Quotation from the poet Sakini’s Teahouse of the August Moon : “World filled with delightful variation ‘IMustration. In Okinawa ... no locks on doors. in America ... lock and key big industry. Conclusion? Bad manners good business. In Okinawa ... wash self in public bath with nude lady quite proper Picture of nude lady in private room quite improper. In America ... slatue of nude lady in park win prize. But nude lady in flesh in park win penalty. Conclusion? Pornography question of geography.” Ethics (ethos/ethnos)- the systematic questioning and criticalexamination of the underlying principles of morality; a study of values and their justification. Morality (mores) is the study of moral goodness and badness, or the rightness and wrongness of an act. normative ethics - deals with specific questions of right and wrong, good and evil, and ‘ries to settle on some conerete rules for correct behavior. metaethics - deals with more abstract questions conceming the meaning and justification of ethical concepts and principles. Ethical relativism - refers to the diversity of moral standards and values in different ccuttures and societies. The morals of an age are never anything but the consonance between what is done and what the mores of the age requires. Values have no basis outside the minds of those who prize them. thnocentrism - the view of things in which one’s group is the center of everything and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it. A Survey of the Different Ethical Theories: Plato (The Republic and the early Dialogues) - edhical absolutism Virtue is knowledge. Knowledge is wisdom. Knowledge is remembrance. ‘The unexamined life is not worth living, “in the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and only with great difficulty, is the essential Form of Goodness, which is the source of whatever is right and good for all things, itis sovereign in the intelligible world and the parent of intelligence and truth... Without a vision of this Form, no one can act with wisdom, either in his life or in matiers of the state.” “The soul of every man possesses the power of learning the trath and the organ to see it ‘with and just as one would have fo turn the whole body around in order that the eye should see light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be tumed away fom the changing world until its eye can bear to contemplate reality and that supreme splendor called the Good.” “Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics) - ethical naturalism “Virive is a settled disposition of the mind as regards the choice of actions and emotions, consisting in the observance of the rnean relative to us, this being determined by principle...t is a mean state between two vices.”“...to feel these feelings (fright, anger, desire, pity, pleasure, pain) at the right time, on the Tight occasion, towards the right people, for the right purpose and in the right manner, is to feel the best amount of them, which is the mean amount and the best amount is the mark of virtue.” “For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one fine day. Similarly, one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.” Immanuel Kant (Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals) - deontological ettiies “Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world and even out of it, which ean be called good without qualification, exeept Goodwill.” “The will stands between it’s a priori principle which is formal and its a posteriori incentive which is material.” “Duty is the necessity of an action done from respect for the Jaw...To have moral worth, an action must be done from duty.” “To duty, every other motive must give place, because duty is the condition of the will good-in-itself, whose worth transcends everything.” “Thus, the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect which is expected from it.” “A maxim is the subjective principle of volition. The objective principle is the practical Jaw, that I should follow such a law even if it thwarts all my inclinations.” “To test whether an act is consistent with Duty: Cant J will that my maxim become a universal law?” Universalizability Principle : “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same ‘time will that it should become a universal law.” Jobn Stuart Mill (The Greatest Happiness Principle) - Utilitarianism ‘The Greatest Happiness Principle : “Actions are right as they tend o produce happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.” “Bach person’s happiness counts the same as everyone else’s.” “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” George Edward Moore (Principia Ethica) - intuitionism “T believe the good to be definable and, yet, still say that good itself is indefinable.” “A definition sates what are the parts which invariably compose a certain whole; and it is in this sense ‘good’ has no definition because it is simple and has no paris.” Naturalistic Fallacy : any attempt to equate good with any other tem (¢.g. good=pleasure) Alfred Jules Ayer (The Emotive Theory) - emotivism “Ethical concepis are pseudo-concepts and, therefore, unanalyzable.” “The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content.” Rudolf Carnap ; “A value statement is nothing else than a command in ¢ misleading ‘grammatical form.” ‘William James (Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth) - Pragmatism “Grant an idea or belief to be true....what concrete difference will its being tre make in anyone’s actual life?... What in short, is the truth’s cash value in experiential terms?” ‘ruth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea.” true is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.” “Meanwhile, we have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorow to call it falsehood.”