The 3 Ethics: Where do you fall? | INFJ Forum

The 3 Ethics: Where do you fall?

Peace

Peace

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Sep 18, 2011
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Richard Shweder, a cultural anthropologist from the University of Chicago, studied morals in many diverse groups of people around the world and found that all moral beliefs, regardless of culture, fell within 3 main areas of ethics. These were...

Ethic of Autonomy - "based on moral concepts such as harm, rights and justice, which is designed to protect individuals in pursuit of the gratification of their wants."

Ethic of Community - "based on moral concepts such as duty, hierarchy and interdependency, which is designed to help individuals achieve dignity by virtue of their role and position in a society."

Ethic of Divinity - "based on moral concepts such as natural order, sacred order, sanctity, sin and pollution, which is designed to maintain the integrity of the spiritual side of human nature."

Now while individuals generally exhibit a little of all three areas of ethics, they often favor one over the others to a degree and this influences their political and spiritual beliefs.

For example, a religious fundamentalist favors the Ethic of Divinity. This preference means that in order to protect a person's eternal soul and the state of society from decay and corruption, they believe they must deter people from sinfully pursuing their own preferences by imposing moral laws on them even if they have a different faith or no faith at all.

By contrast, someone who highly favors the Ethic of Autonomy would believe that individuals should have the personal freedom to pursue their preferences without interference as long as they are not harming anyone else in the process. Such individuals are generally socially liberal and believe that people have certain rights such as to privacy and property which should not be infringed upon.

Finally, those who favor the Ethic of Community generally believe in an order to society and believe that an organized authority should be used to maintain that order, even at the loss of some individual liberty. People of this ethic often believe that an individual attains personal dignity and self worth by participating in their community and helping others.

So I'm curious where the people on this forum fall. Let's say that each category is measured 1 through 10, with 10 being complete agreement and 1 being complete disagreement. So for each category provide a score showing where you think you fall so we can compare the numbers and see if there are any patterns within personality type.
 
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This may be a surprise for an INTJ answer.

Ethic of Autonomy - 10
Ethic of Community - 1
Ethic of Divinity - 1

*cough*
 
Community - 10

Autonomy - 5

Divinity - 1
 
Autonomy - 8
Community - 10
Divinity - 0

"an order to society and believe that an organized authority should be used to maintain that order, even at the loss of some individual liberty" .... I don't think an authority should be used to enforce it necessarily. To my ideals it should be somewhat intrinsic in community-minded individuals.
In other words I personally follow ethics of community, but I don't assume or expect others to.
 
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Ethic of Autonomy - 10
Ethic of Community - 0
Ethic of Divinity - 0

[MENTION=4700]Peace[/MENTION]

This is interesting. Why are you asking?
Do you think a poll would be of value?
 
Peace said:
Ethic of Divinity - "based on moral concepts such as natural order, sacred order, sanctity, sin and pollution, which is designed to maintain the integrity of the spiritual side of human nature."
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To me this makes sense....but the description that followed was way off this mark. Explain.
 
Autonomy 100%

Will to power and ubermensch. 'Nuff said.
 
I don't understand. All three are necessary for ethics to be balanced. When things get out of balance, they become perverse, with normally good things becoming evil in their disproportionality. Each of these three ethics, if used alone, would create a horrifying world.
 
randomsomeone said:
To me this makes sense....but the description that followed was way off this mark. Explain.
Click to expand...

I agree.
"For example, a religious fundamentalist favors the Ethic of Divinity. This preference means that in order to protect a person's eternal soul and the state of society from decay and corruption, they believe they must deter people from sinfully pursuing their own preferences by imposing moral laws on them even if they have a different faith or no faith at all."

Poor example or description.
 
just me said:
I agree.
"For example, a religious fundamentalist favors the Ethic of Divinity. This preference means that in order to protect a person's eternal soul and the state of society from decay and corruption, they believe they must deter people from sinfully pursuing their own preferences by imposing moral laws on them even if they have a different faith or no faith at all."

Poor example or description.
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Oh it was obvious that whoever worded it that way was anti-religious. I try to pick my fights, and just didn't care to get into it, but yeah it was an obvious slam and charicaturizing of fundamentalists--no different from saying blacks are lazy or jews are greedy.

I think it would have been better worded to say that the "divine" ethic is one in which the Divine cares about how we treat each other, and that human capacity to understand morals stems IN PART from a kind of "G-d whispering in our ear," whether one believes it is direct (G-d told Moses...) or indirect (G-d inspires humanity).
 
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[MENTION=680]just me[/MENTION] and [MENTION=1098]randomsomeone[/MENTION]

The description was meant to demonstrate an individual who chose that particular ethic to the exclusion of the others in order to contrast it with the other ethics.

What in particular did you not like about the description?
 
[MENTION=4576]GracieRuth[/MENTION]

That is not at all what I intended. If you feel you could write a better description that is reflective of the ethic then I encourage you to do so. I may be biased toward the other ethics but I certainly did not want to come across as disrespectful of religious or spiritual beliefs. I was thinking of fundamentalist Muslim countries when I wrote that example and I did not mean at all for it to be generalized as an attack against all beliefs.
 
For greater clarification here is a listing of the components of these ethics...

ETHIC OF AUTONOMY
1. Punishment Avoidance (to self)
2. Reward Seeking (to self)
3. Self's Physical Well-Being
4. Self's Psychological Well-Being
5. Self's Interest
6. Other Individual's Physical Well-being
7. Other Individual's Psychological Well-being
8. Other Individual's Interest
9. Fairness and Reciprocity
10. Conscience (guilt)
11. Virtues (autonomy-oriented)
12. Responsibility (for self)
13. Means-Ends Consideration: Ends of an Individual
14. Rights
15. Other Autonomy
ETHIC OF COMMUNITY
1. Punishment Avoidance: Social Sanctions
2. Reward Seeking: Social Benefits
3. Others
 
Peace said:
[MENTION=4576]GracieRuth[/MENTION]

That is not at all what I intended. If you feel you could write a better description that is reflective of the ethic then I encourage you to do so. I may be biased toward the other ethics but I certainly did not want to come across as disrespectful of religious or spiritual beliefs. I was thinking of fundamentalist Muslim countries when I wrote that example and I did not mean at all for it to be generalized as an attack against all beliefs.
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I'm very glad to hear your clarification. In particular, the statement became untrue when it associated thumping others with your morals ONLY with the divine camp. In real life, there are people who are pushy about "the right way to do things" in all three camps, even to the point of outlawing what they conclude as wrong behavior. For example, the autonomy based person is going to be highly intolerant of anyone he/she thinks is "intolerant": there are places in this world where it is a civil offense to say that homosexuality is a sin. This is one of the reasons that I opt for a balanced blending of approaches rather than having one side of the triangle.
 
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Peace said:
@just me and @randomsomeone

The description was meant to demonstrate an individual who chose that particular ethic to the exclusion of the others in order to contrast it with the other ethics.

What in particular did you not like about the description?
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"For example, a religious fundamentalist favors the Ethic of Divinity. This preference means that in order to protect a person's eternal soul and the state of society from decay and corruption, they believe they must deter people from sinfully pursuing their own preferences by imposing moral laws on them even if they have a different faith or no faith at all."

This didn't and doesn't feel right, that's all I guess. Maybe you could try to word it better; maybe not. Last thing I wanted was to cause alarm or bad feelings.
 
niffer said:
why
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Same reason this doesn't feel right: ""You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. " - Al Capone
It is funny, though. Walk into court like that and see what happens.
 
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