Day 61 May 7 Ethics Introduction

Today is the first day of Ethics!!  Yay, a new unit and one which always fills students' hearts with passion about personal beliefs, values, morals and other fun things like that.

Introduction to Ethics

ETHICS is the area of Philosophy that deals with the study of the how we decide what to think or do in a given situation: how do we apply values, how do we classify something as good or bad, how do we know something is right or wrong, what is morality, are moral choices even possible?

UNIT EXPECTATIONS
By the end of this unit you will be able to:
•  demonstrate an understanding of the main questions, concepts, and theories of ethics
•  evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of responses to ethical questions and moral problems defended by some major philosophers and schools of philosophy, and defend your own responses
•  describe how problems in ethics and the theories that address them may be illustrated in stories
•  illustrate the relevance of philosophical theories of ethics to concrete moral problems in everyday life
•  demonstrate an understanding of how philosophical theories of ethics are implicit in other subjects

UNIT OVERVIEW
This unit introduces you to the fundamental questions of Ethics and discusses many of the answers that ethicists have developed.  We will use the following chapters in your textbook:

Chapter 12, “Introducing Ethics,” examines what ethics is and provides a brief overview of the history of ethics, then focuses on some of the key questions that Ethicists attempt to answer.

Chapter 13, “Answering Questions That Matter,” extends the discussion of key ethical questions and explores how they have been answered by philosophers from various world traditions.

Chapter 14, “Ethics in the World,” focuses on several current ethical issues and discusses how ethical theories can be applied to them.

Step 1:  Take 5 minutes to write everything you possibly can into your Philosophy Bites Green Folder on the topic: Ethics.  Themes to keep in mind include ideas, people, choices, circumstances - you can write single words or short phrases. 

Step 2:  We'll watch this short Friends video and then respond to each of the questions below.  We'll have three people discuss each of these questions below - should be fun!

1. Are Moral Choices Possible?

2. Why Do the Right Thing?


Step 3:  Read and take notes on pp. 242 - 247 of the text.