ETHICS FINAL EXAM | STUDY GUIDE ACTUAL QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED
ANSWERS A+ GRADED
Descriptive: How do people actually live?
Normative: How ought people to live?
What are the three branches of ethics?
Applied: What ought people to do in spe-
cific situations?
Prescriptivity: Moral principles are in-
tended to guide human behavior.
Universalizability: Moral principles can
be applied to all similar people in similar
situations.
Overridingness: Moral principles take
What are the five traits of moral princi-
precedence over other kinds of princi-
ples?
ples.
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.
Action, Consequences, Character, Mo-
Four domains of ethical assessment
tive
Right acts can be:
Obligatory: You are required to do x.
Optional: You are permitted to do x.
Supererogatory: You are morally exem-
plary if you do x.
Action Wrong acts are impermissible.
Deontological approaches to ethics ar-
gue that an action is intrinsically right or
wrong. For example, breaking promises
is inherently wrong. It can never be justi-
fied.
One may also assess a situation by con-
sidering what will happen if one acts in
certain ways.
Consequences Teleological approaches to ethics argue
that an action is morally right if it leads to
the best consequences for those affect-
ed.
, Promise breaking may be morally per-
missible if breaking the promises leads
to the best consequences.
We tend to value certain traits that char-
acterize a "good" person. We call these
traits virtues.
Vices by contrast are traits that charac-
Character
terize 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.
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.
Motive
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 com-
pensated for his troubles.
Metaethics—a branch of ethics con-
cerned with questions like:
Why should I be moral?
Metaethics 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?
Moral claims are right if they correspond
to the will of God.
Divine Command Theory Moral claims are wrong if they contradict
the will of God.
Morality, argue advocates of DCT, is
, theonomous (God-determined), not au-
tonomous.
DCT makes the claim "God is good" re-
dundant.
DCT says an action is good if God com-
mands it.
If this is true, than to say "God is good"
is simply to say that God does what God
says he will do.
However, usually when we say "God is
good" we presume that our statement
Problems with DCT has real substance.
DCT also renders morality completely ar-
bitrary.
If God commands a person to rape and
kill, would this make raping and killing
right? DCT suggests that this would be
the case.
If God is love, than aren't we also saying
that God is limited to doing and com-
manding loving acts?
Moral rightness is independent of God's
will.
The independence thesis
"God is good" means that God always
obeys the moral law.
Kant argues that morality can be estab-
lished through reason alone, but God still
plays an important role in the moral life.
Kant's moral argument for the existence
of God:
Ought implies Can.
Kant We ought to be morally perfect, but we
cannot achieve perfection in this life.
Thus, there must be an afterlife that ex-
ists for us to progress toward moral per-
fection.
God exists as one who rewards virtue
and punishes vice.
The case for religion
ANSWERS A+ GRADED
Descriptive: How do people actually live?
Normative: How ought people to live?
What are the three branches of ethics?
Applied: What ought people to do in spe-
cific situations?
Prescriptivity: Moral principles are in-
tended to guide human behavior.
Universalizability: Moral principles can
be applied to all similar people in similar
situations.
Overridingness: Moral principles take
What are the five traits of moral princi-
precedence over other kinds of princi-
ples?
ples.
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.
Action, Consequences, Character, Mo-
Four domains of ethical assessment
tive
Right acts can be:
Obligatory: You are required to do x.
Optional: You are permitted to do x.
Supererogatory: You are morally exem-
plary if you do x.
Action Wrong acts are impermissible.
Deontological approaches to ethics ar-
gue that an action is intrinsically right or
wrong. For example, breaking promises
is inherently wrong. It can never be justi-
fied.
One may also assess a situation by con-
sidering what will happen if one acts in
certain ways.
Consequences Teleological approaches to ethics argue
that an action is morally right if it leads to
the best consequences for those affect-
ed.
, Promise breaking may be morally per-
missible if breaking the promises leads
to the best consequences.
We tend to value certain traits that char-
acterize a "good" person. We call these
traits virtues.
Vices by contrast are traits that charac-
Character
terize 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.
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.
Motive
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 com-
pensated for his troubles.
Metaethics—a branch of ethics con-
cerned with questions like:
Why should I be moral?
Metaethics 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?
Moral claims are right if they correspond
to the will of God.
Divine Command Theory Moral claims are wrong if they contradict
the will of God.
Morality, argue advocates of DCT, is
, theonomous (God-determined), not au-
tonomous.
DCT makes the claim "God is good" re-
dundant.
DCT says an action is good if God com-
mands it.
If this is true, than to say "God is good"
is simply to say that God does what God
says he will do.
However, usually when we say "God is
good" we presume that our statement
Problems with DCT has real substance.
DCT also renders morality completely ar-
bitrary.
If God commands a person to rape and
kill, would this make raping and killing
right? DCT suggests that this would be
the case.
If God is love, than aren't we also saying
that God is limited to doing and com-
manding loving acts?
Moral rightness is independent of God's
will.
The independence thesis
"God is good" means that God always
obeys the moral law.
Kant argues that morality can be estab-
lished through reason alone, but God still
plays an important role in the moral life.
Kant's moral argument for the existence
of God:
Ought implies Can.
Kant We ought to be morally perfect, but we
cannot achieve perfection in this life.
Thus, there must be an afterlife that ex-
ists for us to progress toward moral per-
fection.
God exists as one who rewards virtue
and punishes vice.
The case for religion
