Unit 6 Flashcards
- In Philosophy, the branch that inquires on how one should live his life
- This study probes into questions of rightness and wrongness or the morality of
our actions - This study generally inquiries and searches for a standard of moral principles that would guide man on how he should live his life
ETHICS
- According to Socrates, “knowledge is virtue”
o Someone who truly knows what is right would always behave in accordance to a
virtuous action.
o One may know a virtue in his mind, but if he doesn’t act on it, then it means he lacks the
true understanding, the true knowledge of that virtue
VIRTUES
- about human well-being – that man lives a satisfactory and flourishing life where he is content and fulfilled.
o Aristotle wrote about the Golden Mean – a way of life that is in balance between extremes: excess and deficiency.
EUDAIMONIA
Eudaimonia- a Greek word that
translates to
happiness
- in Eastern philosophy, Buddha taught of the Middle Way, which is a path that is
balanced between a life of luxury and excessiveness, and a life of poverty.
o These teachings mainly promote a certain virtue: moderation
MIDDLE WAY
o is a form of ethical philosophy that puts the highest importance to satisfying
one’s pleasure – that pleasure is the highest good itself.
o What is considered good is that action which would bring the greatest amount of
pleasure since, for hedonists, it is the goal of life.
HEDONISM
- From the Greek word, “hedone”, which translates to
“delight”
o is a belief that God is scattered throughout the world, in the form of nature
STOICISM
For the stoics, another version of happiness is
ataraxia
ataraxia which means
tranquility
the view that nature is divine because God or the
gods are within it.
pantheism
- posits that there exists a supreme divine being,
which is God, who is all-knowing (omniscient), all-powerful (omnipotent), and all-good.
o The good life consists of following the absolute commandments of God and letting these
commandments guide one’s actions in order to fulfill the God’s will.
- God provided man with freewill which man can exercise in different situations.
DIVINE COMMAND THEORY
- thought that there ought to be a consistent moral theory that cannot stem from
external factors, not even God. - The moral standard of a person must come from within, as a form of an intrinsic value.
EMMANUEL KANT
is the basis of our moral standards
Duty or an obligation to act
- British empiricist
- described his observation among human beings that our moral actions are also based on our feelings or sentiment, and not just on our reason – that we
consider our actions based on sympathy.
DAVID HUME
- a form of Consequentialism, focuses on the consequences of an action.
- It generally advocates for the maximization of goodness for as much people as
possible.
UTILITARIANISM
recognized that both pleasure and pain can be
found in the world
Jeremy Bentham
- pleasure differs in terms of hierarchy – there are higher forms of pleasure
(which are higher in quality), while there also lower forms of pleasure (which are lower in
quality) - He distinguished that the intellectual pleasures are higher than those of sensual
pleasures - He thought that the utility we get from higher pleasures should be given a priority when
we are making decisions, which would then result to a quality decision.
JOHN STUART MILL
- French philosopher and novelist
- He formed an existential philosophy with similarities to that of Jean-Paul Sartre.
ALBERT CAMUS
a man who was condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up to a hill, only to have it roll back down as soon as it reaches the peak
Sisyphus
- thought that “man is condemned to be free”
- For him, we are who we create ourselves to be, and everything that has happened to
us, we only have ourselves to blame. - He opposed the idea of putting the blame on the society, on God or fate, because he believed that human beings are the ones responsible for themselves.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
