Philosophical Ethics

Philosophical Ethics
Philosophical Ethics

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Philosophical Ethics

Please answer these questions:
• You will need to define philosophical ethics and how it is uniquely different from law, religion and etiquette. What is the basis and goal of philosophical ethics and the four domains that comprise philosophical ethics? 
• A solid grasp of the Divine Command Theory along with its strengths and limitations. Be sure you thoroughly understand the various critiques of the DCT found in the assigned readings.
• Mastery of conventional relativism as described by proponents such as Ruth Benedict. Also, be able to discuss the inherent limitations of this controversial theory as explained by Pojman.

Traditionally, ethicists sought to give general advice on how to live a good and happy life, but contemporary philosophers have increasingly moved to more abstract and theoretical questions. While some contemporary philosophers have voiced alarm at this trend, many contemporary ethicists still ask esoteric questions.

We may conveniently divide contemporary philosophical ethics into at least four parts. Meta-ethics conducts an analysis of moral concepts, ethical justification, and the meaning of moral language. Descriptive ethics describes ethical behavior among various people and in various cultures. (Social scientists now do most of this work.) Normative ethics contemplates the norms, standards, or criteria that serve as theories or principles for ethical behavior. Applied ethics applies normative theories to particular ethical problems like abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, sexuality etc. Some areas of applied ethics have become their own sub-specialties like medical, environmental, business, or computer ethics.

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Worldview: Philosophy Essay

Worldview
Worldview

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Worldview

Introduction

Most philosophers believe that every person has a worldview. They define the worldview as a framework and commitment of ideas and attitudes about human beings, life, and the world. They further describe a worldview as a set of beliefs that man holds to and lives by. It is of great importance for human beings to discover their worldview and abide to them.

Generally, there is no widely agreed definition of spirituality. Traditionally, spirituality is viewed as the process of reformation that is aimed at recovering the original shape of man. However in present times, spirituality has been based on subjective experience that incorporates personal growth or transformation, and this is separate from the religious views.

Spirituality can be defined from different theories including scientism which is the belief in science and using scientific evidence to describe spiritually. Scientism is a belief held by scholars in their bid for the search for physical truth. On the other hand, pluralism refers to the process of viewing the society from multiple entities which work as a single unit. An example of pluralism is the society with different cultural backgrounds which maintains their tradition. Post modernism describes spirituality as a concept of modifying traditional beliefs according to modern ideas.

Prime reality

Prime reality is the understanding of what is real. This involves understanding the origin of faith of individuals. According to Christianity, God is real, and it is through his intentions that we can live. (Bak, 2013) posits that this definition is not applicable to every individual since non-Christians do not believe in God. Non-Christians believe that God cannot be present in all places at all times. However, Christians believe that Gods powers are unlimited. Prime reality is what one believes in depending on his views of reality. Believing that God is present and available in all places at all times is a reality for specific people but not others.

Nature of the world around us

From a religious perspective, nature is God’s creation, and the world is part of God‘s plan for man. Being a Christian, I believe that God is the creator of all things. According to the Bible teachings, God provided man with natural things in the world for man to enjoy God’s creation.

Certain situation where man experiences difficulties is part of the reality as it forms part of the learning process. As a Christian, I believe that understanding God’s plan is beyond us despite the fact that God has given us the gift of reasoning. Christians rely on faith to guide their understanding of the world (Murphy, 2016).

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Human beings

Murphy (2016) states that humans are God’s creation; human beings have life and a sense of self-awareness to understand their purpose on earth .but others view human as complex machine developed due to scientific discovery. But for Christians, human being are God’s superior creation because God created man giving him unique abilities compared to other God’s creation on earth .this dispute the fact that human being is termed as machines.

Since God created human beings in his image, these means human beings are above all other creation on earth. Therefore, their role is to take care of the world but not undermine the rights of other creations. Human being need to understand God intention which initial living in harmony and with other creation on earth (Murphy, 2016).

What happens to a person at death?

