PHIL 140 - ethics - final exam study guide
What does it mean to say that x is necessary for y? Be prepared to identify examples of necessary conditions
"x is necessary for why" = necessary condition. x is a necessary condition for y = ● ~x ➔ ~y ● if x does not occur / obtain, then y will not, either; or ● in order for y to occur / obtain, x must also occur / obtain. ● y only if x EXAMPLES (underlined portion = y): ● "In order to become President of the United States, you must be a native-born citizen of the United States." ● "You won't get into the pool at the YMCA, unless you are wearing a swimsuit." ● "You'll get your driver's license only if you go to the DMV and apply for it."
What does it mean to say that x is sufficient for y? Be prepared to identify examples of sufficient conditions.
"x is sufficient for y" = sufficient condition. x is necessary and sufficient for y = ● x↔y ● if x occurs / obtains, then y must, and if y occurs / obtains, then x must, too EXAMPLES ● If a person's is a bachelor, then he's an unmarried adult male—and if he's an unmarried adult male, then he's a bachelor. ● A figure is a rectangle just in case it is a closed, two-dimensional, figure with exactly four sides and exactly four right angles. ● A statement, claim, or proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to the way things really are.
One premise in a popular argument for criminalizing drugs states that "The government should prohibit people from doing things that harm themselves." Why does Michael Huemer reject this premise?
*Argument based on self-harm:* 1. Any time a person uses drugs, they seriously harm themselves. 2. The government should prohibit people from doing things that seriously harm themselves. 3. Therefore, the government should prohibit drug use. HUEMER REJECTION: Huemer: Rejecting Premise 2 ● Huemer grants P1, but denies P2: ● "Consider some examples of things people do that are harmful (or entail a risk of harm) to themselves: smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, eating too much, riding motorcycles, having unprotected or promiscuous sex, maintaining relationships with inconsiderate or abusive boyfriends and girlfriends, maxing out their credit cards, working in dead-end jobs, dropping out of college ... Should the government prohibit all of these things?" ● No. The government should not attempt to prevent self-harm.
Why does James Rachels reject the utilitarian argument for the legality of physician‑assisted suicide? What argument does he propose instead? Evaluate this argument.
*The Utilitarian Argument for Active Euthanasia* 1. If an action or social policy serves to increase the amount of happiness in the world or to decrease the amount of suffering in the world, then it is morally right. 2. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) —if legalized and practiced in accordance with rules like those adopted in California—would decrease the amount of suffering in the world. 3. Therefore, PAS—if legalized and practiced in accordance with rules like those adopted in California—is morally right. James Rachels writes: ● "Happiness ... is only one among may values that should be promoted: freedom, justice, and respect for individual rights are also important. ... Therefore, the first premise of the utilitarian argument is unacceptable" (p. 154). ● "Suppose a person is leading a miserable life - full of more unhappiness than happiness - but does not want to die. ... [T]he person should not be killed; that would be plain, unjustified murder" (p. 154) *A New Argument for Active Euthanasia* 1. If an action or social policy serves the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one's rights, then it is morally right. 2. PAS—if legalized and practiced in accordance with rules like those adopted in California—would in at least some cases serve the best interests of everyone concerned and would not violate anyone's rights. 3. Therefore, PAS—if legalized and practiced in accordance with rules like those adopted in California—is morally right in at least some cases. (Part of Rationale for Line 2: If you request PAS yourself while competent, and PAS causes your death, this does not violate your right to life.)
