PHI 221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Normative Ethics, Examined Life, Meta-Ethics
17 Nov 2017
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Chapter one: ethics and the examined life. Deliberating about the rightness or wrongness of actions. Examining the soundness of your (and other people"s) moral outlook. Questioning whether your moral decision making rests on coherent supporting considerations. The study of the principles, rules, or theories that guide actions. Purpose: to establish the soundness of moral norms. Questions such as, is happiness the greatest good in life? or should the rightness of actions be judged by their consequences? : metaethics. Study of the meaning and logical structure of moral beliefs. Purpose: to question assumptions that inform normative ethics. Questions such as, on what grounds can a moral principle be justified? or is there such a thing as moral truth? : applied ethics. Application of moral norms to specific moral issues or cases. Considers questions such as, is physician-assisted suicide morally permissible? or is the consumption of animal flesh morally wrong? . The preeminence of reason: ethics involves, even requires, critical reasoning.
