Minimum Concept Of Morality Analysis

Question one: Morality minimized. The minimum conception of morality, as explained in the first chapter of James Rachels’ The Elements of Moral Philosophy, states the following, “Morality is at the very least, the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason - that is to do what there are the best reasons for doing -- while giving equal weight to the interests of each individual who will be affected by what one does.” To guide one’s conduct by reason is not inherently different from that of cognitive thinking, but the qualification in the last part of the quote, “...while giving equal weight to the interests of each individual who will be affected by what one does,” begins to diverge into the similar but separate idea of morality. Objective and impartial morality is Rachel's’ minimum conception of morality, but it is not necessarily practical standard to hold people’s decision making at. As Rachels states earlier in this chapter, there are other factors such as confirmation bias and human prejudices that can get in the way of reasoning and objectivism that is held …show more content…
Question two: Living with integrity and applying reason to ethical judgements.
The first example that comes to mind in the recent reading assigned would be the case of Tracy Latimer. The 12-year-old victim of cerebral palsy killed by her father in the small town of Saskatchewan, Canada. I would like to see what the other students think of this example when viewing it through the lens of integrity and applying reasoning in ethical judgments. Wouldn’t you think the father in this example is making the most important ethical judgement of his life on whether or not to kill his