Skip to main content

Home/ Philosophy for teens/ Group items tagged ethics

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Daryl Bambic

Russell, Bertrand: Ethics [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] - 0 views

  • Russell’s view is that the good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge
  • neither love without knowledge
  • knowledge without love
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • but love is in a sense more fundamental, since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge in order to find out how to benefit those whom they love.
  • “scientific knowledge and knowledge of particular facts.”
  • All moral rules must be tested by examining whether they tend to realize ends that we desire.”(374)
  • In his youth, Russell took the utilitarian view that the “happiness of mankind should be the aim of all actions”
  • dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by “devotion to the mechanism of life”, and that unless the contemplation of “eternal things” is preserved, humankind will become “no better than well-fed pigs.”
  • He believed that (1) “good” is the most fundamental ethical concept and (2) that “good” is indefinable
  • a priori certain propositions about the kind of things that are good on their own account.
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      A priori meaning without empirical evidence, from reason and logic.
  • Russell, on the other hand, gives no such list of things which are good in themselves,
  • regard consequences or results as of vital importance for judging an action as right or wrong. In other words both are teleologists or consequentialists, like the utilitarians.
  • mpact of the First World War, which Russell passionately opposed
  • of human passions similar to that of psychoanalysts. Russell started believing that fundamental facts “in all ethical questions are feelings”, (Russell 1917, 19) and that impulse has more effect in moulding human lives than conscious purpose.
  • d we ought to act so as to maximize the balance of happiness over unhappiness in the world, and says: “I should not myself regard happiness as an adequate definition of the good, but I should agree that conduct ought to be judged by its consequences.”
  • According to him, once “good” is defined, the rest of ethics follows:
  • According to Russell, when we assert that this or that has value, we are giving expression to our emotions, not to a fact which would still be true if our personal feelings were different.
  • he first of these sentences, which may be true or false, does not, says Russell, belong to ethics but to psychology or biography
  • he second sentence which does belong to ethics, expresses a desire for something, but asserts nothing; and since it asserts nothing it is logically impossible that there should be evidence for or against it, or for it to possess either truth or falsehood.
  • Russell adopts as his guiding principle David Hume’s maxim that “Reason is, and ought, only to be the slave of the passions.
  • esires, emotions or passions
  • nly possible causes of action. Reason is not a cause of action but only a regulator.
  • The world that I should wish to see,” says Russell, ‘is one where emotions are strong but not destructive, and where, because they are acknowledged, they lead to no deception either of oneself or of others. Such a world would include love and friendship and the pursuit of art and knowledge.” (11)
  • esires are not “irrational” just because we cannot give any reason for them.
  • wondering once again whether there is such a thing as ethical knowledge.
  • since it must involve appeal to the majority,
mira ahmad

BBC - Ethics - Torture: Why is torture wrong? - 0 views

  • [Torture] dehumanizes people by treating them as pawns to be manipulated through their pain.
  • Torture is sometimes used to destroy the autonomy of the victim
  • Torture violates the rights and human dignity of the victim
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • each act of torture makes it easier to accept the use of torture in the future
  • Torture damages the humanity of the torturers
  • Torture damages the institution that carries it out
  • The use of torture is dishonourable. It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it
  • Torture treats the victim as a means to an end and not an end in themselves
  •  
    This is a great resource Mira. I hope everyone gets a look at this!
Daryl Bambic

The Internet Classics Archive | Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle - 0 views

  • Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.
dunya darwiche

When Is Torture Right? - Studies in Christian Ethics - 0 views

  • torture remains a tool for interrogation, intimidation, and punishing.
sara tsapekis

Do euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide violate the Hippocratic Oath? - Euthanasia... - 2 views

  • Hippocratic Oath:
    • sara tsapekis
       
      The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by doctors taken for them to swear that they will practice medicine ethically.
  • I will do no harm
    • sara tsapekis
       
