The Moral Philosophy Of Moral Knowledge

1137 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Challenges with moral education

Philosophers Moral Expertise: Useful Applications
QUALIFIED moral philosophers do indeed (to a limited extent) possess a level of moral expertise. This applies to any individuals who have devoted exhaustive time to specific subjects; in hopes to solve the problems faced by the world as a whole (the main focus here will be associated with medicine). Especially when compared to individuals who do not concern themselves with the practice of philosophy and therefore, lack such expertise knowledge. The expertise emphasized, leads to basic morals that prompt answers to ethically controversial subjects. Furthermore, through expertise philosophical approaches, acceptance of a wide variety of proposals, pertaining to what is moral and immoral can be attained. Philosophers do have favored moral expertise when attempting to propose resolutions to medical controversies (examples: abortion and human subjects-embryos).
In short, David Archard bases his claim, that moral philosophers should not be moral experts, on common-sense morality. (Archard) For this sole reason, the response to Archard, by John-Stewart Gordon, should be more convincing. To state this reasoning, I will elucidate briefly on what exactly Archard and Gordon claim. Archard believes that moral philosophers should not expect non-philosophers to defer due solely to their putative expertise. (Archard) For this expertise alone, is insufficient to make claims in accordance to morality. Archard provides four claims to better support his stance, of which will not be discussed in detail here. A brief description pulled from Gordon’s essay nicely displayed these claims, “Archard makes against the four proposed arguments in the debate, that is to say the idea of extreme disagreement a...

... middle of paper ...

...very abortion is prohibited by the principles of justice and non-maleficence. (Finnis pg. 17) Said another way, those who believe in abortion disregard justice and support the doing of evil on to human beings, specifically embryos (I use the word embryo to provide proper diction, but keep in mind, whenever I use this term I am specifying an unborn baby/human being). Said this way, the word abortion is nothing far from the world murder in meaning. Of course, any pro-abortionist would expectantly refute this. An embryo is nothing more than an accumulation of cells to those who support the procedure. There is some truth to this statement, but at the same time, this statement is arbitrary. No matter what is thought of an embryo, an embryo has untapped potential, or rather, the capacity for attaining what is needed to be considered a human being (Finnis put it this way).

Show More
Related

  • Ross's Discussion of Moral Epistemology in What Makes Right Acts Right?,

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sum Law (the sum of the interior angles of a triangle must sum to 180

    Read More

  • The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

    1055 Words  | 3 Pages

    Can suicide be justified as morally correct? This is one of the many questions Immanuel Kant answers in, “The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals”. Kant discusses many questions with arguable answers, which explains why he is one of the most controversial philosophers still today. Throughout Kant’s work, multiple ideas are considered, but the Categorical Imperative is one of the most prevalent. Though this concept is extremely dense, the Categorical Imperative is the law of freedom that grounds pure ethics of the metaphysics of ethics. Categorical imperatives are the basis of morality because they provoke pure reasons for every human beings actions. By the end of his work, one will understand Kant’s beliefs on morality, but to explain this, he goes into depth on the difference between hypothetical imperatives and Categorical Imperative, two different formulations of the Categorical Imperative, and a few examples.

    Read More

  • Benchmark Assignment: Ethical Dilemmas Of Abortion

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Christian view, that we are created in the image of God, formed by Him in the womb making us human upon conception, makes abortion wrong. It shows what abortion truly is, murder. Murder that is the sacrifice of a human life to the ‘god’ of convenience. While abortion may seem to solve immediate problems for some, this act is wrong and has consequences much worse than the consequences, joys, of having and raising a

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Abortion By Judith Thomson

    1786 Words  | 4 Pages

    The idea of whether abortion should be illegal or allowed is a controversial one since everyone seems to have different ideologies. Judith Thomson, who is in support of pro-choice argues in her article “A Defense of Abortion” main idea towards abortion is stating women should have the right to choose because they have the moral right to decide whether they have to hold life in their body. This idea is presented from her first analogy using the violinist who has a failing kidney and will perish if he does not have someone give him blood immediately. They take you without your permission and plug you into him. She connects this to the idea of the fetus by saying everyone has the right to life and if the fetus is considered a person then it would be wrong to kill an innocent human being, but then says that if the child is harming you then you should not wait until you are dead, he body is the home of the women so she should be allowed to defend herself against

    Read More

  • Why abortion is immoral

    1099 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ice. While I value my experience, as I feel should be commonly held by others and the way in which we interact (killing adults is wrong), I don’t see a strong enough basis for that view to be held for a fetus. As Marquis summarized, the killing of a fetus is essentially arbitrarily choosing a human cell. Although fetuses in first trimester aren’t single celled organisms, they serve no cognitive function or purposes to themselves, so there are no features in which it is being deprived of if it is terminated. The potential life of a fetus is the same as saying there is a potential for any such biological thing, it is simply a scenario, which could happen if given the opportunity. But if an adult human possesses the ability to have goals and desires, they then should be allowed to make the discretion for their best interest to whether an abortion is permissible or not.

    Read More

  • Moral Theory and Personal Relationships

    4175 Words  | 9 Pages

    Moral Theory and Personal Relationships In his article "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories," Michael Stocker argues that mainstream ethical theories, namely consequentialism and deontology, are incompatible with maintaining personal relations of love, friendship, and fellow feeling because they both overemphasise the role of duty, obligation, and rightness, and ignore the role of motivation in morality. Stocker states that the great goods of life, i.e. love, friendship, etc., essentially contain certain motives and preclude others, such as those demanded by mainstream ethics.11 In his paper "Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality," Peter Railton argues that a particular version of consequentialism, namely sophisticated consequentialism, is not incompatible with love, affection and acting for the sake of others. In the essays "War and Massacre" and "Autonomy and Deontology," Thomas Nagel holds that a theory of absolutism, i.e. deontology, may be compatible with maintaining personal commitments. The first objective of this paper is to demonstrate that despite the efforts of both Railton and Nagel, consequentialism and deontology do not in fact incorporate personal relations into morality in a satisfactory way.

