Exam 2 (Ethical Systems) Flashcards
(23 cards)
1
Q
Text of the Day (Cultural Relativism)
A
1 Corinthians 9:19-23
- To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that U might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the law;
- to those who are without the law, though not being without the law of God but under the Law of Christ…
- I have become all things to all men, so that I may be by all means save some
2
Q
Definitions (Cultural Relativism)
A
- Culture: The customs, religion, worldview, and traditions held generally in common across a population delineated by language, “country”, origin, or characteristics. These cultural characteristics may change over time.
- Cultural Diversity: The range of difference within a culture and also between cultures.
- Cultural Relativism: The term for not having absolute moral objectives or values that transcend culture. The culture’s changing social norms become the moral standard by which one’s actions are measured.
- Cultural Norms: Those things which a culture considers the “normal” obligations persons are to live by in a society or culture groups.
- Ethical Relativism: The belief that there is no moral truth that applies to all people at all times.
- Cognitive Relativism: The belief or “truth” that consideration of cultural differences are seen from ones own perspective or way of thinking.
- Ethnocentrism: The focus on one’s own culture or society, often thinking it is superior. Cultural relativism argues that it overcomes ethnocentrism, nationalism, or cultural superiority.
3
Q
Positives (Cultural Relativism)
A
- It helps multicultural societies respect differences between cultural or ethnic groups.
- It helps Christians differentiate between what is cultural Christianity and what parts of Christianity are trans-cultural-transferable outside and transcendent to one’s culture.
4
Q
Text of the Day (Ethical Egoism)
A
- Acts 5:1-11
- 3. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back some of the price of the land?”
- 4. Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.
- 5. And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last; and great fear came over all who heard it.
- 8. “Tel me whether you sold the land for such and such a price?” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.”
- 9. Then Peter said to her, “Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out as well.” - Luke 12:16-21
- 18. Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
- 19. ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”
- 20. You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will win what you have prepared?
- 21. “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” - Mark 12:28-31
- 29. …“The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord,’
- 30. And you shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and with all your strength.
- 31. The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”….
5
Q
Definitions (Ethical Egoism)
A
- Altruism: The principle of being unselfish and helping others for the benefit of society.
- Egoism/selfishness: Placing one’s own needs or desires first- as a moral principle.
- Universal Egoism argues that each person should be selfish.
- Rand’s definition of selfishness: Concern with one’s own interests, and not deemed a negative value.
- Ethical Egoism: The ethical system based upon the value that we do not do anything altruistically. Each person is selfish- even when “doing good” for others.
- Egotism: Focusing immediate gratification of self-interest.
- Egoism and society: the concept that what we do individually or socially is rationalized selfishness- looking after long-term self-interest or self-preservation.
6
Q
Positives (Ethical Egoism)
A
- Egoism strongly links personal responsibility and self-esteem.
- Self-preservation and self-interest have an appropriate role in ethics.
- We benefit from the selfishness of others.
- Ethical egoism warns us that actions are not justified simply because they are “unselfish”. Altruism cannot be good if our actions do not benefit us.
7
Q
Conclusions (Ethical Egoism)
A
- Egoism is arbitrary in promoting selfishness.
- Egoism is idolatry in the sense that I “worship” self in place of God.
- Egoism and Christianity both hold that our moral behavior should enhance our lives, however egoism ignores the spiritual dimension, God and ultimate reality.
8
Q
Text of the Day (Behaviorism)
A
Genesis 3: 1-13
- Now the serpent was craftier than a beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed has God said ‘you shall not eat from any tree of the garden.’
- Serpent: You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to keep one wise, she took from its fruit and ate.
9
Q
Definitions (Behaviorism)
A
- Skinner’s determinism: that human behavior does not happen randomly or by choice. Actions are predispositions to behave certain ways. Freedom is an illusion.
- Behaviorism: Is the ethical system, which presumes we are predisposed to act certain ways, based upon physical causes. We modify out behavior based upon stimulus and response
- Behaviorism rejects the idea of the: should” since it cannot be scientifically qualified.
- Social Behavior: the product of stimulus, response and environment. Behavior can be modified by positive or negative reinforcement.
- Behavioral Engineering: the process of modifying social behavior by manipulating environmental surroundings.
10
Q
Ethics (Behaviorism)
A
- Skinner’s behaviorism redefines ethics: Ethics are merely tools used to modify people’s behavior.
- Behaviorism undermines moral imperatives based upon ethics. There is no moral responsibility and concepts of moral absolutes are meaningless.
- Psychological determinism: the philosophical basis of psychoanalysis-is the theory that the purpose, needs and desires of individuals are central to an explanation of human behavior.
- Skinner’s behavioral determinism it a modifications of this view. Skinner reduces all internal psychological states to publicly observable behavior.
