It's a little embarrassing (maybe even a little more than embarrassing) to admit that this is my last class before the completion of my philosophy minor and when it comes to ethics my mind just goes blank. This occurs in religion as well but ethics especially just shorts out my brain. However, I still feel like if a situation arose I'd be able to say what a moral outcome would be- as long as the situation was simple enough- but I wouldn't be able to tell you what that decision was anchored to and what made it moral. I don't think there is anything static enough or universal enough to warrant blanket moral justification- at least I don't see it. I'm extremely interested in how philosophers have approached and are now approaching an idea like "ethics" that to me sounds so broad, nebulous, and packed with such a long history spanning so many cultures that the term almost loses all meaning.

That's not to say I don't think ethics aren't important. Ethics guides our lives- and our lives guide our ethics. But just because something is socially or personally important does not mean it has a philosophical justification (except that perhaps it is socially or personally important). Of course not having a philosophical justification is not necessarily a bad thing- I would point to art and religion as two great things that in my opinion don't have or don't need justification and there are many more. In the end I see ethics as a constantly negotiated (both inter and intra-personally negotiated) field in which no maxim will ever be complete, universal, or capital T True. However, I also don't think this is the tragedy that many of the 19th century philosophers that we are reading made it out to be.