BASIC CONCEPTS, METHODS, ISSUES, QUESTIONS, AND ARGUMENTS

I.  Introductory Material:  Critical Thinking and Meta-Ethics

Basic Concepts:    Premises, intermediate conclusions, and final conclusion of an argument; the logical structure of an argument; validity and soundness of arguments; generalizations; counterexamples to a generalization; basic moral principles versus derived moral principles; offering reasons for a belief; objections to a belief; objections to an argument; the critical reflex.

Basic Methods:

(1)  Testing for validity, including Venn diagrams;
(2)  The technique of counterexamples;
(3)  Basic moral principles versus derived moral principles;
(4)  Searching for principles of greater generality;
(5)  Critical appeal to moral intuitions.

II.  Some Classical Theories in Normative Ethics

Basic Concepts:    Normative ethics versus meta-ethics; good and bad versus right and wrong; questions of value versus questions of rights and obligations; intrinsically good (or bad) versus good (or bad) because of its consequences; prima facie wrong versus absolutely wrong; intrinsically wrong versus wrong because of its consequences; consequentialist theories; deontological theories, virtue theories; utilitarianism; act consequentialism versus rule consequentialism; the divine command theory of morality; social contract theories of morality.

Basic Issues:

(1)  How does a philosophical approach to morality differ from one that appeals to some religious authority?
(2)  Is a philosophical approach to morality really needed, or even desirable?
(3)  What objections are there to appealing to religious authority?
(4)  Is everything in the Bible true?
(5)  Are all of the moral claims found in the Bible true?
(6)  Are all of the moral claims advanced by the Roman Catholic Church true?

III.  Sexual Morality

Basic Concepts:    General approaches to sexual morality;  basic moral principles with specifically sexual content versus general moral principles that are not specifically sexual; the relation between law and morality: law as protecting rights versus law as enforcing morality.

Background Questions:

(1)  What view does the Bible appear to advance on the morality of the following:  Sex before marriage?  Adultery?  Homosexuality?
(2)  What is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the following:  Sex before marriage?  Masturbation?  Contraception?  Homosexuality?
(3)  What are the main general views that have been advanced with regard to sexual morality?

Basic Issues:

(1)  Which general approach to sexual morality is most plausible, and why?
(2)  What objections can be raised to alternative approaches?
(3)  What is the most plausible view concerning the moral status of each of the following:  sex before marriage; adultery; homosexuality; prostitution; the use of contraceptives; open marriage?
(4)  What laws should there be regarding sexual behavior, and why?

IV.  Homosexuality

Basic Concepts:  Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality; homosexuality as genetically-based versus homosexuality as a choice; unnatural behavior; behavior that is contrary to nature.

Background Questions:

(1) What view does the Bible appear to advance on the morality of homosexuality?
(2) What is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on homosexuality?
(3) What are the main general views that have been advanced with regard to the moral status of homosexuality?
(4) How do the orthodox Jewish and Christian views of homosexuality compare with the views of homosexuality in ancient Greek and Roman society?
(5) Do present day societies have any laws against homosexual behavior?  Are there any such laws in the United Sates?

Basic Issues:

(1) What arguments can be offered for the view that homosexual sex is morally wrong?
(2) What does it mean to say that behavior is contrary to nature?
(3) Is homosexual sex contrary to nature?
(4) If behavior is contrary to nature, does that make it morally wrong?  Why or why not?
(5) What does it mean to say that behavior is unnatural?
(6) Is homosexuality unnatural?
(7) If something is unnatural, does that make it morally wrong?  Why or why not?
(8) Is homosexual behavior wrong because it cannot lead to reproduction?
(9) What other arguments have been offered for the view that homosexual behavior is morally wrong?  Are those arguments sound or not?
(10) Should there be laws against homosexual sex?
(11) Should same-sex civil unions be permitted?
(12) What reasons might be offered in support of the claim that same-sex marriages would undermine marriage?
(13) Are those reasons sound or not?
(14) Should same-sex marriage be legal?

V.  Pornography

Basic Issues:

(1)  How is pornography best defined?
(2)  Is the enjoyment of pornography morally wrong in itself?
(3)  Does pornography cause an increase in sex crimes?
(4)  Does pornography degrade women?
(5)  Does pornography weaken the moral character of those who watch it?
(6)  Are there good reasons for making pornography illegal?

VI.  Suicide

Background Questions:

(1)  What is the teaching of the Roman Catholic church with regard to the morality of committing suicide?
(2)  Are there any texts in the Bible that provide clear support for the view that suicide is always wrong?
(3)  What are St. Thomas Aquinas's arguments against suicide?
(4)  What are the main religious arguments against suicide?

Basic Issues:

(1)  How is the concept of suicide best defined?
(2)  Can one plausibly both believe in God, and yet hold that suicide is not always wrong, or are there convincing religious objections to suicide?
(3)  Are any of St. Thomas's arguments against suicide plausible?
(4)  Is suicide ever morally permissible when it is done for the benefit of others?
(5)  Is suicide ever morally permissible if one is terminally ill?
(6)  Is suicide ever morally permissible in other circumstances?
(7)  What are the most important considerations that bear upon the issue of the moral status of suicide?
(8)  Is it ever morally permissible to assist someone to commit suicide?

VII.  Euthanasia

Basic Concepts:    Voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary euthanasia; active versus passive euthanasia; the concept of death; criteria of death; the wedge or slippery slope argument; logical versus empirical versions of the wedge argument; the trolley problem argument; the survival lottery.

Background Questions:

(1)  What alternative criteria of when an individual is dead have been proposed?
(2)  What arguments can be offered for or against the various alternatives?
(3)  What is James Rachels’ argument for the view that there is no intrinsic moral difference between killing and letting die?

