Ethics: the study of right and wrong
Metaethics
Normative ethics
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Example questions
Positions
Example Questions
Applied ethics
Areas
Is ethics more about self-interest or about the
interests of others
Are some virtues more important than others?
Doing the “right thing” and doing the “best thing”
What is a duty?
Are consequences relevant for ethics?
What is a good person?
Plato
Do moral principles exist?
Positions
Aristotle
Egoism and altruism
Hume
Kant
Mill and Bentham
Nietzsche
Are moral principles universal or
relative to a particular situation or culture?
Is moral sense natural or cultural? Relative or
universal? Subjective or objective?
What is the significance of calling something
“right” or “wrong”?
Is moral behaviour found only in human beings?
What are the foundations for moral judgments?
Biomedical ethics
Environmental ethics
Distribution of wealth
Example questions
Poverty
Inequality
Ethical responsibilities
to humanity,
Taxation
Charity
Example questions
Cloning
Genetic engineering
Stem cell research
Euthanasia
Abortion
Example questions
Rights and interests of future generations
Anthropocentrism
Species extinction
Deep ecology
Animal rights
Food production
Animal testing
Deontological view
Virtue ethics
Utilitarianism
Eudaimonia
Golden mean
Virtues and vices
Practical reason
According to Aristotle a human being is:
a talking, rational animal
political, social animal
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Why are some people bad: akrasia, the lack of self-control
Human is the ideal state in a smaller form
Three parts of the soul
relate to the just divisions in the society
The idea of OBJECTIVE values
Justice and happiness are related
Some virtues and vices are natural, others, including justice, are artificial
Moral distinctions are not derived from reason, but from moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action.
He claims that the sentiments of moral approval and disapproval are caused by some of the operations of sympathy, which is not a feeling but rather a psychological mechanism that enables one person to receive by communication the sentiments of another (more or less what we would call empathy today).