Ethics Exam 2

The spirit

scripture

Cross and resurrection

salvation

God's promise and love; Ethics of kingdom

righteosuness

God in covenant

Christlikeness

Jewish religious leaders

1. foundation of ethical life

2. human merit and divine rewards

3. who are the people of God

4. the intent of the law

-non-consequentalist

-focused on rules

-God estabs. moral laws that are universally binding

-something is good if God wills it and bad if God wills against it

-usually expressed in that religion’s sacred writing

-religious community interprets them for their meaning + application

-sole purpose for obeying God’s law is that God wills it, not necc. to promote our own good

-morality seems to be independent of what only individual thinks or likes and what any society happens to sanction

• different sacred scripture exist, which one expresses Gods’ command

• interpretation is always necessary so there is still a subjective elements

1st: suggests anything would have to be called “good” if God commands it

2nd: suggests there is a standard outside of God

3rd: God commands what is good and the standard of good is his own being

-rules of morality are embedded in nature itself

-rules are universally available

Thomas Aquinas ( Summa Theological)

-God’s law can be learned through human reason

-God created human beings with natural inclinations to certain “ends”

-”Ends” are fufillments of actions, which are governed by laws

-God gives only good inclinations

-Gods laws are eternal, exists in humans as natural laws

-natural laws are in everyone and cannot be erased

-Romans 1:18-20

-Romans 2:12-15

-letter from Birmingham jail

encyclical by pope paul vl addressing regulation of birth

-marriage and sex ordained for procreation

-parents must acknowledge their duty to God; bound to God’s will

-marital union and potential procreation cannot be separated, no sex that intentionally avoids conception through unnatural means

-sex itself is noble, and is not illegitmate in cases of infertillity

OUT: abortion

OUT: sterilization

OUT: anything inteneded to prevent procreation

IN: observing natural cycles of reproductive system

-not limiting by competing religious texts

-universal scope that applies to all human beings

-affirms that moral standars are based in reality and are objective

-just bc something exists in a certain way does not neccessarily mean that it is good

-though nat. laws may be obj. our sub. understandings of their implications vary

-not just a set of rules

-relationship of lasting committment in which rules are part of the faithfulness to the covenant

-require more specific things of us and impose obligations that are not universal

-not just locating moral law in an order that is part of reality

-it locates the moral rules in a relationshop of faithfullness between people or between individuals and God

divine: God’s authority distinguishes btw right and wrong

natural: connection between how we live as reasonale humans and the order God places us

covenant: calls attention to how rules shape our idenity as persons in community

• virtue ethics

• emphasis on kind of person

• aristotle

• christian moral theology incorporated greek ideas of cirtue

• thomas aquinas

• modern ethics was not concerned with the kinf od person one was

• modern ethics produced only disagreements (Alasdair Macintrye)

• desirable charcter trait that guides individual decisions over a period of time

• learned behavior acquired the way one might learn a skill

• SIN is primary obstacle

• something is fundamentally wrong with humans, and thy cannot remedy the problem on their own

• cultivating virtues does not happen on its own

• virtues are attainable becasue God offers grace

1. prudence (wisdom)

2)Justice (giving to all what is due to them)

3. Fortitude (doing good despite obstacles)

4)Temperance (restraining nat. desires and appetites)

• christian moral theology adds them to moral

• given to us by God to assist our relationship with God

• from a christian perspective they are basis of moral virtues

• those pracitcing these virtues are describes as “beginner, advanced, perfect”

-faith

-hope

-love

-epmhasizes character traits and the importance of developing virtues in our own lives

-encourages one to consider the larger scope of the moral life, not just isolated decisions

• reminds us of the importance of community and early training

-cultural relativism

-though local understandings of the virtues may vary, the virtues themselves are not relative to culture

• au account of the virtues must derive from the community in which those virtues are to be practiced

• does not tell people what to do