Approaches to Ethical Reasoning & Critiquing

Week One: Discussion 1: Approaches to Ethical Reasoning
Brief Overview Responses: To complete this discussion topic, you will be posting a brief response to each of the four controlling questions below and then posting two critical peer comments. These should be in the form of a basic overview of your understanding of the issue(s) addressed in each question, plus your answer to the question. On this first pass, your response may be somewhat tentative or speculative. Do your best, in about 200-250 words (for each question) to come up with an answer you could more fully explain and defend in an essay of greater depth and length. You need not cite any external sources in these first sets of four responses, but if you do quote, paraphrase, or take any content from another source, please limit those sources for this first set of responses strictly to the course textbook or other course content. Please post these four brief responses in a single thread, due end of Thursday.
Critical Comments: By end of Friday, please post a brief critical commentary on at least two other students’ brief overview responses. It is important to understand that a critical comment may be positive or negative, but it goes beyond merely stating your agreement/disagreement, interest/indifference, shared understanding or confusion. Your comment may start out that way, but to be a critical comment, it must also provide a reason or reasons for your reaction or specific comment. Each critical comment should be at least 100-150 words in length. You will be posting a longer critique of one of your peers’ critical essays at the end of the week.
Controlling Questions
People often use the terms, ‘morals’ and ‘ethics’ synonymously, and often, just to cover their bases, they often lump them together and refer to a person’s “morals and ethics.” Another term, ‘values’, is also used to mean the same thing, or something similar to what is intended by the use of these terms. Your task here is to explain how philosophers differentiate these terms.
How, from a philosophical point of view, do ethics differ from morals?
What does the philosophical study of ethics cover, discuss, or explain that might not be part of a discussion of morality?
Is a philosophical examination of morality essential for a true or deep understanding of what it means to lead a morally good life?
Explain and defend your answer using whatever evidence you believe to be relevant.
Using the understanding you have reached up to this point in your life and what you have learned in the course so far, describe the role that ethics plays in your life and reflect on how the philosophical study of ethics might affect your life.
How might it influence the nature of your relationships with others?
How might it be advantageous to you in your daily life or in your career?
How might it change your beliefs about reality and the meaning of life?
Do you think philosophy can teach you anything about ethics, or is ethical knowledge something that one can attain only from one’s family, religious or cultural tradition, or perhaps simply from life experience?
Support your position using whatever evidence you believe to be relevant.
Note: If you are like many (probably most) people, religion has played a strong role in determining your moral beliefs and practices as well as your considered ethical principles. It may be helpful at this point to take a look at some of the classic sources for ethical thought, and especially for the moral traditions that people uphold and pass on to future generations—the major scriptural texts of the leading world religions, including, the Tao Te Ching, the Buddhist Sutras, the Hebrew Bible, the Old and New Testament of the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and so on. Take a little time to refresh your knowledge of what these sources say about the role of ethics in human life and behavior and the meaning of life in general.
Plato and Aristotle held different views about the value of the influence of poetry, plays, and dramatic or literary narratives on people’s moral character and ethical knowledge. Briefly explain the views of each philosopher on this issue, and then compare their positions with the discussion in society today about the subject of violence in films, television, and video games. In your view, who gets it right, Plato or Aristotle? Explain and defend your choice using whatever evidence you believe to be relevant.
Chapter 3 in Rosenstand’s The Moral of the Story deals with the issue of moral truth—what is the morally right thing to do in a particular situation and what are the correct principles or guidelines for a living a morally good life?
Moral subjectivism is the view that moral propositions are true only relative to the particular beliefs of a particular person or subject of experience; ethical relativism is the view that what is good, right, and morally correct is true relative to a particular cultural tradition and set of behavioral practices; and moral absolutism (this is what Rosenstand calls “hard universalism” is the view that there are universal moral truths or principles that hold for everyone, everywhere, at all times and under any circumstances.
The most common viewpoint adopted by college students today is ethical relativism, and this is probably because it seems to be the most tolerant and fair-minded position, in that it respects diversity and individuality. However, Rosenstand points to a number of problems with ethical relativism. Where do you place yourself on this spectrum of moral stances? Are you a moral skeptic or a moral subjectivist? an ethical relativist? a moral absolutist? If you have never thought about this before, now is the time to do so. Explain why you hold the viewpoint you do, and defend that view from what might be seen as at least one major difficulty with adopting that ethical stance.
Alice Walker’s novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), presents a strong case against ethical relativism by denouncing the practice of female circumcision, or perhaps more accurately termed, female genital mutilation, a traditional practice of certain cultures that is seen as morally correct, as not only the right thing to do, but something that one is morally obligated to do. If you are an ethical relativist, you should be able to show why Walker is wrong for condemning this practice as morally wrong. If those who carry out the practice believe that it is the morally right thing to do, who is Walker, or who is anyone with different beliefs, to tell them they are wrong?
Week One: Discussion 2: Critiquing Approaches to Ethical Reasoning
Critical Essay Response: For this week’s second discussion forum, refer back to the set of four controlling questions you responded to in Discussion 1 for this week and select one question for treatment in a more structured and fully developed critical essay in the range of 500-750 words in length. This second weekly discussion asks you to write a short critical essay that provides a more detailed and thought-through answer to the particular question you chose to study more closely from among the four you addressed more briefly earlier in the week. Your main purpose in a critical essay is to do the following:
Lay out the issue or theme under discussion.
State your position on the issue (this is your thesis or central claim of the essay).
Provide evidence that supports the truth of your thesis and establishes your position as the correct or best position.
Re-state your thesis and summarize your argument(s) (your evidence or reasons why), emphasizing your most important insights or findings.
Remember, your task here is to analyze and evaluate, not simply to describe or report information. For more detailed instructions, please read the Critical Essay Guidelines. The critical essay response is due by end of Saturday each week of the course.
Peer Critique: For the second round of peer comments, you are asked to post a single longer critical commentary, which we’ll call a “critique,” in response to a peer author’s in-depth critical essay. In essence, a critique is an evaluation; its special features are analysis and evidence to support the evaluation. Specifically, the critique you are being asked to write for this final weekly peer comment is a critique of another author’s argument—this will be the argument driving the peer author’s critical essay. What you will be focusing on in your peer critique is the reasoning behind the peer author’s position, not necessarily their skill in communicating it; that is to say, you will not be “grading” your peers’ work—you will be driving down below the surface of language (to the extent possible in this case) to analyze (take apart) the assumptions, claims, and conclusions of the peer critical essay, then evaluate (synthesize) the overall position taken in that essay.
It is extremely important to remember that you are evaluating the position and the reasoning supporting it, not the person. It is also important to note that a critique or critical commentary may be positive, negative, or a mixture of the two. We tend to use the word, “criticize,” or the expression, “being critical” with a mostly negative connotation, as in finding fault with something or “putting something (or someone) down.” That is not the intention here, although part of what you’re doing in writing a critique may indeed be finding fault. But the faults you are pointing out will have nothing to do with the author himself or herself. You will be looking for errors in reasoning and argumentation, in reporting of relevant facts or information, in overlooking or misconstruing important points relevant to the question posed, and so on.
While precision and clarity in thought and written expression and overall comprehensibility of the written response is crucial for communicating the author’s position and supporting argumentation, your focus should be primarily directed to the position on the issue in question and the reasons advanced for why that is the correct or best position. You need not cite any sources in your critiques, but you are free to do so.

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