Ruth Abbey - Examination Of Taylor

Front 1

What does Abbey mean by the term inescapable framework?

Back 1

Referring to the moral framework of beliefs an individual has. Taylor refers to this as the horizons of significance. This framework shapes the individuals’ choices, rather than having random, inexplicit and incoherent choices. Each individual has a framework that makes decisions. (p.33)

Front 2

What is Abbey referring to while speaking about hypergoods?

Back 2

This idea ties into Taylor’s moral framework but hypergoods serve as the weighing system that sorts the strongly valued goods (morals) versus the weaker less valuable hypergoods. The hypergoods concept is a sort of ranking system. (p.35)

Front 3

What does this notion of “individuals interpreting their lives in narrative terms” mean?

Back 3

Taylor argues that we are narrative beings meaning we do not simply regard situations as of separate occasions but rather we implement the past experiences of our own lives. By viewing our lives are narratives we are able to apply events, experiences and past situations to our person outlook.

Front 4

Why does Abbey state that “Taylors preferred way of expressing himself is to talk about what is morally wrong”?

Back 4

Taylor believes that we as humans are dialogical beings and by being able to articulate we are able to determine what is morally permissible as Taylor writes “without any articulation at all we would lose all our contact with the goal however conceived. We would cease to be human” (Abbey 45). So by being able to express oneself we are able to have a strong and accurate means of measuring and discerning underlying goods behind moral activity. (p. 41, 44-45)

Front 5

In what sense does pluralism for Taylor differ from Aristotle?

Back 5

Taylor argues that in modern society there is a wider array of goods to pursue. Where Aristotle felt that all the different qualitative goods could be combined harmoniously, Taylor also feels that “there is no guarantee that universally valid goods should be perfectly combinable, and certainly not in all situations” (Abbey 12). Because of this situation, individuals must choose from a range of goods: “Moral choices are hard and necessarily entail sacrifice and lose” (Abbey 13).

Front 6

What is meant by Strong Evaluation?

Back 6

Strong evaluation is the concept of ranking desires. Taylor was inspired by Harry Frankfurt and his own idea of second-order desires. By this Taylor implies that as human beings we retain the ability to rank different desires in different lights. This is considered an interesting distinction from animals. “Although there are always multiple goods clamoring for attention in a person’s life, they do not all appear in the same light” (Abbey 17).

Front 7

To what extent does moral realism (strong) combat subjectivism?

Back 7

Strong moral realism is the belief that humans ultimately find joy or grief in different values because of the value themselves not because of our arbitrarily choosing them. This implies that moral values exist independently of humans. The best example explanation of this concept is as following: “We sense in the very experience of being moved by some higher good that we are moved by what is good in it rather than that it is valuable because of our reaction. We are moved by seeing its point something infinitely valuable. We experience our love for it as a well-founded love” (Abbey 27). In this sense, moral realism is the antithesis of subjectivism which argues that moral value choices are worthy because of the individuals choice versus the good itself.