SECOND EXAM REVIEW GUIDE FOR INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS:
SFASU
Need scantron # 882 E and # 2 pencil.
I.From Lectures:
A.Deontological Ethics:
1.Theistic:
a.Natural law (Judaism)
b.Natural law (Greek; Stoic)
2.Secular (though can still be connected to God)
3.Kantian Ethics:
a.Categorical Imperative (all three formulations):
1. 1st formulation states:
2. 2nd formulation states:
3. 3rd formulation states:
b.A priori: Knowledge independent of experience
c.A posteriori: knowledge derived from experience
d.We have no capacity to transcend our own limitations. Space and time are molds in which our experience is cast. Everything we perceive and think is filtered through our mind and senses. What reality is like in itself apart from our human perception and cognition is completely unknown and unknowable.
e.It is the human mind that constitutes the way the world is within time and space. Space and time are molds in which we cast our experience.
f.The way we experience the world is conditioned or structured by the way we can known [special-temporal conditions].
g.Anything beyond space and time is beyond the domain of the construction of our mind.
h.What makes it possible for us to have a unified grasp of the world is that the mind transforms the data given to ourselves in a coherent and related set of elements.
i.We can’t help thinking that there is something that exists beyond space and time. In fact, reason demands ultimate intelligibility but we are limited. Reason keeps trying but we are unable to probe beyond space and time because we are bound to spacial and temporal conditions of the mind.
4.Kant’s definition of noumena: “Things-in-themselves.” These are objects whereby we have no sensible intuition and hence no knowledge at all; these are things known in themselves (e.g., God, soul, and freedom of the will); they are undecidable by human reason.
5.Kant’s phenomena: The world of ordinary sense perception; Things as they appear to be.
6.Advantages of deontological ethics
7.Criticisms of deontological ethics
8.Criticisms of deontological ethics from the perspective of virtue ethics:
a.They have neglected or lack a motivational requirement because rules fail to motivate or inspire to action; the character/person must “want” to obey.
b.They lack a moral requirement. Morality was made for man, not man for morality. They have neglected their very foundation and have so undermined it that it has become an “incoherent metaphor.”
c.They forgot the spiritual component by neglecting the core, the soul of a person: character formation. We are more than a cold, calculating machine.
d.They have overemphasized the principle of autonomy that they have neglected the communal context of morality (shared concerns and needs of community).
9.What are the steps to do Kantian ethics?
10.What is intuitionism? Lecture 11:
a.What are prima facie duties?
b.What makes these duties conditional?
c.How does this model of deontological ethics work?
D.Lectures 14-15: Consequential Ethics:
1.Egoism
2.Utilitarianism
3.Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism
4.John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism:
5.What are the problems of consequential ethics?
6.What are the advantages of consequential ethics?
E.Lecture 16: David Hume’s Ethics:
1.What is sympathy?
2.What is the process for developing ethics according to Hume?
3.What is Hume’s list of virtues? What types of virtues exist for Hume?
a.Useful virtues for the possessor:
b.Useful virtues for others:
c.Immediately pleasurable virtues for the possessor:
d.Immediately pleasurable virtues for others:
F.(See Lectures 14-15 on Deontological and Consequential Ethics): Relativism:
1.Cultural Relativism
2.Individual relativism
3.Advantage of relativism:
a.Emphasizes the distinctiveness of personhood and subcultures.
3.Problems with relativism
a.Unable to account to how strongly people feel about certain immoral acts
b.Unable to offer a strong account for justice vs. injustice; good vs. evil, right. vs wrong; it is counter-intuitive.
c.Unlivable and inconsistent with reality.
G.Lecture 17: Nihilism:
1.What is Nihilism?
