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Ethics in a Nutshell
By Matt Deaton, M.A.
MattDeaton.net

Ethics is the systematic reason-guided study of what we morally ought to do. It’s one of the four main sub-disciplines of philosophy, the other three being logic, metaphysics and epistemology. While most people defer to religion or society or their gut when deciding moral dilemmas, ethicists think through them for themselves.
Whether or not we fully adopt their approach, we can all learn a thing or two from ethicists about asking the right questions, paying attention to the right factors, and holding a consistent set of moral beliefs.

Oughts Based On Reason
The difference between ethics and other ways of deciding what one ought to do is that ethics entails the rigorous use of reason. What we ought to do is one of those slippery questions to which conclusive answers are hard to pin down. All the traditional authorities have their flaws. Because religions ultimately appeal to faith, not evidence, and different religions proscribe different moral mandates, the objective thinker has no principled way to decide which to follow. Citing the Koran won’t convince a Christian, citing the Bible won’t convince a Muslim, and citing either won’t convince an atheist.
Therefore, since ethicists want to appeal to reasons anyone can accept—regardless of their religious position—they can’t defer to holy books. Also, because societies disagree what morality entails, each just as confident in their conflicting judgment as the next, ethicists can’t defer to opinion polls. And since personal bias and emotions often cloud our better judgment, our gut can’t always be trusted either. All we can do is think really
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hard about moral questions and try our best to figure them out. Ethicists use arguments to do just that.
Arguments are groups of statements that logically work together to