Exam 7: Plato Why Should We Be Good

According to Marquis, "The moral generalizations of both sides are not quite correct. The generalizations hold for the most part, for the usual cases. This suggests that they are all necessary generalizations, that the moral claims made by those on both sides of the dispute do not touch on the essence of the matter."

According to Wong, "a good part of morality arises out of the need to structure and regulate social cooperation and to resolve conflicts of interest. Meta-ethical relativism is true because there is no single valid way to structure social cooperation."

Aristotle says, "Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it."

Hume says, "Reason being cool and disengaged, is no _________________, and directs only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, by showing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery."

According to Harris, "To opt for the society which Y and Z propose would be then to adopt a society in which determinism would be mandatory."

According to Thomson, "I have throughout been speaking of the fetus merely as a person, and what I have been asking is whether or not the argument we began with, which proceeds only from the fetus's being a person, really does establish its conclusion. I have argued that it is indeterminable."

At the beginning of the dialogue, it is argued that those who practice justice do so involuntarily. Explain why.

According to Kant, "as man is a free (moral) being, the notion of duty can contain only self-constraint (by the idea of the law itself), when we look to the internal determination of the will (the spring), for thus only is it possible to combine that constraint (even if it were external) with the freedom of the elective will. The notion of duty then must be an ethical one."

According to Nietzsche, a crypto-moral world is one in which the value of an act is found in its motives.

According to Wong, "______________________ expresses skepticism about the meaningfulness of talking about truth defined independently of the theories and justificatory practices of particular communities of discourse."

According to the received nature, or common view of justice (not Socrates's view), the perfectly and completely unjust person...

According to Marquis, "Since a fetus possesses a property, the possession of which in adult human beings is sufficient to make killing an adult human being wrong, abortion is wrong."

Explain what Mill means when he says, "The main constituents of a satisfied life appear to be two, either of which by itself is often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquility, and excitement."

In the reading, Rachels asks us to consider this case: If letting die were in itself less bad than killing, then someone who said "After all, I didn't do anything except just stand there and watch the child drown. I didn't kill him; I only let him die," should have at least some weight. Rachels says, "But it does not. Such a 'defense' can only be regarded as a grotesque perversion of moral reasoning." Do you agree with Rachels?

According to Rachels, "If the life of such an infant is worth preserving, what does it matter if it needs a simple operation? Or, if one thinks it better that such a baby should not live on, what difference does it make that it happens to have an unobstructed intestinal tract? In either case, the matter of life and death is being decided on ..."

According to Mill, "It results from the preceding considerations, that there is in reality nothing desired except ..."

According to Nietzsche, "A new order of philosophers is appearing; I shall venture to baptize them by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far as they allow themselves to be understood-for it is their nature to wish to remain something of a puzzle-these philosophers of the future might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as ..."

Explain what Huxley means when he says, "Thousands upon thousands of our fellows, thousands of years ago, have preceded us in finding themselves face to face with the same dread problem of evil. They also have seen that the cosmic process is evolution; that it is full of wonder, full of beauty, and, at the same time, full of pain. They have sought to discover the bearing of these great facts on ethics; to find out whether there is, or is not, a sanction for morality in the ways of the cosmos."

According to Aristotle, moral virtue is a product of nature.

According to Mill, "the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality," is called the Metaphysical Maximal Position.