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Ethics:Ethics: The Study of Right and The Study of Right and WrongWrong

The Ancients (5th-4th Centuries BC)– Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

The Moderns (17th-19th Centuries)– Descartes, Hume, Kant

Contemporary Schools(20th Century)– Positivism, Existentialism, Pragmatism

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Lowell Kleiman

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Descriptive Ethics:Descriptive Ethics: The Study The Study of Actual Codes of Conductof Actual Codes of Conduct

HistoryCross-Cultural AnthropologyEthnic Studies

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Lowell Kleiman

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Normative Ethics:Normative Ethics: The Study of the The Study of the

Universally Valid Code ofUniversally Valid Code of ConductConduct– Ethnocentrism

• There is a Universally Valid Code.• We have it.

– The Ethnocentric Fallacy • Error of Judging Others By Standard Not Their Own• Mathematics as a Normative Model

– Mathnocentrism

– The Mathnocentric Fallacy?

– Moral Skepticism• Metaphysical Certainty• Common Sense Fallibility

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Ethical TheoryEthical TheoryReligious Authoritarianism– It is right if sanctioned by deity. – Is something right because God says so,

or does God say so because it is right? Individualism– Egotism

If it suits me, it is right.

– Egoism If it suits the agent, it is right.

– The Prisoner’s Dilemma

– Morality as a set of agreements that optimize, not maximize, self-interest.

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Ethical Theory (Cont.)Ethical Theory (Cont.)

Utilitarianism– Act

It is right if it leads to more good than harm.

– Rule It is right if it leads to more good than harm

as a rule.

Traditional Moralism– Established Morality

It is right if it is the custom.

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Ethical Theory (Cont.)Ethical Theory (Cont.) Traditional Moralism (Cont.)

– The Categorical Imperative• If it is right, it is universalizable;

• It treats others as an end-in-themselves, not just as a means to an end;

• It is motivated by a sense of duty defined by the moral law.

Pragmatism– If, at the end of inquiry, we say it is right, it is right.– From moral skepticism to common sense fallibilism

as practical necessity.

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Applied EthicsApplied Ethics

BiomedicalBusinessLegalScienceVirtual (Computer) Ethics

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Lowell Kleiman

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MetaEthics: MetaEthics: The Study of the The Study of the Foundations of Normative EthicsFoundations of Normative Ethics

SubjectivismMorality as in the eye of the beholder.

ObjectivismMorality as a matter of fact.

PositivismMorality as venting.