User:Timpo/Ethics

Ethics is a compound of ἦθος ethos (behavior) or ἔθνος ethnos any distinct group of people[^[2] and Theos together with λόγος [logos]] reason.^[3]. It therefore reltes to an ethnographic group whose purpose is to develop informed decisions as to the best way for individuals within the group to conduct its business. Ethics is central to philosophy, whose purpose is to distinguish rational facts from emotional truths or presuppositions

Philosophy is also a compound of a particular group φιλία Philia: friendship or collegiate rather than the more common love plus σοφός sofos to satisfy rater than wisdom^[4] Note also πρεσβύτερος presbuteros meaning elder or sage, related to precocious^[5]

Moral philosophy i sometimes used as an alternative term for ethics because, while it is central to "brotherly" (Philia/ φιλία) ) human relations it should be considered that the love of wisdom it may also be considered the wisdom of love

If the purpose of philosophy to help people to survive and thrive cooperatively.^[6] Moral philosophy encompass several important ethical branches;^[7]

• descriptive ethics - the connection between knowledge, persuasion and the discrimination of needs and wants
• normative ethics - (or prescriptive ethics) idealizations of standards within a group and censure for disrespect of
• applied ethics - practical considerations of controversial issues such as abortion or euthanasia performed by by medical practitioners or cosmetic docking of animal tails or ears by veterinarians.
• metaethics - general or global principles that might support the survival and prosperity of any group

Philosophically and ethically humanity includes all of the genus Homo being the entirety of human experience ("others") from homo habilis some seven millions of years ago who discovered how to control fire how to organized hunting parties and set up a tool-making industry until the present. No one person is an island, completely independent of the vast continent of humanity.

Ethics is one of the main branches of philosophy because human survival absolutely depends on preventing social collapse. In the natural state one individual human being has not adequate claws, teeth or speed needed to outperform predators and has only rather poor innate survival skills so training received from others is essential. As children we are all completely dependent on the goodwill of adults for our survival. Even as adults, the process of securing the essentials of survival – clean water, nutritious food, protective clothing shelter from the elements requires a vast range of skills and interdependence to manage the constant upheavals of poor harvests and disasters caused by calamities such as floods, fires drought, plague and war.

The challenge of human survival depends on four fundamental group interventions. The first is to change the form of plants inti food, for example, as wheat into grain, and break minerals such as stone or iron-ore into manageable lumps. Next we change of nature of these raw materials, for example grain into flour, and bread, rocks into steel and grindstones to make knives and all the other commodities we need. These functions are interconnected by transportation (change of place) and some sort of trade which facilitates the change of ownership between the various collectors, the processors, the transporters and the end-users.

Ethics is the "mortar" that holds all these diverse building block functions into the sustainable edifices that we call our various human civilizations. To cement together all these functions performed by distinct social groups within a civilized society we have to define what individual behavior is beneficial and which harmful to the and wrong, both within our immediate functional companies and between the complicated web of organizations so that we can all sustain a reasonably good life. Some of the key ethical questions are "How should one live?" and "What gives meaning to life?".^[8] Perhaps as Jean-Paul Sartre suggests: life has meaning only if we choose to state it?

All ethical cultures depend on stories. This article is only a brief overview of a vast topic and mentions some stories above. Below is a selection of Wikipedia article to indicate but a tiny approximately chronological selection from a vast range of more notable ethical thinkers and a few of their seminal treatises: