What is the challenge raised by Glaucon and Adeimantus at the begging of BK II? How does Socrates propose answering it?
Can you be moral while wearing the ring of Gyges and what is the value of morality? The Ring of Gyges shows no one could be both instrumentally and intrinsically good.
Socrates answers the question by looking at Justice Writ Large to find justice in the s
Why does Mortimer think that the concept of belief has primacy in moral philosophy? What would Plato say about Mortimer's claims about the primacy of belief?
Mortimer says that what you believe dictates how you act and therefore had primacy over actions. Plato would say that the primacy of belief is wrong. We should separate religion and morality and focus on character.
Explain what, according to Kant, makes a false promise ethically wrong
A false promise is ethically wrong because it shows you are using a human as a mere means, ultimately taking away their autonomy
How does Mill answer the Swine objection and which of Bentham's attractions does he give up in answering this way?
1) more human pleasures: the swine objection assumes humans only experience pig pleasures (lower) but Mill says humans can have higher pleasures as well - such as an intellect, imagination, and moral sentiment
2) Human pleasures are better: higher pleasur
Explain the swine objection. What is it an objection to?
a) The criticism is that the utilitarian theory of value is insulting because humans are able to experience higher goods than pleasure
b) Objection to Utilitarian theory of Value
State one formulation of the Categorical Imperative
Universal Law Formulation: act such that your maxim can be willed into a universal law
What does the principle of utility state
Right acts are right insofar as they produce the greatest happiness/pleasure for
the greatest number of people
Hedonic Calculus
A utilitarian decision making process - helps decide whether acts are moral or not
What are Bentham's main attractions of Utilitarianism
1. Scientific Basis
2. Eudaemonistic
3. Scientific Decision Making Process - hedonic calculus
4. Egalitarian
5. Pluralistic
6. Flexible and Context Sensitive
Explain the Disastrous Results Argument (what is the argument an argument against)
-argument against ETN
1) If ETN is true we must abolish morality
2) If we abolish morality it will result in disastrous effects
3) If a theory results in disastrous effects then it is false
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? Error t
What is the Argument from Tolerance for Cultural Ethical Relativism? Is this argument valid?
a) We must tolerate different cultures views and beliefs; therefore cultural ethical
relativism is true
b) This argument is not valid because it doesn't have a good structure. There is no fact to tolerating different cultures and CER being true
Name the 3 considerations that abolitionism cites regarding the problems that the use of moral concepts generates
1) Falsification
2) Intervention
3) Intractability
What, according to Error Theory Nihilism, is the error upon which all moral thinking rests?
The error is the belief in an objective moral truth
What, according to Marx, is the history of all hitherto existing societies?
Class struggles
Assuming the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic conception of God, explain the conceptual problem that arises from this answer for that conception of God (Leibniz's criticism of DCT)
if God has a reason for his command, then it is the reason that's the answer, not his command. And if God doesn't have a reason, then his command is arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
DCT is true, but that Atheism is also true.