Exam 7: Plato Why Should We Be Good

According to Kant, "Virtue, however, is not to be defined and esteemed merely as ______, and as a long custom acquired by practice of morally good actions."

Hume says, "It is impossible there can be a progress _____________; and that one thing can always be a reason why another is desired. Something must be desirable on its own account, and because of its immediate accord or agreement with human sentiment and affection."

Explain what Thomson means when she says, "allows for and supports our sense that, for example, a sick and desperately frightened fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, pregnant due to rape, may of course choose abortion, and that any law which rules this out is an insane law."

According to Hursthouse, "To possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. (Hence the extreme recklessness of attributing a virtue on the basis of a single action.)"

Hume says, "It is impossible there can be a progress ad hominem; and that one thing can always be a reason why another is desired. Something must be desirable on its own account, and because of its immediate accord or agreement with human sentiment and affection."

Hume says, "It appears evident that the ultimate ends of human actions can never, in any case, be accounted for by ideology, but recommend themselves entirely to the sentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependence on the intellectual faculties."

According to Singer, "Should I consider that I am less obliged to pull the drowning child out of the pond if on looking around I see other people, no further away than I am, who have also noticed the child but are doing nothing? One has only to ask this question to see the absurdity of the view that numbers lessen obligation."

Explain what Harris means when he says, "To opt for the society which Y and Z propose would be then to adopt a society in which saintliness would be mandatory."

According to Mill, "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Egoism, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

Explain what Rachels means when he says, "doctors must be concerned about the legal consequences of what they do, and active euthanasia is clearly forbidden by the law. But even so, doctors should also be concerned with the fact that the law is forcing upon them a moral doctrine that may well be indefensible, and has a considerable effect on their practices."

According to Hursthouse, "Following (and adapting) Aristotle, virtue ethicists draw a distinction between full or perfect virtue and 'continence,' or strength of will."

According to Nietzsche, ________________ is one in which the value of an act is found in its motives.

Explain what Harris means when he says, "Another plausible objection is the natural reluctance to play God with men's lives, the feeling that it is wrong to make any attempt to re-allot the life opportunities that fate has determined, that the deaths of Y and Z would be natural, whereas the death of anyone killed to save them would have been perpetrated by men."

According to Hursthouse, "Following (and adapting) Aristotle, virtue ethicists draw a distinction between full or perfect virtue and 'continence,' or ..."

According to Harris, "Many philosophers have for various reasons believed that we must not kill even if by doing so we could save life. They believe that there is a moral difference between killing and ..."

According to Mill, "Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, and consequently one of the criteria of ..."

Explain what Thomson means when she says, "the arguments against abortion we are looking at do grant that the woman has a right to decide what happens in and to her body. But although they do grant it, I have tried to show that they do not take seriously what is done in granting it."

According to Hursthouse, "The best available science today (including evolutionary theory and psychology) supports rather than undermines the ancient Greek assumption that we are social animals, like elephants and wolves and unlike polar bears."

Explain what Rachels means when he says, "If the life of such an infant is worth preserving, what does it matter if it needs a simple operation? Or, if one thinks it better that such a baby should not live on, what difference does it make that it happens to have an unobstructed intestinal tract? In either case, the matter of life and death is being decided on irrelevant grounds."

Explain what Hursthouse means when she says, "Whether virtue ethics can be expected to grow into 'virtue politics'-i.e., to extend from moral philosophy into political philosophy-is not so clear." David B. Wong Moral Relativism