LECTURE 1: INTRO TO PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS: Flashcards
Mother Discipline
Philosophy
Meta-discipline, a second order inquiry
Philosophy
Sophia
Wisdom
Philo
Love
Nature of things, what they are, how they come into being, no distinction between philosophy and religion
Phusis
To abstract some unifying explanation about nature of reality and man’s prospect in it
Speculative Philosophy
Man should have assumed the existence of coherent universe
Importance of Pre-Socratics
The universe was animate and alive
Hylozoists
Where did Philosophy start?
Miletus, Greek Ionia
Timeline of Thales
640 - 550 BC
Mathematician that brought geometry from Egypt
Thales
Monopoly of the olive oil trade
Thales
Magnetism is evidence of life
Thales
Flat Earth Theory (when you reach the edge, you will fall)
Thales
The fundamental substance is water, as it can change from solid, liquid, to gas.
Thales
CHARACTERISTICS OF A PHILOSOPHIC PROBLEM: Isaiah Berlin
- Very broad or general
- No single methodology for answering these questions
- Seems to have no practical utility
According to which philosopher is this quote: “Philosophy is vision.”
Friedrich Waismann
Core of attitudes, beliefs, and feelings that give coherent vitality to a people. It resides in the heart and minds of the people, in what they expect of each other and themselves, or dislike, value, and disdain
Ethos/ethnos
Systematic questioning and critical examination of the underlying principles of morality
Ethics
Study of values and their justification
i.e Morality of behaviors, social policies and institutions.
Ethics
Study of moral good or badness, the rightness and wrongness of an act
Morality
Seem to make absolute and universal claims while many ethical rules seem to be more optional and relative to a particular society.
Moral Principles
___________ will constitute our morals.
Mores
Giving reasons and making arguments to justify one’s moral conclusions.
Moral Reasoning
Two points of view of analysis morality
Society and Individual as a Free Agent
Systematic exposition of a particular view about what is the basis of good and right.
Ethical Theory
Provides reasons and norms for judging
Ethical Theory
Provides ethical principles or guidelines to embody certain values
Ethical Theory
___________ are evaluative because they place a value in some action or practice.
Moral Judgments
Two kinds of Moral Judgments
Normative Judgment and Descriptive Judgment
Two types of Ethical Theory
Normative Ethics and Metaethics
Deals with specific questions of right and wrong, good and evil
Normative Ethics
Base their moral judgments on expected results
Teleological (Consequentialist)
Nature of the act alone, regardless of the consequences; Duty-based ethics
Deontological (Non-consequentialist)
Emphasis on the virtue or character or flourishing of an individual as part of his human nature
Virtue Ethics
Deals with more abstract questions concerning the meaning and justification of ethical concepts and principles
Metaethics
Three kinds of Normative Ethics
Teleological, Deontological, Virtue Ethics
WHY DO WE NEED TO STUDY ETHICS?
- Ethics are continually changing.
- We have an ethically pluralist society - no single code of ethics but different values and rules.
- Enables us to choose between alternative courses of action or opposing values
- Enables us to reconsider our ethical priorities
