Exam 2: How to Be Ethical

Plato | The Ring of Gyges In this excerpt from the dialogue The Republic, Glaucon and Socrates discuss the nature and origin of justice. Glaucon defends injustice, illustrating his argument with the legend of Gyges, to play devil's advocate and force Socrates to explain why people would voluntarily choose to be just. -Gyges contrived to be sent to ___________, where he eventually took charge of the kingdom.

Thomas Hobbes | Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Their Felicity and Misery; Of the First and Second Natural Laws and of Contracts Hobbes first discusses the state of war in which men live before a common power can bring them together in civil society. By virtue of the natural and fundamental laws of nature, peace and cooperation can be attained only when man is willing to renounce a right to benefit someone else. A contract is the mutual transferring of right. Only then can lawful and just civilization develop. -Moral philosophy is the ___________ of good and evil.

John Stuart Mill | Utilitarianism Mill criticizes existing ethical theories based on abstract principles that fail to apply directly to human action and its consequences. He builds on earlier conceptions of utilitarianism from Epicurus to Bentham by distinguishing between different qualities of human pleasure, which include both the intellectual and the sensual (the higher and lower pleasures). -Mill criticizes a priori, or theoretically deducible, moral principles on the grounds that they do not apply to empirically observable ___________ of actions.

Virginia Held | On Feminist Ethics Held lays out the consequences of centuries of creating ethical theory purely from a male point of view. The most important is that a feminist ethics cannot simply add to a structure built of concepts that are themselves based on a patriarchal view of the masculine and feminine but rather must transform ethics completely. She focuses on three main issues: (i) that of equating reason with males and emotion with females; (ii) associating the public arena with men and the private, household arena with women; and (iii) creating a caricature of the moral self that is exclusive to males. -Di Stefano criticizes Hobbes's account of human nature on the grounds that it

John Stuart Mill | Utilitarianism Mill criticizes existing ethical theories based on abstract principles that fail to apply directly to human action and its consequences. He builds on earlier conceptions of utilitarianism from Epicurus to Bentham by distinguishing between different qualities of human pleasure, which include both the intellectual and the sensual (the higher and lower pleasures). -When utility is accepted as the foundation of morals, actions are right that promote happiness and wrong that produce

Walter Stace | On Ethical Relativism Ethical relativism can be understood as an extreme left-wing response to ethical absolutism, which arose naturally out of Christian theology. Stace points out that while the former denies the latter, it also uses the term standard in a different way. While absolutist distinguishes between what is right and what is only thought to be right, the relativist sees them as the same. -Stace characterizes ethical relativism as

John Dewey | The Construction of Good Dewey contrasts his pragmatic approach to morals with earlier theories based on loyalty to ideals or principles. The scientific method is best applied to social and moral questions both because its claims are seen as hypotheses to be tested rather than rigid laws to be followed and because it allows for knowledge that responds to changing conditions over time. -According to Dewey, insecurity generates the search for

Thomas Hobbes | Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Their Felicity and Misery; Of the First and Second Natural Laws and of Contracts Hobbes first discusses the state of war in which men live before a common power can bring them together in civil society. By virtue of the natural and fundamental laws of nature, peace and cooperation can be attained only when man is willing to renounce a right to benefit someone else. A contract is the mutual transferring of right. Only then can lawful and just civilization develop. -When men desire the same thing, according to Hobbes, they become

Aristotle | On the Good Life In this excerpt from The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explores what it means to lead a good life and how this is related to pleasure, pain, virtue, and character. He concludes that happiness, or pleasure, is the chief good, or end goal, of a well-lived life. -Pleasure, to Aristotle, is the ___________ of activity that results when our faculties of sensibility, intelligibility, and contemplation are at their best.

Aristotle | On the Good Life In this excerpt from The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explores what it means to lead a good life and how this is related to pleasure, pain, virtue, and character. He concludes that happiness, or pleasure, is the chief good, or end goal, of a well-lived life. -For Aristotle, the chief good must NOT be

Walter Stace | On Ethical Relativism Ethical relativism can be understood as an extreme left-wing response to ethical absolutism, which arose naturally out of Christian theology. Stace points out that while the former denies the latter, it also uses the term standard in a different way. While absolutist distinguishes between what is right and what is only thought to be right, the relativist sees them as the same. -Which of the following is NOT true of ethical absolutism?

Aristotle | On the Good Life In this excerpt from The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explores what it means to lead a good life and how this is related to pleasure, pain, virtue, and character. He concludes that happiness, or pleasure, is the chief good, or end goal, of a well-lived life. -Self-sufficiency, for Aristotle, is

Analyze the following statement: "For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones." Can you think of examples corroborating or countering Aristotle's assertion about moral excellence in these terms?

Thomas Hobbes | Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Their Felicity and Misery; Of the First and Second Natural Laws and of Contracts Hobbes first discusses the state of war in which men live before a common power can bring them together in civil society. By virtue of the natural and fundamental laws of nature, peace and cooperation can be attained only when man is willing to renounce a right to benefit someone else. A contract is the mutual transferring of right. Only then can lawful and just civilization develop. -A ___________ is the mutual and voluntary transferring of right between men.

Aristotle | On the Good Life In this excerpt from The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explores what it means to lead a good life and how this is related to pleasure, pain, virtue, and character. He concludes that happiness, or pleasure, is the chief good, or end goal, of a well-lived life. -Eudoxus saw pleasure as good because

Immanuel Kant | Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals In this excerpt from Kant's moral philosophy, we are first introduced to the concepts of good will, duty, and moral worth, followed by a discussion leading up to the fundamental principle of the categorical imperative. The passage concludes with Kant's examples demonstrating the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. -An action lacks moral worth, for Kant, unless it was done out of

Virginia Held | On Feminist Ethics Held lays out the consequences of centuries of creating ethical theory purely from a male point of view. The most important is that a feminist ethics cannot simply add to a structure built of concepts that are themselves based on a patriarchal view of the masculine and feminine but rather must transform ethics completely. She focuses on three main issues: (i) that of equating reason with males and emotion with females; (ii) associating the public arena with men and the private, household arena with women; and (iii) creating a caricature of the moral self that is exclusive to males. -Traditionally, the phrase "the ideal man of reason" was taken to mean a(n)

John Dewey | The Construction of Good Dewey contrasts his pragmatic approach to morals with earlier theories based on loyalty to ideals or principles. The scientific method is best applied to social and moral questions both because its claims are seen as hypotheses to be tested rather than rigid laws to be followed and because it allows for knowledge that responds to changing conditions over time. -Most conflicts of importance, according to Dewey, are have been about things that are or have been ___________, not between good and evil.

Thomas Hobbes | Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Their Felicity and Misery; Of the First and Second Natural Laws and of Contracts Hobbes first discusses the state of war in which men live before a common power can bring them together in civil society. By virtue of the natural and fundamental laws of nature, peace and cooperation can be attained only when man is willing to renounce a right to benefit someone else. A contract is the mutual transferring of right. Only then can lawful and just civilization develop. -The first and fundamental law of nature, according to Hobbes, is to

Case 2.1: James Rachels, "The Prisoner's Dilemma" -By deliberately separating the prisoners, the situation excludes any possible collaboration or cooperation between them. What happens to the concepts of autonomy and rationality if the prisoners were allowed to confer about their choices?