Italicized quotes are by Peter Kreeft
3. Ethics is not psychology
Ethics is not about how we feel, but about real, substantial truths. We cannot establish truth by how we feel about something. If that were true, then every scientific hypothesis would be correct.
Instead, the scientist tests the hypothesis to determine the truth of her assumption. Ethics is different than science, in that to “test” an ethical hypothesis, such as “Jews are naturally evil and thus must be eliminated” can lead to monstrous actions. This is why it is best to allow the testing happen in one’s head, fully in the theory before it is tested in real life. This is one of the functions that fiction writers provide us—they take an ethical idea (or many of them) and test the idea in a separated universe where no one can get hurt. Philosophers do much the same thing by telling stories. We can also look at real life incidents and speak of the ethical implications of the incident, but real life often has complications that provide us with “red herrings” to erode a clear ethical idea.
4. Ethics is not ideology
Ethics cannot be labeled “conservative” or “liberal” or be connected with any political party or ideological fad. Ethics is truth, without regard to time or place. “Ideologies can be judged as moral or immoral… Ethics argues about and judges ideology.”
“Some philosophers today disagree with this, the Deconstructionists. They argue that ethics is just ideology. In fact, camouflaged ideology. Power putting on the mask of justice. In other words, ‘might makes right.’ Machiavelli teaches this. It is a claim as old as the Greek Sophists.”
Certainly some ethics is just an excuse to obtain more power, to control the masses. But there is an ethics that accomplishes truth. There are right and wrong actions that can be determined by reason.
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