implies that any usage of ethics in opposition to the study of Aristotle’s eudaimonia was at one time as irrelevant/improper as the common usage is now.
Uh… ethics is the study of the good. Aristotle has arguments which conclude that eudaimonia is the highest good. But that doesn’t preclude other investigations into the good life. In any case, I have no problem at all with introducing new questions or inventing distinctions. I have a problem with amateurs working in a field and altering the usage of professionals for no good reason. It is bad form and reflects poorly on us. I really doubt that we need to change our definition of the word ethics to be capable of understanding the distinction you are trying to make.
I think, while that statement might be correct for a technical field’s vocabulary, it is not alright to restrict a layman’s usage of certain philosophical terms, like ethics, in the same manner.
A layman can use whatever words he or she likes. But if you want to study a field use the terms as others in that field use them, unless there is actually a problem with that terminology.
I’m reminded of why I left the discipline—it’s a historico-linguistic claptrap.
All I advocated for was the term’s speciation—which, I’ll add again, is already present in the dictionary as well as in common usage. I reject the notion that, in order to suggest this, I first need to be a philosopher by trade.
Axiology is the study of the good. It’s just confusing to name it “ethics” when there’s a perfectly good, more specific word to apply. I may write an entire post on this and similar vocabulary failures soon.
That’s the standard conceptual hierarchy. In any case, I was talking about Aristotle. If your point is “you should have been more clear”, fair enough. Otherwise I don’t really know what we’re talking about or why I’m getting voted down.
Uh… ethics is the study of the good. Aristotle has arguments which conclude that eudaimonia is the highest good. But that doesn’t preclude other investigations into the good life. In any case, I have no problem at all with introducing new questions or inventing distinctions. I have a problem with amateurs working in a field and altering the usage of professionals for no good reason. It is bad form and reflects poorly on us. I really doubt that we need to change our definition of the word ethics to be capable of understanding the distinction you are trying to make.
A layman can use whatever words he or she likes. But if you want to study a field use the terms as others in that field use them, unless there is actually a problem with that terminology.
I’m reminded of why I left the discipline—it’s a historico-linguistic claptrap.
All I advocated for was the term’s speciation—which, I’ll add again, is already present in the dictionary as well as in common usage. I reject the notion that, in order to suggest this, I first need to be a philosopher by trade.
Axiology is the study of the good. It’s just confusing to name it “ethics” when there’s a perfectly good, more specific word to apply. I may write an entire post on this and similar vocabulary failures soon.
Ethics is a subfield of axiology, the study of the good life instead of the good state or something else.
That’s how Aristotle approached it; not all ethicists do.
That’s the standard conceptual hierarchy. In any case, I was talking about Aristotle. If your point is “you should have been more clear”, fair enough. Otherwise I don’t really know what we’re talking about or why I’m getting voted down.