State and explain the principles of autonomy, benevolence, and justice. Be prepared to identify which of these principles is "in play" for possible choice‑situations
1. Respect the autonomy of others. [from Kant] ● Autonomy = informed and rational self-governance, i.e., freedom from controlling influence by others and from personal limitations that prevent choice. Autonomy requires the absence of external constraints—and the presence of critical mental capacities for voluntary decision-making. ● To respect a person's autonomy is to recognize a person's capacities and perspective, including his or her right to hold certain views, make certain choices, and take certain actions based on personal beliefs and values. ● It violates a person's autonomy to initiate force or coercion against them, to lie to them or manipulate them, and/or to withhold important information from them. 2. Do Not Actively Harm Others [from diverse writers] ● Maleficence means doing or intending evil; the principle of non-maleficence states that one ought not to inflict evil or harm. ● This principle implies obligations not: to kill, to cause pain or suffering, to incapacitate, to cause offense, or to deprive others of the goods of life. One should also prevent such harms to others when you can. ● Others may only be harmed when harming them is a foreseen but unintended side-effect of promoting an even more important end (and not a necessary means to this end). (Doctrine of Double Effect) 3. Promote Human Welfare [from Bentham and Mill] ● Beneficence means treating others with kindness and courtesy. It means expressing concern for the welfare of others through your choices and actions. ● If another person requires temporary, emergency aid that you can render at relatively small cost, beneficence requires that you provide it (this might involve the free gift of a good, or the removal of a current harm). ● If you are in a leadership position where it is impossible to take individual claims into account, you should promote the aggregate welfare. 4. Apportion benefits to desert [from Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, others] ● Gratitude: If a person has benefited you in the past, you should seek to repay them. ● Reparation: If you have wronged another in the past, you should seek to make up for it. ● Fidelity: If you have promised to do something, you ought to do it—you owe it to the person to whom you have promised it. If you have taken on some role (spouse, parent, etc.), you should fulfill its commitments. ● Fairness: Those who have made a greater contribution deserve a greater share of recognition or reward.
State AU. Explain the technical terms associated with this theory. Explain the main idea behind AU in your own words. Explain all of the main objections to AU (the arguments based on the Case of the Small Southern Town, the Case of the Organ Harvest, the Case of the Peeping Tom, the case of Grandpa, and the Nearest and Dearest Objection). What point is being made by each of these objections?
AU = An action is morally right IFF it maximizes hedonic utility.
What additional two goals / justifications of punishment does Hugo Adam Bedau discuss? Would either of these two goals / justifications ever support the use of the death penalty?
Goals of Punishment (1) ● Bedau says the main function of punishment is to reduce crime. ● However, the death penalty doesn't reduce crime more than lifetime imprisonment. ● States with the death penalty, like Illinois, have similar crime rates to demographically similar states without the death penalty, e.g., Michigan (homicide rate of 6/100,000). ● When interviewed, most death row inmates report thatthey did not think much about the consequences of their act, because they assumed they would not be caught. Also, they tend to think of life in prison and execution as about equally bad penalties. ● Bedau says a secondary goal of punishment is to express indignation. ● "Punishment ought to serve as a recognized channel for the release of public indignation ... at the offender over crime. ... Preserving a socially acceptable vehicle for the expression of anger at offenders is absolutely crucial to the health of a just society" (p. 401). ● However, this goal can justify the death penalty only in a very small number of rare cases, where the importance of expressing indignation outweighs all other factors (e.g., genocidal leaders like Adolf Eichmann, Saddam Hussein, perhaps Slobodan Milosevic and Ratko Mladic.)
State and explain the four main justifications for state punishment.
Justifying Punishment ● Punishment is the intentional, authorized imposition of (a) deprivations (of life, freedom, privacy, etc.), or (b) special burdens, because a person has been found guilty of some criminal violation. ● It is alleged to serve various important functions: ● Social Defense: it confines the dangerous so that they cannot harm the public. ● Deterrence: it prevents the occurrence of future crimes (people will not commit them out of fear of punishment). ● Rehabilitation: it reforms the criminal so that he/she is no longer prone to commit crime. ● Retributivism: it serves a punitive function ("pay back"); it is proportionate retribution for the crime committed.
For Kant, why ought one to let others to make their own choices for themselves? Explain both premises he uses to establish this conclusion.
Kant's Main Argument: From Rationality to Respect ● If this is what rationality requires, then you should allow others to make choices for themselves, too (unless their doing so threatens someone else's ability to do the same). 1. You should make your own rational choices for yourself. 2. You should not make an exception for yourself. 3. If (1) & (2), then you should allow others to make their own life-defining choices for themselves. 4. Therefore, you should allow others to make their own life-defining choices for themselves.
According to King, when one breaks these laws, how must one go about it? Is it acceptable to break them in secret, or to break them and avoid the regular penalties? Explain.
One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly ... and with a willingness to accept the penalty. ... [An] individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law."
We considered two objections to the morality and legality of physician‑assisted suicide (PAS): (a) that it involves "playing God," and (b) that it violates the hippocratic oath. How should the defender of PAS reply to these objections?
