Philosophical Ethics
Preface
Dedication
About this book
Acknowledgements
License CC BY-SA 4.0
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I Some Preliminaries
1
The Examined Life
1.1
What do I know?
1.2
What should I do?
A difficult case
1.3
Philosophical Ethics
Descriptive ethics
Meta-ethics
Prescriptive ethics
Applied ethics
1.4
Slideshow Summary
📺 Socrates, Self-confidence, and Justice
Further exploration
2
A Little Bit of Logic
2.1
Arguments, Rationality and Rhetoric
2.2
The Structure of Arguments
Premises
Conclusions
Pattern of reasoning
2.3
Validity and Soundness
Key concepts
More examples
2.4
Proofs and Counterexamples
2.5
Slideshow Summary
📺 What is Critical Thinking?
Further exploration
3
Fallacies and Biases
3.1
Fallacies of Relevance
Appeal to authority
Ad hominem
Popular appeal (bandwagon fallacy)
Appeal to force
Appeal to consequences
The naturalistic fallacy
The genetic fallacy
Red herring
Weak analogy
3.2
Fallacies of Ambiguity
Equivocation
Straw person
Cherry picking
Fallacy of misplaced concreteness
3.3
Fallacies of Presumption
Mere assertion
Begging the question
Appeal to ignorance
False dilemma (black or white fallacy)
Hasty generalization
Slippery slope
False cause
Circular reasoning
3.4
Cognitive Biases
Hot Biases
Confirmation bias
Group think
Wishful thinking
Cold biases
Anchoring/framing effects
The fundamental attribution error
The availability heuristic
3.5
Slideshow Summary
📺 Our Buggy Moral Code
Further exploration
II Ethics Culture and Religion
4
Relativism
4.1
Claims and Consequences of Moral Relativism
A first case for relativism
What is at stake
4.2
Defending Relativism
Cultural differences
A counterexample
4.3
The Argument from Learning
4.4
Difference and Tolerance
4.5
Questioning Relativism
Summary
4.6
A Starting Point
4.7
Slideshow Summary
📺 Crash Course: Metaethics
Further exploration
5
Religion and Ethics
5.1
Divine Command Theory
Implications of DCT
Defending DCT
5.2
A Nasty Dilemma
5.3
Natural Law Theory
Implications of NLT
5.4
Ethics and Human Nature
Natural purposes
Religion and ethics reconsidered
5.5
Slideshow Summary
📺 Religion and Ethics
Further Exploration
III Reconstructing Norms
6
Egoism
6.1
Psychological Egoism: What’s in it for me?
Implications of psychological egoism
6.2
Arguments for psychological egoism
The strategy of reinterpreting motives
6.3
Ethical Egoism
Implications of ethical egoism
6.4
In Defense of Ethical Egoism
6.5
Capitalism and the Common Good
Looking ahead
6.6
Slideshow Summary
📺 On Inequality
Further exploration
7
Social Contract Theory
7.1
Hobbes and the Invention of Society
Ethics in times of social and political change
The state of nature
7.2
The social contract
7.3
Why
should
we follow the rules?
What agreement?
The prisoners dilemma
7.4
Slideshow summary
📺 Crash Course: Contractarianism
Further exploration
8
Utilitarianism
8.1
Happiness and The Highest Good
Implications of utilitarianism
8.2
Why should I care?
8.3
Problems, Problems
Technical problems
Deeper questions
8.4
Slideshow Summary
Further exploration
9
Kant and the ethics of duty
9.1
What do we owe one another?
Implications
Persons and things
9.2
Rights and the ideal of respect
Conflicting duties
9.3
The Categorical Imperative
9.4
Slideshow Summary
Further exploration
IV Applied Ethics
10
Theory in Practice
10.1
Ethics in the real world
11
Euthanasia
11.1
Types of euthanasia
11.2
Arguing About Euthanasia
Against medical killing
Appealing to mercy
Kant’s argument
Active and passive, is there a moral difference?
Peter Singer’s argument
Slippery slopes?
12
Liberty and its Limits
12.1
Libertarians and paternalists
12.2
The Case of Recreational Drugs
Against legalization
Consistency
Against prohibition
Further exploration
13
Crime and Punishment
13.1
Utilitarian approaches
Isolation
Deterrence
Correction
13.2
Retributivist approaches
Simple retributivism
Social contract theory
Kantian retributivism
13.3
The Death Penalty
Utilitarian Arguments
Retributivist Arguments
The Death Penalty in Theory and in Practice
14
Animals and Ethics
14.1
Defending The Status Quo
The top of the heap
Human needs
The benefits of our use of animals
14.2
Humane Reform
Kant’s argument
Identifying with animals
14.3
Genuine Moral Consideration
Animal Welfare
Animal rights
15
Ethics and the Environment
15.1
The Standard View
Values on the standard view
15.2
The Limits of Nature
Climate Change
Oil Depletion
Loss of Biodiversity
15.3
Varieties of Environmental Ethics
Light Green Ethics
Medium Green Ethics
Dark Green Ethics
Appendix 1: Using Hypothes.is
References
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Philosophical Ethics
4.7
Slideshow Summary
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