Ethics: Deontology-Natural Moral Law and Proportionalism Flashcards
complete
Absolute Morality
Fixed right and wrongs, everywhere all the time
Relative Morality
Not fixed so right and wrongs can change
Norm
Standard
Normative ethics
Set criteria of what is morally right or wrong
What does a deontological system hold?
That the moral worth of an action lies in your conforming to duties and rules; you are moral only if you conform to rules.
How are you moral in deontological ethics?
If you follow the rules
What does a teleological system aim to bring about?
Particular goals
What is moral in teleological ethics?
What contributes most to the goal in the particular system eg. figure what is good/bad based on consequences.
What is character based ethics?
Morality is based on final average of character, not based on individual acts.
What are the 3 normative ethics?
Deontological ethics
Teleological ethics
Character based ethics
Key terms of deontological ethics
Intrinsic
Rule
Duty
Absolute
Obligation
Ought
Rights
Natural Moral Law
Key terms of teleological ethics
Relative
Consequences
Utilitarianism
Goal
End
Situation ethics
Purpose
Key terms of character based ethics
Agent centered
Developing
Character based
Virtuous
Virtue ethics
Who developed virtue theory?
Aristotle
Aristotle quote:Persia
“That which is natural is unchangeable and has the same power everywhere just as fire burns here and in Persia.”
Who developed Natural Moral Law?
Aquinas
What does Aquinas believe human’s have?
HUmans have an innate understanding of right and wrong bulit into them.
What 4 causes did Aristotle propose everything has?
Material Cause
Efficient Cause
Formal Cause
Final Cause
What are the 4 types of law from most important to least?
Eternal Law
Divine Law
Natural Moral Law
Human Law
Eternal Law
How the universe works etc.
Only God can have this level of understanding.
Divine Law
Accessible via scripture, it is how God reveals himself and his rules.
Natural Moral Law
Found in human reasoning.
Human Law
Laws created by humans, reflects Natural Moral Law.
Summarise Summa Theologica-Aquinas?
Practical reason is one founded in the notion of good and the precepts of Natural Moral Law is based on being good.
Summa Theologica Aquinas quote?
“Good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided.”
What are the primary precepts?
Preservation of innocent life
Ordered society
Worship God
Educate children
Reproduce
What precept do all living things share?
Preservation of life
Which precepts do humans have in common with animals?
Reproduce
Educate offspring
Which precepts are applicable to only humans?
Worship God
Ordered society
Corrcet use of reason leads you towards what?
God
Correct use of reason leads you away from what?
Evil
What should human laws lead you to and away from from?
Towards God
Away from evil
What did Aquinas believe about morality?
Important for everyone
Being a good person was vital to God’s plan.
What was Aquinas question regarding morality/rules?
How could God give us rules if they aren’t accessible to everyone?
What was Aquinas response to his question?
God made us preloaded with the knowledge of what is good, this is natural moral law.
Who uses natural moral law?
Catholics and majority of Protestants.
What did Aquinas argue God had created the world with?
Natural laws-predictable and goal-driven systems whereby life is sutained and everything functions smoothly.
According to Aquinas what did God do for humans?
Made good things eg. light which are the basic goods.
What are the basic goods?
Life
Reproduction
Educate one’s offspring
Seek God
Live in society
Avoid offence
Shun ignorance
What did Aquinas believe humans were built with?
An intellectual desire to know God.
Explain the basic good of live in society?
Aquinas believed we are pack animals and have a desire for love and acceptance.
What did Aquinas say we didn’t need?
Bible, religious classes or the Church in order to understnad Natural Law.
Whatshows us the basic goods according to Aquinas?
Instincts
Give an example of a prohibition, basic good and positive injunction
Do not kill=prohibition
Life=basic good
Promote life=positive injunction
Aquinas’s response to why people violate natural law if God built us to seek God?
Ignorance-seek what we think is good not what is actually good.
Emotions-emotions can sometimes over power reasoning.
According to natural moral law where is morality grounded?
In God as God created natural moral order and provides us with a reason to be moral.
Critics of Natural Moral Law?
David Hume
Kant
Hume’s criticisms of Natural Moral Law?
Is-ought problem
It’s faulty to assume just because something is a certain way that it’s ought to be that way.
What is real and apparent goods?
According to Aquinas there is a correct way to apply reason and humans can become confused between real and apparent good.
Real good
Right thing to do, fits the human ideal.
Apparent good
Something whcih seems to be good or the right thing to do but whcih does not fit the human ideal.
What are interior and exterior acts?
For Aquinas an act can only be properly good if it is accomponied by the right interior intention.
Exterior act
Actual act
Interior act
Intention
What are the virtues?
Following the real good preserves and improves the self and brings us closer to the ideal human nature which exists in the mind of God. Aquinas argues it’s morally essential for us to cultivate virtues.
What are the morality virtues?
Prudence
Justice
Fortitude
Temperance
What are the spirituality virtues?
Faith
Hope
Love
What is the doctrine of double effect?
It’s always wrong to do a bad act intentionally to bring about good consequences. But sometimes permissible to do a good act despite knowing there will be bad consequences eg. removing the fallopian tube during an ectopic pregnancy.
How was natural moral law changed recently?
Now obligation and rules are more important than virtues.
Explain manualism
Manuals of moral theology were wrote to train Catholic Clergy. They gave examples of specific cases which the clergy could refer to. Very similar to books of law so Catholic natural moral law became deontological.
