Ethics 1

Standard / Norm (P10)

each individual person is the measure for what is true or right.

Montaigne (P11)

He Lived in a world of exploration and was aware of the differences in morals among remote people. Those differences supported his skepticism of knowing moral truths that apply to all cultures

Customs (P15)

Values

Moral Skepticism (P17)

the view that we can not have real moral knowledge

Antimoralism / Amoralism

the view that it is possible to do away with morality altogether and who (try to) positively reject all moral thinking and judgments.

Meletus and Anytus

Accused Socrates of corrupting the youth and denying the Gods and bringing in religious innovations.

Five Virtues

Wisdom, Justice, Courage, Temperance, Piety

Two things Socrates strongly affirms

A goodman cannot be harmed and the unexamined life is not worth living

Socrates debate with Protagoras

Debated about the objective of truth of justice and morality generally. Socrates says there is a single method to arrive at an agreement for right and wrong, and by following a method you can avoid dilemmas and moral conflict.

Commensurable

Pleasures such as a good conversation or really good food can be assigned values and weighed as such

incommensurable

Pleasures CANNOT be weighed or are weighed to the same

Thrasymachus Argument

Justice is nothing but the interest of the stronger. "If I am strong enough to get away with cheating and murder, then I should cheat and murder whenever it is to my advantage to do so."

Socrates four beliefs of justice

(i) Injustice creates conflict and strife

(ii) Justice enables harmony and peace

(iii) Harmony and peace are preferable to conflict and strife

(iv) Therefore, justice is preferable to injustice

Plato three divisions of the soul

Reason (intellect), spirit (military and police) and appetite (laborer's)

Polis

Greek word for community

Nichomachean Ethics

(plato) a sustained examination of the concepts of happiness, the good life, self-fulfillment, moral virtue, choice and many related topics

Eudaimonia

happiness "too live well" or "too do well" is the same thing as "to be happy"

Rational part of the human

Rational in the sense of being obedient to reason and partly in the sense of possessing reason and intelligence.

Practical part of the human

divided into the moral state and the moral activity

irrational part of the soul (79)

(1) vegetative faculty does not participate at all in reason but (2) the faculty of desire participates in it more or less. "acting on emotions"

intellectual virtue (81)

originated and fostered mainly by teaching; it therefore demands experience and time.

State of the soul (84)

(Aristotle) The state of the soul is either an emotion, a capacity, or a disposition

Capacities (SOTS)

the faculties in virtue of which we can be said to be liable to emotions

Dispositions (SOTS)

formed states of character in virtue of which we are well or badly disposed in the respect of the mentioned

3 dispositions

the vices of excess and deficiency, and one virtue which is the mean state between them. there all in a sense mutually opposed

non voluntary

(Aristotle) acting through ignorance

Choice

deliberate desire of things in our power

Sophrosune

saving or preserving practical wisdom

Shu

Four books

Pre-Socratics

believed that all things could be reduced to some primary substance

312 of the modern era

Consitine converts to Christianity and makes it the religion of the roman empire

1570

protestant reformation lead by martin luther

Forms

(Plato) the form transcends this world and everything individual, including oneself. Genuine knowledge, or understanding is theoretical.

Six claims made by cultural relativism

(i) Different societies have different moral codes

(ii) there is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societal code better than another

(iii) the moral code of our society has no special status

(iv) there is no “universal truth” in ethics

(v) the moral code of a society determines what is right within a society

(vi) it is mere arrogance to try and judge the conduct of other people