Ethics final exam Flashcards
(30 cards)
Jean-Francois Lyotard
Post modernism is “incredulity toward meta-narratives”
Meta-narrative (kanes description)
some overall, general story which explains the nature of everything, including everyones individual narrative.
Meta-narrative (class notes)
Any attempt to say “this is the way”
Can control ones life
Example of meta-narrative (Lyotard)
Modern science tries to “dispossess” every other story
Language game and legitimation
all of us live within a “language game,” thus legitimation is confined within each narrative
-different “languages” have different rules for life
Michel Foucault
any attempt at objective standards is simply a means of seeking power (he follows Nietzsche here)
Metaphysics
the study of what is really real (integral and traditional search for wisdom)
Metaphysics two allied “ends” or goals, and the connection of the two
Objective explanation and objective worth
The connection between these two (grounding objective worth in objective explanation) has been surrendered in “postmodern” western thought
Objective explanation
understanding the first causes (ultimate reasons/nature) of things as they are in themselves
Objective worth
“understanding what is objectively valuable and worth striving for”
- Valuable in itself
Subjective worth
Valuable because someone else said so
The postmodern clam that we cannot know THE was things are in themselves does not imply that we must give up “objective explanation”
Kane argues (in terms of the end of metaphysics)
“The way the world is” according to Kane and the end of metaphysics
Perhaps “the way of the world is” is the sum of all the different ways in which the world is objectively described (it need to be reduced to a single description)
EX. the blind men and the elephant, all had correct descriptions just all incomplete
What is a “way” for determining what is “objective” (or not)
Each “way” is a practice that deals with something that is real, thus that thing helps determine what is taken as an objective explanation in that practice, thus the result is not merely subjective or merely a product of that language game
Christendom
the culture and the institutional structures ostensibly (apparently/supposedly) built upon the teachings of Christ
Christianity
the authentic (personal/individual) following of christ
Passion
a deep abiding concern, something in which we are “infinitely interested”
Aesthetic stage of life
lives for the please of the moment, for what is interesting rather than boring, thus he fails to have a personality, a well defined self
Ethical stage of life
- One defines oneself by making “exclusive”/genuine choices, taking ones own life and the lives of others very seriously (passionately seeking to help others, to do what is right)
- Thus, good/evil becomes the means of evaluating ones life
- ethics is grounded in the fundamental ethical principle that “the universe is higher than the individual”
Religious stage of life
Putting full faith in God
???
Aesthetic way of life (class notes)
Making life as beautiful as possible. No commitment. Avoid being bored. Not ethical. Selfish.
Ethical way of life (class notes)
Taking your own life and all of life seriously
Religious way of life (class notes)
Meaningful
The teleological suspension of the ethical
- A key aspect of the religious way of life
- If being ethical=being religious, there is no need for faith only duty
- Genuine religion does recognize the claim of the universal (suspends, does not invalidate it)
- Faith is paradox to ethical reasoning
- Abraham is not a tragic hero because the sacrifice of Isaac is not done for the same of the universal (good of humanity), but to test his faith
- The “temptation” for Abraham was to be ethical rather than religious (tempted to not suspend the ethical and not kill Isaac)
- Christianity requires us to give up the ethical dream of self mastery (in order to attain the infinite relation of love with our creator)
