Excelsior College Ethics Exam Study Guide, I.B. Basic Concepts

Table of Contents

Excelsior College Ethics Exam Study Guide Home
I. Theory
A. Basic theories
B. Basic concepts
C. Metaethics
D. Moral deliberation
II. Practice
Sources

I. Theory
A. Basic theories
B. Basic concepts

  1. Justice
    1. Distributive justice talks about who should get which benefits and which burdens.
    2. Retributive justice talks about what punishments are appropriate for wrongdoing.
    3. Corrective justice explores when and how to compensate someone for a loss.
    4. There is some overlap between the three.

  2. Rights
    1. Samual Pufendorf formulated the correlativity of rights and duties (or obligations) If I have a right to speech, then others have the duty to refrain from stopping my speech. If I have a right to health care, then others have the obligation to provide that health care.
    2. An absolute right is a right that can never be violated. For example, some people believe that everyone has a right to life. Many also believe that people can justifiably kill someone in self-defense. If you believe that even self-defense is not a good enough reason to kill then you believe in an absolute right to life.
    3. Positive rights are things that I have a right to have. For example, if I have a right to fair trial, then I must be given that trial.
    4. Negative rights are things that I have a right to not be interfered with. For example, if I have a right to choose my own religion, then others must not force their religion on me.
    5. Legal rights are enforced through laws and penalties.
    6. Moral rights do not carry the weight of law, but people can still try to influence people to respect moral rights by using criticism, encouragement, etc.
    7. Prima facie rights are rights that must be met unless something more important overrides them. (Usually another prima facie right.) For example, you have a right to avoid harm, but someone else may have the right to harm you if you are actively trying to kill them. Your right to avoid harm was overridden by their right to life.
    8. Ronald Dworkin has argued that morality is based on rights and that some rights are so fundamental that they should rarely be interfered with. (Those rights are prima facie.)
    9. Fundamental rights are rights that you must have to enjoy other rights. For example, you must be alive and eating to enjoy your right to speech and religion.
    10. Derivative rights are rights that you have because you have other rights. If you have a right to eat food, then you should probably have the right to possess food.

  3. Values and goods
  4. Duties and obligations, including prima facie vs. actual
    1. William David Ross argued that in a given situation there are a number of prima-facie obligations that must be satisfied. The moral dilemma is to find the most important obligation at the time. The duty or obligation that is determined to be the most important at the time is called the actual duty.
    2. Kant is by far the most powerful proponent of duty. He argues that happiness is not the ultimate good, and that motive is the only way to measure moral actions. If you are motivated to perform an action out of duty, then it is a moral action. All other motives lack moral significance.
      1. A hypothetical imperative is a rule that you formulate to reach an end. For example, if you want to be physically fit, then you will exercise. Hypothetical imperatives are not necessarily absolute or universal.
      2. The categorical imperative is an absolute and universal moral rule. Kant stated it 3 different ways:
        1. Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
        2. Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature.
        3. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.

  5. Moral agency (nature of persons, moral character, etc.)
  6. Moral standing (scope of moral community, moral status, moral considerability, etc.)
  7. Moral relations (friendship, loyalty, fidelity, etc.)
  8. Autonomy and parentalism
  9. Respect for persons
  10. Beneficence and nonbeneficence (harm, benevolence, sympathy, empathy, etc.)
    1. Beneficence is the state of being kind and helping others. (It has the same root as benefit.) It is a word that is often used when talking whether a moral system instructs people to help others.
    2. Nonmalfeasance is the state of doing no harm to others. It means you are not trying to help other people, but you are also trying not to hurt them.
    3. Coercion is when someone (or the state) threatens harm in order to get you to do what they want.

  11. Double effect

    The doctrine of double effect helps us to understand how to deal with the side effects of actions. In general, we consider it ok for a good action to have some bad side effects, but we rarely consider it ok for a bad action to have a good side effect. For example, we consider it acceptable for a doctor to prescribe painkillers to a terminal patient that is tremendous pain even though it sometimes kills them. We also do not consider it ok to intentionally torture and kill an innocent person even if it leads to good things.

  12. Equal opportunity and discrimination

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