Case Study: Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

1) According to Aristotelian virtue ethics, the use of this nootropic drug can be considered morally right. Firstly in the perspective of college students, in the pursuit of happiness, or in their case success, this cognitive drug is nothing to scoff at. It allows them to perform at their personal best which will eventually result in their happiness or having a good life, a value of eudaimonism. This is especially true since there are no side effects that would cause said good life to take a wrong turn. Also, using deontology, one can say that with respect to improving one’s mental condition or intelligence we are supplementing out duty to self-improvement. One can say that if we are enrolled in university or an educational program, we have …show more content…
It happens that that nephew has hit his head and is about to die. At that point, Smith is presented with two choices: letting his nephew die or take him to a hospital for medical treatment. In this case, Smith lets him be to die. With respects to the trolleyology paper, what Smith did was possibly not the soundest decision. One of the two choices, letting the nephew die, gave the most benefit to him. However, this did not account for the pain the nephew’s death would bring for others (i.e. his mother and other loved ones). In fact, letting the nephew die would likely lead to an overall negative outcome with only Smith as a beneficiary. If the choice was given to a morally right person, he or she would choose the option that would provide the most benefit and the least amount of pain to everyone. Thus, taking the option of taking the nephew to the hospital would bring the least pain and be the moral thing to …show more content…
Unlike scientific facts, moral facts cannot explain certain observations. A person can observe an act and claim that it is wrong, but there is no way that that person can explain why that person observed it as wrong. Thus, any morality attached to an act cannot explain a moral observation. However, Nicholas L. Sturgeon argues against Harman and says that moral facts can play a role in explaining such observations. Moral facts can in fact change the way the world is perceived. If moral facts did not, then the world would be in utter chaos as there would not be a universal moral fact that can draw the line between good and bad. Although Sturgeon and Harman both agree that not every theory can impact our observations to justify itself, Sturgeon expresses that moral theory can still prove that observations can be explained; our world would have to completely change for us to believe that sadistic cruelty (i.e. setting a cat on fire) is not immoral to some