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Philosophy

Philosophy. What are the right ways to think and build arguments? (logic) How can power be legitimized? What is the best form of government? (political philosophy). What is the nature of the universe? What exists? Does God exist? (metaphysics/ontology)

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Philosophy

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  1. Philosophy What are the right ways to think and build arguments? (logic) How can power be legitimized? What is the best form of government? (political philosophy) • What is the nature of the universe? What exists? Does God exist? (metaphysics/ontology) • What is knowledge, what can/can’t be known, how do we know? (epistemology) • What are the relationships among art, nature, and culture—what is beauty? (aesthetics) • How should I/we live? What makes an act right or good? (ethics)

  2. Descriptive Ethics • Descriptions of the particular notions of right/wrong and good/bad for a particular culture, group, or person. • Psychology, anthropology, history, and sociology but not so much philosophy. • Not concerned with judging behavior, assessing the worth of beliefs, or evaluating the quality of the methods of ethical decision making. • What rationale did 18th century Americans use to morally justify slavery?   • What are urban voters’ moral attitudes toward capital punishment? • Why does Jane oppose abortion? 

  3. Normative Ethics • How should I/we/people act? • What oughtbe the case, whether or not it currently is the case?  • Is it morally permissible to conduct medical research on rats?  • Dogs? • Child molesters? • Cosmetics? • Rodeo?

  4. Value Theory (Axiology) • Inquiry into the nature of worth. • What things are “good?” How are these things “good?” What makes a thing “good?” • What/who counts? • Instrumental vs. Intrinsic value. • Is it morally permissible to conduct medical research on rats?  • Dogs? • Child molesters? • Cosmetics? • Rodeo? • Which students in the music class should get to play the limited number of very expensive, high-quality instruments, and which should have to play the cheap, low-quality instruments? • Teleology • Deontology • Consequentialism

  5. Metaethics • Analysis of the nature of moral judgments and methods for the justifying moral judgments and theoretical systems.  • The “birds-eye view” of the entire project of ethics. • The study of ethics as a discipline. • Does morality exist? • What do we mean when we use the language of ethics? • What makes a right action right and a wrong action wrong?

  6. Starving college student studying nursing and volunteering at kids’ cancer ward. • Work for a very wealthy, single, childless retiree. • Find him dead of a heart attack. • Dialing 911, you spot the open safe with approx. $50,000--“fun money.” • No one, not even boss, knows how much money is in the safe. • Famous, very wealthy attorney brother who represents chemical companies set to inherit. • Made fortune defending a toxic waste dumper from lawsuit brought by people who got cancer and gave birth to deformed babies. • No one will ever know.

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