Ethics Quiz 1 Flashcards
Standard/Norm
-to say that a human being is the measure of all things could be to say that each individual person is the measure for what is true or right.
-individual relativism
Montaigne (1533-1592)
- French skeptic
- religious tolerance = untypically tolerant
Customs
- human inventions that can be changed anytime
Moral Skepticism
- the view that we cannot have real moral knowledge
-antimoralism = the stance of those who think it is possible to do away with morality altogether and who positively reject all moral thinking and judgements
Antigone
- subject to a “higher law”
- non-conformist
- conviction/ consciences
Ismene
- law abiding
- conformists
Creon (the king)
- dictator
-laws of the state
Haemon
- dutiful son of Creon
- driven/ desires justice
Teiresias
- prophet like / soothsayer
- speaking truth to power
Meletus and Anytus
Charges were brought against Socrates for corrupting the youth and denying the Gods and bringing in religious innovations.
Socrates Debate
debating about the objective truth of justice and morality generally. Attempts to show that there is a single methods that can be used to arrive at agreement on right and wrong.
Commensurable
measurable by the same standard
Thrasymachus argument
argues that justice is nothing but the interest of the stronger.
Socrates’ 4 beliefs of justice
1) Injustice creates conflict and strife
2) Justice enables harmony and peace
3) Harmony and peace are preferable to conflict and strife
4) Therefore, Justice is preferable to Injustice
Plato’s Division of the Soul
1) Reason
2) Spirit
3) Appetite
Nichomachean Ethics
a sustained examination of the concepts of happiness, the good life, self-fulfillment, moral virtue, choice, and many related topics.
eudaimonia
happiness - to live or do well
Rational part of humans
- obedient to reason (development)
- possessing reason (innate intelligence)
Practical life of humans
- moral state (passive)
- moral activity (active)
3 classes of goods
- external goods
- goods of the soul
- goods of the body
Intellectual Virtue
Both originated and fostered mainly be teaching; therefore it demands experience and time
Aristotle’s State of the Soul
either an emotion, a capacity, or disposition
3 Dispositions
1) vice of excess
2) vice of deficiency
3) virtue
Nonvoluntary
An act down through ignorance is never voluntary, but it is involuntary by virtue of its causing pain and regret
Aristotle’s definition of choice
deliberate desire of things in our power
Sophrosune
means temperance
Shu
The Four Books of Confucianism
6 claims made by cultural relativism
1) Difference societies have different moral codes
2) There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societal code better than another.
3) The moral code of our own society has no special status; it is merely one among many.
4) There is no “universal truth” in ethics; that is there are no moral truths that hold for all peoples at all times.
5) The moral code of a society determines what is right within that society; that is if the moral code of a society says that a certain action is right, then that action is right, at least within that society.
6) It is mere arrogance for us to try to judge that conduct of other peoples. We should adopt an attitude of tolerance toward the practices of other cultures.
explain Plato’s forms
- absolute beauty, absolute justice, absolute goodness
- the forms transcend this world and everything individual
Genuine knowledge is theoretical
