Lecture 1 and 2

Question 1

Moral relativism

Answer 1

~Morals are relative, depend on what has influenced you

Question 2

The Republic

Answer 2

a book that sets ethical standards for people, by Plato

Question 3

Ring of Gyges

Answer 3

~A hypothetical magical ring that could make you invisible

~A thought experiment of how people would react

Question 4

Charles Darwin

Answer 4

~Morality is not something to be learned

~What separates us humans from other things is that we have a conscience

Question 5

Oxytocin

Answer 5

A chemical that is considered the love hormone

Question 6

Patricia Churchland

Answer 6

Talked about the voles: how the animals mate for life because of the amount of oxytocin in their body, prairie and montane voles

Question 7

Mencious

Answer 7

~Chinese philosopher who thinks we are born morally good

~Born with sprouts, they develop over time, but can be stunted

Question 8

Xunzi

Answer 8

~Chinese philosopher, thinks we are born morally confused

~Disagrees with Mencious

Question 9

Augustine

Answer 9

People came from perfect God, but because of original sin, humans become evil

Question 10

French Enlightenment

Answer 10

~The time period when Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived

~Science trumped religion

Question 11

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Answer 11

~Society is the one who changes people

~Scarcity of resources and competitive nature of humans creates a moral dilemma

Question 12

Human creatures with a conscience

Answer 12

Believers in God and the 10 commandments are not relativists because there are standards (i.e. The Ten Commandments)

Question 13

Plato

Answer 13

~Sometimes we must tell lies for good reason

~Paternalism, noble lie

Question 14

Noble lie

Answer 14

~White lie, Plato says it its ok to lie for good reason, governments justify lying to the citizenry because they believe they know better
~Lie for the benefit of others

Question 15

Paternalism

Answer 15

~Government or parents tell lies because they think its in the best interest of others
~Soft paternalism, the notion that sometimes we have to tell lies for the good of other, not on such a large scale

Question 16

John Stuart Mill

Answer 16

~A lie is justified when the good consequences outweigh the bad
~Lying erodes trust

Question 17

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Answer 17

~Sometimes its ok to lie, defends the living truth

~Obligated to know how our words are understood by others, ~We often mean something different than the literal truth

Question 18

Living truth

Answer 18

The story of Santa Clause, isn’t actually true, but we mean for the moral concept of doing good things to be true

Question 19

Immanuel Kant

Answer 19

~Ought implies can, he says it is always wrong to tell a lie
~To act morally is to act freely
~It is irrational to lie

Question 20

Categorical imperative

Answer 20

~Will our action benefit society or not, if everyone thought if “if more people did this would society still benefit?” If it will work, then it’s ok to do this
~Immanuel Kant’s thought

Question 21

Adrienne Rich

Answer 21

~Wrong to lie especially in contexts of trust because we build our entire worldviews around the beliefs that we think are told to us honestly
~Liars are lonely, hide true beliefs from people, can’t connect

Question 22

Niccolo Machiavelli

Answer 22

~Advocates lying, but truth is the easiest and quickest way to deal with a problem
~Lying must be the most practical way, situational ethics

Question 23

Friedrich Nietzsche

Answer 23

~We learn to lie by lying to ourselves first
~Machiavelli and Nietzsche believe good things can be achieved through deception
~Blue-eyed lies are the most dangerous

Question 24

Blue-eyed lies

Answer 24

Lies we tell ourselves before we tell other people

Question 25

George Orwell

Answer 25

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” -George Orwell
~Most people lie 1 time a day, some groups around 40

Question 26

Herodotus

Answer 26

~said that “Circumstances make people, people do not make circumstances.”
~He is a relativist