What is casuistry?
Criticism of focusing too heavily on rules. Manualists omitted Aquinas’ account of virtues as they’re harder to quantify.
Modern interpretations of natural moral law
More interest in Aristotle’s virtue ethics now woth important texts referencing it more frequently and a more flexible approach is being established.
Strengths of Natural Moral Law
Theologically consistent with commandments and with religious teachings from the Church.
Primary precepts are observed to be true in human beings-hard to deny Aquinas’ concept of these could unite all Christians/people were it adopted by all.
Weaknesses of Natural Moral Law
Wrong to assume that everyone belives in God.
Just because you’ve observed all people are inclined to do good-it’s a leap of faith to assume it’s down to God and not a product of evolution.
Not all animals are inclined to reproduce eg. homosexuals, can’t always biologically do so.
Too concerned with morality of actions and not with consequences.
Assumes there’s one universal human nature.
Benefits of Natural Moral Law
Can be used outside of religion.
All people should know what they’re supposed to be doing to be moral-eliminates room for doubt.
It’s straightforward to apply as primary precepts seem natural to all.
Drawbacks of Natural Moral Law
Doesn’t leave room for cultural relativism eg. secondary precepts.
Aquinas assumes we’d all get to the same reason.
Struggles with modern moral perception in society eg. human rights vs abortion.
Sometimes there are grey areas in morality and having such a black and white morality system is not practical.
Practical appliction isn’t realistic as not everyone agrees on precepts and some argue there’s no moral absolutes and we should be relative.
The primary precepts are what?
Absolute and deontological.
Covet
Be envious or to desire something
Manualists
17th century writers of manuals for training Catholic clergy
Telos
Purpose/goal
Catholic moral law today
Shift from virtues regarding natural moral law by Catholic Church is mainly due to manualists. When producing manuals it was easier to quantify rules than virtues and made it more deontological. But it can therefore be criticised as too casuistry but a recent renewal in interest makes reference to the Cardinal and theological virtues.
Who introduced proportionalism?
Richard McCormick
What is propotionalism?
Modern version of Natural Moral Law, more teleogical perspective.
Arguably a comprimise between natural moral law and situation ethics.
Proportionalism a book by Bernard Hoose accepts certain things are right or wrong in themselves.
However this theory says it may be the right thing if there’s a proportionate reason.
Bernard Hoose quote: certain
“There are certain moral rules and it can never be right to go against these rules unless there is a proportionate reason which would justify it.”
What does proportionalism recognise?
Purpose/importance of reflecting on our nature to reveal moral principles as a foundation.
Which scholars first proposed proportionalism and who else has contributed?
Catholic scholars in Europe and America.
America-Richard McCormick is credited with reshaping Catholic moral thinking.
Contributed to by Bernard Hoose and summarised by Vardynand Grosch.
Why did McCormick feel proportionalism was necessary?
Suggested Catholic moral thinking was “all too often one-sidely, confession-orientated, magisterium dominated, common-law sentered and seminary controlled.
Why is proportionalism considered to be visible in Aquinas’ writings?
Proportionalism holds there are certain moral rules and this approach is similar to Aquinas. He considered the question of whether it would be permissible for a starving man to steal in order to save his life and considers this would be lawful.
Summarise the key ideas of proportionalism
In order to decide whether an act is moral the intention of the moral agent has to be considered.
If you ignore the intention then you can only discover the ‘ontic’ or ‘pre-moral’ or ‘physical’ goodness/badness of an act and not it’s morality. (Interior/exterior acts.)
So acts become morally good/bad when you consider the proportion of value to disvalue in the act and intention of the agent.
So there can’t be any intrinsically good or bad acts.
Give an example of application of proportionalism
The physical act of abortion is pre-moral. What decides it’s morality is the individual case and calculations of value against devalue and the intentions of the agent.
Strengths/benefits of propotionalism
It’s use in the Just War Theory shows that it works-JWT was proposed by Augistine and developed by Aquinas. The proportionality clause is that the violence used must be proportional to casualties sufferred.
Based on coomon sense eg. stealing to avoid hunger.
Wide principal and used outside of natural moral law, allowing a proportional response to a threat is built into European Law.
Weaknesses/drawbacks of Proportionalism
Condemned by the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II encyclical ‘veritatis splendor’ on the grounds it denies any action can be intrinsically evil. Many people believe acts such as rape are intrinsically evil.
Proportionalims calculates the proportion of values and disvalue in an act, looks very much in a way of consequentialistic way of deciding moral issues. A problem of consequentialism is that of how we can make accuate predictions about value and disvalue. This is a problem ulitilarians face when trying to calculate how much happiness an act will bring. If it depends on moral guess work the authority of natural moral law is lost and Catholics may aswell be religious utilitarians.
Explain why NML is considered a deontological ethic
Provides people with rules of what is and isn’t moral. You are moral if you follow these rules.
Explain why NML is considered to have teleological origins
All rules/precepts are established in order for humans to be considered moral and reach their telos of being with God in Heaven.
What two factors does proportionalism consider during moral decision making?
Intention/aim
Whether the good or bad consequences are balanced/is it more good or bad.
Why has the Magesterium rejected proportionalism?
Reject there are no intrinsically evil acts which is a key feature of proportionalism. The Magesterium teaches there are intrinsically evil acts.
Name the 4 cardinal virtues of NML
Prudence
Temperance
Justice
Fortitude
