Jeff's Courses Flashcards

Question

2 kinds of virtue (Aristotle)

Answer 1

thought (arises from teaching, needs exp and timie) and character (results from habit). virtue is the mean (Bravery is the virtue btw cowardice and rashness). Virtues are states - certain actions produce them, and they cause actions.

Answer 2

P - justice is about getting what you deserve in a scheme that is overall harmonious. A - it's about giving what is right at the right level. for A, virtue is about relationship to the self, justice is relationship to others. justice is a virtue at the level of the polis.

Answer 3

happiness is our highest goal. the highest form of happiness is contemplation. contemplation is an activity of our highest rational faculties. contemplation is a divine activity and we have to try to approximate it. ***BUT, Aristotle doesn't have an idea like Plato that you go back to the cave once you've seen the light.

Answer 4

Analytic judgments – occur btw the ears. Subject and predicate are equated with e/o. Ball is round. (What ball isn;t round?). so the predicate is contained in the subject. Synthetic judgments –put 2 and 2 together; the predicate adds something to the subject. Ball is red. (predicate adds something to the subject. A posteriori = judgments after an experience; all a posteriori judgments are synthetic. A priori = judgments prior to experience. A priori of pure reason = space and time (these are a priori synethetics) A priori of morality = freedom of the will Groundwork for metaphysics of morals = a priori synethic. For Kant, the q of whether pure reason can guide ous is the q of whether we can have synethic a priori judgments. For Kant, freedom is the a priori for the possibility of moral obligation and the form of practical action. Freedom is bound to universal law (he gets this from Augustine).

Answer 5

3. The concept of duty (Duty=necessity of an action done out of respect for the law) i. **An action must be done out of duty in order to have moral worth. ii. SO… to secure happiness is a duty, but we already have an inclination to do this. Pursuing happiness only has moral worth if we do it out of duty. 4. **An action done from duty has its moral worth in the maxim according to which the action is determined (not in its purpose): so, moral worth depends on principle of volition, not the object. a. Purposes do not give actions worth. The worth lies in the principle of the will. many actions may be in accordance with duty, BUT TO BE DONE OUT OF DUTY REQUIRES A DISPOSITION. WE CAN NEVER KNOW IF AN ACT IS DONE OUT OF DUTY, AND THEREFORE IF IT IS MORAL.

Answer 6

duty can only be expressed in categorical, not hypothetical imperatives. the three formulations of the catgorical imperative are: “I should never act except in such a way that I can also will my maxim should become a universal law” "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." "every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends."

Answer 7

we have perfect duties not to act by non-universalizable maxims. perfect duties create clear obligations, we are blameworthy if we fail to meet them. imperfect duties are about practice in the real world. they are not as strong as perfect duties, even though they are also morally binding. they don't have as much blame if not met, and they are never completed. for example, imperfect duty = cultivating one's talents.

Answer 8

A Kingdom of Ends is composed entirely of rational beings, who act by maxims that imply an absolute necessity. When all the kingdom's individuals live by the categorical imperative—particularly Kant's second formulation of it—one will treat each of their fellow subjects as ends in themselves, instead of means to achieving one's own selfish goals. This systematic whole is the Kingdom of Ends. People can only belong to the Kingdom of Ends when they give universal laws unto it, and are subject to those same laws and all laws within. so people legislate universal laws and are subject to them. Such rational beings must regard themselves simultaneously as sovereign when making laws, and as subject when obeying them. Morality, therefore, is acting out of reverence for all universal laws which make the Kingdom of Ends possible. In a true Kingdom of Ends, acting virtuously will be rewarded with happiness. IN THIS WAY, KANT TURNS METAPHYSICS INTO EPISTEMOLGOY - FREEDOM EXISTS IN THE MIND. In his writings on religion, Kant interprets the Kingdom of God as a religious symbol for the moral reality of the Kingdom of Ends. As such, it is the ultimate goal of both religious and political organization of human society. [1]

Answer 9

he asks under what conditions we invented value judgments. Morality didn't occur before the world. it evolved, without a clear driving telos. it evolved intentionally, accidentally, and fallibly. he wants us not to fall into nihilism, but to rise above morality.

