ethics revision

Free Will & Determinism
If we're not free then we're not MR. If we're free, then how can God be all 3 attributes?
Freedom & Moral responsibility
Moral blame and full responsibility are only given to actions which are undertaken in free will
If we are not free, we have…

Sartre ­ penknife vs. humans, as there's no God we're tabula rasa & define own essence
`existence precedes essence'. Also uses this to reject objective moral. However, partly
determined by first mans defining his essence
When faced with a decision sense of choice & deliberation proves liberty & MR (LOI)…

Helps Christians understand evil as part of God's greater plan
Different form HD & doesn't receive the support from modern science
Hick ­ epistemic distance + God created evil to bring us closer to him

Evaluation
Undermines omnibenevolence even for Calvin's idea of grace + MR ­ both central to…

Conscience
God given but not the voice of God
Aquinas and reason
God given power of reason not inner sense of right & wrong like St. Paul `reason making right
decisions'. Used correctly helps us understand what God sees as right & wrong (Fall links)
Synderisis ­ recta ratio, awareness…

Conscience directs us towards benevolence & away from self-love (v. C) ­ justification of evil on
basis of conscience demonstrates incompatible CC adopting Aquinas' view
Evaluation
Is God as `author' TD? ­ makes us do bad things e.g. Abraham (psych explanation + RE)
Are we rational? Completely following ridiculous considering…

Can be appreciated by all ­ theists can say God makes conscience dev (Irenaeus)
Children lack MR before 10 ­ Bulger? + Dawkins on child being brought up religiously
Fromm two consciences
Conscience comes from those around us who exert authority which involves punishment/reward
which overtime we internalise (support/contradict Skinner)…

Raises question what should be done if informed conscience disagrees w/ teaching of CC? e.g.
pill made by RC. Teach if we fail to follow conscience then we sin ­ Anglican view of allowing
indiv conscience to discern what is right more applicable
Some believe FW required e.g. Irenaeus, not…

Evaluation
G.E. Moore - EN makes fundamental error: moral statements can't be verified empirically o r
equated w/ any other concept. Can't move from is/ought (Ryle + Hume) to do so is to commit
naturalistic fallacy ­ open statements
Concrete morals hold little weight outside religion
To anchor ethics to…

Moral sense they allude to never fully explained (assert there is 1: moral argument)
Subjective approach to ethics doesn't give us concrete justification for ethical behaviour, just
claims that goodness is indefinable - although NET mistake meaning of good, they do
How reliable is intuition? More social bg than any…

Virtue Ethics
NET focus on what we ought to do, VE focus on who we ought to become. However, still focuses on
what's right, implying it exists (ME) classified as NET. Interested in defining good & associated qualities
Keenan - Who am I? Who ought I to become? How do…