- Abolitionist
- In the context of the debate over capital punishment, the position that favors eliminating or abolishing capital punishment.
- Active euthanasia
- Actively intervening, with drugs, to cause the death of a person who is suffering from a terminal disease and who wishes to die more quickly.
- Act-utilitarian
- The version of utilitarian ethics that insists that all acts must be judged purely on their likelihood of maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering.
- Ad Hominem argument:
- "Ad hominem" literally means "to the person." An ad hominem argument is an argument that focuses on a person (or group of people), typically attacking the person. For example, "Joe is a liar."
- Affirmative action
- A social or institutional policy that seeks to achieve equitable distribution of opportunity and representation for groups that have suffered past discrimination.
- Argument from Queerness
- An argument developed by J. L. Mackie, claiming that moral objectivism is excessively complex and, therefore, unlikley to be true.
- Care ethics
- An ethical perspective that emphasizes the ethical importance of personal relationships and affection, and places less emphasis on principle.
- Categorical Imperative
- Kant's fundamental ethical principle, that you should always act in such a way that you could will that your act should be a universal law.
- Categorical Principles
- Principles that are unconditional; that is, they specify what absolutely should be done, or what is right, no matter what the circumstances or conditions.
- Compatibilism:
- The view that determinism and free will are compatible; there is no conflict between determinism and free will.
- Conclusion
- What an argument aims at proving; the statement that is supposedly proved by the premises of an argument.
- Conditional Principles
- Principles concerning what course one should take in order to achieve a given end; that is, principles about what you should do if you wish to accomplish some specified goal.
- Cultural relativism
- The ethical theory that asserts that ethical principles are relative to cultures; what is right or wrong is determined by the individual culture and practices, and will differ from culture to culture.
- Deontological ethics
- Ethics based on ethical rules, rather than on the consequences of acts.
- Determinism
- The view that everything that happens, in every detail, is the result of previous events and causal laws.
- Emotivism
- The theory of ethics that claims that all genuine value or ethical assertions have no truth value and are not genuine statements, but are, instead, commands or emotive expressions.
- Ethical Nonobjectivism
- The position that there are no objectively true ethical statements.
- Ethical Objectivism
- The position that there are objectively true ethical statements.
- Ethical Subjectivism
- The view that each person's ethical views are right for that individual, and only for that individual.
- Euthanasia
- Sometimes referred to as "mercy killing," it is the process of aiding or hastening the death of a person suffering from a terminal disease, who wishes to die more quickly.
- Existentialism
- The belief that "existence precedes essence"; that is, we make ourselves by our own choices, rather than having a character that is given or determined. (Existentialism comes in many forms.)
- Fatalism
- The view that the most significant events in our lives are under the control of fate -- they are our destiny -- and that there is nothing we can do to avoid or modify them.
- Golden Mean
- A principle favored by Aristotle, who suggested that virtue generally lies in the mean between two extremes; therefore, the virtuous path is usually the one that seeks the moderate course.
- Individual Ethical egoism
- The view that each person should do what is in his or her best interest.
- Intuitionism
- The view that we have special powers of immediate ethical insight, which provide us with basic ethical truths.
- Irrelevant Reason fallacy
- An argument that uses premises that have no bearing on the conclusion, but only distract from the real issue. Also known as the red herring fallacy.
- Libertarian Free Will
- Choices are wholly undetermined --- nothing causes or controls the free choice other than our act of making it --- the choice is genuinely an open one, among various alternatives.
- Moral Agency
- The capacity to act morally or immorally.
- Moral realism
- In its contemporary form, moral realism is the view that objective moral facts will prove to be the best possible explanation for our experiences of moral phenomena.
- Moral responsibility
- The responsibility that justifies claims and ascriptions of praise and blame, reward and punishment.
- Moral standing
- The status of being due moral consideration. This is sometimes described as being a moral patient, as distinguished from being a moral agent.
- Morals by agreement
- A moral theory developed by David Gauthier, suggesting that morality can be established through mutually beneficial agreement.
- Noncognitivism
- At the most basic value level, there are ethical principles or postulates that are meaningful statements, but that cannot be considered objectively true. (Sometimes used synonymously with 'emotivism'.)
- Ockham's Razor
- The principle that all else being equal, the simpler theory should be preferred over the more complex; entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
- Passive euthanasia
- Stopping or not using treatment that would extend life, according to the patient's own wishes; for example, taking a terminal patient off a respirator.
- Physician-assisted suicide
- Occurs when the physician provides a lethal drug to a suffering and terminally ill patient, and explains to the patient how to self- administer the drug.
- Pragmatism
- The view that truths are confirmed by how well they work and how effectively they guide us, rather than by matching or mirroring an independent reality.
- Premise
- In an argument, a premise is a statement that supports or provides justification for the conclusion.
- Principle of Charity
- The principle that you should interpret your opponent's views and arguments in a generous, fair, and honest manner.
- Principle of double effect
- Although one's act may have secondary effects, one is not blamed for those secondary effects if one is not aiming at them. (Not the same thing as negligent behavior.)
- Prisoner's Dilemma
- A game situation between two participants, in which the optimum situation for both is trust and cooperation.
- Psychological egoism
- The view that as a matter of psychological fact, what we do is always in pursuit of what we perceive to be in our own interests.
- Retribution
- Deserved punishment (or less often, reward) for one's acts.
- Retributivism
- Justifies punishment as the legitimate act of a community in order to restore balance and maintain justice, by inflicting deserved suffering on one who has wronged the community.
- Reverse Discrimination
- A term used to describe affirmative action; it communicates the controversial assumption that affirmative action programs involve unfair discrimination.
- Role responsibility
- Responsibility for a task or office or decision, including responsibility for one's own personal decisions and activities.
- Rule utilitarian
- Judges practices in terms of their likelihood to promote pleasure and minimize suffering, but insists that acts falling within the practices follow the rules of those practices that pass the utilitarian test.
- Scientific revolution
- In Thomas Kuhn's account of scientific change, 'scientific revolution' is a major systematic change, in which one comprehensive theory is replaced by another; sometimes called a "paradigm shift."
- Slippery Slope
- A type of argument that questions the wisdom or legitimacy of a proposed act or policy on the grounds of potential long-term harm or hazard.
- Social contract
- A type of ethical or political theory which starts from the perspective of what system of rules or ethical principles would be favored by those drawing up a mutual agreement for governing themselves.
- Sociological relativism
- The view that different cultures have different ethical and cultural systems. Sociological relativism is not an ethical theory, but an empirical claim.
- State of Nature
- In social contract theory, the hypothetical situation prior to any social contract; in Hobbes' theory, a state of war of all against all, with no rights or rules.
- Strawman fallacy
- The fallacy of distorting or exaggerating or misrepresenting an opponent's position in order to make it easier to attack.
- Teleological ethics
- Ethical theories that base ethics on consequences and results, rather than on rules or inherent goods or rights.
- Theological voluntarism
- The Divine Command view of ethics; ethical principles are true if and only if God favors or commands them.
- Universal Ethical egoism
- The view that, for each of us, it is always right to Pursue our own individual interests.
- Utilitarian
- The ethical view that the right act is the act that will produce the greatest balance of pleasure over suffering for everyone affected.
- Veil of ignorance
- In John Rawls' social contract theory, it is what prevents those drawing up the agreement from devising rules designed to favor their own situation; the "Original Position."
- Virtue Theory
- An approach to ethics that focuses on the character of the ethical actor and how good character develops, rather than on duties and rules and determination of the right act in a specific situation.
|
|
