Question | Answer |
Ethics | The study of moral values and conduct of an individual, group, or culture |
Morality | The right or wrong of an action, decision, or way of living |
Earliest Known Ethical Writings | The Epic of Gilamesh, Code of Hammurabi, The Book of the Dead, Torah |
Democritus | 'Laughing Philosopher' Emphasis on the value of cheerfulness, Believed that happiness stemmed from an even temperment and from a life of moderation |
Sophists | argued for a moral philosophy of relativism, one based on self-interest |
Relativism | Conduct or morals cannot be reduced to concepts or principles. It isn't possible to know the 'true' nature of anything because perceptions differ from person to person |
Socrates | Believed that knowledge and virtue are one. Justice cannot mean harming others. Striving for good is the condition of all humans and the soul is a person's conscious personality |
Plato | Saw morality as a quest to live by virtues in an attempt to recapture the forms |
Forms | the ideal essences of objects or things |
Plato's virtues | Courage, Justice, Temperance, Wisdom |
Aristotle | Advocated living by the Golden Mean. Considered his list of preferred virtues as a mean between extremes. Achieving this midpoint was a way to live well. |
The Golden Mean | the desirable middle between two extremes, excess and inadequacy. |
Epicureanism | The greatest good comes from the pursuit of pleasure |
Skepticism | Maintained that human knowledge was limited and uncertain. |
Stoicism | Valued courage and acceptance of one's role in life. |
Neoplatonism | Believed that salvation could be found in a mystical union with God. |
3 Main Sophists | Protagoras, Gorgias, and Thrasymachus |
Sophists/'Intellectuals' | Nothing exists. Man is the measure of all things. "Injustice pays"; might makes right. Based on self-interest |
Socratic philosophy | Knowledge and virtue are one. Justice cannot mean harming others. Evil, vice are based on ignorance. Striving for good is the condition of all humans. The soul is a person's conscious personality. |
Three Components of Plato's Philosophy | theories of Knowledge, Moral Philosophy, and Political Philosophy |
Plat's virtues | Temperance, Courage, Reason and Justice |
Aristotle's additional virtues | Generosity, Good Temper, Friendship, Self Respect, Honor, Shame, Pride, Truthfulness |
Plato thought if we practiced the virtues, we could achieve | Justice |
Epicureanism | saw pleasure as the greatest good. |
Stoics | argued that self-control and fortitude are a way of mastering destructive emotions. |
Religion | An organized system of beliefs regarding the spiritual or metaphysical world, generally offering a moral code, and a philosophy of life. |
Divine Command Theory | Advances the idea that morality is whatever God commands. God's will becomes the foundation of ethics. Morality depends on God. |
Natural Law | Maintains that God, or nature, has established universal laws and principles from which the norms of all human behavior must be derived. |
Jawaharlal Nehro | Major political leader of the Congress. Party-Pivotal figure in the Indian Independence movement. First Prime Minister of Independent India. |
Mohandas K. Gandhi | Major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. Believed in non-violence. |
Mao Tse-tung | Chinese militay and political leader. Led Communist Part of China to victory against the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War. Leader of the People's Republic of China from it's establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. |
Chiang Kai Shek | Served as Generalissimo of Republic of China from 1928-death. Took control of KMT after Yat-sen's death in 1925. Led nationalist troops to unify China. |
Sun Yat-sen | Chinese revolutionary and political leader. "Leader of Modern China" Played large role in fall of Qing Dynasty. First provisional president when the Republic of China was founded in 1912. |
Supports the Classical Utilitarian Theory | The principle of utility determines morality. |
Supports the Classical Utilitarian Theory | A moral act produces the greatest happiness. |
Supports the Classical Utilitarian Theory | Laws should promote the greatest happiness of all. |
Does not support the Classical Utilitarian Theory | It is wrong to kill innocent people. |
Does not support the Classical Utilitarian Theory | No act may be prohibited unless it causes pain to another. |
Does not support the Classical Utilitarian Theory | God is in control and establishes morality. |
According to Utilitarianism.... | Actions are permissable if they promote the greater good. |
Strength of Social Contract Ethics | Acceptance of the rules is based on others agreeing to them. |
Strength of Social Contract Ethics | People have moral oblications only to participants in the contract. |
Strength of Social Contract Ethics | The principle of reciprocity explains how criminals are to be treated |
Strength of Social Contract Ethics | It explains when violations of law may be justified. |
Weakness of Social Contract Ethics | There my be prohibitions against acts that do not threaten social living. |
Weakness of Social Contract Ethics | It is based on an assumption about prehistorical humans. |
What is the moral theory of Hobbe's social contract? | A person's right flow from mutually beneficial contraints |
Christ transforming culture | Seeks to influence but not necessarily to control institutions |
Christ above culture | Triumpalist Church which seek control over public life |
Christ and culture in paradox | Makes a sharp separation between God's kindly rule in the Church and His stern rule in public life |
Christ of culture | Casts a gospel glow over the existing order and hardly challenges it |
Dilemmas created by applyin Scriptures to contemporary social issues | Does not always provide specific moral guidance in text. Often quoted without context. Does not yield definite answers to social problems. |
