Ethics Test 2
Social determinism
economic level of which you are born affects the way you look at the world
Emotive theory
emotivism- if analytics, internal, empirical, and moral can not be used than maybe ethics is what you feel is right
Just society
ensures human rights so we all have an even playing field
Empirical propositions
external sense, prepositions describe a state of affairs that occurs in the external world of which we have evidence through our external senses. There a controversy in philosophy as to whethere such propositions can be known to be true, but my own assumption sis that some emperical proposition can be known to be absolutely true. (There is a table at the front of the room)
Principle of Justice
fairness, distribution of punishment
Laissez-faire capitalism
hands off
Punishment
he act of penalizing someone of a crime, fault, or misbehavior-- a penalty for wrong doing
Nancy Chodorow
he emphasizes that autonomy is not generated from within, but rather from without, from the experience of connecting, separating, and reconnecting with others. She emphasizes that people develop a real sense of experience through these actions, thus creating a connection between their past and their present. Chodorow approached psychoanalysis from a feminist viewpoint and focused on the relationship of the mother and child rather than the father-son dyad. She described psychoanalysis as the process of reconstructing the felt past.
Heroic man
he great man theory is a 19th-century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes;
Sigmund Freud
held that women "show less sense of justice than men, that they are less ready to submit to the great exigencies of life, that they are more often influenced in their judgments by feelings of affection or hostility...." 22 According to Freud, women were morally inferior to men. Instead of being able to establish themselves as separate people living in society and adapting to its rules, girls remained in the home, attached to their mothers. Thus, girls developed a capacity for personal relations and intimacy while their male counterparts developed a sense of separateness and personal autonomy. The idea was that women base their morality on concerns about personal rela- tions while men base their morality on rules that can reconcile the separate competing individuals in society. 23 Believing that a focus on personal rela-tions rather than a sense of justice was a lesser form of morality, Freud and others thought that women were morally inferior to men.
Skepticism
heory that no-one has any moral knowledge (or the stronger claim that no-one can have any moral knowledge). It holds that we are never justified in believing that, and never know whether, moral claims are true.
Desire for power
human impulse says thomas hobbes
Actio ergo sum
i act therefore i am
Cogito ergo sum
i think therefore i am
Principle of Honesty
idea of telling the truth, prohibition against lying
Principle of good ness
if you can't do good at least do no harm
Internal sense propositions
internal state propositions are propositions we know to be true merely because we have the experience--we alone truly know our own internal states (I have a headache)
Mirror-Image Theory
is a concept in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. The mirror stage is based on the belief that infants recognize themselves in a mirror (literal) or other symbolic contraption which induces apperception (the turning of oneself into an object that can be viewed by the child from outside themselves) from the age of about six months. how far should it be that the punishment fits the crime
Virtue ethics
is the idea that habits and character traits matter, along with sustained philo- sophical reflection on the reasons that these habits and character traits matter.
Cultural relativism
is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself. Originating in the work of Franz Boas in the early 20th centur
Restitution theory
justice is served only if victims are granted restitution for the crimes committed against them
Indeterminism
maintain that there is a certain amount of chance and freedom in the world and that not everything is caused William James says that he desires that there be novelty and spontaneity in the world, allowing human beings to be free and creative James feels that out strivings for good over the bad and our regrets over our bad deeds means that we must be free Problems: based upon wishful thinking rather than upon evidence or logical argument There is little evidence to suggest uncaused events exist If some events are totally uncaused, then they are not caused by anything or anybody; therefore interdeterminism is no guarantee of human freedom, only of chance
Determinism
means the same universal causation; that is, for every effect, there event, or occurrence in reality, a cause of causes exist. There is no such thing as an uncaused event
Lex Naturalis
natural law
Utilitarianism justice
pproving every action that increases human happiness (by increasing pleasure and/or decreasing pain, those being the two "sovereign masters" of man) and disapproving every action that diminishes it.
Jeremy Bentham
principle of utilitarianism, which evaluates actions based upon their consequences. The relevant consequences, in particular, are the overall happiness created for everyone affected by the action.
Synthesis
process of bringing things together
Reinforcement theory
proposes that you can change someone's behavior by using reinforcement, punishment, and extinction. Behaviorist B.F. Skinner derived the reinforcement theory, one of the oldest theories of motivation, as a way to explain behavior and why we do what we do. "an individual's behavior is a function of its consequences"
Moral propositions
propositions about morality or those that have moral import (human beings should not kill other human beings)
Biological determinism
refers to the idea that all human behavior is innate, determined by genes, brain size, or other biological attributes. This theory stands in contrast to the notion that human behavior is determined by culture or other social forces.
