Quiz 1 Flashcards
1
Q
Spaceship Earth
A
- Kenneth E. Boulding
- 1966
- everything is limited and hard to resupply; resources on earth are finite; work together for proper functioning
2
Q
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
A
- Ursula Le Guin
- 1973
- 1 suffer to make all happy; utilitarianism justifies
3
Q
Experience Machine (thought experiment)
A
- Robert Nozick
- 1974
- Would you plug yourself into a machine forever if it meant you got to experience happiness only?
Many people wouldn’t because they feel like they wouldn’t be experiencing life -> idea that happiness requires pleasurable experiences in reality (real world has good but also bad)
4
Q
Categorical Imperative
A
- Immanuel Kant
- 1785
- a rule of conduct that is unconditional or absolute for all agents, the validity or claim of which does not depend on any desire or end. A universal ethical frame work/code that comes within a person’s morals, commands their moral actions ->can not bend to your own will
5
Q
The Land Ethic
A
- Aldo Leopold
- 1949
- nonliving and living things into ethics and says they have value b/c we all interact to create community -> makes humans part of the community rather than the conquerors/separate; call for moral responsibility to the natural world
6
Q
Animal Liberation
A
- Peter Singer
- 2002
- Focuses on sentience and the ability to suffer; animals have rights; utilitarian view; raising or hunting for food is ethical but having the animals suffer on farms is unethical. Fundamental duty to avoid taking actions that bring about harm -> pain+harm that comes from unneccessarily violating the interests of beings who are capable of experiencing such violations . i.e spp who are capable of sentience
we all qualify and want to to reduce suffering while promoting happiness
But this pov is limited by anthropocentrism
7
Q
Last Person on Earth thought experiment
A
- Richard Routley
- 2013
- Examines how living things outside of humans and abiotic factors of the environment are not really included in ethics. Asks if you were the last person on earth, would you push a button that makes everything else extinct. Instrumental in deciding if things outside of humans have value. Instrumental vs Intrinsic value; anthropocentrism
8
Q
Insecticide-treated bed nets
A
- issue in multiple places in Africa
- modern day ish
- In Africa they hand out treated nets to prevent people from getting malaria but now the people are using nets to fish > these people are overfishing due to food shortage but say they wont stop using the nets for fish bc they would starve otherwise; nets coated in chemicals which isnt helping water quality; millions of nets passed out and is making some people a lot of money > debate on whether or not to still give these people nets bc if not they get malaria and die or they get nets but overfish.
Animal welfare vs human welfare; kantianism; utilitarianism
9
Q
Deep ecology
A
- Paul Taylor, Murray Bookchin - original by Arne Naess
- 1972
- Thinks of world as a whole, not just about humans; part of a community; we dont run everything; we are our relationships; individuals have little value in global context but we all require interactions in order for the ecosystem to work
Opposite of shallow ecology > which is anthropocentric and utilitarian based
Intrinsic value, not just instrumental
No right to dec diversity except to satisfy fundamental needs
Reduce population
importance of env over humans
10
Q
Nicomachean ethics
A
- Aristotle
- 384-322 BC
- good human life = moral virtue -> realize your purpose, develop virtues, have moral perception; science of the good for human life.
Based more on the character and patterns of behaviour of the “virtuous person” than with a criterion of right actions. weakness(unless one is virtuous we don’t know what the right thing to do is), strength(Each person has their own function) -> but this idea flawed bc it doesn’t consider lowered class organisms (anthropocentric) -> virtue ethics
