In the quote below Rand explains why she rejects religion outright, and she believes man himself deserves the attention: Just as religion has preempted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them outside this earth and beyond man’s reach. “Exaltation” is usually taken to mean an emotional state evoked by contemplating the supernatural. “Worship” means the emotional experience of loyalty and dedication to something higher than man… But such concepts do name actual emotions, even though no supernatural dimension exists; and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling, without the self-abasement required by religious definitions.
Steinbock states that “Intelligence is thought to be a morally relevant capacity because of its relation to the capacity for moral responsibility”. In comparing the ideas of racism or sexism to speciecism, the lack of the capacity to be taught to own those rights as can be done in the divide between genders and races, appears to be a measure through which the capacity for rights are bestowed. Because a woman or an African American can be taught and can learn and have equal responses to situations and responsibilities, their rights should be equal to that of white men. But on the other hand, animals do not have the capacity to respond to the world as an equal to humans, therefore they are not subject to human morality or the rights that comes from
From this Moore claimed that it is impossible to derive an ‘is from an ought’. This criticism became known as the naturalistic fallacy. In addition to this G.E Moore claimed that naturalism was not able to stand up to the open question argument. ethical naturalism claims to be based on moral facts, it would therefore seem logical that these facts should stand up to scrutiny. Yet, if we observe that pleasure is good, we should be able to ask is good pleasure.
Explain Moral Relativism Moral Relativism argues the claim that there are no universally valid rules for all people at all times, thus implying there are no intrinsic rights and wrongs. This results in Morality being relative to the individual, to their culture and their age group. In contrary Moral Absolutism is the antonym to the theory that morality is relative. Kant for example was not a moral relativist; he held the belief that we had ‘categorical imperatives’ which were always right. He believed as Absolutists believe today , we should be able to apply moral rules to everyone without making allowances for different people or circumstance , thus suggesting laws should be ‘universalisable’ .
Augustine defends the god of theism by rejecting the existence of evil as a force or power opposed to god as it would reject the premise that god is omnipotent. Below are the ways in which he justifies moral and natural evil, which respectively mean evil caused by human acts, and evil events caused by the processes of nature. To justify evil, he solves the problem by defining evil as a ‘privation’ – which means when something is ‘evil’, it is not defined to contain bad qualities but is seen to be falling short of perfection, or what it is expected to be. Take a rapist as an example. Adopting Augustine’s idea of ‘evil’, we are to say that he is not living up to standards expected of human beings.
• The only moral rule of agapeistic love – thinking of other before yourself and acting in accordance to that – encourages people to act in regards to the well-being of others than themselves. Surely this makes society a better place? Weaknesses: • Excludes a majority of universal truths. • The idea of love being an absolute moral principle defeats the major point of situation ethics. Situation ethics is a branch of relativism which argues that there are no moral absolutes, so therefore saying that love is the only moral rule is self-contradictory.
Second, he argues that it is only by virtue of something being sentient that it can be said to have interests at all, so this places sentience in a different category than the other criteria: "The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way" (175). That is, Singer is trying to establish that if a being is not sentient, the idea of extending moral consideration to it makes no sense. This negative argument is important, because one common criticism of Singer is that his criterion ends up excluding humans who are no longer sentient (like those in an irreversible coma); Singer is content to accept that consequence, but it is important that he show why the exclusion of some humans by his criterion is not problematic, given that he has criticized other criteria
It does not settle the west. It does not educate.” Thoreau also uses powerful imagery in order to persuade his readers towards his ideals. He believed that one must be conscious of the laws they choose to obey and disobey, whether or not they are in the minority. The people should not be tricked into believing that neither the government nor the majority will know what is right and what is wrong. Instead, Thoreau remarks that it is up to every man to decide for himself what is right based on his moral standards and ethics.
Stanley Milgram Obedience is an essential instinct. Stanley Milgram’s essay, “The Perils of Obedience,” shows his us that humans will basically do anything they are told to and he tries to figure out why this is. Milgram proposes that people feel responsible for carrying out the wishes of an authority figure, but they do not feel responsible for the actual actions they are performing. He decides that the increasing division of labor in society encourages people to focus on a smaller task and to avoid responsibility for anything that they do not directly control. Conservative philosophers debate that the very basics of society are endangered by rebellion, though humanists strain the importance of a singular conscience.
Philosophers, Joseph Butler and Thomas Aquinas and neurologist and psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud all had different beliefs and ‘teachings’ on how far we should go in listening to the conscience, the conscience being the complex idea of a moral guide to what’s right or wrong and commonly seen as a guide to your actions. All three theories have strengths and weaknesses although Aquinas seems to have a more thought-out and logical theory regarding the view of whether the conscience should be obeyed. Butler believed that morality is simply a matter of following an innate human nature we all share and possess. He also believed that we are influences by two major interests, self-love and benevolence. Butler suggested that the conscience adjudicates between these two interests and that as a gift from God, has the ultimate authority over ethical judgements and moral actions.