Voicethread (due by 8:00pm on Monday, Aug. 29th)

Self-Assessment/Participation grade (due by midnight on Tuesday, Aug. 30th)

Voicethread (due by 8:00pm on Monday, Aug. 29th)

Self-Assessment/Participation grade (due by midnight on Tuesday, Aug. 30th)

see what it means for something to be ‘good’ identify basic concepts that ethicists use consider what’s at stake if goodness reduces

to personal (or social) preference, and build on your first religion class by connecting

moral concepts with theological ones (God, religion, revelation, etc.)

I. Ethics: crucial preliminary questionsA. Is anything always wrong?

1. If yes, why?2. If no, then what?a. Dwyer and the ‘Auschwitz Principle’b. Carlin and tolerance of believer vs. sceptic

What’s wrong (!) with saying “Everyone should be tolerant/nonjudgmental/open-minded”?B. Three components of ethical analysis

II. CHRISTIAN Ethics: God & GoodA. Goodness & the purpose something servesB. Kushner: “The affirmation of monotheism—that there is only

one God—is a moral statement….” (XP, p. 8)

“Most Americans … reject the idea of unchanging ‘moral absolutes….’ The report found that belief in unchanging moral absolutes is highest among the age group 36 to 55—33%—dropping to 14% among young adults aged 18 to 35 and only 6% among teenagers, aged 13 to 18.”

(America magazine, March 4, 2002)

“The multiple ambiguities of ‘doing what we feel is right’ can be resolved in only two ways: either we agree that there are ways of acting which, in and of themselves, are worthy of being chosen (and others which are unworthy), whether we admit it, like it, or even know it, or we must admit that in finding fault with Auschwitz (which stands here for all of the inhumanity human beings have been inflicting on each other from the beginning), we have no coherent arguments at our disposal.” [XP, p. 5]

Tolerance of Tolerance of the Believerthe Believer

Tolerance of Tolerance of the Scepticthe Sceptic

What makes What makes my beliefs my beliefs true is true is the the

worldworld

What makes What makes my beliefs my beliefs true is true is MEME

Not every view is correct because Not every view is correct because the worldthe world just is one just is one way.way.

Every view is equally correct since every Every view is equally correct since every ““MEME”” is is different.different.

It would mean we cannot consistently say even very horrible actions are wrong (Dwyer’s “Auschwitz Principle”).

It would mean that we couldn’t intelligibly use the words “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong” in a public setting, because everyone could legitimately mean different things by these terms.

Therefore, it would mean that we cannot do ethics as a group because it would be foolish to raise questions of right or wrong if we can’t hope to be right or wrong about them!

And it would mean that we’d be contradicting ourselves if we ever said we shouldn’t judge or criticize another’s morality out of a respect for tolerance or diversity.

◼ Three Components of Ethical AnalysisThe Action ItselfThe Reason/Intention for the ActionThe Consequences of the Action

◼ Absolutism vs. ConsequentialismPope John Paul II on “intrinsically evil acts”

Good and Purpose Theology & Ethics come together

Theology tells you the purpose of lifeEthics tells you how to live to attain it

◼Rabbi Kushner: “The affirmation of monotheism . . . is a moral statement”

◼JP II on the “final end,” “purpose of life,” “definitive goal,” “ultimate end”Adding Jesus

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Ralph Waldo Emerson: ““What we What we are worshipping we are becoming.are worshipping we are becoming.

””

The Purpose The Purpose of Lifeof Life

GoodGood

BadBad

GODGOD

““All people comprise a single community All people comprise a single community and have a single origin—God. One also and have a single origin—God. One also is their final goal—God.is their final goal—God.”” (Nostra Aetate, (Nostra Aetate,

§1)§1)

JesusJesus