Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:26:44.835Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

VICTIMS AS THE CENTRAL FOCUS OF ETHICS: THE PRIORITY OF AMELIORATING SUFFERING OVER MAXIMIZING HAPPINESS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2018

Get access

Abstract

The key focus in ethics should be on victims. Victims are those that suffer from unnecessary and preventable pain and misery. Non-human animals can also suffer and should therefore be included in the moral circle. Ethical living is striving to avoid harm to others and striving to help alleviate or prevent suffering. Being good isn't easy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 These were the times before awareness of the male gender bias. Popper wrote ‘man’.

2 Popper, Karl, The Open Society and its Enemies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952), vol. I, ch. 5, n. 6Google Scholar.

3 Singer, Peter, The Life Your Can Save: How to do your part to end world poverty (2010)Google Scholar; The Most Good You Can Do How effective altruism is changing ideas about ethical living (2016).

4 Unger, Peter, Living High and Letting Die. Our Illusion of Innocence (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.