What are the 3 approaches to Justice?
1. Welfare- improve standard of living; greatest good for greatest number of people. (Utilitarian; Bentham, Mill, Singer)
2. Freedom- respect for individual rights, emphasizing civil liberties (Libertarian, Robert Nozick)
3. Virtue- importance of morality
Consequentialism
The state of the world following the act determines the rightness and wrongness of the action
Utilitarianism
-Who are the major proponents?
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Utilitarianism
-What, for them, makes an action ethical?
Bentham- The good is simply pleasure (to minimize pain)
Mill- The good is happiness (to minimize pain), a more complex notion, achieved by living a principled and prudent life
Utilitarianism
-Principle of utility and greatest happiness principle
Principle of Utility- the utility of a policy is measured by its tendency to promote the good.
Greatest Happiness Principle -choose to act so as to avoid, or at least minimize the amount of suffering or harm our actions will cause.
Libertarianism
Your rights are important as long as they don't compromise others entitlements
Robert Nozick
Road to Serfdom" (1944)
Ayn Rand
The Virtue of Selfishness" (1964)
Three Bad Policies
1. Paternalism- grounded in the notion that the citizenry must be treated in a paternalistic fashion (seat belt and helmet laws.
2. Moral Legislation- laws & policies grounded in a particular moral perspective (prohibition, marijuana laws)
3. Taxation- go
Psychological Egoism
The notion that a person cannot help but do things that are in their own best interest
Ethical (Normative) Egoism
People ought to do what is only in their own self best interests
Categorical Imperative
Moral actions grounded in reason for the sake of the good
Hypothetical Imperative
What we ought to do-provided we have relevant desires
i.e. lose weight, study for a test
Autonomy
To act according to rationality. The ability of a person to act according to a law that they give themselves.
Heteronomy
To act according to inclination. To act in accordance with a law that you do not give yourself
Universalization
The First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law"
Only do something that you would want everyone to do; different from the Golden Rule
Kingdom of Ends
The Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end"
Don't use people (Kayne We
Five Charges from King's Letter
1. Outsider
2. King is causing violence/trouble
3. Untimely, just need to wait
4. Civil Disobedience is bad
5. King is an Extremist
Five Responses from King's Letter
1. A threat to justice here is a threat to justice everywhere.
2. The hidden injustice is causing the tension, not King. He just brought it to life through non-violent protest.
3. Time is neutral. Progress is not inevitable.
4. Difference between just and
Three Counter Charges from King's Letter
1. White Moderates are the greatest obstacle to racial justice
2. White churches worship a false god
3. Police Brutality
Metaphysics
An area of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it.
Explains what science cannot.
1. Who am I?
2. What am I?
3. Do I persist through time?
Ontology
The foundation for the Ontological Argument, the nature of being.
Agnosticism
A person who has looked at the evidence for/and against God's existence, and concluded that it is not knowable.
Omnisience
1. God is all knowing.
2. God knows in a way beyond human understanding.
A Priori
Before experience.
(Ontological Argument).
Omnipotence
1. God is perceived doctrinally as all powerful.
2. God created the world ex-nibila (from nothing).
Religious Inclusivity
1. Only one world religion is fully correct, but other world religions participate in or partially reveal some of the truth of the one correct religion; it is possible, however, to obtain salvation through other religions.
2. Thinkers (Martin Luther King
Religious Exclusivity
1. One world religion is correct & all others are mistaken.
2. Religions (Christianity, Islam).
3. Thinkers (St. Paul, St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin).
4. Jesus answered "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father excep
Atheism
A person who thinks God doesn't exist.
A Posteriori
After experience.
(Cosmological & Teleological Argument).
Natural Theology
Accessible to anyone with reason & knowledge about the natural world.
Revealed Theology
Requires belief in specific texts or divine revelation.
