Ethics test revision Questions Flashcards
What are ethics?
Key:
- Sustained analyzation
- ought to live
- Dialogue
Ethics is a sustained analyzation of how we are ought to act. Dialogue of right action. Its primary aim is to determine how one ought to live and what actions one ought to do in the conduct of one’s life.
What is morality?
Key:
- good and bad.
Morality is concerned with human behavior and to define what is right and wrong about our actions.
What is the human conscience?
(Conscience is formed by the many influences encountered in life and its formation goes through stages of development as people gain knowledge and wisdom)
Key:
- Developed the ability
- right and wrong.
- intuition and strong emotions
Conscience is a developed the ability of a human being to know right and wrong. Conscience is encompassing intuition and strong emotions.
Define what it is that makes something an issue.
Key:
- Viewpoints debated
A subject becomes an issue when there are more than one different viewpoints debated.
What makes an issue become an ethical issue?
Key:
- Values or ethical principles
- Moral or immoral.
- Premise arguments
- Opposes the question ‘What are we ought to do?’.
An ethical issue usually involves a conflict between values or ethical principles. An issue becomes an ethical issue when it requires stakeholders of a certain ethical principle to evaluate whether the actions arousing the issuse was moral or immoral. Thus, unlike a normal issue where the individual is only required to present premise arguments, an ethical issue is analyzed via multiple reasonable viewpoints and opposes the question ‘What are we ought to do?’.
What are ethical or moral codes?
Key:
- Standards of conduct that guide the behavior
- Prescribing righteous behavior
Ethical codes contain general principles and ethical standards of conduct that guide the behavior. On the contrary, moral codes are a written, formal, and consistent set of rules prescribing righteous behavior, accepted by a person or socially.
What is the difference between idealized and practiced values?
Clarify with the teacher
Idealized values are merely the ethical principles that members of society like to think goverens their moral compass, but not intrinsically grounded in reality. Hence, practiced values are more practical and are grounded in reality.
What does the term ‘normative’ mean when applied to ethics and morality?
Key:
- Culture approves and disapproves
- Not necessarily
- Outline the common decency
- Cohesion
- Organisms
The term Normative standards describe the actions and inaction of a culture approves and disapproves. These are not necessarily codified in rules or laws. In ethics, the normative standard is concerned with what actions are approved by our human nature. For example, parents not neglecting their child. Whereas in morality, normative standards outline the common decency that we should practice in order to live in cohesion with other living organisms calling earth home.
What is intuition?
Key:
- Emotional intelligence
Intuition is a feeling based on emotional intelligence, natural law, and life experience.
What is the role of reasoning in ethical decision making?
Key:
- An objective analysis of an ethical issue.
- Person’s conscience, intuition, personal or religious moral values, and assumptions.
- Capacity to form a conclusion
- Ambiguous conclusions and would
For an objective analysis of an ethical issue, a person needs to consider these factors person’s conscience, intuition, personal or religious moral values, and assumptions when applying ethical principles to determine what we are ought to do. The role of reasoning an ethical decision to move beyond mere disagreement and gives the discussion the capacity to form a conclusion that states what is ethically right and wrong. Without reasoning, ethical discussions would have more ambiguous conclusions and would not serve the purpose of guiding society to a moral state.
Define the term ‘ethical principles’.
Key:
- Framework
- Justify ethical situations
Ethical principles are considered by many as the standard theoretical framework from which to analyze and justify ethical situations.
➢ Social norms
Key:
- The fact that they are norms does not make them moral.
Are rules that are created by what everyone does, whether it follows or go against the law. The fact that they are norms does not make them moral. For example, lying to your parents when you brake something in the house.
➢ World view
Key:
- Equally inhabitants of the Earth
- Benefits to the world as a whole.
‘World View’ in ethics is the consciousness that we are all equally inhabitants of the Earth. An individual who supports the ‘World view’ will make decisions based on its benefits to the world as a whole.
➢ Ethical authority
Key:
- Used to support
- Not all claimed ethical authorities are authoritative.
Is any person or thing that is used to support an ethical viewpoint. Someone or something that has the right to determine, command advise, or judge. They have been confirmed as dependable, learned, righteous, factual, authentic, proven and authenticated.
➢ Mores
Key:
- Set by a group
The term “mores” refers to the norms set by a group, largely for behavior and appearance.
➢ Moral values
Key:
- Standards of good and evil
Key:
- Keep your promises
- Do not cheat
- Treat others as you want to be treated
- Do not judge
- Be dependable
- Be forgiving
- Have integrity
- Take responsibility for your actions
- Have patience
- Seek justice
- Have humility
- Be generous
Moral values are the standards of good and evil, which govern an individual’s behavior and choices. Values work together with principles to determine the behavior of an individual and society.
Utilitarianism
- Consequentialism
- Relativism
- Sentient
- Ideal
- Hedonism
Decisions are made on the basis of choosing the best outcome to achieve the greatest happiness.
Subjectivism
Key:
- The theory that perception (or consciousness) is reality, and that there is no underlying, true reality that exists independent of perception.
- Subjectivism accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measures and law.
- that there is no external or objective truth.
- Subjectivism teaches that there are no objective moral truths out there.
Situation ethics
The doctrine of flexibility in the application of moral laws according to circumstances. This may involve actions that are questionable, even immoral, yet the good is the outcome.
Relativism
Key:
- Ther is no right answer
- “Who am I to judge?”
Moral relativism is the idea that there is no universal or absolute set of moral principles.
- all societies should accept each other’s differing moral values, given that there are no universal moral principles - those who adhere to moral relativism would say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
Nihilism
Key:
- Encourages individuals to think for themselves beyond conventional morality.
- denies moral principles and ethical values.
- In short, reasoning cannot be trusted to determine the truth of right or wrong.
This would also mean there are no universal “oughts.” That is to say, there is nothing that anyone ought to do - whether it be honest, save a life, protect someone else, not steal, etc.
Consequential
key:
- For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. But if telling a lie would help save a person’s life, consequentialism says it’s the right thing to do.
- the ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences
- Consequentialism is sometimes criticized because it can be difficult, or even impossible, to know what the result of an action will be ahead of time. Indeed, no one can know the future with certainty
Natural law
Key:
- defined by morality,
According to the natural law theory, the moral standards that govern my behavior objectively derive from the nature of human beings, entwined with the nature of the world.
- Natural law theorists believe that human laws are defined by morality, and not by an authority figure, like a king or a government. Therefore, we humans are guided by our human nature to figure out what the laws are, and to act in conformity with those laws.
- A system of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law.
Absolutist
Key:
- One set of moral rules.
- Rules common to everyone.
- Rules unlikely to change over time.
- Dogmatic
Moral absolutism is an ethical view that all actions are intrinsically right or wrong.
Moral absolutism asserts that there are certain universal moral principles by which all peoples’ actions may be judged. It is a form of deontology.
Absolutists make an effort to apply complete or universal standards across all situations.
