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Chapter One: Moral Reasons

Chapter One: Moral Reasons. Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings (10 th ed.) Julie C. Van Camp, Jeffrey Olen, Vincent Barry Cengage Learning/Wadsworth. Moral Reasoning. Considering certain kinds of reasons: moral reasons Trying to arrive at the best moral reasons for acting

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Chapter One: Moral Reasons

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  1. Chapter One:Moral Reasons Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings (10th ed.) Julie C. Van Camp, Jeffrey Olen, Vincent Barry Cengage Learning/Wadsworth

  2. Moral Reasoning • Considering certain kinds of reasons: moral reasons • Trying to arrive at the best moral reasons for acting • Choosing the morally right course of action

  3. Ethical Relativism • Ethical relativism: Moral truths are not absolutely true but true relative to some particular standards. • Cultural relativism: Moral truths are not absolutely true but are relative to a particular society. • Whether an act is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of society and not on an absolute standard. • Individual relativism: Moral truths are not absolute but relative to individuals. • Whether an act is right or wrong depends on the convictions of the person performing it and not on an absolute standard.

  4. The Principle of Utility(The Greatest Happiness Principle) • The moral principle that we should produce the greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness, giving equal consideration to the happiness and unhappiness of everyone who will be affected by our actions. • A test that can be applied to: • Individual acts • Individual ethical rules

  5. Fairness • The Golden Rule • Kantian respect for persons • Never use other people merely as a means to your own end • Recognize that persons are autonomous beings

  6. Proper Human Excellences:Virtues • Character traits and activities that are distinctively human • Eudaimonia • Happiness, total well-being • The human being’s natural purpose • Fulfilling our social roles, making proper use of reason

  7. The Will of God • Natural law: the system of divine moral laws (Aquinas) • Differing religious traditions • Can statements based on faith be the basis of moral reasoning and argument?

  8. Principles of Social Morality • Social Justice: what makes a society a just one? • Individual Rights: • Natural Rights: rights we are all born with (Locke, Jefferson, Nozick) • Mutual Agreement behind the Veil of Ignorance (Rawls) • Equality principle • Difference principle

  9. More Principles of Social Morality • Equality • Equal treatment under the law • Equal opportunity • The General Welfare • Public Decency and Morality • Pluralism and Freedom • Individual Freedom • Social Utility of Pluralism

  10. “Moral Virtue” Aristotle • Moral virtues: acquired by exercising them • Moral goodness: a quality disposing us to act in the best way when we are dealing with pleasures and pains • “Virtue” defined: a disposition of the soul in which, when it has to choose among actions and feelings, it observes the mean relative to us

  11. “Respect for Persons”Immanuel Kant • The ultimate worth of persons • Moral agents: law-givers to themselves • Realm of ends • Categorical Imperative • Never act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law • Act so that you treat humanities as an end and never merely as a means • The idea of the will of every rational being as making universal law

  12. “Utilitarianism”John Stuart Mill • Principle of utility (greatest happiness principle): choose the action that creates the greatest happiness for all concerned • “Happiness”: pleasure and the absence of pain

  13. “A Theory of Justice”John Rawls • A conception of justice as fairness • Based on social contract theory • Assumes original position of equality • But all are behind a “veil of ignorance” • Two principles of justice • Each has equal right to most extensive basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others • Inequalities are to everyone’s advantage and attached to positions open to all

  14. “The Ethics of Care”Virginia Held • Feminist approach to ethics • Features of the ethics of care • Moral salience of attending to needs of others for whom we take responsibility • Values emotion, rather than rejecting it • Questions universalistic and abstract theories, favoring individualistic approaches • Rethinks public and private spheres • Conception of “person” as relational and interdependent, not individualistic

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