Distinctive features of Utilitarianism as a form of modern moral philosophy | Favors greatest happiness for greatest number of people. Defines morality by examining consequences rather than intentions of actions, yields conclusions that do not conform to common sense. |
Gandhian Ethics | Known for its practical wisdom |
Jaina Ethics | Perceives all ethics by reference to monastic ethics. Known for its extreme measures in the pursuite of ahimsa (non-injury) |
Classical Hindu | Teaches the principle of passive restraint. Founded in a rigid and discriminatory class system where a life affirming, but rigidly, authoritarian, morality is developed. |
Theory of Natural Law | Based on the perspective that nature is purposeful. Describes both what is and what ought to be. The right course of action follows the dictates of reason. |
Problems the Divine Command Theory presents | Humans should be truthful only because God commands it. The concepts of good and evil are arbitrarily dependant on God's rules. |
Advantage of using virtues as ethical standards | They take into consideration that all people are not morally equal |
Ideas that Aristotle advocated | No one would choose to live without friends. Virtues emerge independant of education. People need courage because no one is completely safe from danger. A virtue is the mean between excess and deficiency. |
What did Socrates believe regarding 'Right Action'? | It must be rational and consistent with self interest. |
Cultural Relativism | Belief that morality is relative to each individual culture, we can't make uniersal moral claims like 'murder is always wrong' |
Christ against culture | A kind of other world pietism |
Neihbor's 5 attributes of Christiam history | Christ against culture, Christ of culture, Christ and culture in paradox, Christ above culture, Christ transforming culture |
4 relative stages of Ashrama | Studentship, Householder, Semi-retreat, Renunciation |
Studentship | Requiring disciplines, continence, and dedication to the teacher |
Householder | Entailing marriage, family, and their obligations |
Virtue | Moral excellence or having the courage to do what is right |
According to Kant, what are some of our basic duties? | Always tell the truth, always keep your promises, Never commit suicide. |
What are the differences between retributiviam (Kant) and Utilitarian (Betham)? | Kant believed an eye for an eye. Betham believed punishment is mischief and is a greater evil but is justifiable. |
Major points critical of Kant's ethics | Consequentialism, Utilitarianism |
According to Kant, what is morality about? | Following absolute rules without exception |
Kant's Theory | Our duty is to follow rules that we would consistently will to be universal laws, rules that we are willing to have followed by all people in all situations |
Kant's two formulas of the categorical imperative | Universally willing the maxim of youir actions or taking the standpoint of everyone else. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always as an end and never as a means only. |
Categorical Imperative | A moral obligation that is imposed on us no matter the circumstances or our personal desires |
What type of moral theory is Kant's? | Deontological |
Ethics in Ancient Mesopotamia | Value concepts can be discerned from commercial documents, law codes, wisdome sayings, hero stories, and myths |
6 Classical Hindu ethics | Dharma, Karma, Ashrama, Purushartha, Gita, Virtues |
State of Nature | How philosophers think persons would naturally behave if there were no government threatening to punish them |
Deontological | Duty based. Focuses on your duties, whether they be to other people, to animals, or to God |
Retributivism | A theory of punishment that is best summed up by the phrase 'an eye for an eye' |
The Divine Theory | Things are morally good or bad or marally obligatory, permissable or prohibited, soley because of God's will and commands |
Euthyphro dilemma | 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 |
Moral Objectivism | Belief that morality is universal, eternal, and unchanging |
Aristotle's Theory | Involves a virtuous way of life by its relation to happiness |
Good Will | Kant believed it is the only thing that is totally and completely good without exception |
Duty | Something that you are required to do whether you want to or not |
Work Ethic | One fulfills ones destiny through service and through fidelity to what so ever becomes one's responsibility |
Moral Law | Said to spring from human reason rather than divine fiat. Was conceived to be a system of rules specifying which actions are right |
Three advantages of virtue as an ethical standard | What kind of person should I be? Helps us explain how a wide variety of actions can be ethical. Allows for the whole spectrum of human experience to influence ethical deliberation. |
Ethical Egoism | How we should behave. Each person ought to do whatever will best promote his own self-interest |
Psychological Egoism | Theory of human nature, not an ethical theory. Human nature to act out of self-interest |
Humanistic virtues and moral ideas praised in Vedic hymns | Truthfulness, giving, restraint, austerities, affection, gratitude, fidelity, forgiveness, non-theiving, non-cheating, giving us their just dessert, avoiding injury to all creatures |
Buddhism | Meditation is key to enlightenment, lead a good life, practive virtue, follow meditative exercises |
3 Elements that constitute the theory of natural law | The world is a natural order with values and purposes built into its very nature, How things ought to be, Laws of reason which we are able to grasp because God made us rational beings |
Consequentialism | Ethical theory that determines good or bad, right or wrong, based on the outcomes |
Ethical Subjectivism | Moral judgements are nothing more than expressions of personal opinion |
Torah | First 5 books of the Old Testament written by Moses |