The podcast and reading were very inciteful and educated me on the whole concept of ethics and morality differently from previously taught. The two types of claims, normative and relative, regarding ethics are interesting because of their vast differences. The normative framework shows a universal truth and that there is a good and bad whereas relative is the no universal truth and good or bad depends on each person. When investigating cultures with a hybrid model of normative and relative ethics like the United States, individual intentions help justify “right and wrong” regarding people’s moral compasses.
The concept mentioned in the podcast about an action’s intention is crucial in determining whether something is moral and ethical. Before even listening or reading, today at practice, I exemplified this perfectly. So, a few weeks ago, my teammate shanked a chip, and the ball got me. It was a complete accident, and we just laughed it off. However, I like to mess with people. Today, she was hitting, and I decided that it would be an excellent time to get her back. I punched an 8 iron at her low, and it caught her foot. I was happy, but she was a little, you could say, “heated.” Of course, she was fine, but because it was on purpose, it was evident that she was a little more upset, and my actions had more significant consequences than hers previously. I believe that intention bridges the gap between normative and relative frameworks because, universally, we know that hitting her intentionally was wrong. When you look at the individual level, few people think intentionally hitting my teammate is right because I purposely did the action knowing it bad. To what extent do you believe intention impacts your or the world’s moral compass?
You raise an important question that impacts the conversation around ethics greatly. While I feel that intentionality carries more moral weight in determining whether an action is good or bad, I still feel divided on this issue after evaluating the consequences of said action. Intentionality can be difficult to unravel, especially in situations where the lack of evidence is so great that you only have the choice to believe what the other person is saying to you. This would be a great discussion point to bring up in class.
I loved your blog post Kendall! I thought the example was both humorous and beneficial in explaining your points. While hitting your teammate may have not been the right or moral thing to do, it was intentional. This perspective on life is very interesting because it applies to a lot of things we do.
I thought you made a great point about how the hybrid model aims to combine both normative and relative ethics. When the reading talked about how the same action could be punished or not punished based solely on intention, I thought this was very interesting. Your example was a great way to apply this to the real world and make it easier to conceptualize! In conclusion, I think that intentions are extremely important when evaluating someone’s moral compass, mainly because so much is out of our control besides our intentions and opinions.