John Galt
s a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel he believes in the power and glory of the human mind, and the right of the individual to use their mind solely for themselves. He serves as a highly individualistic counterpoint to the collectivist social and economic structure depicted in the novel, in which society is based on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture that embraces mediocrity in the name of egalitarianism, which the novel posits is the end result of collectivist philosophy.
Administrative segregation
s.h.u. segregated business unit separated for protection
Disciplinary segregation
separated as punishment
Thomas Hobbes
social contract Hobbes holds that individuals are self-interested; that is, they seek to fulfill their interests and desires and above all seek self-preservation. Hobbes maintains that in the state of nature, individuals would be equal in terms of strength, since even weak individuals can band together with others or use sneak attacks to overpower stronger individuals.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
social contract modified Hobbes Instead of code to one person code to a government or parliament
Charles Darwin
species evolve by means of natural selection and that only the fittest survive-- led to the belief that nature determines human beings
Prescriptive moral statements
suggests a course of action.
Fatalism
the belief that all events are irrevocably fixed and predetermined so that human beings cannot alter them in any way 1. Does not make sense to act as if all events were outside of our control, some are 2. few people attempt to live their lives this way
Natural rights
the idea that moral requirements may be grounded in human nature is central
veil of ignorance
the less we know about someone the more that person becomes equal
Soft determinism
the theory that all events are caused bu that some events and causes originate with human beings. The hard determinist criticizes the soft determinism by questioning how human being can be said to originate events any events when if one traces cause back far enough, they up being outside of the control of human beings
Hard determinism
the theory that if all events are caused, the freedom is incompatible with determinism
Teleological
theories (from the Greek root telos, meaning "goal" or "end"). When deciding if something is right or wrong, you look at the consequences of the action
Value of life principle
there is no ethics with out human existence
Second Sex
they are regarded always in terms of being an "other" to the primary male sex written by Simone De Beauvoir
Dialectical materialism
think along the lines of whether you are a worker or capitalist
Ayn Rand
thought that altruism was perni- cious. She argues that altruistic morality "regards man as a sacrificial animal" and that altruism "holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value." Her argument goes on to present the altruistic idea of self-sacrifice as a kind of death wish: "altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value—and it is logical that renunciation, resignation, self-denial, and every other form of suffering, including self-destruction, are the virtues it advocates."
Rene Descartes
thought that animals were mere machines devoid of an inner sense or consciousness, the welfare approach views animals as sentient, suf- fering beings. The assumption of sentience is one of the reasons we have laws that protect animals from cruelty. What counts as cruelty, however, is disputed.
Historical determinism
time and place affects choices
Naturalistic Fallacy
to base our ideas about how we ought to behave from a factual account of how we actu- ally do behave.
5 Basic Principles
value of life, principle of goodness, justice, honesty, & individual freedom
Pantheism
view that God is equivalent to Nature or the physical universe - that they are essentially the same thing - or that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God.
Social contract
we code authority to one person on the condition of getting security also prevents violent life From an egoistic perspective, social rules can be understood as resulting from agreements among rational and self-interested individuals.
Golden Rule
which requires us only to do unto others what we would be willing for them to do unto us.
Karl Marx
who called for a revolution of the working class (what he called the proletariat) against the ruling upper class of capitalists (what he called the bourgeoisie). Marx says that human beings are determined by economic class struggles that inevitably will lead to a classless society
Mary Wollstonecraft
who wrote in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) 33 women were not by nature weak and emotional, but that their social situation had in many ways made them so. It was society that taught women negative moral traits such as cunning and vanity, she insisted. Social of women is meant to keep them down
Theory of Justice
y John Rawls, in which the author attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice (the socially just distribution of goods in a society) by utilising a variant of the familiar device of the social contract.
Susan Moller Okin
"Neither the realm of domestic, personal life, nor that of non domestic, economic and political life, can be understood or interpreted in isolation from the other," These two realms not only overlap, Okin argues, but also can and should exemplify the values and virtues of each other. Elements of altruism and concern for particular, concrete individuals have a place in the political as well as the domestic realms. Furthermore, when feminists say that "the personal is political," they mean that "what happens in the per- sonal life, particularly in relations between the sexes, is not immune from the dynamic of power, which has typically been seen as a distinguishing feature of the political These relations should thus also be restrained by considerations of fairness and justice.
