Philosophy 2730F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Evil Geniuses, Electric Light, Profit Motive

• School: Western University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: Philosophy 2730F/G
• Professor: Ryan Robb

Document Summary

A good philosopher only accepts/endorses beliefs that are supported by good reasons, i. e. , beliefs supported by the best possible arguments. Ethics/morality is a set of rules, rules designed either to tell us how we should act (guidance), or why the way we"ve acted (evaluation), is either right or wrong. The rules of ethics are things like: don"t murder, don"t steal, be a kind person to others, be charitable, etc . Reasonable arguments can be made that there are no objective moral rules (rules that apply to all humans, irrespective of where they are, at what time, and what they happen to think the rules of morality are). For the purposes of a course like this one, we need to reject this kind of skepticism if there are no moral rules, then it makes little sense to inquire into the moral obligations of the media.