Some people believe that culture is a way that morality can be established, but morality differs from culture to culture. In Doing Ethics, Lewis Vaughn talks about cultural relativism and lays out an argument for it. In the second premise it states “If people’s judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to culture, then right and wrong are relative to culture, and there are no objective moral principles” (Vaughn 26). He makes it clear that he does not support this premise and explains his points as to why this is false. Cultural relativism is the idea that the moral principles someone has are solely determined by the culture one lives in.
As a further definition, Mackie posits that an objective moral value has the quality of ‘ought-to-be-pursued-ness’, it is something one should or ought do because it contains an inherently normative aspect. If Mackie’s argument is to succeed, it must prove that this supposed normative aspect has no existence within any act in itself, but has its origin in the agent of said act, and as such, all moral claims are false. Mackie’s exposition of moral relativism comes in the form of two main arguments, the first being his ‘argument from relativity’, the second, his ‘argument from queerness’. It is with the argument from relativity that I shall be here concerned. The argument from relativity is based around the purely ‘descriptive’ idea that it is an empirically observable fact that there seems to be
I do believe the unpleasant arousal and negative emotions would simply be temporary, if the experiment was conducted in accordance to American Psychological Association (APA) ethical guideline, and the IRB. I would judge the ethics of the study based on the way the researchers and experimenters handle the debriefing. I feel that deception, at times is a necessary tool social psychologist need to understand and generalize certain phenomena. Elm’s discusses the need for deception for increased external validity. He argues that if participants know what behaviors and emotions researchers
What is simple subjectivism? Explain and evaluate the two best objections to it. Simple subjectivism is a metaethical theory that poses that qualities such as good and bad are true relative to the individual; thus moral judgements are simply expressions of opinion. However, this does not mean that every sentence uttered is true, as someone may propose a claim that does not correctly report their internal, subjective state. Despite being a theory which seemingly encourages acceptance and moral rationality, subjectivism is deemed as flawed on two predominant levels.
Assignment Two Incorporating Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development into the Justice System P Strayer University Assignment Two Incorporating Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development into the Justice System I think that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. For instance, a theory that’s economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; same as laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well arranged they are, they must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. All people possess and inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. This is the reason that justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good that’s shared by others. Just does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a small amount are out weighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many.
The various forms present two major problems; the problem of justice, and the issue of having to predict the consequences of an action. One variant within utilitarianism is Hedonistic or Classic utilitarianism. Which looks at the view ‘what is good for an individual is what tends to promote happiness or pleasure to the individual’. This holds that the only intrinsic good is pleasure, and that the only intrinsic bad is pain. Everything else is good only insofar as it creates pleasure, and bad only insofar as it creates pain.
In searching for what nonconsequentialist believe, I found that it is the opposition of consequentalism. One view that is in opposition to consequentialism is deontology. Alexander describes dentology: In contemporary moral philosophy, deontology is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which choices are morally required, forbidden, or permitted. In other words, deontology falls within the domain of moral theories that guide and assess our choices of what we ought to do (deontic theories), in contrast to (aretaic [virtue] theories) that—fundamentally, at least—guide and assess what kind of person (in terms of character traits) we are and should be. And within that domain, deontologists—those who subscribe to deontological theories of morality—stand in opposition to
Of the remaining criteria we might consider, only sentience―the capacity of a being to experience things like pleasure and pain―is a plausible criterion of moral importance. Singer argues for this in two ways. First, he argues, by example, that the other criteria are bad, because (again) they will exclude people who we think ought not be excluded. For instance, we don't really think that it would be permissible to disregard the well-being of someone who has much lower intelligence than average, so we can't possibly think that intelligence is a suitable criterion for moral consideration. 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).
Utilitarian Theories Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that places the locus of right and wrong solely on the outcomes (consequences) of choosing one action/policy over other actions/policies. As such, it moves beyond the scope of one's own interests and takes into account the interests of others. Bentham's Principle of Utility: (1) Recognizes the fundamental role of pain and pleasure in human life, (2) approves or disapproves of an action on the basis of the amount of pain or pleasure brought about i.e, consequences, (3) equates good with pleasure and evil with pain, and (4) asserts that pleasure and pain are capable of quantification (and hence 'measure'). In measuring pleasure and pain, Bentham introduces the following criteria: INTENSITY, DURATION, CERTAINTY (or UNCERTAINTY), and its NEARNESS (or FARNESS). He also includes its "fecundity" (will more of the same follow?)
However, other people may disagree with this and believe that a deontological ethical system is not defensible because it cannot encourage human beings to act morally, as they will not gain enough satisfaction out of doing so, as they would in a teleological ethical system where the ultimate end or goal is human happiness. People may say that it can be hard to keep to deontological ethics when we cannot see how they will immediately benefit us, making teleology much more appealing. In my opinion deontology can be defended because deontologists do not judge actions by their consequences, this is a positive aspect of deontology because it does not allow people to do bad things to secure good consequences, if we really consider human happiness, at first it sounds appealing and simple. However, if all actions were done to secure human happiness then many evil deeds would be permitted, for example it may secure a psychopath with maximum happiness if he can rape and murder women and children. Therefore teleology would permit this as it would maximise the psychopaths happiness.