Answer 10

the good and useful were the same until noble people said they were good and not evil. then, purity/impurity emerges, priestly function, and two moralities: slave morality = comes from ressentiment (feeling of resentment toward the noble). calls all others evil. the enemy is evil first, the self is good as an afterthought. noble morality = yes to the self. seeks the opposite to affirm itself. bad is an afterthought invented to highlight the goodness of the master. never consumed by resentiment. **ex: birds of prey seem evil to lambs bc they kill lambs. lambs think everythign which is not a bird of prey is good and the bird is bad.this is reasonable from lamb's perspective, but limited and doesn't put claim on the bird. it would be ridiculous to ask bird of prey not to kill lamb. Grammar tricks us into thinking that this question could be possible. but we could never ask a bird of prey not to kill. this is its nature. Grammar makes us believe there are subjects and predicates. but these are not real. nothing is real apart from actions and forces - these define nature. the real is just forces acting on each other. from the slave morality perspective, the subject is supposed to be able to be independent of its deeds. slave morality applauds the powerless for nto causing harm. this doesn't make sense. it's constructed by grammar, in the same sense that we say "lightning flashes" (What lightning wouldn't flash. if it didn't, it wouldn't be lightning.)

Answer 11

He argues that the ability to forget leads to the ability to remember and to promise, and thus, to responsibility and conscience. He hypothesizes that perhaps the origin of bad conscience is the relationship of creditor and debtor. This relationship manifests in the relation of the individual and community and the concept of justice which emerges within a community. As communities became more secure, however, the desire to punish diminished, and the concept of mercy emerged. Yet, he concludes that punishment cannot be the origin of bad conscience, because although the act of punishing remains, its purpose changes. No things, including punishment, are inherently purposive. The will acts on things and gives them purposes. Purpose and utility only show the existence of the will to power. Thus, Nietzsche instead proposes that bad conscience was invented by the powerless. The powerless cultivated their own habits of self-loathing and guilt.

Answer 12

Ascetic ideals have gained a monopoly over the ways that humans interpret the world. This leads to self-deprecation and shapes the way humans think about everything, including science. Infusion of the ascetic ideals has led humans to find themselves and their own sinfulness as most blameworthy, and overall tends to corrode reason. Ascetic ideals are tricky - they spring from degenerating life, they struggle with and against death, as a trick for the preservatio of life. (think about the priest here). the problem is not death and suffering, but that we need meaning for death and suff; ascetic ideals give this meaning. Finding meaning in this way saved the will. And yet, it is also a will against life, to nothingness -- man can will something, but this is a rebellion against fundamental prereqs of life.

Answer 13

Virtue: “an acquired human quality the possession & exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods.” Without virtues, we can’t get the goods internal to practices. We can’t even recognize them! Practice = “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, w the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.” 187 there are internal and external goods. 2 kinds of internal goods - i. 2 kinds of goods internal to a practice 1. Excellence of the products, understood historically (ex, the painting produced.) 2. In the attempts to sustain progress and creatively address problems, you engage in the good of a certain kind of life – as a painter, or whatever. to enter a practice is to enter a rltshp with contemporary and past practitioners – so when you learn, you confront the authority of a tradition. **Interestingly, the making and sustaining of community itself has all the characteristics of a practice – and exercise of virtues requires a determinate attitude to pol and social issues. FE, Lib individualism – comm where inds pursue their own self-chosen conception of the good life; the state should not be the moral educator.

Answer 14

Mac’s account is NOTAristotelian in two ways: it doesn’t rely on A’s metaphysical biology, and goods may be incompatible, make rival claims on our allegiance – meaning that conflict doesn’t just come from character flaws. There's a real sense of tragedy, and tehrefore you have to turn to the unity of a life. \ Mac’s account is Aristotelian in several ways: a.it requires distinctions of intellectual and character virtues. b.It agrees w A’s account of pleasure as having the possibility of being either an internal or external good. Virtues have to be exercised w/o regard to consequences – w/o regard to whether they actually produce the internal goods we desire. c.Mac links evaluation and explanation – so an account of action must appeal to virtues. This is like A, who says that to evaluate an action as virtuous is also to explain why the action was performed. d.lots of modern morality is only intelligible as a set of fragmented survivals from Aristotle e. rejecting Aristotle really was really was rejecting was rejecting part of a larger scheme that was more than rules.

