PHIL 2810 Lecture Notes - Descriptive Ethics, Normative Ethics, Trolley Problem
18 Apr 2013
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Descriptive ethics: what views a person holds. Normative ethics: what views a person should have, this class examines these ethics to decide which ethical beliefs are justifiable in real life settings. Cultural relativism: different cultures have different moral codes (descriptive claim, this is not a very argued claim because most people recognize that cultures around the world do have different moral codes. Therefore there is no objective truth in morality. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion, and opinions vary from culture to culture (normative claim: there"s an issue with the structure of this argument. There is no measure of right and wrong other than the standards of one"s society/culture. So the only way to solve the conflict is to kill them. Most people around the world would believe that torturing babies is wrong: moral progress. If what our society says is right, how are we going to begin considering revising our moral system to make things better.
