PHI2630 Exam1 Study Guide Fallacies Reasoning Errors was the example from class Fallacy of Common Belief A lot of people believe X Therefore X must be true Up until the late 16th century most people believed that the earth was the center of the universe This of course is not true Fallacy of Common Practice A lot of people do X Therefore X must be a morally acceptable practice 15 000 buyers can t be wrong Ad Hominem responding to arguments by attacking a person s character rather than addressing the content of their argument Ad Hominem Circumstantial Suggesting that the person who is making the argument is biased or predisposed to take a particular stance and therefore the argument is necessarily invalid Don t listen to what he says about public spending he hasn t even finished high He would say that wouldn t he school any wars Appeal to False Authority Using an authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument Einstein said Peace cannot be kept by force we should therefore not engage in False Dilemma When only two choices are presented yet more exist or a spectrum of possible choices exists between two extremes Andy Susan do you support teacher led prayer in school Susan No I don t Andy Oh you must be an atheist then Slippery Slope a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any rational argument or demonstrable mechanism for the inevitability of the event in question We have to stop this tuition increase Next thing you know they ll be asking 50 000 a semester Conflation of Morality with Legality When something is legal but still not morally permissible when legality does not equal morality Why feel bad about lying There s not a law against it Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc Since event Y followed event X event Y must have been caused by event X When that statement isn t necessarily true or can be proven The economy went downhill in our state as soon as the new governor was elected clearly because he was elected Mistaking Correlation for Causation Tendency to assume that if two events consistently occur at about the same time then one is the cause of the other We have the death penalty in our state and a low murder rate Other states should implement the death penalty if they want low crime Hasty Generalization Drawing a conclusion based on a small sample size rather than looking at statistics that are much more in line with the average situation That British professor is really weird all Europeans must be weird Straw Man Substituting a person s actual position or argument with a distorted exaggerated or misrepresented version of the position of the argument Senator Smith says that we should not fund the new weapons program I disagree I can t understand why he would want to leave us defenseless Perfectionist Fallacy tendency to assume that there is a perfect solution to a particular problem We shouldn t five any aid to poor countries we can t eradicate hunger completely so there is no point Test 1 will have some reasoning error questions You will have to demonstrate knowledge of these errors explain what they are provide examples of these errors and identify reasoning errors Introduction to Ethics Normative Ethics It is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act morally speaking Consequentialism Utilitarianism Rule Consequentialism Deontological Theories Kantian Moral Theory Ethics of Prima Facie Duty Virtue Theory Relativism Normative Relativism The moral rightness and wrongness of actions varies from society to society and there are no absolute moral standards Act Consequentialism An action is right if and only if and because its consequences would be at least as good as the consequences of any alternative action that the agent might instead perform Right Wrongness we look solely at the consequences caused by that action Utilitarianism Maximizing happiness and welfare Right Wrongness depends on how the action affects human happiness welfare Hedonistic Utilitarianism an action is right if and only if and because it would likely produce the most pleasure or less pain than any alternative action that one might do instead Rule Consequentialism An action is right if and only if it is in accord with that set of rules the near universal acceptance of which would make things go best Right Wrongness depends on whether it is required permitted or prohibited by a rule whose consequences are best Deontology focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions Consequentialism or to the character and habits of the actor Virtue Ethics Kant s Formula of Humanity An action is right if and only if and because the action treats persons including oneself as ends in themselves and not merely as means Deception and coercion are two ways in which one can treat another person merely as means as an object to be manipulated Persons have a special worth or value that demands of us that we have a certain positive regard for them called dignity Ross s Ethics of Prima Facie Duty to preform some action is to say that one has some moral reason to preform the action but the reason in question might be overridden by some other moral reason that favors not preforming the action Virtue the disposition to act from certain desires including the desire to do what is morally right is intrinsically good Pleasure states of experiencing pleasure are intrinsically good Pleasure in proportion to virtue the state of experiencing pleasure in proportion to one s level of virtue is intrinsically good Knowledge having knowledge is intrinsically good Virtue Theory An action is right if and only if and because it is what a virtuous agent acting in character would not avoid doing in the circumstances under consideration Honesty Dishonesty Courage Cowardice Justice Injustice Temperance Intemperance Beneficence Selfishness Humility Arrogance Loyalty Disloyalty Gratitude Ingratitude Test 1 will among other things test your comprehension of basic ethical theories You will be asked to briefly explain and demonstrate understanding of some of the following theories concepts Normative Ethics Normative Relativism Act Consequentialism Utilitarianism Rule Consequentialism Deontology Kant s Formula of Humanity Ethics of Prima Facie Duty Virtue Theory Free Speech Harm action
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