Objection: "To participate in a physician-assisted suicide is to 'play God,' and this is morally wrong." Replies: ● If "playing God" means "introducing innovations into the course of nature," then this would mean that all medicine is morally wrong. This is not plausible. ● If "playing God" means "making life-or-death decisions in a flippant, unserious, or reckless way," then this is wrong, but it's unclear that participating in PAS is always "playing God." ● If "playing God" means "causing someone to die who would otherwise have lived," then PAS is definitely playing God, but it is unclear exactly why "playing God" is wrong. Objection: "Doctors make promises to 'do no harm' and to 'always heal' when they take the Hippocratic Oath. To participate in a physician-assisted suicide would be to break this promise." Replies: ● The modern version of the oath does not include these phrases. It states: "I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. ... I must tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
How does Singer approach moral standing? What trait does he believe determines whether a creature has moral standing, or not? Explain his reasoning. In particular, why does he reject the sort of view that is held by Kant and Warren?
Singer's Question: ● But why is it true that all human persons have equal moral standing in the sense specified by REC? ● We know that people have equal moral standing, and that this must be based on some feature that people all share. ● We have ruled out these features: ● Equality in abilities, ● The statistical equality of human groups, ● Species membership, and ● Rationality (theoretical and practical). ● We also know that we all share the capacity for suffering and/or enjoyment, which seems closely linked with having interests (i.e., having a welfare-level, being such that things can harm or benefit you).
What is the point of Socrates' Euthyphro Argument, i.e., what is it supposed to show? Explain the main idea behind each premise of this argument. (This requires knowing the objections to theological voluntarism.)
Socrates asks Euthyphro: ● "Is the right commanded by the Gods because it is right, or is it right simply because it is commanded by the Gods?" ● His point: even if DC is true, and the right actions are the ones that God commands, we can still ask what makes these actions right: ● Are actions made right simply because God commands them (so that he could have made any actions right by commanding them)? ● Or does God command the right actions because he sees that they are right by some independent standard? ● It must be one or the other!
Huemer writes that taking drugs exercises one's right to control one's own body and does not necessarily violate anyone else's rights. Why does he believe this? Explain.
The Right to Control One's Body ● "[I]t is not just that we are punishing [drug-users] for no good reason. We are punishing them for exercising their natural rights. ... [A] person has the right to exercise control over his own body - including the right to decide how it should be used, and to exclude others from using it." ● "[D]rug use seems to be a paradigm case of a legitimate exercise of the right to control one's own body. Drug consumption takes place in and immediately around the user's own body; the salient effects occur inside the user's body. If we consider drug use merely as altering the user's own body and mind, it is hard to see how anyone who believes in rights at all could deny that it is protected by a right ..." (p. 140).
Explain Warren's personhood thought experiment. What traits does she think we would look for to decide whether an entity has moral status? Why may her criterion not rule out the idea that third‑trimester fetuses are persons?
Warren's Personhood Thought Experiment ● "The question which we must answer in order to produce a satisfactory solution to the problem of abortion is this: How are we to define the moral community, the set of beings with full and equal moral rights, such that we can decide whether a human fetus is a member of this community or not?" ● "Imagine a space traveler who lands on an unknown planet and encounters a race of beings utterly unlike any he has ever seen or heard of. If he wants to be sure of behaving morally toward these beings, he has to somehow decide whether they are persons, and hence have full moral rights, or whether they are the sort of thing which he need not feel guilty about treat as, for example, a source of food." Key Traits for Personhood 1. Consciousness: first-person awareness of external objects and events, the capacity to feel pleasure or pain, 2. Reasoning: the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems, 3. Self-motivated activity: the capacity to initiate movement "independent of external control," 4. Communication: the capacity to transmit messages of an indefinite variety of types (on an indefinite number of topics), 5. Self-understanding: the presence of a concept of oneself, awareness of oneself. All we need to claim, to demonstrate that a fetus is not a person, is that any being which satisfies none of (1)-(5) is certainly not a person."
Give an example of a behavior that is illegal on the grounds that it puts others at risk, even though it doesn't necessarily violate anyone else's rights. What policy do you think it makes sense to adopt on drugs given the degree to which they put other people at risk? Should all drugs be treated similarly?
money laundering. all drugs should not be treated similarly, because not all drugs have similar effects.
