Test 1 Flashcards
What are the 6 core critical thinking skills?
(1) Interpretation: comprehend and express meaning or significance of an event;
(2) Analysis: identify the intended and actual inferential relationships being expressed
(3) Evaluation: assess credibility of what is being expressed
(4) Inference: identify and secure elements needed to draw reasonable conclusions
(5) Explanation: present reasoning in a clear, concise way
(6) Self-regulation: monitoring your own cognitive abilities
Finish this quote..”Critical thinking is…..
Purposeful, reflective judgment which manifests itself in reasoned consideration of evidence, context, methods, standards, and conceptualizations in deciding what to believe or what to do.” (quote on pg. 23)
Finish this quote, “Ethics is about the…
good [that is, what values and virtues we should cultivate] and about the right [that is, what our moral duties may be].” (Holmes)
What is cultural relativisim?
- A world view that moral beliefs and practices vary with and depend upon the human needs and social conditions of particular cultures, so that no moral beliefs can be universally true
- NO universal “oughts,” NO universally correct thoughts and behaviors…
Name one sub-thesis?
- Diversity Thesis: practices vary between cultures – which is a descriptively correct statement
Every culture has taboos (ex: incest)
Easily identify universal areas of value
How cultures punish wrongdoers vary – but they are still punished
Some diversity has yielded to persuasion
Relativism crumbles when culture conflicts
Name the 2nd thesis?
- Dependency Thesis: morality is causal, fragmented by environment and particular traditions/teachings
Context is allowed to impact determination of good/right
Cultural beliefs cannot vouch for truth/falsity
All moral beliefs are not completely dependent on cultural conditions
What’s at stake: freedom and determinism
Who said this ,” the unexamined life is not worth living.”?
Socrates
What is emotivist ethics?
the view that moral language simply expresses and perhaps arouses emotion, so that nothing we say in moral terms is either true or false about anything
What is consequential ethics?
…where the ultimate criteria for determining good and evil are the consequences of a deed rather than the deed itself.
…where standards or precepts by themselves do not dictate a basis for moral judgment; rather the effects or consequences of particular acts do
What is ethical egoism?
• An act is good if it creates pleasure and lessens pain, and bad if it causes or increases pain.
What is utilitarianism?
- …the attempt to achieve the highest degree of pleasure and the lowest degree of pain for the largest possible number of people.
- Good is calculated not on the basis of a moral virtue (wisdom, etc.) but on the nonmoral good of happiness or pleasure
What is principle ethics?
… a moral act is good if it conforms to a certain principle (precept or norm), irrespective of the consequences
aka: Deontological ethics
2 forms distinguishable by the source from which the precepts or norms are derived:
a) Theonomous ethics – God is the changeless source of all moral laws. All that is good is ultimately founded on God’s will, and it is up to humans to obey God’s precepts.
b) Autonomous ethics – moral laws are not derived from God but from humanity itself. Motivation for morality lies in rationally recognizable reality, not in the metaphysical or transcendental. In this view, God is not needed for morality – humanity is a law unto itself.
What is eudemonism?
the pursuit of a fulfilling and happy life in God’s presence, is an invitation that is open to every person
What is hypothetical imperatives?
A practical necessity of a possible action as a means to achieving something else which one desires
