Ethics

Ethics Study Guide

©2018 Achieve Page 106 of 116 Aquinas, Thomas (1225-1274 C.E.) was a Dominican monk who spent his working life studying, teaching, and writing at the University of Paris. His great work, the Summa Theologica, unified the natural law tradition passed on from the Romans. This was the Biblical tradition through which the Law became identified with the mind of the living God, and the philosophical sophistication of the newly rediscovered work of Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas believed in the ethics of natural law. It considers that right and wrong, in nature, exists in line with following rationality within society. This ties together the nature of human beings and moral law. The Principle of Forfeiture allows a look into how a confrontation of basic values can end. It states that if one threatens another, then the one imposing the harm no longer has rights. This principle goes into further details covering actions of self-defense and those actions taken in war and capital punishment. Aristotle (382-322 B.C.E.) recorded the first systematic description of virtue ethics in his famous work The Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle, when people are better able to regulate their emotions and their reason, they acquire good habits of character. Aristotle closely observed nature; he believed nature was purposive and did nothing in vain. He also believed if morality refers to our actions, and our actions are a reflection of our beliefs, thenmorality ought to address what we believe. Aristotle, following Plato, defined the soul as the core or essence of a living being. Although the soul is not a tangible object, it is not separable from the body, in Aristotle’s view. By Aristotle’s account, the soul has three components: our passion, our faculties, and our states of character. He defines supreme good as an activity of the rational soul in accordance to virtue. According to Aristotle, there are two basic types of virtues: intellectual and moral. He said one should strive to become a virtuous person, and argued that each of the moral virtues was a mean between two corresponding vices. Axiologically based theories hold that the rightness and wrongness of actions depends entirely on considerations of goodness (value). There are two subtypes: • Consequentialist axiology holds that the rightness and wrongness of actions depends entirely on the goodness (value) of their consequences. • Non-consequentialist axiology holds that the rightness and wrongness of actions does not depend entirely on the goodness (value) of their consequences. These can be further classified into: o Strong nonconsequentialist theories hold that right or wrong do not depend at all on the consequences of actions. o Weak nonconsequentialist theories hold that the consequences of our actions are relevant in determining right or wrong but are not decisive. Appendix A: Overview of Ethical Theories, Theorists, and Terminology