Leiser considers four interpretations of the idea that homosexuality is unnatural. According to the first, homosexuality violates a law of nature. According to the second, it is unnatural because it does not occur in nature. According to the third, it is unusual. According to the fourth, it involves using one's genitalia contrary to their proper function(s). For each of these interpretations, answer these two questions: ● On this interpretation, is homosexuality really unnatural? and ● On this interpretation, is homosexuality necessarily wrong?
this is bs there is nothing wrong with homosexuality even tho gays cant make babies
What is the distinction between active and passive euthanasia? What is the distinction between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia?
● Active Euthanasia: The physician administers a drug (or allows the patient to self-administer a drug) that terminates the patient's life. ● Passive Euthanasia: The physician withholds crucial life-saving treatment, which in turn causes the patient's death. ● Voluntary Euthanasia: The patient gives free and informed consent to the treatment that brings about their death. ● Involuntary Euthanasia: The patient explicitly refuses to consent to the treatment that brings about their death. ● Non-voluntary Euthanasia: The patient fails to give consent to the treatment that brings about their death because the patient is unable to give such consent (perhaps they are too young, brain-damaged, comatose, or on mind-altering drugs)
What is the fundamental project of moral philosophy?
● As Socrates and other Greeks conceived it, the fundamental project of moral philosophy is to explain what makes morally right actions right (and wrong actions wrong). ● Pursuing an analogy with geometry, they sought to do this by discovering a criterion of moral rightness for act-tokens.
State CI2 (the Formula of Humanity). What does it mean to treat someone as an end‑in‑themselves? What four things (a)‑(d) does Kant say are required in order to treat individuals as ends‑in‑themselves? (Be prepared to explain (c) one's positive and negative duties of self‑perfection in some detail.)
● Basically, treating people as end-in-themselves means treating them with respect—in a way that recognizes that they are free and equal rational choice-makers. ● The total opposite of treating someone as an end-in-themselves is to treat them as a "mere means," i.e., to treat them as tools, to just use them. Treating others as mere means is always wrong. ● You treat someone as an end-in-himself iff : a) You do not maim, damage, or kill him*. b) You respect his autonomy, by treating him only in ways to which he would consent, c) Your treatment of him enables him to satisfy his duties of self-perfection, and d) You help him with his permissible projects (those that do not involve treating others as mere means). *= except in self-defense, or in the course of a just war, or as retributive punishment.
State CR. Explain the technical terms associated with this theory. Then explain the main idea behind CR in your own words. Explain all three of the main objections to CR that we discussed in class (the argument based on the case of Fauziya, the slavery advice argument, and the no‑moral‑progress argument).
● CR: An action is morally right iff it is permitted by the moral code of the society in which it is performed. ● A society = a collection of people living in close proximity one to another, who share many beliefs and values, political and economic institutions, and many social customs. Sometimes, the members of a society will share a language, a cuisine, and/or a style of dress ● The moral code of a society = beliefs about what behavior is morally acceptable and/or morally forbidden that are widely shared within a society; what the vast majority of people believe about morality. Argument Based On the Case of Fauziya 1. If CR is true, then it is morally permissible for the doctor in Togo to mutilate Fauziya against her will. 2. But it is not morally permissible for him to do this. 3. Therefore, it is not the case that CR is true (i.e., CR is false). The 'Slavery Advice' Argument ● Bob's Question: "Is it really morally okay for people to behave like this?" 1. If CR is true, then Bob can find out everything relevant to the answer of his question by finding out what the moral code of Alabama society says about slavery. 2. Bob cannot find out everything relevant to the answer of his question in this way. 3. Therefore, CR is false. Moral Progress Argument 1. If CR is true, then it never counts as moral progressn when the moral code of a society changes. 2. But sometimes, when the moral code of a society changes, there has been moral progress. 3. Therefore, CR is false.
State DC and explain why there are two possible interpretations of its meaning. Explain how theological voluntarism differs from the idea that God determines what he will command us to do by consulting some independent standard.
● DC: An action is morally right iff it does not violate any one of God's commands. ● His point: even if DC is true, and the right actions are the ones that God commands, we can still ask what makes these actions right: ● Are actions made right simply because God commands them (so that he could have made any actions right by commanding them)? ● Or does God command the right actions because he sees that they are right by some independent standard? ● It must be one or the other! ● Option 1: Theological Voluntarism ● An action is right in virtue of the fact that it doesn't violate God's commands. Right acts are right because God commanded them; before he did so, they were neither right nor wrong. ● Option 2: DC is a True Criterion, But Not an Explanation ● If an act is right, it has been commanded by God; if an act is commanded by God, it is right. ● But being commanded by God isn't what makes right acts right. Rather, acts are right because they meet some independent standard. God uses this standard to identify the right acts, and then he commands us to perform those.
