Moral Philosophy Study Guide

The life of a person may be measured in years, moments, and the number of laughs or cries but what if one were to measure a life on good deeds or on that person’s virtues? The theory and idea of ethics and virtue as conceptualized by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics and as it is expressed in the pages of The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau is a complex and dubious notion. It is one that is easily related to characters in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

Ethical relativism is not just simply one concept. It can be divided into two categories cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism. Cultural relativism states that what a culture finds correct is what is correct, within its own realm. Ethical subjectivism are what people as individuals find correct, or the values a person stands for and what they support whereas culture relativism is has a certain standard of morality held within a culture or society. These both view people as being in charge of their own morality. However, there are some problems with the view ethical relativism itself. For instance marital rape, machismo in Hispanics culture and premarital sex. In this dissertation I will be discussing problems with ethical relativism, while using the examples above.

Virtue ethics is a normative theory whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. This theory approaches normative ethics in substantially different ways than consequentialist and deontological theories. In this essay, I will contrast and compare virtue ethics to utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kantianism to demonstrate these differences. There is one fundamental aspect of virtue ethics that sets it apart from the other theories I will discuss. For the sake of brevity and to avoid redundancy, I will address it separately. This is the fundamental difference between acting ethically within utilitarianism, egoism, and Kantianism. And being ethical within virtue ethics. The other theories seek to define the ethics of actions while virtue ethics does not judge actions in any way. The other theories deal with how we should act, while virtue ethics determines how we should be.

4. Moral philosophy is form of philosophy that specifically deals with morality and ethics. Moral philosophy is important because ethical questions are some of the most important questions we face, after all those questions lead us to make

The first ethical theory is Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that describes how the moral value or worth of an action is determined by how much benefit is gained from that action. It is measured by not only the amount of benefit gained but also

In The Metaphysics of Morals, Section I focuses on the process of instilling the concept of virtue into those who have not yet developed their own sense of pure practical reason. The author insists that this should be done methodically and through a system of dialogue. Through a series of questions and answers between a pupil and his instructor. In Section I of The Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant states that moral catechism needs to precede any religious catechisms.

Even though such moral principles traced their origin to rational arguments, they appeared to be difficult to apply to specific situations. In fact, moral experiences are often those of inner conflicts to which we can hardly find solutions by calculating how much of a single value is within a certain choice. Our ordinary experience is not that of simple additive puzzles. For this reason, the pretension of describing what falls under the right and under the wrong with a unique principle seems in some cases too demanding. It appears rational to believe that there may, on the contrary, exist a plurality of values involved in moral choices. This view is

In chapter one of James Rachels’s What is Morality, he argues that at the very minimum, morality is using reason to guide one 's decisions, while keeping in mind the interests of those who will be affected by one’s choice, without giving more weight to one individual over another. He supports this thesis by describing a couple of morally ambiguous situations regarding humanity and life.

R. M. Hare is a Professor at Oxford University that specializes on the topic of Moral Philosophy. Among his studies as a philosopher, he proclaims that moral philosophy depend on the meaning of philosophy itself. For instance, if philosophers have tried to clearly certain concepts presented in life so does moral philosophy. In other word moral philosophy is where "the problems on which it tries to shed lights are practically issued about morality". So philosophers would question the idea of what is "fair", "right or wrong" and so on.

Does moral absolutes exist? Yes, it does. For one to be able to gain moral absolute, one must learn from right and wrong. An individual needs to understand the difference between placing others feeling in front of their own to experience moral absolute. As we grow up our parents are punishing us. Whether it is a slap on the hand, a long lecture or a grounding moment we are being disciplined. Our parents do this in the hope that we will make better judgments when we grow older. Become extraordinary people as we age, and treat others the way we would like to be treated. As we get older, our parents tend to lose the ability to disciple us. At this point in our lives, God has taken over the disciplinary action. He is teaching us from right and

In James Rachels’ book, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, he expresses ideas within the concluding chapter, “What Would a Satisfactory Moral Theory be like?” that lay an silhouette of every moral approach we have discussed so far and compounding it into a final discussion with a couple of final contentions towards a comprehensive understanding of morality and the approaches we can make as moral guides to make decisions that are virtuous for each class without exception. Rachels’ gives thoughtful perspective on all subjects that we have learned about and makes final accumulations for the way we can decide to use these for our own benefit. While then expressing the virtues we must value for ourselves to have a best plan, and the ways our choices can help others in a positive aspect.

Moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy which focuses and investigates the ideas of right and wrong and good and evil behavior. Moral philosophers have researched and justified the logical consequences of moral or ethical beliefs.When we think of morals, we think of rules that tell us which actions are right and which are wrong. But, do human beings have the ability to judge for themselves, based on the facts of a situation, what is right and wrong, what they should do and not do? Well, according to Immanuel Kant, who is one of the most influential philosophers of all times, believes that human beings should not be making decisions based on the facts of a situation, but should act according to universal moral codes that apply in all situations regardless of the outcome. Kant refers to these universal moral codes as categorical imperatives and must be fully followed at all times across all circumstances.

Immanuel Kant presented his most notable positions on moral philosophy in his book The Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel subsequently presented a number of objections to Kant’s positions, mainly in his book The Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel presents objections to Kant in two different ways, implicitly and explicitly. Hegel gives arguments against Kant’s moral theory as well as the general philosophical thought that produces the moral theory that Kant presents. But in order to understand Hegel’s critique of Kant, we must first understand the content of Kant’s moral philosophy and its formulation.

Concerning the philosopher, the principal factor which coordinates people's decisions towards good or bad actions is a soul. But this process is reciprocal because the soul, in its turn, is forming according to people's actions. The life with the feeling of satisfaction is connected with some level of pleasure; this pleasure, by Aristotle, is the activity determined by virtue. Virtue is a quality of a person's character; it highlights doing any action taking into account both rational

Hutcheson and Shaftesbury believed that human nature contained all it needed to make moral decisions, along with inclinations to be moral. Moral sense is a kind of sense because, like external senses, it is common to all mankind. It is independent of our will and its deliverances are not conclusions mediated by premises. In particular it is not mediated by considerations of personal advantage or harm. It is on account of this feature that we are able to admire actions that took place in remote times and regions and even actions that are contrary to our own interests .