Assignment: Happiness and Virtues

Assignment: Happiness and Virtues

• View the video titled “Ethical Theory: Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics, Solitary Confinement, and Supererogatory Actions” on YouTube video, (5 min 11 s), located at . Be prepared to discuss.

Q1. From the “Ethical Theory” video in Aristotle’s essay, analyze Aristotle’s claim that reason determines right action. Discuss how this process occurs and how it is related to the general principle that virtuous action is a “mean” between extremes. Then, discuss the prisoner’s views about isolation. Discuss your agreement or disagreement with Aristotle’s view of happiness. Provide reasons and examples to support your view.

Q2. Debate It: Take a position for or against Augustine’s claim: “Virtue gives perfection to the soul; the soul obtains virtue by following God; following God is the happy live.” Provide reasons and examples to support your view.

Topic:  “Virtues and Vices” Please respond to the following:

Q3. Analyze and comment on Epictetus’ statement as it relates to behaving with virtue: “Some things are up to us and some are not up to us.”

Q4. Analyze the claim by Foot that “virtue belongs to the will.” Explain your understanding of the relationship between virtue and the will. Is virtue a relevant influence to our lives today? Provide reasons and examples to support your view.

Topic:  “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Please respond to the following:

Q5. Compare Jonathan Edwards’ presentation, which claims that divine judgment will be brought down on a person who yields to vice, to Plutarch’s argument that there “is no pleasure in vice”. Discuss the issue, and provide examples of possible alternative incentives to avoid vice.

Q6. Explain how, in your view, a belief in “original sin” might influence a person’s approach to moral education. Provide reasons and examples to support your view.

Topic:  “Jealousy, Envy, and Grudge” Please respond to the following:

Read Immanuel Kant’s views titled “Virtue and Vice”, located at . Be prepared to discuss.

Q7. From above reading Kant’s essay, debate whether it is possible to envy others without begrudging their happiness. Describe how Kant views this issue. Provide reasons and examples to support your view.

Q8. Kant’s claim: “Until one achieves a permanent change in the will’s orientation . . . a revolution in which moral righteousness is the nonnegotiable condition of any of one’s pursuits, all of one’s actions that are in accordance with duty are nevertheless morally worthless.”

Topic:  “The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” Please respond to the following:

Q9. Discuss Mary Anne Warren’s distinction between being human and being a person. Do you agree that being a person is a necessary condition for having a right to life? If we believe that there could be persons that are not human, or vice versa, what is the end result of that view? Who has the power to determine if a person is human or not?

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Topic:  “Social Action and Fairness” Please respond to the following:

Q11. Debate It. Take a position for or against Singer’s claim that each person has a serious moral obligation to do something about world hunger. Provide reasons and examples to support your view.

Q12. Evaluate Fullinwider’s claim that a company’s record of discrimination will keep reproducing itself in spite of its good intentions not to discriminate. Provide reasons and examples to support your view.