Exam 8: Moral Theory

The ethics of care takes the following to be centrally important to ethical evaluation:

Virtue ethics provides rules to guide human behavior.

According to rule utilitarianism, an act is right if and only if

Why does Aristotle claim that one cannot attain virtue by the study of philosophy alone?

According to Kant, a hypothetical imperative represents an action

Explain the distinction between a hypothetical imperative and a categorical imperative. Do you think there is a categorical imperative, as Kant claims? Explain.

What is the general happiness principle? Do you agree that this is the correct standard for human conduct? Explain.

Rachels states that a concern for one's own welfare is

Virtuous action

Utilitarianism requires that we always and only act in the interest of other people.

A hypothetical imperative represents an action as good as a means to something else.

What are the main distinctions between an ethics of care and traditional ethical theories? Do you find specific features in one or both essential to understanding human morality?

Do you think that the two formulations Kant gives of the categorical imperative are equivalent? Explain.

If moral isolationism were true, what would be most likely to happen when we encountered a new cultural influence?

The justice objection to utilitarianism claims that utilitarians worship justice as an absolute.

In Kant's view, coercion is wrong because the person being coerced could not consent.

Kant claims that only human beings act according to laws.

A major criticism of virtue ethics is that it does not provide a guide to action.

Rule utilitarians claim that the right thing to do might not always, in that instance, produce the most good.

Midgley mentions the example of a simple-minded missionary who dismisses samurai culture as bad because it is non-Christian. What does she think of this example?