Philosophical PerspectivesObjective Exam #2Study GuideSection 5.0 – “Overview of Ethics”●Plato’s story of the ring of Gyges (pp. 406-408)○Shepherd name Gyges who discovers a ring that will make him invisible whenturned a certain way○This ring enables him to do whatever he wants without worrying about society’ssanctions●Glaucon on the reason for being moral (pp. 406-408)○Thinks that most reasonable people would agree that being a just and moralperson is not desirable in itself but only desirable for the social rewards it bringsand the unpleasant consequences it avoids○Thinks that it isn’t really necessary to be a truly moral person○Sufficient to merelyappearmoral to one’s societyif one can get away with it■Ring of Gyges - no reason to be moral under those circumstances, everyreason to get away with all that you can○Glaucon thinks that appearance is all that matters in ethics●Normative ethics vs. descriptive morality (pp. 408-409)○Differentiation between ethics and morality○Normative ethics- used to designate the philosophical task of discerning whichmoral principles are rationally defensible and which actions are genuinely good orbad■Example: abhorrentlyimmoralin Nazi Germany to persecute the Jews○Descriptive morality- referring to the actual practice of a people and a cultureand its beliefs about which behaviors are good or bad■Example:moralin Nazi Germany to persecute the Jews●The divine command theory of ethics: definition and problems (pp. 409-411)○Divine command theory: the theory that the rightness or wrongness of an actionis intrinsically related to the fact that God either commands or forbids it○Problems with divine command theory:■Lack of agreement as to which religious text or authority should guide ourethical deliberations (the Bible, Buddha’s teachings, the Koran, etc.)■Even if we agree to live under the guidance of a particular religioustradition, we may disagree as to how to interpret its teachings■Some ethical questions cannot be answered by traditional religiousteachings apart from philosophical considerations
●Plato’sEuthyphrodialogue (pp. 410-411)○Socrates raises the question, “Do the gods approve of certain actions becausethese actions are good or are certain actions good because the gods approve ofthem?”■‘God approves of certain actions because they are good’ - suggests thatGod has a reason for approving certain actions (the reason being that theyare good) BUT then we should be able to evaluate the goodness (orbadness) of the actions themselves and approve/disapprove of them for thesame reason that God does, which implies that we have a conception ofethics that is independent of God’s will■If “good” and “bad” are arbitrary labels God attached to actions based onsovereign will, then God could have declared hatred, adultery, and murderas morally good●Thomas Hobbes on the reason for morality (p. 414)○Human existence without a commonly agreed-upon morality would be a “war of
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