William James
"The Moral Equivalent of War," He wanted to find a way to develop virtues such as heroism and loyalty without the destruction of armed conflict.
Deontological
"theory of duty" (the Greek word deon means "duty"). Deontological ethics focuses on duties, obligations, and rights. When considering whether an action is right or wrong, you look at the act itself
Requirements of punishment
1. It must involve unpleasantness of some sort 2. It must be imposed or endured for some reason 3. It should be imposed by some person or group that has "duly constituted" moral or legal authority 4. It must be imposed according to certain laws or rules
Nell Noddings
Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education provides a good example and further description of the ethics of care. 19 Noddings has spent her career defending and explain- ing her ideas about care ethics.
Genetic determinism
Human beings are totally determined by their genetic make-up, over which they have no control
John Rawls
In A Theory of Justice, he applies some aspects of Kantian principles to issues of social justice. According to him, justice is fairness. To know what is fair, we must put ourselves imaginatively in the position of a group of free and equal rational beings who are choosing principles of justice for their society. In thinking of persons as free and equal rational beings in order to develop principles of justice, person is securely in the Kantian tradition of moral philosophy. Natural rights (life, liberty, and property) according to Locke and Nozick, somehow exist in human being through nature or God. Rawls believes such rights are given to humans by a just society, developed behind "veil of ignorance"
Ethical egoism
It is a theory about what we ought to do, how we ought to act.
Categorical imperative
Kant's basic moral prin- ciple, is comparable in importance for his moral phi- losophy to the principle of utility for utilitarians. It is Kant's test for right and wrong.
Psychological determinism
Maintains that human beings are affected by their unconscious drives and their attempts to repress them to the extent that their early childhood determines the course of their adult lives. The main criticism of this theory is that it is too generalized to have any real basis in fact.
BF Skinner
Maintains that human beings are completely physical beings whose development is totally determined by those external stimuli provided by their physical and cultural environments Problem: based completely on materialistic views of human beings, which does not stand up to evidence or argument
Reward
Something given or received for worthy behavior
Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex (1949) became a classic text for what has been called a "second wave" of feminists (the "first wave" being the nineteenth-century women's rights advocates). 34 According to de Beauvoir, women are a "second sex" because they are regarded always in terms of being an "other" to the primary male sex. In an existential- ist vein, she stressed the need for women to be inde- pendent selves and free to establish their own goals and projects.
Restitution
The act of compensating victims for harm or wrong done to them
Retribution
The act of giving people what they deserve, regardless of the consequences
Female ethical perspective
The context for women's moral decision-making Personal Partial Private Natural Feeling Compassionate Concrete Responsibility Relationship Solidarity
Existentialism
a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will. is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.
Analytic propositions
a statement or judgment that is necessarily true on purely logical grounds and serves only to elucidate meanings already implicit in the subject; its truth is thus guaranteed by the principle of contradiction. are truths that known to be absolute (All triangles are 3 sided) because we know the definitions and meaning of words
Retributive justice
a theory of criminal justice that focuses on giving criminals what they deserve and forcing them to pay back what they owe to victims or to society
Distributive justice
a theory of justice concerned with the fair distribution of benefits and harms within society
G.E. Moore
an influential philosopher of the early twentieth century. Moore maintained that moral terms such as good are names for non-empirical properties that cannot be reduced to some other natural thing. Moore claimed that to attempt to define good in terms of some mundane or natural thing such as pleasure is to commit a ver- sion of this fallacy. The problem is that we can ask whether pleasures are actually good. Just because we desire pleasure does not mean that it is good to desire pleasure. As Moore suggested, there is always an open question about whether what is natural is also good.
Jean-Paul Sartre
argued that there was no essential human nature. As Sartre put it, "existence precedes essence," which means that through the course of our lives we create our own nature or essence.
Fear of death
basic human impulse says thomas hobbes
Leviathan
by thomas hobbes concept of social contract why did people come up with society
Hillel's principle
cognized brotherly love, also known as "the Golden Rule", as the fundamental principle of Jewish moral law.
Sylvia Benhabib
created to keep woman in the house and be better mothers
Westermarck
cultural relativism - ethics varies from culture t culture and time to time
Cultural Absolutism
culture is the sole source of the validity of a moral right or rule. 1. Similar moral principles exist in all societies 2. People in all cultures have similar needs 3. There are a great many similarities in situations and relationships existing in all cultures 4. There are great many similarities in sentiments, emotions, and attitudes
Makropulos affair
drink to live for another 300 years?