Cosmological Argument for God's Existence: Motion
1. Nothing can move itself.
2. If every object in motion had a mover, then the first object in motion needed a mover.
3. Movement cannot go on for infinity.
4. This first mover is the Unmoved Mover, called God
Cosmological Argument for God's Existence: Causation
1. There exists things that are caused (created) by other things.
2. Nothing can be the cause of itself (nothing can create itself).
3. There cannot be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist.
4. Therefore, there must be an uncaused fi
Cosmological Argument for God's Existence: Necessary Beings
1. Contingent beings are caused.
2. Not every being can be contingent.
3. There must exist a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings.
4. This necessary being is God.
Teological Argument for God's Existence
1. Derived from the Greek term telos (end or goal) and logos (reason or rational argument).
2. First developed by ancient Greek & Indian philosophers.
3. The common theme among them all is that the means/ends order which exists in the natural world is bes
Formal Teological Argument
1. Man made objects are ordered (not random); they have a purpose.
2. The universe resembles these man made objects.
3. So, it is probable that the universe is a product of intelligent design and has a purpose.
4. However, the universe is vastly more comp
Objections to the Teological Argument (Hume)
1. The analogy used is not strong.
2. The world is finite & defective, so the Designer must be.
3. The universe might be the result of mere chance.
Objections to the Teological Argument (Darwin)
1. Evolution.
2. Living organisms are the products of natural processes, not of a Designer.
The Ontological Argument for God's Existence
1. God is the greatest possible being that can be conceived.
2. God exists in the understanding but not in reality.
3. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.
4. A being having all of God's properties plus existence in r
Arguments against the Ontological Argument
1. Unconvincing.
2. Definition of God is false (the definition is too broad).
3. Guanilo's Parody.
4. Kant's Objections.
Guanilo's Parody
1. Replaces "God" with "Paradise Island"
2. Just as God=Greatest conceivable being, Paradise Island=Greatest conceivable island.
3. Possible disanalogy between our ideas of God and Paradise.
4. Our idea of paradise is subjective, what constitutes the grea
Kant's Objection
1. The argument assumes that existence is part of the concept of a thing. (Predicate).
2. Does the addition of "Dogs exist" add anything to the concept of a dog?
3. If existence is not ever part of a concept, then it cannot be part of the concept of God a
The Logical Problem of Evil
1. If God exists, then God is all powerful, all knowing, and wholly good.
2. An all-powerful being would have the power to eliminate evil.
3. An all-knowing being would have the knowledge to eliminate evil.
4. A wholly-good being would have the will to el
Theodicy
An attempt to justify God and God's ways given the existence of evil in a world created by God.
St. Augustine's Free Will Theodicy
It is possible that God would desire to create a world which contains evil if moral goodness requires free moral creatures.
What is the definition of a religion?
A religion involves a system of beliefs and practices primarily centered around a transcendent reality, either personal or impersonal, which provides ultimate meaning and purpose to life.
What are the practices of western religious traditions? (Catholicism)
1. Baptism
2. Confirmation
3. Eucharist (happy feast, Lord's supper)
4. Reconciliation
5. Anointing of the sick
6. Holy Orders (being ordained)
7. Marriage
What are the practices of western religious traditions? (Protestantism)
1. Baptism
2. Communion
Calvinism
What are the major tenants of his theological/ philosophical thought?
1. Total Depravity- sin is inherently present in human nature
2. Unconditional Election- this is the concept of pre-destination. God chooses two groups. one to be saved and one to be ne
Arminianism
Jacobus created Arminianism-which is a Protestant theology-a methodist movement.
I. Three main points are: god and creation, providence and predestination, sin and salvation
II. The five tenants of arminianism
1. That it denies original sin
2. That it den
Molinism
1. "The doctrine of the middle knowledge proposes that God has knowledge of metaphysically necessary states of affairs via natural knowledge, of what He intends to do via free knowledge, and in addition, of what free creatures would do if they were instan
Open Theism
We have free will. Since open theism is also called free will theism and tells us that God does not have control of the universe and leaves it open to humans to choose what they do down the road that impacts their life and relationships. So, this gives hu