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Ethics is nothing other than...

Moiety

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I can agree.

You don't shoot a shotgun and dance around inside a church because then it just loses it's point in the first place. What makes holy ground holy is that it is holy.
 

nozflubber

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I find that statement somewhat reductive (albeit reverence for life is perhaps related)....

Ethics is the realization that if you do action X without sufficient reason, persons A and B will become royally pissed off at you. It is pragmatic and goes well beyond the marveling of organic life.
 

Nicodemus

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No, that is something entirely different. But maybe that is because in German we use 'Ethik' for the science of 'Moral', whereas in English it also means something like 'applied morals'.
 

Little_Sticks

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In that it's the best kind of human goal to promote each other's well-being while promoting our own, I completely agree. Its realization creates the best kind of motivation and productiveness since all actions will produce results that are always rewarding for all because we also become more than ourselves. It's more Borg-like, but that's okay in my basic opinion.
 

SecondBest

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It's reductive to say ethics is reverence for life, but it doesn't make it any less true. I'm a fan of Albert Schweitzer as well. Man's Search for Meaning was an important book.

The most positive (positive in the sense of affirming and non-negative) definition of ethics I can come up with is this. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that governs decision-making. Good or bad, moral or immoral - it's about how a person makes his or her decisions. Some would say ethics precedes all other branches of philosophy, but that topic is best left for another thread, I think.
 

Magic Poriferan

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Hmmm.... I focuse on the capacity to experience happiness and the pursuit of it. I think the so-called reverence for life is often involved in that, but it's not quite the same thing.

Those who see no hope of happiness for the rest of their life seem willing to turn the other way and exit from life. I can see why.
 
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rav3n

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I disagree that it has to do with a reverence for life. That's not a broad enough concept to attach to ethics. More:

Primum non nocere.
 
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