Define "validity." Can a valid argument have false premises? Can a valid argument have a false conclusion? Can a valid argument have true premises and a false conclusion? Precisely what sort of form must a valid argument have?
● Deductive arguments can be evaluated for their logical form or structure - i.e., for validity. ● An argument is valid iff the truth of its premises would guarantee the truth of its conclusion: if all the premises were true, then the conclusion would have to be true, too
What is Jeff Jordan's argument against same‑sex marriage? Which premise of it does David Boonin reject? Why does Boonin seem to think that it would not "accommodate" LGBTQ individuals to have, e.g., civil unions?
● Jeff Jordan (U. of Delaware) argues: 1. If there is an irresolvable public dilemma about issue x,and there's no overriding reason to prefer resolution by declaration, then the state should pursue a policy of accommodation. 2. There is an irresolvable public dilemma about same-sex marriage. 3. There's no overriding reason for the state to resolve the dilemma by declaration. 4. Therefore, the state should not sanction same-sex marriages, thereby accommodating those who are opposed to it (perhaps it can offer civil unions). 3. There's no overriding reason for the state to resolve the dilemma by declaration. Boonin's Critique of Line 3: ● Denial of equal protection under the law constitutes is an affront to the equal dignity of gay people, and a denial of basic rights enjoyed by all other Americans. ● So there is overriding reason for the state to resolve the dilemma by declaration, just as it did in over-turning segregation laws and laws against interracial marriage. ● Furthermore, it does not "accommodate" the interests of same-sex couples to keep same-sex marriage illegal! So neither course of action accommodates everyone.
Thomson rejects KRL, the idea that if a being has a right to life, then it is morally wrong to take actions resulting in its death unless another life is at stake. Explain her reasoning. What example does she use to cast doubt on this principle?
● KRL: If x has a right to life, then it is morally wrong to take actions resulting in x's death unless another life is at stake. ● Thomson says the famous *violinist case* shows KRL is false: 1. If KRL is true, then it is morally wrong for you to unplug yourself from the famous violinist. 2. It is not morally wrong for you to unplug yourself from the famous violinist. 3. Therefore, KRL is not true. 4. Therefore, P2 is not true, and Noonan's argument is unsound.
Describe the two capacities than an entity must have in order to count as a person according to Kant
● Kant says that in order to discover and describe the fundamental categorical imperative, we must consider the nature of rational beings, i.e., the beings that would be bound by such an imperative. ● A rational being is a creature that has these two capacities: ● Theoretical Rationality: The ability to think in general terms (by forming general concepts that subsume individual percepts), and to believe in accordance with the evidence. ● Practical Rationality: The ability to put "distance" between one's self and one's desires (to pause and deliberate), and to formulate long-range plans of action, and to act on principle.
When does King believe it is morally acceptable to break laws? Precisely what characteristics must the laws have in order for breaking them to be morally okay?
● King holds that just laws are rooted in objective moral truth and uplift the human personality. But if a law has any of the following features, this tends to indicate that it is unjust: ● It degrades human personality. ● It treats some human beings as objects or things. ● It is enacted by a group who would object to being bound by it, themselves. ● Those who are affected by it had no say in whether it would be enacted. 1. If a law has all these features, then it is unjust. 2. Segregation ordinances have all these features. 3. Therefore, segregation ordinances are unjust. (1, 2 MP) ● "One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly ... and with a willingness to accept the penalty. ... [An] individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law." 4. If a law is unjust, then it is morally right to break it, so long as one does so openly and accepts the legal penalty for breaking it. 5. Those involved in the Civil Rights Movement have broken segregation ordinances openly and accepted the legal penalties. 6. Therefore, this law-breaking by those involved in the Civil Rights Movement is morally permissible. (3, 4, 5)
Some people believe that marriage is intrinsically procreative or involves "comprehensive union", and that this rules out same‑sex marriage as a conceptual possibility. What might be said in response to these ideas by defenders of same‑sex marriage?
