Midterms

why study ethics

• It deepens our reflection on the ultimate questions of life.

• It helps us to think better about morality.

• It sharpens our general thinking.

gawa

refers to the free action that is oriented toward a particular end

gawi

refers to a free kind of work. However, instead of focusing on a particular end like aproduct or fulfillment, refers to the kind of acts that people are used to accomplish(ing).

kagawian

action/habituation Filipino equivalent of Greek or Ethics

morality

refers to beliefs concerning right and wrong, good and bad – beliefs that can include judgements, values, rules, principles and theories

ethics

philosophical study of morality

ethics/morality

helps guide our actions, define our values and give us reasons for being the persons we are

ethos

• greek word

• which means custom, a characteristic or habitual way of doing things, or action that is properly derived from one’s character

mos or moris

• latin word

• (and its plural mores) from which the adjective moral is derived is equivalent to ‘ethos’. In purely etymological point of view, ethical and moral are, therefore, synonymous.

legal judgment

“When ted says: Driving with a blood alcohol level of 0/09 is wrong because it violates the traffic code.”

aesthetic judgment

Barry evaluates Franz Kafka’s novel and he said: “The plot is pretty good, but the character development is dreadfully thin. So, overall, I think the book is pretty bad.”

prudential judgment

• Ben says to Ben “I need to play more golf. It’s good for my sense of well being.”

• Based solely on the interest of the indidivual.

emile durkheim

• "A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."

• "The self-validation of a society by means of myth and ritual."

paul tillich

“The state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.”

lewis vaughn

"moral philosophy [Ethics] supplies the neutral standard in the form of critical thinking, well-made arguments, and careful analysis."

skills in doing ethics

• Moral positions should be explained.

• Claims should be supported by reasons.

• Reasoning should be judged by common rational standards.

critical reasoning/thinking

• The careful, systematic evaluation of statements or claims.

• We use this everyday to determine whether a statement is worthy of acceptance - of whether it is true or it holds the truth.

• We harness it to assess the truth of all sorts of claims in all of contexts - personal, academic, philosophical, scientific, political, and ethical.

moral reasoning

ordinary critical thinking

claims and arguments

an assertion that something is or is not the case; it is either true or false.

argument

a group of statements, one of which is supposed to be supported by the rest.

moral statement

a statement affirming that an action is right or wrong or that a person (or one's

motive or character) is good or bad.

bad arguments / fallacies

has a false premise or a conclusion that does not follow (to a good or logical argument)

begging the question

• The fallacy of arguing in a circle - that is, trying to use a statement as both a premise in an agument and the conclusion of that argument.

  • God is real because the Bible says so, and the Bible is from God.

  • Everyone wants the new iPhone 12 pro because it is the hottest new gadget on the market!

equivocation

• The fallacy of assigning two different meanings to the same term in an argument.

  • A fetus is an individual that is indisputably human. A human is endowed with rights that cannot be validated, including a right to life.

  • Therefore, a fetus has a right to life.

appeal to authority

• The fallacy of relying on the opinion of someone thought to be an expert who is not.

  • A person cites experts who are not experts on the field.

  • A person cites non-experts as experts.

slippery slope

• The fallacy of using dubious premises to argue that doing a particular action will inevitably lead to other actions that will result in disaster, so one should not do that first action.

  • Person A drinks a beer, then when Person A is on their way home, a car accident happened that injured them. Therefore, one must not drink beer.

faulty analogy

• The fallacy of using a flawed analogy to argue for a conclusion.

  • Humans feel pain, care for their young, live in social groups, and understand physics. Apes also feel pain, care for their young, and live in special groups. Therefore, apes can understand nuclear physics.

appeal to ignorance

• The fallacy of arguing that the absence of evidence entitles us to believe a claim.

  • Because a statement has not been proven false, it must be true.

  • Because a statement has not been proven true, it must be false.

straw man

• The fallacy of misrepresenting someone’s claim or argument so it can be more easily refuted.

