Question | Answer |
The Cultural Differences Argument | In different cultures people have different ideas concerning right and wrong. |
Objections to Cultural Differences Argument | An objection to this argument can be generated by substituting something for ‘moral beliefs’, such as ‘beliefs about whether the world is flat or round’. If people disagreed about these things, would we conclude that cultural relativism is true? |
The Provability Argument and objections to it | If there were objective moral truth we should be able to prove that some moral opinions are true and others false. But in fact we cannot prove which moral opinions are true and which are false. Therefore, there is no such thing as objective moral truth. |
Moral Skepticism | The view that there is no such thing as objective moral truth. |
Cultural Relativism | Morality is relative to a given culture. The moral code of a society is what determines what is right or wrong in that society. |
Principle of Tolerance | Societies and individuals should not interfere with or impose their values on other members of other societies. |
Divine Command Theory | Things are morally good or bad or morally obligatory, permissible, or prohibited, solely because of God’s will and commands. |
Socrates' question that raises the dilemma for divine command theory | Is Conduct right because God commands it OR Does God command it because it’s Right? |
The Euthyphro dilemma argument | If moral good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, then they must be morally good prior to and so independently of God’s will. |
Natural Law Theory | Laws of self preservation, Seek peace and defend ourselves. |
Rachel’s Criticism of natural law theory | It’s incompatible with modern science it attempts to derive “Ought To’s from Is’s”. ex. people are beneficent therefore people ought to be beneficent. It is invalid. |
The basic pro-life argument | 1. It is wrong to kill an innocent human being 2. Human fetuses are innocent human beings 3. Therefore it is wrong to kill a human fetus |
The philosophical liberal view about the validity and soundness of the basic pro-life argument | We cannot distinguish two different meanings of “human being”: I. Member of the species Homo sapiens II. Person/human being in the moral sense implies that infants are not human beings |
Thomson's examples and what they are supposed to show | 1. Feminist argument that women’s right to choose (sometimes) outweighs the fetus’s right to live 2.Violinist Argument - The fetus is an innocent person with a right to life. Abortion results in the death of a fetus. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong. |
Marquis's argument for a pro-life position | Premises 1 - It is presumptive wrong to deprive a being of his or her future. Premises 2 - Aborting a fetus deprives it of its future. Conclusion – Aborting a fetus is presumptively wrong. |
Hobbes account of the causes of quarrel (or conflict) in the state of nature | 1.1 Competition (desiring the same thing, which not both can have) 2.2 Diffidence (i.e. fearful distrust of one another) 3.3 Glory (e.g., celebrity, honor) |
State of nature | How philosophers think persons would naturally behave if there were no government threatening to punish them |
Law of nature | Rule or Reason by which man is forbidden to do something that has been proven to be destructive to his life. |
Right of nature | Every man has the right to do everything, even to one another’s body. |
The prisoner’s dilemma | A situation when people both individually and in a group interest are affected by what they do so that everyone is worse off individually and better off as a group. |
What it is rational for an individual to do in a prisoner’s dilemma | The rational action of each player is to NOT cooperate – based on self-interest. |
Social Contract Theory | Morality consists in the set of rules, governing behavior that rational people will accept, on the condition that others accept it as well. |
Advantages of the Social Contract Theory | Morally binding rules are on that facilitate harmonious social living – impartiality – reciprocity (response of individuals toward the action of others.) |
Objections to the Social Contract Theory of morals | We should not be expected to hold up our ancestor’s contract since we did not agree to them. Acceptance of a rule biased on others agreeing to them. |
Validity | Conclusion follows from the premises |
Soundness | Argument is valid and its premises are true |