmReading #ethical #moral
RE: https://climatejustice.social/@PaulaToThePeople/115844697899814211
Okay, this book about ethics radicalized me.
I started thinking about which of my principles are technical, ethical or moral. Turns out most of them are moral.
It really isn't hard to come to the conclusion, that there is no argument for using AI, toxic social media or SEO. No moral argument, no ethical argument, not even a technical argument. The "argument" which often comes up is a descriptive statement: "Everybody is on X.", " Every big website uses SEO.", "Every company embraces AI.". But those just describe the problems that you have a moral duty to act against.
When in comes to non-digital issues it's different. Being fossil free, vegan and non-violent are also moral principles. They should be universal and unconditional. But there are legitimate ethical and technical arguments against them. Like: I have to feed my family, we need to heat our house with affordable energy, I have to get to work with availible transportation and we have to defend ourselves against the regime.
Moral principles that incorporate these arguments are:
Nobody should have to use fossil fuels.
Nobody should be unable to afford vegan products.
Nobody should be forced to use violence to survive.
