Identify from what sources do we obtain ethical standards, explain why and how these standards change over time?
Ethical standards are predominantly based on the following given approaches:
- The Rights Approach: It focuses on free will and the rights of a person to live as per his/her wish.
- The Justice Approach: It focuses on the idea that every person in society deserves equal treatment.
- The Virtue Approach: It focuses on a set of ideas that are necessary for society to function effectively as a whole.
- The Utilitarian Approach: It focuses on providing the most benefit or least harm to the people in the community.
- The Common Good Approach: It focuses on the need for mutual respect and cooperation for the benefit of all in society.
The primary reason for which we could notice a change in ethical standards is the changing needs of the society as a whole. It is dependent on many factors like individual differences, variation in worldview, cultural aspects, and even changing times. What was widely accepted earlier may not be valid in today’s aspects of life.
For example, the laws about execution using guillotine were widely practiced in earlier days, but now we could hardly notice such activity. Humans have evolved over time and for the better. But this does not mean that the guilty go unpunished, it just means that there are more humane ways of punishing that have evolved over time.