Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Preliminary Hypotheses Regarding Ethics

Here are the hypotheses you all developed in your small groups on August 27th


As hypotheses, no evidence was provided (or asked for). How might you support, reword, challenge any of these? Use comments to have discussion or use your blog and make a link to this post and work on your reflections on your own blog.
  1. Society determines what's right/wrong
  2. Moral/immoral are not empirical; They are value claims (not provable)
  3. Moral/immoral are concepts; right and wrong are actions
  4. Decide on what is moral/immoral based on how it affects us
  5. Actions are right/wrong based on culture, religion, upbringing, etc.
  6. Deciding what is moral/immoral is subjective; mimics life: not science
  7. Everyone believes that they are right
  8. No universal concept of morality...ever
  9. Ethics comes from past life/parents/religion
  10. Religion can sometimes “butt in” and take over
  11. Ethics is personal search for what is right/wrong
  12. Most powerful determine ethics
  13. Context matters
  14. Morality cannot be defined by law; defined by circumstance/society
  15. Need ethics to keep society functioning

1 comment:

Jake Meyer said...

JMC, I agree with your number 8 because everywhere you go, you meet different people with backgrounds that might contrdict what you have been brought up to understand and know. For instance, one place this is most evident is in a cafeteria where you notice how some people may or may not say "Thank you" to a worker.