Ethics and Business Philosophy Lecture Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts from Aristotle, Foster Wallace, Kant, Mill, Singer, Solomon, Epictetus, and Taylor based on the ethics lecture transcript.

Aristotle's Opening Argument in Ethics

Every action aims at some good, not all goods can be instrumental goods, and therefore there must be an absolute good at which all things aim.

Four Kinds of Lives (Aristotle)

The four ways people live: pleasure, politics, money, and contemplation of life.

Function Argument

The argument that everything has a purpose (function) and human function is reasoning (deliberating, choosing, and contemplation), with happiness occurring when we are excellent at our function.

Virtues (Aristotle)

Character traits that are the middle path between two extremes.

Moral Strength

Knowing the good and doing the good, but being pained in the process.

Moral Weakness

Knowing the good and not doing the good.

Three Types of Pleasure (Aristotle)

Sensory, remedial, and attentive pleasures.

Contemplative Activity

Doing something non-productive, living in a timeless moment with attentive pleasure, which humans need to be fully rational and happy.

Default Setting (Foster Wallace)

The automatic mindset of thinking that everything revolves around us.

Real Freedom (Foster Wallace)

Freeing ourselves from our default setting and letting go.

Worship (Foster Wallace)

The concept that everyone worships something (what we value), and whatever you worship will control you if you do not choose mindfully.

Good Will (Kant)

Doing good for its own sake, rather than for the sake of something else, driven by our intent which is always in our control.

Kantian Moral Project

A duty-based, absolute, and universal ethical framework centered on the categorical imperative regardless of circumstance.

Principle of Utility / Greatest Happiness Principle

Mill's principle stating that actions are right if they produce the greatest amount of happiness in quantity and quality for the most amount of people.

Happiness (Mill)

Pleasure, which forms the basis of utilitarian ethics.

Virtue (Solomon)

Values that are put into action.

Time Affluence

The experience of feeling that you have enough non-productive time and not feeling rushed, which leads to happiness.

Day of Rest

A dedicated period that feeds the soul and helps focus on intrinsic goods, serving the same role as Aristotle's contemplative activity.

Two Facts of Life (Epictetus)

The facts that we all want to be happy and we are all going to die.

Stoic Happiness

Controlling what you can control (thoughts, actions, intentions) and leaving everything else (death, other people, future, past, reputation) up to life.

Biocentrism (Taylor)

An ethical worldview holding that all living things have inherent worth.

Good of Being

A key biocentric concept referring to something that is good in itself for a living entity.

Inherent Worth

A key biocentric concept referring to the status of possessing moral consideration.