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ContemporaryMoralProblems
And A Study of The Current Process of Copyrightingin the PhilippinesAndA Proposal
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0Philippines License.
All Rights Reserved©
By Marielle V. Obillo
 
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Obillo, Marielle V. IT-EthicsMr. Paul PajoBook Review Sub- Chapter 1 of Chapter 1: James Rachels: Egoism and Moral ScepticismThe Contemporary Moral ProblemsAmazon Link: n/aQuote: “Our ordinary thinking about morality is full of assumptions that we almost never question.We assume for example, that we have an obligation to consider the welfare to other people when wedecide what actions to perform or rules to obey”What is morality? Morality basically knows what is right and wrong. Morality is always appliedwhen people performs things and when people interacts to other people. Without morality peoplecan never justify if what he is doing can be accepted, appreciated and understood by other. Basedon the quotation I have copied from the book, it is stated that people before performing or decidingfor things they always consider the welfare of others. They always take into consideration if peoplewill benefit from it. But is this really egoism or is there more beyond this?My Learning expectationActually I really don’t know what to expect since I don’t know anything about the book all Iknow is that it is a requirement given to us by my professor in IT-ethics, Mr. Pajo. What I expect tolearn is what the book is about. What it consist of and why is it relevant to us. Maybe in thesucceeding chapters I may be able to draw my expectations since I already know a bit of it after reading the first chapter.ReviewThis part of the first chapter talks about the egoism of people. How people use egoism andwhat is really the motive of it. First of all what is egoism? Based on my research on WikipediaEthical egoism is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought only to do what is in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism, in that the last-mentioned claims that people
do
only act in their self-interest. Ethical egoism also differs from rational egoism (which holds that itis rational to act in one's self-interest) and individualism, neither of which claims that acting in one'sself-interest is necessarily right. Ethical egoism is not, however, necessarily opposed to either of these latter philosophies.Now what we know the basics of egoism, right after I have read the subchapter, I realizedthat sometimes there are many egoistic person. Egoism is an attitude wherein people performs anddecides things that would first benefit others but the main reason is if they will benefit from it.What I have learned:I have learned and realized that sometimes I am an egoistic person. Sometimes I makedecisions and figure out if it will first benefit myself then the others. As a conclusion, I believe that
 
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egoism is somehow a bad attitude. If a person would make decisions sometimes we have to setaside our benefits. Sometime we should learn to prioritize others before ourselves.5 Questions1. What is ethical egoism?2. What is moral scepticism?3. Who is James Rachels?4. Do you believe in egoism?5. Do you think egoism is bad?Review Questions:1. Explain the legend of Gyges. What questions about morality are raised from the story?According to the legend, Gyges of Lydia was a shepherd in the service of King Candaules of Lydia. After an earthquake, a cave was revealed in a mountainside where Gyges was feeding hisflock. Entering the cave, Gyges discovered that it was in fact the tomb of an enthroned corpse whowore a golden ring, which Gyges pocketed.2. Distinguish between psychological and ethical egoism.Psychological Egoism is where men are always viewed on self interest which would benefitthem, on the onther hand, ethical egoism means that people are for self interest yet they don’t carewhat will benefit them.3. Rachels discusses two arguments for psychological egoism. What are these arguments, and howdoes he reply to them?The one is "the agents merely doing what he most wants to do". People does things that they wantyet will not benefit them or others positively. The other is, unselfish actions always produce a senseof self-satisfaction in the agent. It means that when a person does actions, it will always be self satisfying since they only think about their selves.4. What three commonplace confusions does Rachels detect in the thesis of psychological egoism?First, is the confusion of selfishness with self interest. The second one is confusion of theassumption that every action is done either from self-interest or from other-regarding motives. Andthe third confusion is the common but false asssumption that a concern for ones's own welfare isincompatible with any genuine concern for the welfare of others.
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