Philosophy Vocabulary Words

9/2/2011

1. Ought/is The is-ought problem in meta-ethics as articulated by Scottish philosopher and historian, David Hume, is that many writers make claims about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. However, Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between descriptive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and it is not obvious how we can get from making descriptive statements to prescriptive. Also related to, but not exactly the same as, the naturalistic fallacy, when what ought to be is derived from what is; also known as a perspective which reduces the question of values to that of facts; logically classified as a fallacy of definition, diversion or irrelevance. [Wikipedia.org]

2. The Good Plato describes "The Form of the Good" in the Republic, through the character of Socrates. The Sun is described in a simile as the child or offspring of the Form of the Good, in that, like the sun which makes physical objects visible and generates life on earth, the Good makes all other universals intelligible, and in some sense provides being to all other Forms, though the Good itself exceeds being. It is an absolute measure of justice. The Idea of the Good is the ultimate object of knowledge, although it is not knowledge itself, and from the Good, things that are just gain their usefulness and value. Humans are compelled to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully without philosophical reasoning. According to Plato, true knowledge is conversant, not about those material objects and imperfect intelligences, which we meet within our daily interactions with all mankind, but rather it investigates the nature of those purer and more perfect patterns, which are the models after which all created beings are formed. [Wikipedia.org]

3. Principles 1. Fundamental truths or propositions that serve as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning 2. Rules or beliefs that governs one's personal behavior 3. Morally correct behaviors and attitudes [Dictionary.com] 4. Rights Entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to be in certain states; or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in certain states. Rights dominate modern understandings of what actions are permissible and which institutions are just. Rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived. To accept a set of rights is to approve a distribution of freedom and authority, and so to endorse a certain view of what may,

must, and must not be done. [Stanford Encyclopedia]

5. Justice the first virtue of social institutions (1971, p. 3), justice as a virtue is actually ambiguous as between individual and social applications. Plato in the Republic treats justice as an overarching virtue of individuals and societies, meaning that almost every issue he (or we) would regard as ethical comes in under the notion of justice. What individual justice most naturally refers to are moral issues having to do with goods or property. It is, we say, unjust for someone to steal from people or not to give them what he owes them, and it is also unjust if someone called upon to distribute something good (or bad or both) among members of a group uses an arbitrary or unjustified basis for making the distribution (this last aspect of individual justice obviously has reference to social or at least group justice). Discussion of justice as an individual virtue standardly (at least) centers on questions, therefore, about property and other distributable goods. [Stanford Encyclopedia]

6. Virtue A virtue such as honesty or generosity is not just a tendency to do what is honest or generous, nor is it to be helpfully specified as a desirable or morally valuable character trait. It is, indeed a character trait that is, a disposition which is well entrenched in its possessor, something that, as we say goes all the way down, unlike a habit such as being a tea-drinker but the disposition in question, far from being a single track disposition to do honest actions, or even honest actions for certain reasons, is multi-track. It is concerned with many other actions as well, with emotions and emotional reactions, choices, values, desires, perceptions, attitudes, interests, expectations and sensibilities. To possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. (Hence the extreme recklessness of attributing a virtue on the basis of a single action.) [Stanford Encyclopedia]

7. Free Will is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. [Stanford Encyclopedia]

8. Duty something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation. [Dictionary.com]

9. Action something an agent does that was intentional under some description, and many other philosophers have agreed with him that there is a conceptual tie between genuine action, on the one hand, and intention, on the other. [Stanford Encyclopedia]

10. Values principles, standards, or qualities considered worthwhile or desirable. [Dictionary.com]

11. Responsibility - When a person performs or fails to perform a morally significant action, we sometimes think that a particular kind of response is warranted. Praise and blame are perhaps the most obvious forms this reaction might take. For example, one who encounters a car accident may be regarded as worthy of praise for having saved a child from inside the burning car, or alternatively, one may be regarded as worthy of blame for not having used one's mobile phone to call for help. To regard such agents as worthy of one of these reactions is to ascribe moral responsibility to them on the basis of what they have done or left undone. (These are examples of other-directed ascriptions of responsibility. The reaction might also be self-directed, e.g., one can recognize oneself to be blameworthy). Thus, to be morally responsible for something, say an action, is to be worthy of a particular kind of reactionpraise, blame, or something akin to thesefor having performed it. [Stanford Encyclopedia]

12. Intentions - Philosophical perplexity about intention begins with its appearance in three guises: intention for the future, as when I intend to complete this entry by the end of the month; the intention with which someone acts, as I am typing with the further intention of writing an introductory sentence; and intentional action, as in the fact that I am typing these words intentionally. [Stanford Encyclopedia]