Exam 8: Morality and the Good Life

According to Kant, God does not give us laws; he can only tell us what our reason is already capable of justifying.

Aristotle's virtues seem to share the common thread of being

According to Kant, to act with a good will, we must first consider whether our actions will benefit ourselves and others.

Nietzsche believes that creative people may fail to realize their full potential if they allow themselves to be held back by moral rules and social prohibitions.

Nietzsche's "attack on morality" resonates with people who find the traditional rules and principles of morality to be too confining. Write an essay in which you first explain Nietzsche's critique of traditional ("slave")morality and his argument for a new ("master")morality. The second part of your essay should critically discuss Nietzsche's argument, especially his claim that traditional morality arises out of a kind of trick perpetuated by the weak that is an obstacle to creativity. Do you agree? Is there a way of being moral that does not involve the "slave" mentality? Can one be moral and live artistically and creatively? How might morality and creativity be interrelated?

Hedonism is the view that says the good life involves

Kant argues that the laws of God are justified

Nietzsche's ethical relativism grows out of his conviction that

What does Kant mean by a moral principle's universalizability ?

To Kant, each of us figures out for ourselves what is right or wrong on the basis of our own subjective opinions.

For Nietzsche, the strong person is, first and foremost, a physically strong and dominant individual.

Develop a fictional dialogue in which two characters argue over the nature of morality. The two characters should construct arguments and offer criticisms of each other's arguments. They can agree to disagree, or find some areas of agreement. The dialogue should address psychological and ethical egoism; duty-based, consequentialist, care-based, and virtue-based theories of morality; cultural and ethical relativism; and Nietzsche's attack on morality.

Duty-defined moral theories appeal to an outside authority to justify moral rules.

According to Epicurus, all pleasures are equally good.

"Trolley problems" are thought experiments first developed by philosopher Philippa Foot, in which people must consider what kinds of harm can ethically be done to one person in order to save many others.

Aristotle believes that

Carol Gilligan claimed to show that women tend to think of ethics in terms of

Some feminist philosophers believe that care ethics can provide a needed balance to earlier, overly abstract or rigid ethical theories.

The famous story of Abraham Lincoln stopping to save some piglets is an illustration of the thesis of

For Kant, the moral law is imposed on us as a duty by an authority outside ourselves.