Exam Ethics Flashcards
Metaethics
“where do morals come from?”
Normative Ethics
“Is it the consequences or the intention of the action that matters more?”
Applied Ethics
How do we take Metaethics and Normative Ethics and apply it in situations
Types of relativism
- Egoistic
- Social
- Metaethical
Egoistic relativism
- Get your sense of right and wrong from your own lived experience and understanding of things
- Problem: We don’t live in isolation
Social relativism
Get idea of right and wrong from group that you belong to
Metaethical relativism
- We probably should
- the improbability of a universal principle
Types of Moral Grounding
- metaphysical
- Naturalistic
- sociological
- rationalistic
Determinism
- no free will
- Our choices are made from forces outside ourselves
- Fate
- Problem: If everything is already deteminded than we can use it as an excuse
Libertarianism
- Beliefs in freewill
- We are held accountable for our action
- future is open to possibility
Types of Normative Ethics
- Deontology
- Consequentialism
- Virtue Ethics
metaphysical moral grounding
- Relies on higher power/reglin to know what is right and wrong
- Rooted in religion/spirituality
- Problem: If there is a God there is no need for ethics.
- Rebuttal” Not true, we must interpret religious texts in order to know what is right and wrong
naturalistic moral grounding
- Look at what happens in nature
- Science and nature
sociological moral grounding
Get your idea of right and wrong from the societies/groups you belong to
rationalistic moral grounding
- Uses pure reason as the way of determining right and wrong
- No emotions
Deontology
- acting with a sense of duty, do the moral thing regardless of the outcome
- Kant’s method
Kant: Categorical Imperative
- Identify rule/maxim
- Imagine/assume a world where that rule is applied universally with no exception
- Question if it creates a contradiction/problem
- If so, immoral
if not, moral! :)
suggests a universal moral principle based on reason
Consequentialism
- The right thing is determined by the consequences. Intention doesn’t matter
- Bentham
Bentham’s idea
Bentham’s philosophy came to be known as the greatest good for the greater number
Hedonic Calculus
formula to measure relative pain and relative pleasure
utilitarianism
the greatest good for the greatest number
Virtue Ethics
- what kind of person am I becoming?
- Aristotle
- patterns of actions matter more than individual situation
- the “right action” to take is the action that someone with a generally good character would take
Aristotle’s Golden Mean & his list of virtues
- courage
- temperance
- high-mindedness
- wit
- liberality
- friendliness
- right ambition
- each virtue listed is what he called golden mean, middle ground of 2 extremes
phronesis
practical wisdom
six criteria for the Hedonic Calculus
- intensity— high the better
- duration— longer the better
- certainty— more certain the better
- propinquity— sooner the better
- fecundity— more production the better
- purity— lower the better
- extent (added by John Stuart Mill)— moral value increases with the more peopled benefited
Hedonic Calculus PROBLEM
How do you know the moral you’re using as a standard is actually moral
