Ethical relationship

An ethical relationship, in most theories of ethicsthat employ the term, is a basic and trustworthy relationship that one has to another human being, that cannot necessarily be characterized in terms of any abstraction other than trustand common protection of each other's body. Honestyis very often a major focus.

Usually the most basic of these relationships studied is that between the mother and child, and second most basic is between sexual partners? the focus of feminismand Queer theoryrespectively, where relationships are central. Family role theoryextends this to study paternalistic, maternalistic and sibling roles, and postulates that one's later relationships are formed largely in order to fill the roles one has grown to find comfortable as part of one's family environment - the family of originthus setting pattern for the family of choice.

As contrasted to theories of ethics that derive from social dispute resolution, or the meta-ethicsas defined in Western moral philosophy, ethical traditionsemphasizing abstract moral codesexpressed in some language with some judgemental hierarchy, ethical relationship theories tend to emphasize human development. Thus they focus on unequal powerand such matters as sexual honesty, marital commitment, child-raising, and responsibility to conduct such essential body and care matters as toilet training, weaning, forming attitudes to sexualityand to masturbation. Failures to consider consequences of teachings or examples set in these matters is disastrous, as it leads to failures of the most fundamental relationship any person has: to their own body, shame in it, pride in it, care for it, and etc. Care and concern for other's bodies follows.

No ethical traditionhas failed to prescribe at least some rules for the conduct of such relationships.

Carol Gilliganfamously championed the role of relationships as central to moral reasoning, and superior as a basis for understanding human choices than any prior linguistic or meta-ethical concept. Lawrence Kohlberg, her colleague famous for work on moral developmentas a part of human development, had reservations, but eventually joined her in starting a descriptive ethicsof relationship conduct in what they called the ethical community or just community: This was in effect a community of practicewhich, at least in Kohlberg's conception, had a core epistemic communityof those trusted to define and resolve the disputes between members, and to facilitate the growth of moral development: not only in children, but prisoners and others. Their democratic educational interventions are still the standard against which all work in ethical relationship psychologyis measured. However they did not reconcile the different approaches to moral development they took to the project, rather, they played quite different roles in the interventions.

Donald R. C. Reed, whose Following Kohlberg: Liberalism and the Practice of Democratic Community, 1998, outlined the extension of these principles to that of deliberative democracy, claims that "During the four years following publication of Gilligan's In a Different Voice, (1982), Kohlberg and Gilligan both revised their accounts of moral development so that they converged far more than is commonly recognized." He argues for "extending this convergence to include the understanding developed in the just community projects."

There is also potential for application of these methods to ethical tradition. Kohlberg's student Burton Visotzky, for instance, in The Genesis of Ethics, 1997, applied the relationship approach to Ethics in the Bible. The book focuses on the choices and interactions of major characters in the Book of Genesis. Visotzky exploits much of the Talmudic, midrashand magisterium, demonstrating that these Jewish theological traditionstoo had often focused on the ethical relationship, not only between Man and God, but between others in one's family, tribe or community.

Mohandas Gandhi, Confucius, Menno Simonsand Baruch Spinozaare examples of figures in moral philosophyand political philosophywho focused first and foremost on the ethical choices made in the actual framing and encounter of moral interventions. Greensand New Confuciansare two examples of modern movements that are derived in part from relational traditions.

See also

• Lawrence Kohlberg
• Global ethics
• Subject-object problem

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical+relationship Wikipedia article Ethical relationship.