How do (metaphysics and epistemology) affect ethics or values Essay

How do (metaphysics and epistemology) affect ethics or values - Essay Example In short, religious belief or knowledge has its roots in two separate and most probably different epistemological grounds and that is where the boundaries start. The connection between ethics and metaphysics or epistemology is essential and it has to exist. Without this connection, how can one define ethics in the first place? Ethics are some rules or guidelines on behaviors that are supposed to be named as ‘good’. Now epistemology would question, what is good? This can push us into a deeper hole where we have to question everything, even our own existence. For the sake of argument, let’s leave it to a preliminary definition of good as something which is opposite of evil or bad. Again, epistemology question would rise, why do ethics have to be good? And the answer lies in the fact that it leads to personal pleasure. This personal pleasure can be connected to immediate benefits in this reality knows as life or it could relate to benefits understood in the life after death. This notion of life after existence arrives from the premise that every living thing dies after a certain period of time and humans are nothing but a decaying organic matter which has an expiration date. This begs to question that there is nothing without purpose; rain, clouds, winds, animals, mountains, minerals, everything has a purpose, and then what is the purpose of a human life? This leads to various destinations like religion, heaven, hell and God. This idea that things should live up to their purpose or end has two aspects. The first ‘end’ is a means to fulfill some other purpose known in Aristotle’s terminology as instrumental end whereas the other end is the intrinsic end and is an end in itself, serving the purpose of its own existence. For instance if a carpenter builds a barrack for soldier, it’s purpose as a carpenter is over or he has found his end as a carpenter because he has done his job. But such an end