Week Three, Day Two– Moral Objectivity: Arguments in Favor
Small Group Exercises
Exercise #1:
Accounting for the Facts
Consider the video clip that shows a disagreement between an intern and a nurse.
Two people appear to be disagreeing about the answer to a moral question, and arguing about the
correct answer to the moral question.
Answer the following questions:
(1) What question are they discussing?
(2) An ethical subjectivist would say that they are not actually disagreeing about the answer
to the question.
If this is correct:
a.
What is the most plausible explanation of what they are doing?
b.
Is this explanation plausible?
Exercise #2:
Affolter’s Problem
In the lecture, Dr. A argued that moral objectivists face a problem.
It is not clear that they can
give a strong enough reason to believe that it would be a bad thing if there were only one world
culture.
Dr. A suggested three ways that moral objectivists might argue that this was a bad thing, but he
did not think that any of these reasons were good enough.
This claim raises a number of questions.
1.
Do you agree that this would be a bad thing?
If not, why not?
2.
If you agree that it would be a bad thing, do you think that any of Dr. A’s explanations
work?
Why or why not?
3.
Can you think another way that a moral objectivist could consistently argue that this is a
bad thing?
