PHIL153 Ethics

Review for first midterm exam

What is “ethics”?

Distinction between descriptive claims and normative claims

Why people have a belief vs Whether belief is true

Objectivity in ethics

Distinguished from cultural relativism

Distinguished from subjectivism

Arguments for and against

Why be moral?

Is there opposition between justice and self-interest? Between expedience and morality?

Nietzsche’s “genealogy” of morals – rejection of nihilism and authorship of values

Plato on rational self-interest

Morality and religion

Plato: is it good because God loves it or does God love it because it’s good? A question about whether goodness is intrinsic.

Natural Law: there are objective truths about morality/justice discoverable by human intellect. Manmade laws must conform to natural law to be valid.

Plato and Cicero on virtues

Thomas Aquinas on virtue and knowing the divine

Martin Luther King, Jr. – modern use of natural law theory; civil disobedience

Readings: assigned selections from ch. 1; chapters 3,4,9; Richter handout; Regan handout; Foot handout; King handout