| strengths | scholars | weaknesses | scholars |
|---|---|---|---|
| establishes common rules - rigidity while allowing flexibility with the double effect | aquinas | naturalistic fallacy - we know good only through intuition | G.E. Moore |
| concrete reasons to be good, recognition of apparent goods and human justifications of immorality | aquinas | human nature is inherently selfish and power hungry - ‘life in the state of nature is nasty, brutish, ad short’, examples of war and capitalism | thomas hobbes |
| supports modern idea of human rights | aquinas | secondary precepts are too narrow | peter vardy |
| informs every aspect of life - ‘the sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil’ | hannah arendt | cultural relativism - example of the inuits, ethics don’t apply to some cultures, natural moral law may be considered eurocentric | kai neilson |
| overall positive outlook of human nature - god given reason to find god (synderesis) as is our purpose | aristotle | existentialism - ‘existence precedes essence’ ‘men are not paper knives’ | jean paul sartre |
67/100
NORMATIVE ETHICS: concerned on what is morally right and wrong, includes formulation of moral rules that have direct implications for what human actions, institutions, and ways of life should be like.
NATURAL LAW: hierarchy within natural world, universal human nature with inherent knowledge of god, we should live in accordance with human nature - ‘do good, avoid evil, spend eternity with god’, founded by Thomas Aquinas
ETHNOCENTRISM: (ethnocentric) - when someone thinks their culture’s values can be applied to any other culture
deontology (kantian ethics, natural moral law) - based on duty
teleological (consequentialism, utilitarianism, situation ethics) - based on outcomes
‘jim and the indians’ ‘critique of utilitarianism’ - bernard williams
joseph fletcher - 1960s american philosopher, situation ethics
peter singer - vegan, ‘animal liberation’, australian, preference utilitarianism, ‘killer whale has more value than a 6 month old child’
intuitionism - gut feeling governs ethics
jeremy bentham - founder of utilitarianism
kant - ‘categorical imperatives’, deontologist
G.E. Moore - Naturalistic Fallacy