End-Term Exam Reviewer

2nd Term: Philosophy

- The “Is-Ought” Problem

o Made by David Hume
o Deals with the ff:
 Prescriptive Statements – things that “should” be
 Ex: “You ought not to steal”
 Descriptive Statements – things that are real/factual
 Ex: ”You stole.”
o You can’t make an “ought” statement from an “is” statement
 You can’t connect “A person died” to “Dying is bad”
 This is called “Hume’s Guillotine”
- Views on how “good” something is:
o Emotivism
 A.J. Ayer
 Good is linked with our emotions
 When something “bad” happens, we express our emotions in the form
of actions or words, i.e. “Ouch.” Ouch doesn’t mean “I feel pain”, it’s a
direct expression of your emotions.
o Prescriptivism
 R.M. Hare
 Something is “good” if you are willing to do the exact same thing, given the
exact same scenario
 Statements have a “You should have…” format
o Cognitivism
 G.E. Moore
 Good is as real and undefinable as the color “blue”
 It is observed, but not definable, kind of like intuition
 Moore uses two types of questions
o Open – questions about identity
 “Is A = B?”
o Closed – anything else
 “Are you finsished?”
o The Real Meaning of Good
 Unobservable, but real
 Exists, but as a relative property (qualia)
 Act + Standard Code = Good/Bad
 The relationship is neither good nor bad; it’s just there
 If Act = is, Standard = ought
- Standards Of Good
STANDARD CHARACTERISTICS WEAKNESS
Utilitarianism -Most good for the most number “Anything goes”
- Considers the outcome
Kant’s Ethics -Only the Will is controllable; No control over outcome
- Considers the will and means
- Uses the Categorical Imperative
* something is good only if you can universalize it
* never use someone else as a means
Natural Law -Standard in respect to nature Ambiguous interpretation
- Considers means and outcome
Christian Ethics -Natural Law in God’s Eyes The “Euthyphro”
-Everything in the scenario is considered Dilemma (1st term)
- claims that “conscience” is our link to God’s law

- Abortion
o The killing of an Unborn Child
o Was legalized in America after the Roe vs Wade Case
 Allowed abortion of the child in the first trimester (3 months)
 Roe
 claimed the child was human only when the cerebral cortex (part of the
brain) forms
 Mothers were not required to be subjected to carrying a baby they
didn’t want
 The 14th amendment (a law) did not include unborn people
 Wade
 claimed that the child was human the moment it was conceived
o Everything human is already there in potency (it will be)
- Evangelium Vitae
o The gospel of life
o Created by the late Pope John Paul II
o Includes the ff:
 Christ coming to this world is the foundation for life, and every birth is sacred
 “I came so that they may have abundant life”
 It is natural for humans to preserve human life
 This encyclical condemns “Whatever opposes life itself” as a “supreme dishonor
to the Creator” (wow)
 Goes back to Cain and Abel
 Cain was the first murderer, and was damned to walk the world
aimlessly by God Himself
o Shows how serious murder truly is
 The family must be a “sanctuary of life”, not the opposite
 Even a widow and her unborn child are considered family
  Abortion promotes a structure of sin, and sooner or later, a culture of death
 The state – approves the murdering of the very people they pledged to
protect
 Health care – performs the murder of the sick they promised to cure
 Foundations – laws that have been corrupted in favor of few persons
 Family – have thrown away their previous title and have become
“destroyers of others”
 Remember, “Thou shall not KILL”
- Euthanasia
o The legal term for “mercy killing”
 Ending the life of a person diagnosed of PVS (persistent vegetative state)/coma
o Two types of euthanasia
 Active
 Forcibly killing the patient with a poison
o Ends the pain
 This is not allowed by the church
 A utilitarianism approach would be to kill the patient ASAP because he
can’t do anything anymore
 Passive
 Cutting the patient’s life support
o Can prolong the pain
 Allowed in cases of “incurable” patients
o Christians are born through suffering, and are born again near
death
o A utilitarianism approach would be to kill the patient

Godspeed, JF