Inadequacy of normative ethical theories

• Main Author: Sim, Vivien Hui Min
• Other Authors: Dimitris Apostolopoulos
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Humanities::Philosophy
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/78927
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Suppose ethical theories guide us to do what is the most good and the most right but conflicts arise between the supposed preserved moral judgments of ethical theories. In this paper, then, I want to consider if the normative ethical theories provide us with adequate moral guidance or are they inadequate in doing so such that there exists an independent irreducible property which should be the foundation of ethics and morality that can be argued for to be the property which provides adequate moral guidance, while rejecting the idea of normative ethical theories and its’ classification of moral theories. Normative ethical theories have differing moral standards which leads to conflicts between good and right, morality and law as well as against our ethical intuitions. There is an absence of justification in normative ethical theories. They are unable to meet the demands of morality in real life circumstances and seem to be just theories of moral principles; it is impossible to erase this distinction. Thus, ethical considerations and our decisions in how we should live our lives should be based on goodness as compared to living by certain moral principles or laws and whether something is right or wrong.