📚 FULL REVIEW SHEET: Ethics & Meaning of Life
🏛️ Aristotle’s Ethics (Virtue Ethics)
🔹 The Golden Mean (Virtue = Balance)
Aristotle believed that moral virtue is a balance between two extremes:
Excess (too much)
Deficiency (too little)
👉 Examples:
Courage = between cowardice (too little bravery) and recklessness (too much)
Generosity = between stinginess and wastefulness
✔ Key idea:
Virtue is not one-size-fits-all—it depends on the situation and requires judgment.
🔹 Habits & Character
We are not born virtuous
Virtue is developed through practice and repetition
“We are what we repeatedly do”
👉 If you act honestly repeatedly → you become an honest person
✔ This is why habits are central to Aristotle’s ethics
🔹 Instrumental vs Intrinsic Goods
Instrumental goods = useful for achieving something else
(ex: money, tools, education)
Intrinsic goods = valuable in themselves
(ex: happiness)
🔹 Happiness (Eudaimonia)
Aristotle’s ultimate goal: eudaimonia (flourishing)
Not just pleasure → a life of reason and virtue
✔ Happiness =
Living morally
Using reason well
Achieving your full potential
⚖️ Kant’s Ethics (Deontology)
🔹 Core Idea: Duty Over Consequences
Immanuel Kant believed:
Morality is about doing your duty
NOT about outcomes or happiness
🔹 Maxims
A maxim = your personal rule for acting
👉 Example: “It’s okay to lie when it helps me”
🔹 Categorical Imperative
The most important rule:
👉 Only act on maxims you would want to become universal laws
Ask yourself:
“What if everyone did this?”
✔ If it creates a contradiction → it’s immoral
🔹 Treat People as Ends
Another version:
Never treat people as means only
Always treat them as ends (valuable individuals)
🔗 Free Will & Determinism
🔹 Determinism
All events are caused by previous events
Your actions are the result of:
Biology
Environment
Past experiences
🔹 Hard Determinism
No free will exists
Everything is predetermined
🔹 Soft Determinism (Compatibilism)
Free will can exist with determinism
You are free if you act without coercion
🔹 Libertarianism (Free Will Theory)
Humans have true freedom
We are not fully determined
🔹 Beliefs, Desires & Freedom
Actions come from:
What you believe
What you want
👉 Debate:
If these are determined → are we really free?
🔹 Coercion
When someone is forced by external pressure
👉 Examples:
Threats (gunpoint)
Blackmail
✔ Coerced actions = not fully free
🔹 Free Will & Moral Responsibility
We can only be held responsible if:
We had control
We acted freely
🧠 Existentialism & Meaning
🔹 Jean-Paul Sartre
Key Idea:
👉 “Existence precedes essence”
You are NOT born with a purpose
You create yourself through choices
🔹 Human Nature
No fixed human nature
Humans are radically free
🔹 Anguish
Deep anxiety from:
Total freedom
Total responsibility
👉 You are responsible for everything you choose
🔹 Meaning of Life
No built-in meaning
You must create meaning yourself
🪨 Sisyphus
🔹 Sisyphus
Punished by rolling a rock uphill forever
The rock always rolls back down
👉 Represents:
Meaningless or repetitive life
Human struggle
✔ Often used in existentialism:
Even in absurdity → we can create meaning
✝️ Arguments for the Existence of God
🔹 Ontological Argument (A Priori)
Anselm of Canterbury
Based on logic alone
God = “greatest possible being”
If God exists in the mind → must exist in reality
✔ No observation needed
🔹 Design Argument (Teleological)
William Paley
World is complex and ordered
Like a watch → implies a watchmaker
👉 Therefore → God exists
🔹 The Problem of Evil
If God is:
All-powerful
All-good
👉 Why does evil exist?
✔ Challenges belief in God
🔬 Scientism & Naturalism
🔹 Scientism
Only science gives true knowledge
🔹 Naturalism
Everything is explained by natural causes
No supernatural explanations
🔹 Impact on Free Will
If everything is scientific →
maybe free will is an illusion
😊 John Stuart Mill & Utilitarianism
🔹 John Stuart Mill
Focus: maximize happiness
🔹 Higher vs Lower Pleasures
Higher Pleasures:
Intellectual (reading, thinking, learning)
Lower Pleasures:
Physical (eating, comfort)
✔ Key idea:
👉 “Better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”
19
