review

• General Division of Ethics

  • Normative Ethics (prescriptive)
  • Descriptive Ethics (meta-Ethics)
• Normative Ethics (prescriptive)


  Prescribing a sort of Action
• Descriptive Ethics (meta-Ethics)


  Describing an event
• Normative (prescriptive)


  • consequentialism
  • Non-consequentialism
• Consequentialism


  • Egoism
  • Hedonism
  • utilitarianism
• Non-consequentialism


  • Deontology
  • Virtue Ethics
  • Natural Law
• Egoism


  Ayn Rand
• Hedonism


  Jeremy Bentham
• Utilitarianism


  John Stuart. Mill
• Deontology


  Immanuel Kant
• Virtue Ethics


  Aristotle
• Natural law


  Saint Thomas Aquinas
• Descriptive (Meta-Ethics)


  • Analytic Tradition
  • Phenomenology→ Existentialism
• Analytic Tradition


  • Ludwig wittgenstein
  • George Edward Moore
  • Bertrand Russell
• Phenomenology→ Existentialism


  • Edmund Husserl
  • Martin Heidegger
  • Soren Kierkegaard
• Feelings


  Instinctive response to moral dilemmas
• Some ethicists believe that ethics is also a matter of emotion
• Moral judgments at their best should also be emotional
• Reason and emotion


  Not really opposites, both have relative roles in ethical thinking
• Emotions


  Judgments about the accomplishment of one's goals, can be rational based on good judgments
• Feelings


  Instinctive response to moral dilemmas
• Some ethicists believe that ethics is also a matter of emotion
• Feelings


  Visceral or instinctual, provide motivations to act morally
• Moral judgments at their best should also be emotional
• Moral sentiments highlight the need for morality to be based also on sympathy for other people
• Being good involves both thinking and feeling
• Ethical Subjectivism


  Moral judgments are dependent on the feelings, attitudes, or standards of a person or group, not objective facts
• Emotivism


  Moral judgments express positive or negative feelings, not statements of fact
• Excluding feelings in moral living seems to go against the biblical decree to worship and serve God with a joyful heart or feeling
• Subjective feelings sometimes matter when deciding between right and wrong
• Emotions, like our love for our friends and family, are a crucial part of what gives life meaning, and ought to play a guiding role in morality
• Feelings or emotions involved in moral thinking should be anchored on careful consideration of a full range of right goals, including altruistic ones
• Reason and emotion


  Not really opposites, both have relative roles in ethical thinking
• Emotions


  Judgments about the accomplishment of one's goals, can be rational based on good judgments
• Feelings


  Visceral or instinctual, provide motivations to act morally
• Moral sentiments highlight the need for morality to be based also on sympathy for other people
• Reason


  Basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction, capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought
• Being good involves both thinking and feeling
• Moral truths are truths of reason, a moral judgment is true if it is espoused by better reasons than the alternatives
• Ethical Subjectivism


  Moral judgments are dependent on the feelings, attitudes, or standards of a person or group, not objective facts