PHIL140 Notes Lecture 2 9 06 2012 Arguments continued Equivocation The meaning of a key word shifts in the course of an argument Circularity Committed when A is the case because of B but B turns out to be true only If A is true Implicit Premises committed when we assume that the premises is true without stating it in the argument Necessary and sufficient conditions If A is sufficient condition for B then if A is true then B is true It is a sufficient condition for you being alive that you re are golfing therefore if you are golfing you are alive Counterfactual If I were 3 feet tall my feet would be small Counterfactual always have a false antecedent and specify what would be the case if the antecedent were true Indicative the antecedent can be true or false If I am three feet then my feet would be small This allows the possibility with the word am verses the word were Benedicts Article Shows what is normal versus what is abnormality Anthropological research indicates that every kind of behavior that we from the prospective our western European culture consider abnormal is considered normal and even honored in some other societies Normality the general way a given culture happens to live out one of the many possible patterns of human behavior Abnormality patterns not adopted by a culture The concept of the moral is a variety of the concept of the normal Like normality the moral values are not absolute but relative to culture Morality is a conventional term for socially approved habits In some societies X is acceptable In others it is not X is neither objectively morally right or wrong societies view things differently Remember the discussion between inscriptive ethics and prescriptive normative ethics Descriptive Ethics concerned just with describing the ethical views of society Prescriptive morally right and wrong seeing if a certain action is permissible or not Cultural relativism describes a moral views of different groups of people Ethical relativism the prescriptive view that there is no absolute moral normality CULTURAL REALITIVISM IS NOT THE SAME AS ETHICALISM CULTURAL IS TRUE ETHICAL IS TRUE CULTURAL BEING TRUE DOES NOT LOGICALLY ENTAIL ETHICAL REALITIVSM ETHICAL WHAT A SOCIETY THINKS OF IT
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