Midterm Exam Flashcards
What is moral philosophy about?
Moral philosphy is about what we ought to do in a certain situation.
- What is morally right or morally wrong?
- What is good or bad?
What is bioethics?
The moral philosphy of medicine
What is meant by an argument?
Arguments are propositions/facts presented in logical support of a conclusion.
Deductive Logic
The premises contain/indicate the conclusion; if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.
The argument “draws out” the conclusion from the premises.
Inductive Logic
The premises provide evidence (or raise the probability) for the conclusion; even if the premises are true, the conclusion can be false.
The conclusion extends beyond (infers from) what is contained in the premises.
Ex: Deductive Logic
Mathematical Proof
Ex: Inductive Logic
Generalization about Society
What are secular moral philosphical arguments based on?
Normative Ethical Principles/Theories
Levels of Moral Discourse
- Cases
- Rules, Rights, Codes
- Normative Ethics
- Metaethics
Moral Discourse: Cases
The facts of the case
Moral Discourse: Rules, Rights, Codes
The basic rules, fundamental rights, and institutional ethical codes pertaining to the case
Moral Discourse: Normative Ethics
The principles of right action, the values, or the virtues of the case
What is ethical?
Moral Discourse: Metaethics
The source of ethics for the case
How do we know what is ethical?
What are the sources of ethics?
Metaethics
- Religious: Divine Will, Divine Law
- Secular: Natural Law, Hypothetical Contracts
- Relativist: Culture, Personal Preferences, Social Contracts
How do we know what is ethical?
Metaethics
- Religious: Revelation, Scripture, Experience, Church Experience
- Secular: Reason, Intuition, Social Contract, Experience/Observation
Simple Method of Moral Discourse
- Facts
- Concepts
- Values
- Logic
What makes an argument valid?
If the conclusion logically follows from the premises
What makes an argument sound?
- If the conclusion logically follows from the premises
- If the premises are true
Valid Inference Rules
- Modus Ponens
- Modus Tollens
Modus Ponens
- If A is true, then B is true
- A is true
- Therefore, B is true
Modus Tollens
- If A is true, then B is true
- B is not true
- Therefore, A is not true
Formal Logical Fallacies
- Affirming the Consequent
- Denying the Antecedent
Af
Affirming the Consequent
Logical Fallacy
- If A is true, then B is true
- B is true
- Therefore, A is true
Denying the Antecedent
Logical Fallacy
- If A is true, then B is true
- A is not true
- Therefore, B is not true
Informal Logical Fallacies
- Argumentum ad Hominem (Argument against Person)
- Tu Quoque (Hypocrisy)
- Argumentum ad Populum (Appeal to Populace)
- Straw Man Argument (Mischaracterization)
- Appeal to Authority
- Red Herring (Irrevelance)
- Begging the Question (Petitio Principii)
- Slippery Slope Argument
- Argument from Nature
- False Dichotomy
- Equivocation
- No-True-Scotsman Fallacy (Appeal to Purity)
- Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
- Ten-Leaky-Buckets Tactic
Argumentum ad Hominem
Argument against Person
An argument against an opponent personally (rather than against the opponent’s argument/conclusion)
Tu Quoque
Hypocrisy
An argument that accuses an opponent of hypocrisy. (While the opponent does not practice what they preach, what they preach is not necessarily incorrect.)
Tu Quoque is a type of Argument ad Hominem fallacy.
Argumentum ad Populum
Appeal to Populace
An argument for a conclusion that appeals to public sentiments (e.g. patriotism, status, wealth, sex)
Appeal to Authority
An argument that appeals to an irrelevant authority figure/group. (Even if an individual with status agrees with the argument/logic, the argument logic is not necessarily valid.)
Straw Man Argument
Mischaracterization
An argument that mischaracterizes an opponent’s argument/conclusion to make it easier to defeat.
The argument claims to defeat the opponent’s argument, but the argument only defeats a “straw man” version of the opponent’s argument.
Red Herring
Irrelevance
An argument that introduces an irrelevant issue/topic to distract from the subject under debate
What are fallacies of relevance?
Arguments that rely on premises that are not logically relevant to the conclusion(s)
Fallacies of Relevance
Informal Fallacies
- Argumentum ad Hominem
- Tu Quoque
- Argumentum ad Populum
- Appeal to Authority
- Straw Man Argument
- Red Herring
General Informal Fallacies
Informal Fallacies
- Begging the Question
- Slippery Slope Argument
- Argument from Nature
- No-True-Scotsman Argument
- False Dichotomy
- Equivocation
- Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
- Ten-Leaky-Buckets Argument
Begging the Question
Petitio Principii
An argument where the premises assume the truth of the conclusion.
To beg the question is to make a circular argument.
Slippery Slope Argument
An argument that the acceptance of the opponent’s position will make it difficult/impossible to avoid accepting increasingly extreme positions.
Appeal from Nature
An argument claiming that something is dangerous/wrong because it is “unnatural”.
False Dichotomy
An argument forcing someone to accept one of only two opposing positions when there are more alternatives available.
No-True-Scotsman Fallacy
Appeal to Purity
An argument defending a generalization against counterexamples by excluding the counterexamples by definition.
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
“After This, therefore, Because of This”
An argument implying that a first event caused the second even just because the two events happened successively.
Equivocation
An argument that makes a technically true, but misleading, statement/premise.
Equivocation often involves using a word/term with multiple meanings without specifying its intended meaning.
Ten-Leaky-Buckets Tactic
An argument for a conclusion that offers a series of unsound premises in its favor, as if the number of supporting premises will increase the conclusion’s validity.
Facts
True Statements about the World
Facts = Statements that correlate to how the world actually is.
Beliefs
Statements of What are Thought to be the Facts
Beliefs can be right or wrong.
Cultural Relativism
Moral statements are judged to be true or false relative to the culture’s specific values.
There are no absolute moral truths.
Advantage: Cultural Relativism
Not Ethnocentric: Cultural relativism does NOT rank moral belief systems across cultures on a hierarchy (with one dominant belief system at the top).
Disadvantage: Cultural Relativism
Impossible to Criticize: Moral relativism can make it impossible to morally criticize a culture’s values (from without or from within).
Tenets of Utilitarianism
- Consequentialism: Consequences matter
- Maximization: Number of beings affected by a consequence matters
- Theory of Value: Definition of “good” consequence(s)
- Scope-of-Morality Premise: Each being’s happiness counts as a happiness unit (up to certain boundary)