● Marriage is not essentially procreative or coitus-involving: infertile and paralyzed individuals can participate in the rites—and enjoy the privileges—of marriage. ● Keeping same-sex marriage illegal does not accommodate the interests of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. ● True, the 1868 Congress that amended the U.S. Constitution did not intend that the 14th Amendment protect the right to marry a person of the same sex. However, as it is written, the 14th Amendment does seem to protect this right.
What is a moral dilemma? Why does CI2 lead to moral dilemmas?
● Moral dilemmas are possible—at least, it is sometimes not possible to act on all your strong standing moral reasons. But these dilemmas are resolvable. They must be resolved using practical wisdom or good judgment.
Which justification for punishment does Primoratz use to argue for the moral and legal permissibility of the death penalty? How does he reply to the objections that (a) the death penalty violates a person's absolute right to life, and (b) the death penalty is irrevocable and irreparable?
● Objection: "Capital punishment is illegitimate because it violates the right to life, which is a fundamental, absolute, sacred right belonging to each and every human being, and therefore ought to be respected even in a murderer" (336-7). ● Primoratz agrees that the right to life is fundamental; however, he denies that it is absolute. He argues as follows: 1. If the right to life is absolute, then it is morally wrong to kill in the course of a just war or revolution, and it is morally wrong to kill in self-defense. 2. It is not morally wrong to kill in the course of a just war or revolution, or in self-defense. 3. Therefore, the right to life is not absolute. Objection #4: Irrevocability ● Objection: Judicial errors are inevitable. Some "can be corrected upon discovery; but ... those which result in innocent people being executed ... can never be rectified. [There is also a public interest in the exoneration of the wrongly accused.] ... Capital punishment is [by contrast] irrevocable and irreparable" (340). ● A study in the The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 4.1% of those sentenced to death in U.S. in the 20th Century were later found to be innocent. ● Primoratz responds: ● Every punishment is irrevocable. So this merely shows that we need to correct "deficiencies, limitations, and imperfections of criminal law procedures." ● Abolition would result in murderers receiving less than they deserve. (341)
State P (Pluralism). Explain what makes right acts right according to this theory. What are prima facie duties?
● Pluralism: An action is morally right iff it best fulfills one's most important prima facie duty (or duties) in one's particular context of action (violating less important prima facie duties to the smallest possible degree). ● One always has prima facie duties to: ● Respect autonomy, ● Do not be maleficent, ● Be beneficent, and ● Be just.
What does CR really imply about the morality of tolerance?
● Recall #5 from Rachels "Five Theses": 5. It is arrogant for us to judge other cultures. We should always be tolerant of them. ● Rachels, following many actual cultural relativists, seems to believe that, if CR is true, then we should adopt an attitude of tolerance toward the practices of other cultures. ● Tolerance might be a good idea, but does CR really imply that morality requires us to adopt an attitude of tolerance? ● But according to CR, the local culture's moral code determines the moral status of an action. ● So when it comes to being tolerant, what CR actually implies is this: ● If the moral code says "Be tolerant!", then one should be tolerant; ● If the moral code says "Kill all the infidels!", then one should be intolerant. ● In other words, CR does not necessarily support tolerance. It all depends on the local culture's moral code. If you want to claim that tolerance is a universal value, subscribing to CR will not let you do it.
Define "ethics."
● The word, "ethics," derives from the Greek word, "ethos," which roughly means "way of life." ● A person's ethics consists in his or her own code of personal conduct. ● Ethics, as we will use the term, means the normative study of human conduct, more specifically the attempt to achieve a systematic understanding of how we ought to live and why
Define "soundness." How does soundness differ from validity? What does an argument need in order to be sound?
● When arguments are successful in both these respects, they are sound. ● An argument is sound iff it is both valid and factually correct. ● Soundness is the "bottom line" on arguments: a sound argument is a good argument, and an unsound argument is a bad argument.
What is an argument (in philosophy)?
● a series of considerations (the "premises") that are presented by an author in support of some point of view that he or she wants to convince us of (the "conclusion"). 1. If 10C is true, then Matt's action was morally permissible. 2. But Matt's action was not morally permissible. 3. Therefore, 10C is false. ● This is a deductive argument: an argument where the premises are supposed to guarantee the truth of the conclusion. With deduction, if the premises were true, then the conclusion would be 100% certain.
