INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS 8.1 Forensics December 2, 2013

Objectives: SWBAT  Analyze the meaning of Ethics  Identify key characteristics of the field of Philosophical Ethics  Identify the different fields of Ethics

 What makes something ethical? What makes something right or wrong?

Philosophy- The love of wisdom  Divisions of Philosophy  Epistemology: Theory of Knowledge  Metaphysics: Nature of Existence  Ethics: Study of Right and Wrong  Political Philosophy  Philosophy of Religion  Aesthetics  Eastern Philosophy  Logic

Three Main Branches of Ethical Theory  Meta-Ethics  Normative Ethics  Applied ethics

Meta-ethics  Attempting to answer the fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of ethical theory itself  Example: “Lying is wrong,” or “friendship is good.” Are these statements TRUE or FALSE?

Meta-ethics  Cognitivism  The view that moral judgments are capable of being true or false  Non-cognitivism  Moral judgments are not capable of being true or false They are like commands or interjections

Meta-ethics  Assuming there are truths of morality, what sort of facts make them true?  Subjectivism  Moral Truths are subjective  Different values, cultures, etc  Objectivism  Moral truths are objective and are based on facts independent of values, culture, etc.

Normative Ethics  The study of what one ought to do? What things make us moral? What is right and wrong?  Axiology  The study of goodness and badness

Normative Ethics  Hedonism  The increase of pleasure and the decrease of pain are the only things that are good in of themselves  Desire Satisfactionism  The satisfaction of desire is the only thing that is good in and of itself  Non-naturalism  The theory that being good is a simple property that is irreducible or indefinable in terms of anything else

Normative Ethics  Egoism  The action is right if and only if it has the best consequences for the person doing it  Utilitarianism  The action is right if and only if it produces the best balance of goodness and badness for everyone involved

Normative Ethics  Kantian Denotology  The action is right if and only if the person acting could consistently will that the act become a universal law  Virtue Theory  The study of what makes a person morally praiseworthy

Applied Ethics  Attempting to answer the difficult questions actual people face in the real world  Is abortion always wrong?  Is euthanasia always wrong?  The death penalty?  Sex before marriage?  Homosexuality?  Eating meat?  War?  Using drugs?  Selling drugs?

The difference?  Normative ethics studies what features make an action right or wrong  Applied ethics attempts to figure out, in the real world, whether or not those actions have certain features  We agree that slavery is wrong…but disagree about what makes it wrong…then the disagreement is one of normative ethics  We agree that morality is whatever produces the best consequences….but disagree about the death penalty…the argument is applied ethics