We use this is help us choose the right moral action is situations. Aristotle and Aquinas both conclude that humans aim for some goal or purpose in life-but does not see this as eudemonia. Aquinas believes that humans are the ‘image of god’ therefore the supreme good must be the development of this image which is perfection. They did not believe that you could reach this perfection in this life but the afterlife. There are the three laws in Aquinas’ book which are eternal, natural and divine.
It is both a relief and an educator. The Alcott and other transcendentalists were not unreceptive or opposed to the modernization of the world. However, they were concerned that too much modernization could result in alienation. Nature offered a way to keep people in touch with their souls and spiritual fundamentals. Puritans saw nature as God's gift to man who conquered the "unlimited"
The quote “’we shall not report our find to the City Council. We shall not report it to any men.’” demonstrates ethics. This quote demonstrates ethics because Equality knows the right thing to do would be to report his find to the council, but because of his curiosity and interest in the tunnel he refuses to tell or let his friend tell the council of the tunnel. Ethics is one of the main points of Ayn Rand’s theory of objectivism and she proves how Equality demonstrates it through his disobeying of the city council. “I wished to know the meaning of things, am I the meaning” illustrates objectivism through epistemology.
Their intention is all that matters. Kant focuses on what should be done, rather than doing things for their outcome. This means that even if something terrible happens as the result of a morally good action, it is still morally right. Kant had an absolute view that the right moral action must always be done. Kant tried to make moral ethics scientific through universalisation.
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.
An independent good takes away from religious motivation to do good, we can be good for the sake of being good as opposed to seeking eschatological reward, for example going to heaven in the afterlife. Iris Murdock supports the first horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma in critiquing the link between religion and morality; she argued that there is an objective standard of goodness which is independent of God. She argues that human life is “self-contained” meaning that humans are “simply here” and therefore suggesting that God did not create or had no influence over our lives or decisions. Murdoch follows human moral development and places freedom with
The modern development of virtue ethics is often linked back to a paper by G. E. M. Anscombe entitled ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. In this paper Anscombe questioned whether there could be moral laws if there was is no God. What do wrong and right mean if there is no lawgiver, she suggested eudaimonia is the obvious answer as it is not dependent on God. Other modern philosophers such as Alasdair Macintyre believed that ethical theories just resulted in disagreements and that morality should be seen
This demonstrated that Boo had no connections to anyone outside his house since he was not allowed to have one which made misery rain on him. Lastly Boo was always discriminated and never appreciated for anything he had done to serve society. As the people of Maycomb always on thought of Boo being a bad person, he was shown evidently that he served society as a secret hero such as when he had saved the children from Bob Ewell; “Mr. Ewell was tryin’ to squeeze me to death . .
As a part of his plan to go against the rules set by the government Thoreau refuses to pay a poll-tax given to him by a preacher as a way to show reader’s that it is not the government who protects one’s property it is man himself who protects his own belongings. Spending the night in jail opened up a slew of new ideas and observations of the world he lived in. Comparing the jail to human flesh, being confined did not intimidate Thoreau at all. To him it was “where the State places those who are not with her, but against her — the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor” (Thoreau 2.9). Acquainting himself with his cell-mate who was accused of burning down a barn, Thoreau believed the man was telling the truth when he said he was innocent suspecting that the man had fallen asleep drunk with a lit pipe in his mouth.
Two writers who were closely related to the Enlightenment provided the immediate intellectual foundations for Romanticism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. They raised questions about whether the rationalism to the philosphes was sufficient to explain human nature and be the bedrock principle for organizing the human society. It was like Roussea and Education, where as it was Kant and Reasoning. Rousseau's conviction that society and material prosperity had corrupted human nature profoundly influenced Romantic writers. In his novel, the Emile, he stressed the difference between children and adults.