Answer 15

unity of a life is the unity of narrative embodied in that life. To ask 1) what is good for me is to ask how to live out unity. And to ask 2) what is the human good is to ask what all the what is good for me answers share in common. The telos must presuppose the quest; but, it is in looking for a conception of the good that we define the kind of life which is a quest for the good. i. “the good life for man is the life spent in seeking for the good life for man, and the virtues necessary for the seeking are those which will enable us to understand what more and what else the good life for man is.” 1. That the self finds moral identity in and through comm doesn’t mean that the self has to accept the limitations of the community. --

Answer 16

a. MacIntyre rejects the usual claim that either we must believe that goods are inherently incompatible OR that there must be a determinate conception of the good life for man. i. This forgets that there are better and worse ways for inds to live through tragedy. ii. What is better or worse for a person depends upon the character of the intelligible narrative which provides the person’s life with unity. 1. So it’s the denial that such unity exists that underlies modern denials of the factual character of moral judgments. This denial corrupts the notion of virtue

Answer 17

“For if the conception of a good has to be expounded in terms of such notions as those of a practice, or the narrative unity of a human life and of a moral tradition, then goods, and with them the only grounds for the authority of laws and virtues, can only be discovered by entering into those relationships which constitute communities whose central bond is a shared vision of and understanding of goods. To cut oneself off from shared activity in which one has initially to learn obediently as an apprentice learns, to isolate oneself from the comm which find their point and purpose in such activities, will be to debar oneself from finding any good outside of oneself. It will be to condemn oneself to that moral solipsism which constitutes Nieitzschean greatness.” i. The nietzschean ubermensch is also a pseudo-concept. Nietzsche does not escape the scheme of liberal individualist modernity, but is just another moment of its unfolding. ii. So it was right to pit Nietzsche and A. But it turns out that N is part of the culture he is criticizing. *****So in the end, it’s actually Aristotle vs individualism – and the lib individualist viewpoint has failed to give a coherent, rationally defensible statement of its position.

Answer 18

We are not waiting for a Godot, but for another - dboutless very different - st benedict. **At the exact time where MacIntyre needs an eschatology... needs someone to save us from Nietzschean solipsism, he calls for something earthly.*** Benedict was the son of a Roman noble of Nursia [born in 480 A.D.]... He was at the beginning of life, and he had at his disposal the means to a career as a Roman noble... Benedict... left Rome... to find some place away from the life of the great city... in some kind of association with a company of virtuous men who were in sympathy with his feelings and his views of life." This desire led Benedict to become, first a monk, then an abbot... "[M]any people, attracted by his sanctity and character, came to Subiaco to be under his guidance. For them he built in the valley twelve monasteries,..."St. Benedict spent the rest of his life realizing the ideal of monasticism which he had drawn out in his rule." --> Godot never comes. In sam beckett's play, the characters wait endlessly and in vain.

Answer 19

1: originates in post-Enl ethics and loss of telos (Macintyre). leads to whole tradition view, where distinct moral comms have values. they develop view of good life before ethical issues. 2. orgin is opposition to post-Enl political liberalism. (Sandel and Emanuel). right is prior to the goodk, bc person is unencumbered self.method is then mutual self-discovery, doing the right thing as you learn about self an others. Kuczewski is here.

Answer 20

1. against Thomism - emphasis on ind from ethical theory. 2. against tyranny of principles in post-Enl ethics. it's a kinetic taxonomy - intuition based. arranges reasoning into taxonomy of rltshps, cases, maxims, etc - all in flux. **K argues that communitarianism conceived as a process of self-discovery and casuistry as kinetic taxonomy are the same moral philosophy.

Answer 21

Allegory of the cave: Humans living in a cave with an entrance a long way up open to the light; people can only see in front of them, been there since birth. Light is provided by a fire above and behind them, and behind them is a path between them and the fire. There is a wall along the path, and people along it carrying artifacts that project above it and give shadows on the wall in front of them. The people would think that the truth is just the shadows of those artifacts. If they could turn toward the light, they’d be blinded and pained. And if they left the cave, they’d think that the cave was the truth and outside world an illusion. Slowly they’d be able to see things on the outside world..the eyes would be confused first when going from dark to light but also from light back to dark – just like the soul. Education isn’t putting light into souls that lack it…everyone already has the ability to learn. You can’t learn, go from dark to light, without turning the whole body – you can’t turn the soul until you can study the brightest thing – the good. So education is about the “turning around” – sight is already there but it’s turned the wrong way.

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