    Read More

  • Catholic Views On Abortion Essay

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    From conception, the embryo must be defended, cared for, loved for, and healed, as much as possible, like any other human being should be. God gives life from the moment of conception and we don't have the right to take it away. Pregnancies that result from rape aren't reasons to have an abortion. Certain conditions could excuse this penalty, such as the ignorance that the Church teaches against abortion, or mitigate the penalty, such as ignorance of the penalty itself.

    Read More

  • Abortion: Person versus Human

    749 Words  | 2 Pages

    Abortion has long been a controversial debate affecting most societies, religion, and especially women. Anti-abortionists and pro-abortionists both propose many arguments against and for abortion. However, the most prominent argument comes from anti-abortionists who believe that “a fetus is a human being, and therefore abortion is murder.” However I agree with both Mary Anne Warren and Judith Jarvis Thompson in that women should have the choice of whether they wish to keep the baby or not. Although the traditional anti-abortion argument is strong, the arguments that both Thompson and Warren provide in their texts have convinced me that abortion is not murder.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Abortion

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    George, the authors discuss about how abortion is morally wrong. According to the authors “human embryos and fetuses are complete (though immature) human beings”. Then they address counter arguments that human embryos are not the same a person because they are not conscious as a person is. The authors respond that human embryos have the “natural capacities” although less developed to reason, therefore according to the authors it makes no sense to say at which point an embryo becomes a person. And the authors conclude that the burden to carry out a pregnancy is less than “killing” the fetus. I also think that is not right to try to label an embryo as a human organism or not a person, it is a human person and it has a right to live. But you cannot force women to carry out a pregnancy they do not want, and no one should have a right to claim over their

    Read More

  • A Satisfactory Moral Theory

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    James Rachels expresses his thoughts on what a satisfactory moral theory would be like. Rachels says a “satisfactory theory would be realistic about where human beings fit in the grand scheme of things” (Rachels, 173). Even though there is an existing theory on how humans came into this world there is not enough evidence to prove the theory to be correct. In addition to his belief of knowing how our existence came into play, he also has a view on the way we treat people and the consequences of our actions. My idea of a satisfactory moral theory would be treating people the way we wish to be treated, thinking of what results from our doings, as well as living according to the best plan.

    Read More

  • Moral Realism

    2633 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the article “Moral Realism and Moral Judgments”, Frederik Kaufman argues that judgments of fact display a certain degree of conceptual sensitivity to error which is not present in moral judgments. He concludes from this that moral judgments cannot be a subset of judgments of fact. In setting up his argument, Kaufman claims that for the most part we form judgments of fact in virtue of natural facts being a certain way, entailing that correct judgments are causal consequences of natural facts.2 Under this conception, moral judgments, if they are indeed a subset of judgments of fact, must also be causal consequences of natural facts3. This conception also gains for the moral realist the idea that moral knowledge is possible, for if there is a causal connection, then the moral judgments gained are gained because of certain natural facts.

    Read More

  • Metaphysics of Morals

    1153 Words  | 3 Pages

    Through his discussion of morals in the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant explores the question of whether a human being is capable of acting solely out of pure duty and if our actions hold true moral value. In passage 407, page 19, Kant proposes that if one were to look at past experiences, one cannot be certain that his or her rationalization for performing an action that conforms with duty could rest solely on moral grounds. In order to fully explain the core principle of moral theory, Kant distinguishes between key notions such as a priori and a posteriori, and hypothetical imperative vs. categorical imperative, in order to argue whether the actions of rational beings are actually moral or if they are only moral because of one’s hidden inclinations.

    Read More

  • Perspectives on Abortion

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...evil. To treat pregnancy as a disease that can be “cured” with methods of contraception and abortion is morally wrong. All people are specially made in the image and likeness of God from the moment of conception. The arguments defending pro-choice all describe how there are certain circumstances when an abortion must occur. However, unless the mother’s life is absolutely threatened, abortion is a sin that ends the life of a child of God.

    Read More

  • Consequentialism Vs Abortion

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    For example, a mother who opts to abort lives a life full of misery and guilt following her unethical action. The same issue is explored by Kant, where he argues that frequent abortions would make the human race extinct. Therefore, not irrational or good to the society. Lastly, they argue that abortion denies the fetus the right to life which is granted by the Human Rights Commission. Judith Thomson argument that a human embryo is a person indicates that he or she has the right to life, and no one has a right to terminate it (Baird & Stuart, 78). Therefore, abortion is unacceptable, irrational and immoral action to

    Read More

  • The Ethics Of Abortion, And Virtue Of Ethics

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Aristotle point of view abortion would be considered morality wrong because he believes everyone has a person and we were designed for a purpose. Virtue of Ethics “can evaluate the morality of behavior by examining the moral character that such behavior produces” (Velasquez 488). According to Smith abortion is wrong because it promotes a moral character ‘characterized by careless, irresponsibility, dishonesty, and lack of principles” (Velasquez 488). This theory emphasizes that everyone should take responsibility for their actions and that our choices defined our character. I tend to agree with this we are all responsible for our actions and those actions tend to have consequences that tend to affect us personality. This view reminds me of the view of adultery cover in this chapter someone who commits adultery also says a lot about their character because it shows that we cannot trust on this person because they just can keep their word or because they are your seeking pleasure without really considering the consequences and who they can affect.

    Read More

More about The Moral Philosophy Of Moral Knowledge

Open Document