      Some may say euthanasia violates the oath especially due to this sentence. Some think that euthanasia causes harm to the person because it is killing them, while others believe that in certain situations, not performing euthanasia is harming the individual.
  •  
    This site includes text from the Hippocratic Oath and famous quotes talking about whether euthanasia violates this oath or not. The Hippocratic Oath is relevant to euthanasia because all doctors take this oath and a certain amount of them perform euthanasia. Some people think it violates the oath because of the aspects the oath contains, which opposes the whole concept of euthanasia. Of course, others think otherwise. Quotes from well known educators, lawyers etc. express their position.
  • ...1 more comment...
  •  
    Excellent site Sara.
  •  
    Sara! I like this site a lot. Firstly, I wasn't aware about the Hippocratic Oath, so I was really enlightened while reading this information. And your right, the hippocratic oath has a lot to do with euthanasia (and assisted suicide). In addition to this, clear arguments that are for and against euthanasia are in this site which help enlarge my ideas.
  •  
    Sara, this is a great web site that explains the justice side of euthanasia and the moral aspects of it. Doctors do go against the Hippocratic Oath, which is a great point. I wasn't aware that this oath existed, but it enlightened my idea about the justice aspect of this subject. This makes a great argument.
vince chatigny-barbosa

Animals lack free moral judgment - 1 views

  •  
    This is a website basically supporting the argument that animals lack the free moral judgment and basically cannot exercise any rights.
  •  
    "However closely humans and lower animals resemble each other, human beings alone possess the capacity for free choice and the responsibility to act ethically." This is a quote from the site you bookmarked that I find is part of a good point and a good argument. You really chose a good site because it holds philosophical points instead of only opinions and facts. It doesn't really leave much room for argument, but you might want to watch out for your opponents saying things like, "Who's to say they don't have ratinoal thought?" It's sure to help you out in your debate, though.
Daryl Bambic

The Shrinking World of Ideas - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

  • To put it in the most basic terms: Our preferences, behaviors, tropes, and thoughts—the very stuff of consciousness—are byproducts of the brain’s activity. And once we map the electrochemical impulses that shoot between our neurons, we should be able to understand—well, everything. So every discipline becomes implicitly a neurodiscipline, including ethics, aesthetics, musicology, theology, literature, whatever.
  • If all behavior has an electrochemical component, then in what sense—psychological, legal, moral—is a person responsible for his actions?
  • neuroscience has put a new spin on free will and culpability:
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • all behavior is mechanical,
  • back to forces beyond the agent’s control."
  • British philosopher Roger Scruton
  • xception to the notion that neuroscience can explain us to ourselve
  • Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld’s Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience
  • The same questions that always intrigued us—What is justice? What is the good life? What is morally valid? What is free will?
  • neurohumanities
  • Now that psychoanalytic, Marxist, and literary theory have fallen from grace, neuroscience and evolutionary biology can step up
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      This is the heart of it.
Daryl Bambic

Mutable Morality, Not Subjective Morality. Moral Pluralism, Not Moral Relativism. - 0 views

  • ointing out but wrongly calling “subjectivity”.To say that not only do moralities change but that they should and that even good moralities may not be permanently and at all times good is not to say that morality is subjective
  • Morality, even if mutable, need not be just a matter of arbitrary feelings or tastes that admit of no argument for persuading those who happen to feel differently.
  • good moral judgments
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • some important extent context
  • dependent.
  • change with different circumstances.  
  • valid measures of human flourishing.
  • broadly definable human goods
  • ntellectual power,
  • ocial organization and cohesion, artistic prowess, physical health, athletic prowess, aesthetic sensitivity and complexity, technological capability, technological achievement, emotional satisfaction, pleasure, political efficiency, virtues,
  • moral pluralism, not relativism.
  • Moral pluralism acknowledges that differing moralities, which in particulars may formally contradict each other, can each be ethically approvable given variations in circumstances or given their respective abilities to meet certain thresholds of valuable contribution to life.
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      Moral pluralism allows for cross cultural (different) standards of morality.
  • Moral relativism would allow for no cross-cultural assessments but would say that the only standard a morality has or needs is the endorsement of a particular individual or culture
  • ocial scientist’s perspecti
  • hilosophical,
  • hat values are best and what moral codes best realize them.
  • onstitute human flourishing and happiness.
  • if we have enough historical understandin
  • Old Testament morality
  • as in its own time the best and most progressive advance for the people who adopted it
  • ays it failed a
  • dismiss the Old Testament as irrelevant to a contemporary context.
  • t is also wholly unpersuasive to claim, as some try, that God’s values have always been the same even as he has given his people moral codes that fit their times or their understanding at each of their stages
1 - 8 of 8
Showing 20 items per page