When people die they leave behind memories, which are cherished depending on an individual action while on earth. Apart from Christians others believe in life after death, this is his reason why several people perform good deeds while still alive because they believe God will judge them according to their actions.

Christian believes in life after death whereby the physical body dies, but our souls remain alive to start a new life in heaven. Murphy(2016) reports that when people dietheir souls escape from their bodiesand return to God the creator.

Christians believe that righteous people will be granted eternal life by God if their actions were in line with God’s commandments. According to (Murphy, 2016), the judgment day is important because this is the day when God decides our fate. This is the day that our actions are evaluated to determine if we are worth living with God in heaven. God’s Ten Commandments are rules given by God to our ancestors to guide our action. Therefore by not obeying God’s teachings we are likely to lose the chance of being granted eternal life.

The possibility to know anything at all

Knowing anything means the understanding of our worldview based on what influence our actions. Having different sets of beliefs reveals the different perspective of our view of the world. When we experience continuous changes as we go through different circumstances enables us to increase our levels of knowledge. Seeking God’s guidance is important to gain more knowledge and understand our purpose on earth (Tomasello, 2014).

How do we know what is right or wrong?

Tomasello (2014) explains how humans determine what is wrong and right by conforming to Gods moral law. In his view, moral laws reflect God’ s purpose for man. Human beings are expected to live by Gods’ intention. God moral laws are the Ten Commandments in the Bible that stipulate various acts that need to be emulated by man. However, people fail to understand God’s purpose hence violating God’s laws.

Christians believe that God makes them undergo difficulties as a punishment for their wrongdoing. Other people believe best for themselves and acceptable to our fellow humans are termed as the right thing, while what can cause harm to the majority is termed as wrong (Tomasello, 2014).

What is the meaning of human history?

History can be defined as the sequence of events that leads to fulfilling God purpose; however history is also defined as important records about past events that formed part of our identity. Human history from a Christian perspective portrays God as a wise, holy, powerful, true and the creator of the world.

Christian’s link human history to God creation, from a Christina perspective, human history cannot be defined without explaining Gods creation. Non –Christians view human history based on specific events that they value while some people believe that human history is imagination generated from the past events.

Conclusion

Worldviews are significant whether man recognizes them or not. They offer a basis upon which the actions and corresponding moral values are based. Our worldview   concerning reality, human beings and understand of what is right or wrong differ based on individual perspective. Views presented by pluralist, scientist and post modernist depend of their individual world view.

References

Bak, P. (2013). How nature works: the science of self-organized criticality. Springer Science & Business Media.

Murphy, M. C. (2016). God and moral law. Oxford University Press.

Tomasello, M. (2014). A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press.

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Individual rights and the public protection

Individual rights and the public protection
Individual rights and the public protection

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Individual rights and the public protection

Explain your philosophy and approach for balancing these two (2) issues: individual rights and the public’s protection. 

Explain your philosophy and approach for balancing of these two (2) issues: use of reward and punishment in criminal justice. 

Explain your philosophy and approach for balancing the use of immoral means (e.g., lying in interrogation) to accomplish desirable ends. 

Recommend at least three (3) ways to use ethics in decision making about these issues in criminal justice.

Individual rights and the public protection

My Philosophy and Approach to Criminal Justice Issues

Introduction

Criminal justice constitutes a very crucial part of any country since it is a system of institutions and practices of governments aimed at upholding social control as well as mitigating and deterring crime. However, ethics in criminal justice provides us with ways of making moral choices during uncertainties concerning what to do in situations that involve moral issues (Garland, 2002). Hence, in everyday operations of the criminal justice systems, moral rules or ethics are highly necessary, not because of expressing absolute truth, but their role in helping to uphold ethical conduct in criminal justice issues. 

My philosophy and approach for balancing individual rights and the public’s protection

Everyone has his/her individual rights which must be respected but striking a good balance must be attained when they conflict with public protection. This is because despite the priority and supremacy given to individual rights of someone, nobody should be allowed to endanger the public on basis of individual rights because public protection is also of eminent significance (Hinman, 1998).

