DAY 62 May 10 Ethics Intro

Step 1: Today we'll start thinking about some new ideas below.  I'd like to open the next 13 classes with a discussion about one of them.

One of you will choose a card which will match with one of the ideas below.  Then your job will be to lead a five minute discussion with the class on the idea - clearly what we're trying to open up, apart from lots of cans of worms, is a meaningful exchange of ideas.

What you will aim to do is get people to identify the main ethical idea, perhaps a theory, and perhaps even a philosopher (other than the one who made the statement) who would agree or disagree with the statement and we'll see where the discussions go.  I'm really hoping that QUESTIONS arise from our discussions.

ACE. (Albert Einstein)  Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

2. (Salman Rushdie)  I hate admitting that my enemies have a point..

3. (Thomas Edison) Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

4. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn) Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.

5. (Elvin Stackman) Science cannot stop while ethics catches up.    


6. (Potter Stewart) Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. 

7. (George Bernard Shaw) Liberty means responsibility. That is why most people dread it.  

8. (H.A. Pritchard) Right action is that which is morally suitable to the situation in which an individual finds herself.

9. (Plato)  Is something holy beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved by the gods?  

10. (Jeremy Bentham) Nature has placed people under the governance of two sovereign masters: pain and pleasure.

JACK. (Aristotle) Intellectual virtue owes its strength to teaching, while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit. 

QUEEN. (Isaac Asimov)  Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right.

KING. (Elie Wiesel)  If one is indifferent, one dies before one actually dies.  


Step 2: Next we'll go through some Ethics Vocabulary.

Step 3: In your Green Philosophy Bites folder, please respond in 5 minutes to this question:

Can People Be Good Without Religious Involvement?  Who determines this?




Step 4: Read pp. 248 - 259 in the text and take notes on the main ideas, the philosophers and their theories.  You should consider the questions you come across in the text too.  These need to be completed before tomorrow's class.