Midterm

Question 1

What are ethics

Answer 1

Truth/virtue/morality
Individual to a person
Different ethics leads to different conflict/disagreement

Question 2

Ethics are not

Answer 2

Feelings 
Religion 
law -legality does not equal ethicality 
Following culturally accepted norms
Science

Question 3

Ethics are

Answer 3

In pursuit of good 
Investigative
Normative
Theory driven 
Practical and applied

Question 4

Ethics v Morals

Answer 4

There is no difference definitionally, but there is a difference in terms of use

Question 5

Ethics v taste

Answer 5

Photo of falling man from 9/11 was taken down from newspapers because people thought it was distasteful but it was not unethical

Question 6

Ethics and responsibility

Answer 6

• with power comes great responsibility
• If you have the power to move people, you have the responsibility to that action
• Ex: the man who took a photo of a starving girl and didn’t help her first

Question 7

Ethics and intentionality

Answer 7

• Responsibility is tied to Intention
• People assign Intention motives to what people say/do
• the young men responsible for Columbine shooting wore black trench coats like Keanu’s in the Matrix
• You find a cause so we can have a solution; makes the world a lot easier to comprehend

Question 8

Ethics and Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 8

reaction to something is based on your views and beliefs

Question 9

Ethics and loyalty

Answer 9

• People do not act rational because their loyalty to perception
• Our loyalties change our perception

Question 10

Communication is ephemeral

Answer 10

• comes/goes/fleeting/temporary

- Only some communication is ephemeral for example, conversations and snapchats

Question 11

Rhetorical

Answer 11

• Rhetorical text is a persuasive text

- Weather channels are rhetorical because they persuade people

Question 12

Transactional nature of communication

Answer 12

• Content + relational levels of a message
• Content: what is said
• Relational: how it is said

Question 13

Constitutive

Answer 13

• Making relational worlds

- Having power to give or establish organized existence to something

Question 14

Ethical reasoning

Answer 14

Experience 
         -Reliving experience
Interpretation 
Analysis 
         -Articulate feelings

Question 15

Our ethical worldview

Answer 15

Paradigms can shift but it takes work, we create healthy mechanisms (coping) or immature defense mechanisms (ignorance, avoidance, denial)

Question 16

Stages of moral reasoning

Answer 16

1) Identifying the ethical issue
2) Get the facts
3) Evaluate alternatives
4) make/ test the decision
5) act/reflect on the outcome

Question 17

assumptions of ethical debate

Answer 17

• Moral claims are either true or false

- Humans know the truth value of moral thought

Question 18

Epistemology/Ontology

Answer 18

what is real

Question 19

Moral Nihilism

Answer 19

• question very nature of reality
• We don’t know what reality is so we have no moral facts
• Believes there are no truth

Question 20

Moral Skepticism

Answer 20

-epistemic ( what we can know about the world) objective truth may be possible, but can not be clear that we can or do know what they are

Question 21

Truth

Answer 21

Can ethical assessment be proven true?
What is true to one, may not be true to another
Truth is often a function of what we know and how well we argue or story our point of view

Question 22

Cognitivism

Answer 22

Moral request, most traditional ethics: assume a correct theory( one is right and the other is wrong)

Question 23

Noncognitivism

Answer 23

-moral statements are not claims therefore they cannot know if they are true or false but are expressions of our likes and dislikes, highlights the problem of “truth” vs TRUTH

Question 24

Error theory

Answer 24

• Scientific view
• Human beings function better if they are deceived by their genes into thinking that there is a disinterested objective morality binding upon them, which all should obey
• Morality is just a useful fiction, we think we are talking about something real, but moral claims are no different claims than claims about unicorns

Question 25

norms

Answer 25

morals become norms

Question 26

Rawls

Answer 26

- the duty to play fair by the rule - social contract and tacit consent = moral obligation to obey the law, as long as the system is fair and agreed upon, citizens are obliged to obey

Question 27

Mill

Answer 27

- personal interests and behavior are outside the purview of legal and social regulation but may not be moral - an individual is justified in disobedience if a government oversteps its bounds (disobedience free of moral obligation, but not legal)

Question 28

signs

Answer 28

- signs differentiate us from other things - signs become symbols - symbols provide understanding but you can always create new meaning for something - meaning only matters if you share it with somebody else, for it to be useful

Question 29

levels of meaning

Answer 29

1) Indexical Meaning a) Meaning by association b) Signs trigger meaning 2) Symbolic meaning a) Meaning by agreement b) Sign agreed upon by community c) Connotative and denotative signs 3) Iconic meaning a) Meaning by resemblance b) Signs represent things

Question 30

artifacts

Answer 30

Artifacts----> ideology, relations, true vs real

Question 31

ideology

Answer 31

- System of belief characteristics of a particular class or group - An ideology or consciousness is an interrelated system of meanings by the system of artifacts that constitute a culture

Question 32

textual experience of culture

Answer 32

When something is produced or reproduced it tells you something about that culture

Question 33

Communication as a medium of experience/reflection of self

Answer 33

The medium is a message/metaphor

Question 34

Implied audience

Answer 34

readers/listeners imagined by the writer before and during the creation of a text

Question 35

what is Neil Postman’s primary argument (amusing ourselves to death)

Answer 35

The world is changing because media is changing

Question 36

stages of media history (McLuhan)

Answer 36

1) oral 2) written 3) print 4) electronic 5) digital

Question 37

the medium is the message/massage/metaphor

Answer 37

- different generations were trained on different mediums - Technology in an era should tell you about people in that era - Visual media changes who we are and how we process information - We look for shortcuts

Question 38

Orwell

Answer 38

- oppressive government - what you can't do - culture of what we hate - use Hunger games as an example

Question 39

Huxley

Answer 39

- everything is ok | - we are all so happy that we are kept in our space

Question 40

Soma

Answer 40

- We get sucked up in this world so we forget to live | - comfortable things keep us in check

Question 41

Printed vs electronic media and the effect on society

Answer 41

- Print: rational, enlightenment (a hot medium) | - Television or electronics are emotional and temporal (operated on basis of shortcut)