Getting started up quickly in the ethics class. Instructor showed up about five minutes early. Good for him. We’ll see how the class goes. I needed a humanities credit, and am banking on the ethics class being either easy or interesting, at a minimum. Interesting would be better.
This despite my general lack of respect for ethics as concept. Ethics, by and large, is rules of proper behavior for weasels. In theory, it shouldn’t be. In my experience, though, ethics is usually invoked when you want to do something but think it’s probably wrong to do so.Attendance is valued. Professor has pointed out several times in a row that this is a “lecture-based” course, and therefore being here is important.
Professor is Samuel Condic. His email is scondic@comcast.net.
Up until about the 1700s, Natural Law was the predominant ethical theory. Natural Law ethics asserts that each human is a moral agent whose actions are judged based upon external standards appropriate to the agent.
Hmmm. The professor is a Natural Law guy. Interesting. I would have expected him to be a relativist.
Two tests in this class, plus a presentation. Each test is 40% of the game, and the presentation and general participation are the last 20%.
Objective truths or facts are described in a manner without regard to its relationship to the observer. Subjective truths or facts are described in via relationship to the observer.
Is Ethics a science? All sciences seem to have four common characteristics:
- Sciences are based upon observation.
- Sciences use logic in analysis.
- Sciences give necessary conclusions.
- Sciences have a proper object. (A “that which is studied”.)
For ethics to be a usefully teachable subject, it must be a science, or a subset of another science. The contention of this class is that ethics is indeed a science. The point of contention is the proper object possessed by ethics.
The proper object of ethics is defined as “The Good”. Alternately, “The Human Good”.