Community College of Denver: History 


Ethical Ideas Involve Questions of

The Good Life

Freedom

Rights, divine, natural and civil

Virtue and Vice Liberty Laws, divine, natural and civil
Happiness, eudaimonia, and hedonism Free will and determinism Justice
Good and Evil Duty Means and Ends
Consequences and motivations Categorical imperative Authenticity
Selfishness and altruism Social contracts Reason, sympathy, conscience or compassion
Utility Care Intuitionism, emotivism, prescriptivism
Normative ethics and metaethics Circle of considerablity Monism, Pluralism, Relativism

 Is and ought, fact and value

Subjectivity and objectivity Realism, idealism, rationalism, empiricism, 
pragmatism, hermeneutics, existentialism, phenomenology

 

Deontological/Nonconsequentialist Theories: theories defining the right action independently of/prior to considerations of good/bad outcomes.

  1. Divine Command: moral principles are determined by God.
  2. Natural Law: moral principles are revealed by reason with reference to natural needs.
  3. Kantian Ethics: moral principles are revealed/determined by reason with reference to logical consistency.
  4. Contractualism: moral principles are determined by hypothetical/actual agreement between specified parties.
  5. Intuitionism/Prima Facie (Guiding) Duties: moral principles are revealed through intuition.

 

Teleological/Consequentialist Theories: theories holding that one ought to live one's life so as to maximize "the good" and or minimize "the bad" (i.e., the good is prior to the right).

  1. Whatever I expect to promote my (long-term) interests (Ethical Egoism).
  2. Utility, summed impersonally over all affected entities (Utilitarianism).
  3. Human excellence (Virtue Ethics/Perfectionism).

 


Syllabus Thinkers Timeline Texts Situation Resources