Ethics final exam

Question 1

Jean-Francois Lyotard

Answer 1

Post modernism is “incredulity toward meta-narratives”

Question 2

Meta-narrative (kanes description)

Answer 2

some overall, general story which explains the nature of everything, including everyones individual narrative.

Question 3

Meta-narrative (class notes)

Answer 3

Any attempt to say “this is the way”

Can control ones life

Question 4

Example of meta-narrative (Lyotard)

Answer 4

Modern science tries to “dispossess” every other story

Question 5

Language game and legitimation

Answer 5

all of us live within a “language game,” thus legitimation is confined within each narrative
-different “languages” have different rules for life

Question 6

Michel Foucault

Answer 6

any attempt at objective standards is simply a means of seeking power (he follows Nietzsche here)

Question 7

Metaphysics

Answer 7

the study of what is really real (integral and traditional search for wisdom)

Question 8

Metaphysics two allied “ends” or goals, and the connection of the two

Answer 8

Objective explanation and objective worth
The connection between these two (grounding objective worth in objective explanation) has been surrendered in “postmodern” western thought

Question 9

Objective explanation

Answer 9

understanding the first causes (ultimate reasons/nature) of things as they are in themselves

Question 10

Objective worth

Answer 10

“understanding what is objectively valuable and worth striving for”

• Valuable in itself

Question 11

Subjective worth

Answer 11

Valuable because someone else said so

Question 12

The postmodern clam that we cannot know THE was things are in themselves does not imply that we must give up “objective explanation”

Answer 12

Kane argues (in terms of the end of metaphysics)

Question 13

“The way the world is” according to Kane and the end of metaphysics

Answer 13

Perhaps “the way of the world is” is the sum of all the different ways in which the world is objectively described (it need to be reduced to a single description)
EX. the blind men and the elephant, all had correct descriptions just all incomplete

Question 14

What is a “way” for determining what is “objective” (or not)

Answer 14

Each “way” is a practice that deals with something that is real, thus that thing helps determine what is taken as an objective explanation in that practice, thus the result is not merely subjective or merely a product of that language game

Question 15

Christendom

Answer 15

the culture and the institutional structures ostensibly (apparently/supposedly) built upon the teachings of Christ

Question 16

Christianity

Answer 16

the authentic (personal/individual) following of christ

Question 17

Passion

Answer 17

a deep abiding concern, something in which we are “infinitely interested”

Question 18

Aesthetic stage of life

Answer 18

lives for the please of the moment, for what is interesting rather than boring, thus he fails to have a personality, a well defined self

Question 19

Ethical stage of life

Answer 19

• One defines oneself by making “exclusive”/genuine choices, taking ones own life and the lives of others very seriously (passionately seeking to help others, to do what is right)
• Thus, good/evil becomes the means of evaluating ones life
• ethics is grounded in the fundamental ethical principle that “the universe is higher than the individual”

Question 20

Religious stage of life

Answer 20

Putting full faith in God

???

Question 21

Aesthetic way of life (class notes)

Answer 21

Making life as beautiful as possible. No commitment. Avoid being bored. Not ethical. Selfish.

Question 22

Ethical way of life (class notes)

Answer 22

Taking your own life and all of life seriously

Question 23

Religious way of life (class notes)

Answer 23

Meaningful

Question 24

The teleological suspension of the ethical

Answer 24

• A key aspect of the religious way of life
• If being ethical=being religious, there is no need for faith only duty
• Genuine religion does recognize the claim of the universal (suspends, does not invalidate it)
• Faith is paradox to ethical reasoning
• Abraham is not a tragic hero because the sacrifice of Isaac is not done for the same of the universal (good of humanity), but to test his faith
• The “temptation” for Abraham was to be ethical rather than religious (tempted to not suspend the ethical and not kill Isaac)
• Christianity requires us to give up the ethical dream of self mastery (in order to attain the infinite relation of love with our creator)

Question 25

Paradox of faith

Answer 25

• Faith is a paradox of ethical reasoning

- Our inability to surrender completely, to completely trust our faith

Question 26

“truth is subjectivity”

Answer 26

The way in which one really decides (accepts) what is true (what one lives for and by-not merely what the “facts” are) is always personal and individual.
*this does not mean that every/any choice one makes is wise or correct. Life is risky.

Question 27

Faith

Answer 27

• A miraculous passion, a deep abiding conviction that cannot be produced by human effort.
• “holding fast to an objective uncertainty with infinite passion”

Question 28

Abortion

Answer 28

the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy

Question 29

Main arguments of abortion

Answer 29

Fetuses have no legal rights
Fetuses do not have the characteristics of people
Fetuses cannot feel pain

Question 30

Human (Warren)

Answer 30

• Consciousness
• Reasoning
• Self motivated activity
• Capacity to communicate
• Self awareness