LEJ Summary Notes for New Course

4 Found helpful • 165 Pages • Complete Study Notes • Year: Pre-2021

LAWS1230: Week 1, Class 1 – Introduction The Humanist – Ethics: time to revisit the basics, Gregory D Foster What is Ethics About? Ethics is ambiguous and poorly defined and understood Ethics is about right and wrong o ‘No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right’ - Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man o We do not call anything wrong unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow creatures, and if not by opinion by his own conscience Ethics is about good and bad; or good and evil – people differ in their opinion of these Ethics is about virtue and vice Ethics is about benefit and harm – can inflict benefit or harm by the way resources are used Ethics is about propriety and impropriety Ethics is about principle – fixed, universal rules of right conduct that are contingent on neither time not culture nor circumstances It is about character – the traits, qualities, and established reputation that define who one is and what one stands for in the eyes of others It is about example – an established pattern of conduct worthy of emulation It is about conscience – the voice of the soul, the pulse of reason etc o Conscience stems firstly from the enduring and ever-present nature of social instincts, secondly, from man’s apprehension of the approbation and disapprobation of his fellows, and thirdly from the high activity of his mental faculties, with past impressions extremely vivid; and in these latter respects he differs from the lower animals

This document is 25 Exchange Credits