Ethics Test 4

Front 1

Two issues concerning abortion that need separate consideration.

Back 1

1. The morality of abortion: under what circumstances is it morally acceptable to have or perform an abortion.
2. The legality of abortion: under what circumstances should abortion be legally permissible?

Front 2

Considerations behind the us law on abortion

Back 2

1. to protect the life/ health of the mother
2. to protect pre-natal life (literally to protect a states interest in protecting pre natal life)
3. to protect the right to privacy

Front 3

Results of us abortion law

Back 3

1. a fetus has no legal rights
2. A tri-fold decision based on trimesters of pregnancy, only in the third trimester are states allowed to protect the fetus, and then only if the mother's life is not threatened.
3. claims to take no stance on the personhood of the fetus but dissenting opinion: the supreme court has made up a new right without adequate constitutional justification

Front 4

Noonan: an almost absolute value in history

Back 4

1. Genetic make-up is the only non-arbitrary place to draw the line between human and non human (to be conceived as humans makes one humans)
2. viability fails because it is dependent on the current state of technology.
3. sentience fails because it is very imprecise and would rule out many that we don't want to rule out.
4. how we feel about the fetus cannot decide the issue because feelings are notoriously poor barometers of the moral worth of others.
5. social visibility (ability to engage in the social contract) would make infants not human
6. there is a huge difference in potentiality after conception
7. Therefore abortion is only acceptable when done out of self defense

Front 5

Mary Anne Warren: Justifying abortion and infanticide

Back 5

1. it is wrong to kill innocent human beings. fetuses are innocent human beings. so its wrong to kill them. this is fallacy
2. a moral human being must be a person and persons must fit the list of characteristics. since a fetus has none of these characteristics it is not a person.
i. it is absurd to give moral rights to those that do not yet have moral obligations and responsibilities.
ii. een if being a potential person gave some primae facie right to life it could never outweigh the rights of an actual person.
Warren's argument implies that infanticide is not inherently immoral.

Front 6

jean francois lyotard: postmodernism

Back 6

incredulity towards meta narratives

Front 7

meta narrative

Back 7

some overall general story which explains the nature of everything including everyones individual narrative

Front 8

michel foucault

Back 8

any attempt at objective standards is simply a means of seeking power

Front 9

kane. metaphysics

Back 9

the study of what is really real. (integral to traditional search for wisdom)

Front 10

kane objective explanation

Back 10

the determination of what is reasonable to believe about the nature of things and why.

Front 11

kane objective worth

Back 11

understanding what is objectively valuable and worth striving for

Front 12

kane the two allied goals of metaphysics

Back 12

objective explanation and objective worth. the connection between these two has been sundered in postmodern western thought

Front 13

kane the postmodern claim that we cannot know the way things are in themselves does not imply that we must give up objective explanation

Back 13

perhaps the way teh world is is the sumof all the different ways in which the world is objectively descrbed

Front 14

there are standards for determining what is objective or not from within each different way.

Back 14

each way is a practive that deals with something that is real thus that thing helps determine what is taken as an objective explanation in that practive thus the result is not merely subjective or merely a product of that language game.

Front 15

connecting objective worth with objective reality.

Back 15

to love something is to want it to be real.

Front 16

objective truth beauty goodness are

Back 16

pragmatically valuable

Front 17

socratic precepts for seeking legitimate beliefs

Back 17

1. maintain an attitude of openness and humility
2. do the best we can to carefully examine the idea
3. make sure the idea is reasonable
4. make sure the idea is noble
5. have the courage to risk belief in ideas that stand up to this scrutiny.

Front 18

christendom

Back 18

the culture and institutional structures ostensibly built upon the teaching of christ

Front 19

christianity

Back 19

the authentic following of christ

Front 20

passion

Back 20

a deep and abiding concern, something in which we are infinitely interested

Front 21

asthetic stage of life

Back 21

folllows the value system of interesting/ boring. lives for the moment

Front 22

some aspects of the ethical stage of life

Back 22

1. defining yourself by making exclusive choices taking ones own life and the lives of others very seriously. seeking to help others. do what is right.
2. good evil becomes the means of evaluating one's life.
3. ethics is grounded in the fundamental ethical principle that the universal is higher than the individual.

Front 23

teleological suspension of the ethical

Back 23

the purpose of everyone would be to follow the universal
so if we meaningfully differ from the universal then we are evil.
but the claim of religion is that eveery indivudual has infinite worth.
however genuine religion does recognize the claim of the universal
one must become ethical before one can experience the freedom from ethics that religion advocates.
abraham knew that before god he was always in the wrong.
faith is a paradox to ethical reasoning.
abraham is not a tragic hero because the sacrifice of isaac is not done for the sake of the universal. but rather to test his faith.
the temptation for abraham was to be ethical. he was tempted to not suspend the ethical.
obedience to god out of love for god suspends ethics.
religion replaces the ethics of universal duty towards others with universal love towards others.
christiantiy requires us to give up the ethical dream of self mastery.

Front 24

there is no danger in religious suspension of the ethical but

Back 24

it is not anything goes but rather fear and trembling towards god.
abrahams faith included trusting in gods primise to bless the nations through isaac
genuine christianity is too subjective to justify crusades or holy wars.
the religious claims of others should not stop us from preventing their suspension of the ethical.
to objectively decide to become a christian is impossible because objectivity requires disinteredness but before becoming a christian one must be infinitely interested in their eternal happiness.
only the infinite can sustain our infinite interest
to become religious one must be infinitely interested in their relationship with god.
ethical passion can be helpful. it can begin to trun our focus outward away from outself.