Lec 1: What is ethics? Flashcards
What is a normative proposition? What is the difference between law and ethics as sources of normativity?
- tells you what you “ought’ to do
- both prescribe proscribe, but law does so by threat of punishment
When faced with the problem of the slippery slopes, what options does a philosopher have?
1) Accept the force of logic and revise your initial intuitions
2) Find a non-arbitrary stoppage point on the slope
3) Revise and refine the normative proposition
Give examples of normative propositions
- Good & bad
- Just & unjust
- Fair & unfair
Do normative concepts require justification or explanation?
justification
What is ethics?
- ethics is to ANALYZE normative propositions
- ethics is deductive thinking
What are the 2 types of analysis in deductive thinking?
- conceptual analysis: thinking about something through what it means
- consistency analysis: look at the consistency between different intuitions
What are the 2 categories of normative concepts (2 types of justification)? Which philosophies use each category?
value concepts
- Good and bad
- to bring about the best outcome
- consequentialism
deontic concepts
- right and wrong
- rightness and wrongness are determined independently of goodness or badness
- deontology
Ethics determines law. Does law determine ethics?
no
What is ethics NOT?
- personal opinion
- law
- religion
- politics
What is relativism?
An action can be right or wrong depending on its context.
What are the 4 levels of environmental ethics?
Anthropocentricism
Sentientism
Biocentrism
Ecocentrism
What was Rene Descartes a proponent of?
anthropocentrism
Why, according to Rene Descartes, don’t animals have intrinsic value and why are they equivalent to objects?
Because they cannot reason
