TEST BANK COMPLETE
PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS FINAL
EXAM ETHCS 445
What are the three branches of ethics?
Descriptive: How do people actually live?
Normative: How ought people to live?
Applied: What ought people to do in specific situations?
What are the five traits of moral principles?
Prescriptivity: Moral principles are intended to guide human behavior.
Universalizability: Moral principles can be applied to all similar people in
similar situations.
Overridingness: Moral principles take precedence over other kinds of
principles.
Publicity: Moral principles must be made public.
Practicability: Moral principles must not be unduly burdensome such that
they become too difficult to put into practice.
Four domains of ethical assessment
Action, Consequences, Character, Motive
Action
Right acts can be:
Obligatory: You are required to do x.
,Optional: You are permitted to do x.
Supererogatory: You are morally exemplary if you do x.
Wrong acts are impermissible.
Deontological approaches to ethics argue that an action is intrinsically
right or wrong. For example, breaking promises is inherently wrong. It can
never be justified.
Consequences
One may also assess a situation by considering what will happen if one acts
in certain ways.
Teleological approaches to ethics argue that an action is morally right if it
leads to the best consequences for those affected.
Promise breaking may be morally permissible if breaking the promises leads
to the best consequences.
Character
We tend to value certain traits that characterize a "good" person. We call
these traits virtues.
Vices by contrast are traits that characterize a person of bad character.
Virtue ethics is an approach to morality that emphasizes the formation of
good character as essential to the good life.
Motive
Why we act as such is critical to our moral assessment of situations.
An example:
, Tom observes his rich neighbor James who has recently been robbed and
now lays beaten and bloodied in front of his home.
Tom decides to help his neighbor. He does what is right.
Tom doesn't really like James.
Tom decides to help James because he knows James to be a generous person
and believes he will be financially compensated for his troubles.
Metaethics
Metaethics—a branch of ethics concerned with questions like:
Why should I be moral?
What is the status of moral claims?
Are moral claims objective or subjective?
What does it mean to say that something is morally right or good?
Divine Command Theory
Moral claims are right if they correspond to the will of God.
Moral claims are wrong if they contradict the will of God.
Morality, argue advocates of DCT, is theonomous (God-determined), not
autonomous.
Problems with DCT
DCT makes the claim "God is good" redundant.
DCT says an action is good if God commands it.
If this is true, than to say "God is good" is simply to say that God does what
God says he will do.
PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS FINAL
EXAM ETHCS 445
What are the three branches of ethics?
Descriptive: How do people actually live?
Normative: How ought people to live?
Applied: What ought people to do in specific situations?
What are the five traits of moral principles?
Prescriptivity: Moral principles are intended to guide human behavior.
Universalizability: Moral principles can be applied to all similar people in
similar situations.
Overridingness: Moral principles take precedence over other kinds of
principles.
Publicity: Moral principles must be made public.
Practicability: Moral principles must not be unduly burdensome such that
they become too difficult to put into practice.
Four domains of ethical assessment
Action, Consequences, Character, Motive
Action
Right acts can be:
Obligatory: You are required to do x.
,Optional: You are permitted to do x.
Supererogatory: You are morally exemplary if you do x.
Wrong acts are impermissible.
Deontological approaches to ethics argue that an action is intrinsically
right or wrong. For example, breaking promises is inherently wrong. It can
never be justified.
Consequences
One may also assess a situation by considering what will happen if one acts
in certain ways.
Teleological approaches to ethics argue that an action is morally right if it
leads to the best consequences for those affected.
Promise breaking may be morally permissible if breaking the promises leads
to the best consequences.
Character
We tend to value certain traits that characterize a "good" person. We call
these traits virtues.
Vices by contrast are traits that characterize a person of bad character.
Virtue ethics is an approach to morality that emphasizes the formation of
good character as essential to the good life.
Motive
Why we act as such is critical to our moral assessment of situations.
An example:
, Tom observes his rich neighbor James who has recently been robbed and
now lays beaten and bloodied in front of his home.
Tom decides to help his neighbor. He does what is right.
Tom doesn't really like James.
Tom decides to help James because he knows James to be a generous person
and believes he will be financially compensated for his troubles.
Metaethics
Metaethics—a branch of ethics concerned with questions like:
Why should I be moral?
What is the status of moral claims?
Are moral claims objective or subjective?
What does it mean to say that something is morally right or good?
Divine Command Theory
Moral claims are right if they correspond to the will of God.
Moral claims are wrong if they contradict the will of God.
Morality, argue advocates of DCT, is theonomous (God-determined), not
autonomous.
Problems with DCT
DCT makes the claim "God is good" redundant.
DCT says an action is good if God commands it.
If this is true, than to say "God is good" is simply to say that God does what
God says he will do.
