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Ethics has to do with the general nature of morals. Implicit in the concept of morals is the conviction that one ought to behave in a particular way, and this in turn demands the concepts of choice and will. What is the origin of the knowledge of how ought one to behave? The solution to this long-standing epistemological problem turns on antithetical philosophic “assumptions,” but as we will show, while the validity of the assumption is not a psychological concern, the adoption of one assumption or another turns on many factors which are a legitimate and important area for investigation.
The empiricist point of view, most clearly presented by David Hume, assumed that the sole source of knowledge was experiential. In 1751 Hume stated, “As the … foundation of ethics is a question of fact, not of abstract science, we can only expect success by following the experimental method and deducing general maxims from a comparison of particular circumstances…. Men are now cured of their passion for hypotheses and systems in natural philosophy and will harken to no arguments but those which are derived from experience. It is full time they should attempt a like reformation in all moral disquisitions and reject every system of ethics, however subtle and ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation.”
A contrary view was presented by Immanuel Kant some 25 years after Hume's paper on morals. Kant said, “I only ask whether the nature of science does not require that we should always carefully separate the empirical from the rational part, and prefix to physics proper (or empirical physics) a metaphysic of nature, and to practical anthropology a metaphysic of morals, which must be carefully cleared of everything empirical so that we may know how much can be accomplished