Biblical Passages for Normative Ethics

For this week’s reading, four passages from the Bible were read to evaluate normative ethics.

The first passage was from Matthew 5:17-48, and it was Jesus speaking to a crowd of people going through the Ten Commandments. Jesus was trying to get us, as listeners/ readers, to reinterpret the Ten Commandments. As I was reading through this, I felt like Jesus was trying to get across that no sin is greater or lesser than the other. He wanted us to realize that even ‘internal sins’ are just as bad as violent external crimes. This relates to normative ethics because Jesus is describing how we ought to act. This particular passage begins with duty-based ethics, and then goes into virtue ethics. When he begins saying one of the Ten Commandments, for example Do Not Murder, he says yes, murder is bad, but it goes beyond that. This is when he discusses virtue ethics because he is talking about how our internal sins reflect our character. In virtue ethics, there are specific traits that can be used to describe a good character, and Jesus is using the Ten Commandments to describe these traits.

The next passage lists the Ten Commands again, but it is very straight forward. This passage falls under the duty based ethic category of normative ethics. All of the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses to tell his people are listed out in very simple sentences, with no exceptions. This is duty based ethics because a higher authority is telling us to obey them and there is no way around disobeying them.

Exodus 20:8-22 was the next passage that was read. Pharaoh saw that the Israelites were increasing in number and would soon overpower his own forces. In Pharaoh’s mind, the best way to solve this problem was to turn the Israelites into slaves, and suppress them. The end result of this would be that his crown would be saved, the land would still be his, and his Egyptian people would also be saved. This is consequentialist ethics because the end result favored all Egyptians and the Pharaoh, which is the Pharaoh’s mind was a good end result. This plan was not working well enough, so Pharaoh ordered that all Hebrew boys that were born must be thrown into the Nile. These midwives did not obey the Pharaoh yet instead they obeyed the Ten Commandments, which said Do Not Murder. This viewpoint of the passage is duty- based ethics. It can also be interpreted as the midwives knew that the end result would be more beneficial if they obeyed God and not the Pharaoh. This viewpoint is consequentialist ethics.

The last passage that was read was Romans 7:14-25, and it describes our sinful human nature. This passage just falls under normative ethics in general, which is defines as how humans ought to act. Within all of us is a sinful nature, meaning we really cannot decide to do good on our own. If you are wanting to be good and wanting to be more like Jesus, then we begin to fight our own human nature. Only God can help us conquer this sinful driving force within all of us, and he can help us act more and more like Jesus. This passage really describes the internal moral struggle that we all face.