PHIL 250A Study Guide - Final Guide: Moral Relativism, Socratic Dialogue, Thrasymachus

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 250A
• Professor: Andrew Stumpf

Document Summary

Part a: paragraph answers on 7 of 10 topics. One of the big questions we will be encountering in plato"s republic is the question of whether or not there is an objective moral standard. We call someone who believes there is no objective moral standard a moral relativist. The moral relativist thinks what is right and wrong, or good and bad, depends in some essential way on people"s subjective beliefs about what is right and wrong, or good and bad. Something only becomes right or wrong because of the attitudes and feelings people have about it. In other words, nothing is right or wrong in itself, apart from what people think about it. A thoroughgoing moral relativist ends up having to say that the reason it"s wrong to slaughter innocent children as a hobby is that people believe that it"s wrong.