M1 Flashcards
refers to beliefs concerning right
and wrong (Deontic Concepts), good and
bad (Value concepts), beliefs that can
include judgments, values, rules, principles,
and theories.
MORALITY
This address the powerful question that
____________ formulated 24,000 years ago:
“How ought we to live?’’
SOCRATES
Ethics is concerned with values
MORAL VALUES
Through sifting and weighing of moral
values we determine what the most
important things are in our lives.
What is worth living for and what is
worth dying for.
We decide what is the greatest good,
what goals we should pursue in life,
what virtues we should cultivate, what
duties we should or should not fulfil,
what values we should put on human
life, and
what pain and perils we should
be willing to endure for notions such as
the common good, justice, and rights.
ETHICS IS CONCERNED WITH VALUES -MORAL VALUES
Solving these problems requires
_________________ to critically evaluate
and re – evaluate existing moral beliefs.
INTELLECTUAL TOOLS
“that by just embracing
morality bequeathed to him by society we
will be left behind and not be able to
defend our beliefs by rational arguments
against criticism.”
PAUL TAYLOR
2 Easy roads in ethics includes:
- SUBJECTIVISM
- SUBJECTIVE RELATIVISM
You can establish your moral beliefs by simply consulting your feelings or emotions.
SUBJECTIVISM
What a person believes or approves of determines the rightness and wrongness of actions.
SUBJECTIVE RELATIVISM
_______ does not give us a royal road to
moral truth. Instead, it shows us how to ask
critical questions about morality and
systematically seek answers supported by
good reasons.
ETHICS
Many of the questions in ethics are among
the toughest we can ever ask like?
- What makes an action right or wrong?
- Is the moral principle “never lie” valid?
- Is morality based on religion?
- Do animals and nature have rights?
- Is it permissible to break a promise in
order to save a person’s life? - Were his intentions good?
3 Ethical Landscape
- MORAL PHILOSOPHY
- PHILOSOPHY
- SCIENCE
- suggests ethics is a branch of philosophy.
- tries to answer the fundamental questions of morality.
MORAL PHILOSOPHY
- is the systematic use of critical reasoning to answer the most fundamental questions in life.
PHILOSOPHY
also studies morality, but not in the way that moral philosophy does.
SCIENCE
- scientific study of moral beliefs and practices.
- Its aim is to describe and explain how
people actually behave and think when
dealing with moral issues and concepts. - This kind of empirical research is
usually conducted by sociologists,
anthropologists, and psychologists. - The point of inquiry is to determine
what actions are right/wrong and what
things are good/bad.
DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS
the study of the principles, rules, or theories that guide our actions and judgments.
NORMATIVE ETHICS
the study of the meaning and logical structure of moral belief.
METAETHICS
the application of moral norms to specific moral issues or cases, particularly those in a profession such as medicine or law,
APPLIED ETHICS
outside, things that when you in good.
INSTRUMANTALLY OR EXTRINSICALLY
GOOD
inside, goodness of person.
EX: telling the truth
INTRINSICALLY GOOD
5 Moral traits of Moral Principle
- PRESCRIPTIVITY
- UNIVERSALIZABILITY
- OVERRIDINGNESS
- PRACTICALITY
- PUBLICITY
Shares this trait with all normative discourse and is used to appraise behavior, assign praise and blame, and produce feelings of satisfaction or guilt.
- need to follow
PRESCRIPTIVITY
Moral principles must apply to all people who are in a relevantly similar situation. This trait is an extension of the principle of consistency.
UNIVERSALIZABILITY
moral principles have predominant authority and override other kinds of principles
OVERRIDINGNESS
moral principle must have practicability, which means that it must be workable and its rules must not lay a heavy burden on us when we follow them.
PRACTICALITY
moral principles must be made public in order to guide our actions.
PUBLICITY
right act is an act that is permissible for you to do. It may be either (a) obligatory or (b) optional
ACTION
is one that morality requires you to do; it is not permissible for you to refrain from doing it
OBLIGATORY ACT
is one that is neither obligatory nor wrong to do. It is not your duty to do it, nor is it your duty not to do it.
Neither doing it nor not doing it would be
wrong.
OPTIONAL ACT
wrong act is one you have an obligation, or a duty, to refrain from doing: It is an act you ought not to do; it is not permissible to do it
WRONG ACT
acts are neither required nor obligatory, but they exceed what morality requires, going “beyond the call of duty.”
SUPEREROGATORY ACTS or HIGHLY ALTRUISTIC ACTS
(from the Greek word deon, meaning “duty”) -
one important kind of ethical theory that emphasizes the nature of the act.
DEONTOLOGICAL
Perhaps the leading proponent of
deontological ethics in recent centuries
is __________
- defended a principle of moral duty that
he calls the categorical imperative
EMMANUEL KANT
“Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it would
become a universal law.”
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
(from the Greek telos, meaning “goal directed”)
TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS
- ethical theories that focus primarily on
consequences in determining moral
rightness and wrongness.
TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS
the most famous of these theories is
utilitarianism, which requires us to do what is likeliest to have the best consequences.
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John
Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”
MILL’S WORDS
Moral philosophers call such good
character traits virtues and bad traits
vices. Entire theories of morality have
been developed from these notions and
are called
VIRTUE THEORIES
The classic proponent of virtue theory
was __________ (384–322 BCE), who
maintained that the development of
virtuous character traits is needed to
ensure that we habitually act rightly.
Aristotle
Full moral description of any act will
take motive into account as a relevant
factor.
MOTIVE
