JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT Lesson 7

Description

Please make sure to use the source information provide on the downloaded document no outside sources & make sure to answer every prompt question. 1. In the Brother’s Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, one character questions another: “Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature – that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance – and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.” What would utilitarianism say to do? Why? What would formalism say to do (assuming as in the discussion question, that you have some established moral rules like: don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t murder, don’t cheat, etc)? Why? What would you do? 2.The moral relativist says morality is a set of rules. How does that show that morality is relative? Relative to what? Do you agree that there are no better or worse moral systems? For example, are the moral values of a group like ISIS (killing innocent civilians, subordination of women, etc.) just as good as the moral values of the U.S. today? Or even the moral values of the U.S. 180 years ago versus the U.S. today? 3.In your opinion, can an action be morally right in one place and wrong in another? (Not just that someone believes it to be right, but that it IS right.) For example, suppose there is a culture where abuse of children, both physical and mental, is common place and socially acceptable. Would it be right to say (in your opinion) that is right for them but wrong for us? Explain your answer.