Kneejerk Reactions Part 1
According to _______________, ethical truths are determined by the ethical values of each society.
ethical relativism
According to _____________, using others as means to your own ends is the right thing to do, i.e., what you ought to do.
ethical egoism.
Which mascots are not the greatest mascot?
All mascots other than Otto.
...
Apparently...
_________________ are gut-level thoughts formed before learning about and carefully considering a topic.
Pre-theoretic intuitions
Gordon Gekko says, "Greed is good." Are there any societies where this would not be the case by ethical egoism's lights? If yes, what sort of societies? If not, why are there no such societies?
A society that punished greed and dispossessed you of any wealth or other goods attained by acting greedily.
According to _______________, ethical truths are determined by what each individual values.
subjectivism
According to ________________, ethical truths are determined by an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent critter.
divine command theory
What was a piece of clothing that Socrates most likely wore?
A toga. Sandals also works.
___________ is conformity to other's conclusions because you value being a member of their crew.
Group think
"Their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke" is a quote from which film? Explain how it relates to relativism.
The Dark Knight
The Joker suggests that cultural adherence to certain ethical norms is a "bad joke," suggesting that we can collectively decide upon a different set of norms or no norms at all.
Suppose that you defer to Neil deGrasse Tyson on matters of astrophysics. You point out that we should all defer to Nel deGrasse Tyson's conclusions about astrophysics unless we've had an extensive education in physics and cosmology. Which kneejerk reasoning style does this resemble?
Divine Command Theory
Explain why we could not coherently criticize our own culture's ethical truths if relativism is true.
If relativism is true, then what is ethically true is determined by our culture.
If what is ethically true is determined by our culture, then our disagreement with those ethical truths in our culture is not a matter of reason but simply our being wrong about our culture's moral norms.
Morality, at minimum, should a) ______________ and b) __________________.
a) Guide conduct according to the best reasoning.
b) Give equal weight to those affected by an action, i.e., be impartial.
A ________ is a procedure for making decisions and arriving at conclusions quickly.
heuristic
Imagine a train is about to hit and kill five people stuck on the tracks. You can throw a switch and kill a single person by sending the train down a different set of tracks. Describe circumstances in which an ethical egoist might argue for throwing the switch and separately describe circumstances in which they would argue against throwing the switch.
This all comes down to the expected pay-off for the person throwing the switch. If the person has sufficiently good reason to believe that one option will benefit them more than the other, they should choose the option. For example, a society that weighs all lives equally would hold a person more accountable for not throwing the switch. A society that values not acting as the direct cause of another's death would hold a person more accountable for throwing the switch.
Explain why defending oppressed people in other cultures is not an example of cultural intolerance, given that those people are conforming to their cultural norms.
This is the distinction between ethical and cultural relativism. Cultural norms, like what clothing we wear, differ, and there is no basis for preferring one set of norms to another. Oppression deals with ethical norms. These are norms of reason, not culture. Hence, this is not intolerant of the culture but of the ethics they practice.
Explain both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma and how both horns have problematic implications.
First horn: if God makes an action immoral or moral by deeming it so, then God can decree anything immoral or moral. This is problematic because it implies that God could make it the case that genocide is moral.
Second horn: if God recognizes that an action is moral but does not influence whether it is moral, God is superfluous in whether X action is moral. This is problematic because it implies that God is less than omnipotent.
True or false:
Ethical claims aren’t like physical objects. Therefore, there are no objective ethical truths.
False (but the subjectivist takes serious issue with this!)
A ___________________ is
a) willing to act on rational, justified conclusions
b) willing to revise view in light of new evidence facts, arguments
c) committed to reasons and justification
d) impartial to the interests of those involved.
conscientious moral agent
Suppose that God has decreed that "you shall only get into heaven if you never utter a true proposition." In other words, you must always speak falsely to get into heaven. Suppose that divine command theory is true and it is a truth of reason that one should always speak truth. Is this a contradiction?
No. God has not decreed that it is morally required that one speak falsely, only that it is the ticket to heaven.
People in New Zealand drive on the left side of the road. Explain the objective moral consequences, if there are any. If there are, how are they impacted? If there are not, why are there no objective moral consequences?
There are objective moral consequences. The law requiring people to drive on the left side of the road makes it objectively immoral to drive on the right side (at least when other people are on the road in a tight formation). Hence, this is an objective moral requirement that varies according to the cultural norm.
A solipsist is a person who believes that there are no other minds in the world, just bodies that go through the motions of being controlled by a mind.
Suppose the solipsist is right. Does this entail that subjectivism is true?
No. Objective ethics is reason-based. Although the solipsist would not aggrieve anybody claiming that babies should be drowned, this doesn't square their claim with reason. Similarly, the solipsist can believe and claim that 2 + 2 = 14, but this doesn't make it the case.
The sentence "nothing is true" is self-defeating, in much the same manner as other paradoxes we considered.
Does the sentence "nothing except this sentence is true" avoid the nihilist paradox? Does that sentence make the claim plausible?
It avoids the nihilist paradox.
Does it make the claim plausible? That's far too complex to address here (yes, no, sort of etc. are all acceptable answers to this).
Marshall McLuhan warned ___________ would happen with interconnected electronic media.
retribalization
Some people argue that we should be allowed to commit suicide because it is up to us to decide whether to continue living. Explain how pro and anti-autonomy-over-suicide positions would be reached given ethical egoism.
Egoism pro: It is my right to decide for myself: if I decide not to keep living because it is in my best interest, then I am ethically allowed to do so.
Egoism anti: It is not another person's right to decide for themselves iff their committing suicide interferes with my best interests.