Ethics are defined as rules about good or bad behavior and are based on morality; what is morally right or wrong. This field of study is involved in defending, organizing and recommending concepts regarding right or wrong demeanor. Ethics seek to resolve issues of human morality including the best way people should live as well as right or wrong actions in varying situations. Ethical theories are divided in to three subject areas referred to as Meta ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics (Hinman, 2003). Meta ethics seek to find out the origin and meaning of ethical principles, normative ethics consists of practical moral standards distinguishing right from wrong while applied ethics are involved in controversial issues such as animal rights, homosexuality, war or abortion. However there are no distinction lines between these fields as different issues may overlap and require views stemming from all of them. The notion of equating ethics to one’s feelings is very rampant though this is different from the actual truth. Following one’s feeling may actually be a deviation from doing what is ethical (Hinman, 2003).
Ethics can neither be equated to the rule of law nor to what society accepts since although the law incorporates ethical standards there is a tendency of deviation in certain issues. Standards of behavior change from one society to the next and what is a norm and custom in one society may be entirely corrupt in another. Ethics is thus founded on standards of right and wrong in terms of obligations fairness and virtues. This includes rights relating to humanity and virtues of loyalty, honesty and compassion. It is important to note that the determinant of one’s moral beliefs and conduct is oneself and striving to ensure morality defines what is ethical (Hinman, 2003). Understanding the definition of ethics helps to decide who is right between Hume and Kant in what determines our actions; is it our desires or do we act out of duty. Hume thinks that our intentional actions are always determined by our desires while Kant thinks that because we possess autonomy we can perform an action out of duty regardless of what we happen to desire.
Hume believed that a belief on its own is not adequate and reason is the only slave to desire or passion (Sophie, 2006). This contrasts the thoughts of Kant which describe having a desire to act morally as corruption of moral motivation. Hume’s thoughts of intentional actions being determined by desires resulted in the Humean Theory of Motivation. This theory consists of a belief and desire pair where a belief must be in conjunction with a desire for an action to be produced. Reason alone does not motivate one to do something but rather produces a belief. This belief is a mere representation of facts which without passion or desires cannot be executed (Ayer, 2000). Hume’s theory is characterized by a number of concerns leading to its rejection. In comparison with Kant, Hume’s direction of thought is not right. First the motivating passions seem not to have a genesis; it also portrays the incapability of reason to generate desire and thirdly the ineffectiveness of beliefs to produce action in the absence of desire. The main point of concern is whether actions are caused by beliefs alone or if beliefs do generate desires.
Human beings cannot be compared with other objects in nature that are said to do things as they are rational and some of the things they do can be explained in terms of reasons whether good or bad. These reasons are descriptive in nature on contrast to explanations given for the things that objects do. There is logic for seeking an explanation from a person’s actions since there are reasons for that specific action. So if people perform actions with a reason in mind, stating that our intentional actions are always determined by our desires disagrees with this notion. Not all things we do are preceded by conscious processes of figuring out what we exactly want but sometimes we do deliberate. Whether or not we do something out of a deliberation which involves reason and trying to figure out or not, there is an understanding of reasons driving one to the actions. Our desires are not the mere determinants of our actions but rather our reasoning in deliberation of whether to perform the action or not. Deliberation may involve descriptive questions about the considerations that move us in to performing specific actions. Hume tries to explain the motivation of our actions through desire but this is not the sole determinant.