  • Person B is advocating Black Lives Matter, then Person C tries to argue saying "So you mean only Blackpeople matter? But All Lives Matter. So you are exclusivist.

appeal to the person

The fallacy of (also known as ad hominem) of arguing that a claim should be rejected solely because of the characteristics of the person who makes it.

hasty generalization

The fallacy of drawing a conclusion about an entire group of people or things based on an undersized sample of the group.

cultural relativism

• “GOOD” means “socially approved”

• good or bad are relative to culture. What is “good” is what is “socially approved” in a given culture.

• There are no objective facts.

• Attitude vary with time and place.

• Morality is a social construct.

• There is no sense in asking which side is “correct”.

CR

• “Wrong” is a relative term.

• There isn’t “to the left” absolutely, only “to the left of” this or that.

• There isn’t “wrong” absolutely but only “wrong” in this or that society.

• The myth of objectivity says things can be good or bad “absolutely” not relative to this or that culture.

• Can eliminate the “we’re right and you are wrong” attitude.

• are more tolerant.

cr principle boils down to this:

• Such and such are socially approved.

• Such and such are good.

subjectivism

• “X is good” means “I like X”

• Pick your moral principles by following your feelings.

• Says that moral judgments describe how we feel. To call something is “good” it is to say that we have positive feeling toward it.

• disagrees with the notion of CR the good = socially approved.

SB

• moral freedom is very important.

• doesn’t want to be forced (just like CR) to accept all of society’s values.

• affirms CR that “good” is relative. However, not to society but to the individual.

• holds that truths are relative to the individuals.

• Values exists only in the preference of individual people. Hence, no preference is objectively correct or incorrect.

for SB

• My value judgments describe my own emotions.

• moral freedom = process of growing up.

• We expect children to parrot the values they were taught. On the other hand, we expect adults to think things out and form their own values.

objection on subjectives

• subjectivism makes goodness depend completely on what we like.

• gives a very crude approach to morality, whereby we simply do as we like.\

• confused what we like and what is good.

• If a person is morally immature, he/she may like thinks what he/she thinks bad.

• suggested about our freedom to form our moral beliefs but did not say how to use this freedom in a responsible way.

• suggested to follow our feelings but did not suggest how to develop our wise feelings.

emotivism

• “X is good” is an emotional exclamation (not a truth claim) and means “Hurrah for X!”

• Pick your moral principles by following your feelings. 

• Says that moral judgments express positive or negative feelings.

• “X is good” is equivalent to the exclamation “Hurrah for X!” – hence can’t be true or false. So there can’tbe moral truths or moral knowledge.

logical positivism

holds that only two types of statements make genuine truth claims (claims that are true or false)

empirical statements

• in principle, these can be shown or tested by our sense experience to be true or at least highly probable.

• (testable by some experience)

• “It’s raining outside.”

analytical statements

• these can be true because of the meaning of words.

• (true by definition)

• “Frozen water is ice.”

emotivism

• sees a moral judgment as an expression of feeling, not a statement that’s literally true or false.

• Moral judgements are exclamations: “Ex is good” means “Hurrah for X!” and “X is bad” means “Boo on X!”

• An exclamation (!) doesn’t state a fact and isn’t true or false. Since moral judgements are exclamations, there can’t be moral truths or moral knowledge.

• What if we feel cold? Is it something true? 

• (just express feelings): “Brrr!”, “Ha,ha,ha!”, “Wow!”

problems on emotivism

• “Any genuine truth claim is either empirical (testable by sense experience) or analytic (true by definition).”

• Moral statements aren’t either empirical or analytic.

• A moral statements aren’t genuine truth claims.

• The central claim of Logical Positivism (Emotivism) is self-refuting. 

• Moral judgments aren’t always emotional.

• A view must be testable by sense experience or else it makes no sense.

metaethics

about abstracting and tracing the meaning and logical structure of moral beliefs

applied ethics

Medicine and Law as professions can be categorized under it

normative ethics

the study of the principles and rules in relation to the actions and judgments of the people

william golding

author of lord of the flies