Basic Issues:

(1)  Is voluntary passive euthanasia morally permissible?
(2)  Is the withdrawal of a life support system a case of active euthanasia or passive euthanasia?
(3)  Is there a morally significant difference between killing and letting die?
(4)  Is there a morally significant difference between active euthanasia and passive euthanasia?
(5)  Is voluntary active euthanasia intrinsically wrong?
(6)  Are there convincing consequentialist objections to voluntary active euthanasia?
(7)  Is the logical version of the wedge argument sound?
(8)  Does the empirical version of the wedge argument provide a good reason for holding that voluntary active euthanasia should be legally prohibited?
(9)  Should voluntary active euthanasia be illegal?
(10)  Is non-voluntary, passive euthanasia ever morally permissible?
(11)  Is non-voluntary, active euthanasia ever morally permissible?
(12)  Should non-voluntary euthanasia ever be legally permitted?

VIII.  The Moral Status of Animals

Basic Concepts:    Having rights versus being of value; a right not to suffer versus a right to life; rights based on natural properties versus rights arising from a social contract; natural rights and the intrinsic properties on which they might be based; mere consciousness; sentience, and the ability to feel pleasure and pain; self-consciousness; rationality; speciesism; Peter Singer’s principle of equality; the having of interests.

Background Questions:

(1) What exactly is meant by speciesism?
(2) What is Peter Singer’s “basic principle of equality”?
(3) Does Singer’s principle of equality entail that all sentient beings have the same rights?
(4) If one accepts any of the following claims, does it automatically follow that one is a speciesist: (a) Not all animals have rights; (b) Not all animals have the same rights; (c) Only humans have a right to life?
(5) What is the Biblical teaching with regard to the moral status of animals?

Basic Issues:

(1) What property or properties make a being worthy of consideration?
(2) What properties or properties are necessary if something is to have at least some rights?
(3) Is it only moral agents that can have rights?
(4) Can a sentient being be worthy of moral consideration even if it does not have any rights?
(5) What properties or properties are necessary if something is to have a serious right to life?
(6) Do any non-human animals on earth have the property or properties in question?
(7) Is it always, sometimes, or never, right for humans to inflict pain upon non-human animals when it is in the interests of humans to do so?

IX. Human Cloning

Basic Concepts:  Cloning to produce a person versus cloning to produce a mindless organ bank; the contributions of heredity to personality versus the contributions of the environment in which one is raised; identical twins; one’s sense of individuality; having an open future.

Background Questions:

(1) To what extent are an individual’s traits determined by his or her genetic makeup?
(2) How will the degree of similarity of a cloned individual to the original compare with the degree of similarity of identical twins raised in the same family?  To identical twins raised in different families?

Basic Issues:

(1) What moral objections might be raised against cloning people?
(2) Are those objections sound or not?
(3) Are there any significant social benefits of cloning people?
(4) What objections might be directed against the use of cloning to produce embryos for medical research?
(5) Are those objections the same as those directed against abortion, or are they different?
(6) Are there any significant benefits to society of the use of cloning to produce embryos for medical research?
 

X.  Abortion

Basic Concepts:    Being genetically human versus being a person; capacities versus potentialities; active potentialities versus passive potentialities; a potential person;  basic versus derived moral principles; speciesism;  sufficient conditions for having a right to life versus necessary conditions for having a right to life; the proper subjects of rights.

Background Questions:

(1)  What is Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument in support of the moral permissibility of abortion in the case of rape?  How does she attempt to extend her argument to other cases of abortion?
(2)  What are the main versions of the central anti-abortion argument?
(3)  What are the most important counterexamples that have been suggested to the claim that all innocent organisms that are genetically human have a serious right to life?
(4)  What are the most important arguments both for and against the claim that potentiality is sufficient to give something a serious right to life?
(5)  What is the most important difficulty that faces a moderate approach to abortion?

Basic Issues:

(1)  What properties suffice to give something a right to life?
(2)  What properties are necessary if something is to have a right to life?
(3)  Does being genetically human suffice to give something a right to life?
(4)  Do potentialities suffice to give something a right to life?
(5)  Could the right to life be something that a developing organism gradually acquires?

Important Arguments:

A.  Being Genetically Human, and Having a Right to Life:

(1)  The appeal to counterexamples: (a) brain death; upper brain death; anencephalic infants.  The spectrum of possible cases, and the question of where the crucial line is to be drawn.

(2)  The appeal to the possibility of intelligent extra-terrestrials.  Basic versus derived moral principles, and the search for a principle of greater generality.  Alternative derivations: capacities versus potentialities.

B.  Do Potentialities Give Something A Right To Life?

B1.  Arguments in Support of an Affirmative Answer:

(1)  Reversible versus irreversible comas, and the right to life. Comment:  Active versus passive potentialities?  A potential person versus the potential continuation of a person.

(2)  Potentialities and an entity's intrinsic value. Comment:  Destroying something that has value versus destroying something that has a right to life.  Adding extra people and a better world.

(3)  Potentialities and infanticide.

B2.  Arguments in Support of a Negative Answer:

(1)  Mary Anne Warren's cloning argument. Comment:  Active versus passive potentialities?

(2)  The "almost active" potentialities argument.

(3)  Artificial wombs and the generalized potentiality argument.

(4)  The rights and interests argument.

C.  Judith Jarvis Thomson’s Arguments

Is Thomson right about the case of the violinist?  If so, is a parallel argument successful in the case of abortion where pregnancy has resulted from rape?  If so, can Thomson’s argument be successfully extended to the case where pregnancy occurs in spite of conscientious use of contraceptives?