Thus, my philosophy and approach towards the best ways of balancing between individual rights and public’s protection is that, at all time individual rights should be given priority but without unnecessarily threatening public protection (Garland, 2002).

For example, my philosophy and approach to freedom of interaction and expression as individual rights is that, they should be given a top priority but whenever it’s evident that someone is putting the public at risk, then public protection should prevail and these individual rights should be withdrawn. Fuller (2005) reiterates that an individual is part of the public and upholding individual rights eventually results to public protection.

For instance, in case of an outbreak of potentially deadly epidemics which are a threat to the public, individual rights such as freedom of movement may be suspended through quarantines in order to prevent the spread of the disease to the general public in other places. This should also apply in case some people are potentially dangerous to the public.

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My philosophy and approach for balancing use of reward and punishment in criminal justice

The society has developed criminal justice to allow people live with others without violating their liberty, and in case of violation of these laws punishment is almost the usual measure. Use of rewards in criminal justice is very rare, and the only well known reward is to refrain from committing crimes and avoiding punishment (Walker, 1980). Therefore, options to use rewards are severely diminished in our criminal justice system.

However, my philosophy and approach is that, both rewards and punishment should be used in promoting good behaviours. For example, persons who have not severely stumbled into the criminal justice system, the rewards should be used to rehabilitate them whereas in severe cases punishment should prevail. 

My philosophy and approach for balancing the use of immoral means to accomplish desirable ends

My philosophy and approach is that, at all times the criminal justice should refrain from using an immoral mean to accomplish desirable ends. These immoral means such as torture, coercion, lying in interrogation and verbal trickery should be strongly shunned because they don’t align with ethics which should be governing criminal justice (Fuller, 2005). Hence honesty and transparency should be maintained at all times irrespective of whether desirable ends will be accomplished, after all criminal justice is about ensuring justice prevails but not convenience.

Ways to use ethics in decision making about issues in criminal justice

Holmes (1998) argues that when faced with criminal justice ethical dilemmas the first thing to use is our intuitive level of moral thinking because it provides us with principles which are relatively simple and derived from our past experiences of decision making.  Moreover, the use of ethics in criminal justice issues also requires critical thinking which applies principles established by moral concepts and philosophy.

Thus, when making decisions on issues of criminal justice, we may require application of both intuitive and non-intuitive forms of thinking to identify the most effective and ethical courses of action in making decisions on issues of criminal justice ethical dilemmas (Hinman, 1998). Hence there are several ways on how ethics can be used in decisions about issues of criminal justice.

Firstly, the initial appropriate way to use ethics in making decisions on criminal justice issues is to make sure there is collection of all the relevant facts and knowledge to aid decision making (Wolfgang, 1990). This is crucial to enable making informed decisions.  Secondly, the other way to use ethics in making decisions about criminal justice is to ensure that you apply the necessary ethical principles, theories and approaches to guide for the most appropriate course of action.

Thirdly, identification of available options should take place followed by selection of the most appropriate for the criminal justice issue under consideration (Fuller, 2005). Considering these factors will allow someone to choose the option that is most ethically appropriate. 

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Conclusion

In conclusion, it is evident that ethics is undoubtedly the most crucial component of criminal justice, and there is a need to uphold ethics in the practice and operations of our criminal justice systems. Hence the right philosophy and approaches should be embraced in the course of addressing all the issues of criminal justices in order to ensure that efficiency, honesty and transparency is maintained. 

References

Fuller, J. R. (2005). Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Garland, D. (2002). Of Crimes and Criminals. In Maguire, Mike, Rod Morgan, Robert Reiner. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hinman, L. (1998). Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory.  Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.

Holmes, R. (1998). Basic Moral Philosophy (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Walker, S. (1980). Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Wolfgang, M. (1990). Crime and Punishment in Renaissance Florence. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 81(3), 567–84. 

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