11
Q
Summary (Behaviorism)
A
Behaviorism deems ethics and morals as changeable and that the modification is driven by human, environmental, and scientific processes.
12
Q
Positives (Behaviorism)
A
Behaviorisms methodology is helpful in thinking through the ethics of environmental changes esp. positive reinforcement of desired behaviors and reduction/punishment of undesired behaviors.
13
Q
Text of the Day (Evolutionary Ethics)
A
Matthew 24:3-14
Sermon on the Mount of Olives “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Make sure that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of birth pains.
.. and many false prophets will appear and deceive many, and because lawlessness will increase so much, the love of many will grow cold. But the person who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
14
Q
Definitions (Evolutionary Ethics)
A
- Evolutionary ethics is based on “On the Origin of the Species (1859) with the idea of natural selection which is applied to human development in “Decent of Man” all by Darwin
- Natural selection argues that what survives in a certain set of circumstances or through time is more able to survive future change.
Social Darwinism:
-Herbert Spencer went further and claimed that social D0 the evolution of humanity and society was to improve states of being/society in which civilization overcame savages.
Sociobiology- E.O Wilson of Harvard author of “Consilience: The unity of knowledge which combines several fields of study
- Sb - Social science, philosophy, religion and ethics are integrated knowledge I interaction with biology, science and environment, which observe and predict change.
- Transcendentalism: Assumes that ultimate questions and answers are derived from natural or human change/ evolution observable and predictable by scientific material-based analysis.
Sociobiology Impacts:
- Morality is genetic
- Genetics change human behavior to favor survival, including pro-social and altruistic behavior
- Genetics leads to protective social behaviors morals against threats.
- Religion is based upon genetics-need for survival. A “god gene” is presumed.
15
Q
Positives (Evolutionary Ethics)
A
- Sociobiology –evolutionary ethics helps us recognize the need for social and ethical infrastructure.
- Evolutionary ethics helps created the language for descriptive and also normative ethics,
- Normative ethics is the mental picture of what people presume that ethics “is” or “means.”
16
Q
Summary (Evolutionary Ethics)
A
- Sociobiology is defined as the scientific or systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behavior, in all kinds of organisms including man, and incorporating knowledge from ethology, ecology, social science, philosophy, and genetics
- E.O Wilson “If human kind evolved by Darwinian natural selection—genetic chance and environmental necessity, not God, made the species”
17
Q
Text of the Day (Utilitarianism)
A
- Ecclesiastes 3:22
I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot.
- 2 Chronicles 7:9-11
… then on the twenty third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their tents, rejoicing and happy o heart because of the goodness that the Lord had shown to David and Solomon and to his people Israel.
18
Q
Person (Utilitarianism)
A
John Locke
- “The highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness.”
- Locke’s “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” influenced Jeremy Bentham
Declaration of Independence
- “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”
19
Q
Definitions (Utilitarianism)
A
- Utilitarianism: The greatest happiness. Good for the greatest number. The idea of utility or usefulness.
- Hedonism the idea that people should seek pleasure of happiness as the basis for behavior, values or ethics… NOT immoral behavior.
- Happiness: in Ut happiness is a state of being with intrinsic value. It is the only standard of “goodness”
- Moral right in Ut.. is achieving intrinsic good-or behavior for the greatest number.
- The “greatest number” is defined by a majority of a group impacted by decision or action who achieve happiness.
20
Q
Utilitarianism and Ethics
A
- Consequentialism is attempting to determine what the impacts will be of a potential course of action to achieve happiness/good for a majority.
- Quantitative Ut: an ethical approach proposed by Jeremy Bentham to qualify happiness or goodness based upon 7 pre-defined criteria.
- Qualitative: Differentiates between “higher” and “lower” pleasure those which are more “moral” vs. “moral” in establishing the greatest happiness, as argued by John S Mill.
21
Q
Method/Application (Utilitarianism)
A
- Identify all courses of action open to you.
- For each course of action identify parties affected.
- For each part, identify contribution of each course of action to that person’s net happiness
- Ignoring all other considerations, compares courses of action, taking account of the number of persons affected and how each is affected but not who is affected.
- Choose that course of action most likely to maximize overall happiness.
22
Q
Positives (Utilitarianism)
A
- Links happiness intrinsically with the good.
- No one person’s happiness is more valued that another’s.
- Utilitarianism is measurable, visible and results-oriented.
- Ut is versatile, applicable in many situations
- Ut balances individual and group rights.
- Ut ideals resonate with Christianity. In “Made for Goodness” archbishop Desmond Tutu shares his source of strength and optimism.
23
Q
Conclusions (Utilitarianism)
A
- Ut can be attractive to the majority
- Can allow room for God
- Christian allows room for divine leading and some consideration or moral absolutes
- Still has problems since it denies the happiness of the minority