2.Ontological Nihilism:
3.Existential Nihilism:
4.What did Camus and Sartre believe as discussed in notes:
5.Nietzsche:
a.Life is simply the will to power.
b.True morality is that which conforms to nature and condemns that which has oppressed the unfettered spirit of humanity. He condemns as bad what is contrary to the conformity of nature.
c.Nature is essentially the will to power; it is brutal, harsh, cruel, frightful, tragic, and beautiful.
d.We must say yes to life as it is.
e.The moral person “lives dangerously” by increasing his or her mastery.
f.Morality is located in nature and its processes. Morality is empirical, what we ill, earthy, and is expressed in struggle; it is through struggle which individuals achieve a degree commensurate with their abilities-this is the basic fact of human existence.
g.In contrast, morality is not metaphysical; all moral terms are vacuous.
h.There are two types of morality:
1.Master Morality (explain):
2.Slave Morality (explain):
i.Problems with Nihilism and Nietzschean Ethics:
1.Self-defeating; does not possess logical strength.
2.Historically, Nietzsche’s ideas have had destructive consequences.
3.Promotes hatred, bigotry, and discrimination.
4.This radical empiricism is unwarranted.
j.Advantage: Nietzsche offers a critique of social structures.
H.Existentialism:
1.See lecture 30 on Introduction to Existentialism and Simone de Beauvoir.
a.What is existentialism?
b.What are the six themes that permeate existential writings:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
c.How can one think existentially?
d.Theistic existentialists include Blaise Pascal and Soren Kierkegaard
e.Atheistic existentialists include Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Simone de Beauvoir.
f.How do the major existentialist interpret “angst” or this “generalized dread”?
g.What is the difference between a spectator and an actor according to Kierkegaard?
II.Book reading:
A.Chapter 3:Ethical Relativism:
1.Diversity of Morals:
a.Cultural Relativism:
b.Ethical Relativism:
c.Ethical Objectivism:
d.Ethical Nihilism:
2.Analysis of Relativism: What is argument of relativism (pg. 49):
a.Diversity Thesis:
b.Dependency Thesis:
3.Subjective Ethical Relativism (Subjectivism):
a.What are the absurd consequences that follow from subjectivism?
1.Morality is reduced to aesthetic tastes.
2.Evidence shows that subjectivism conflicts with other moral views the agent possesses.
3.Subjectivism offers no help on social agreement of principle.
b.What does Pojman say about Nietzsche’s beliefs?
c.Why is radical individualistic ethical relativism is incoherent?
4.Conventional Ethical Relativism (Conventionalism):
a.Ethical relativism entails intercultural tolerance (pg. 55): What is the fourfold argument:
b.Tolerance is certainly a virtue, and if relativism may encourage tolerance, than is this good a reason for relativism? No, because if morality is simply relative to each culture, then if the culture in question has no principle of tolerance, then its members have no obligation to be tolerant.
c.Not only do relativists offer no basis for criticizing those who are intolerant, but also they cannot rationally criticize anyone who espouses what they might regard as a heinous principle.
d.According to Pojman, what are disturbing consequences of ethical relativism?
5.An Assessment of Ethical Relativism:
6.What is Pojman’s conclusion?
1.Seems plausible at first glance.
2.Relativism has serious problems:
a.Anarchistic individualism
b.Essential denial of the interpersonal feature of the moral point of view.
c.Fails to deal adequately with the problem of the reformer,
d.Fails to deal with the question of defining a culture;
e.Fails to deal with the whole enterprise of moral criticism.
f.Relativism comes perilously close to moral nihilism
B.Chapter 6:
1.What is Utilitarianism (pg. 111)?
2.What are the two types of utilitarianism (pg. 115)?
a.Act Utilitarianism:
b.Rule Utilitarianism:
3.What are the strengths and weaknesses of utilitarianism?
4.What are the external criticisms of utilitarianism?
a.No-rest objection
b.Absurd-Implications Objection
c.Integrity Objection
d.Justice Objection
e.Publicity Objection
5.What are the utilitarian responses to the Standard Objections (pg. 126)?
a.A general defense:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.