Instructions Building Your Position Template In this unit, we move from defining the issue to proposing our own moral arguments! Complete the Unit V Building a Moral Argument Project to develop your

Instructions Building Your Position Template In this unit, we move from defining the issue to proposing our own moral arguments! Complete the Unit V Building a Moral Argument Project to develop your
Unit V Project: Building A Moral Argument Template Complete the template by answering the questions fully. Keep in mind, a moral argument is your decision or conclusion about a contemporary issue, and your reasons why or your premises. In answering these questions, you should be able to identify the moral theory or theories from Units I & II used to develop your moral argument. Please choose only one of the following topics to discuss: war, terrorism or torture. 1. Can war, terrorism, or torture be justified? Why? Explain your answers and provide, at least, two reasons why. Note: In answering this question, be sure to establish a clear conclusion, one that takes a clear side for or against the selected topic. Provide your response below: 2. In your answer to question 1, what moral theory or theories from units I & II did you use for your reasons why? Identify and define the moral theory or theories you used fully. Provide your response below: 3. What are some specific examples, numbers, statistics or facts (i.e. specific evidence) you can use from outside sources to help prove your conclusion? Are your sources reliable? Explain your answers. Provide your response below: 1
Instructions Building Your Position Template In this unit, we move from defining the issue to proposing our own moral arguments! Complete the Unit V Building a Moral Argument Project to develop your
Moral theories Natural law theory claims humans naturally know the difference between right and wrong. So, what is natural is right, in context of the natural moral compass with which we are all born.  The weakness with natural law theory is that not everyone has the same natural idea of right and wrong (per the study guide). So, what you think is right naturally, might not be what I think of as right naturally. Can you see how this could lead to some BIG problems?    Also, social contract theory involves two or more parties entering into an agreement under the proper conditions. So, this is not forced or anything- both parties are willing in this contract.  If someone breaks the agreement or contract, then an action is immoral. Per page 27, the problem with social contract theory is that there is not a lot of detail about the right conditions under which such an agreement can take place (Timmons, 2019).    Also, virtue ethics is about good character or doing what a person of good character would do.  So, act x is morally correct, under this moral theory, if it upholds good character, or more technically, maximizes virtue. You can name several good character traits or virtues like loyalty, courage, honesty, etc. For example, if Bob is particularly loyal, courageous, honest, etc. and he believes active euthanasia is the most courageous, loyal and honest action, then it is, for a virtue ethicist, the correct action. This one can be tricky to distinguish from prima facie duties, but if you hear tale of particular virtues being listed like courage, self-sacrifice, honesty, etc., you have a good idea this virtue ethics is at play. For another example, if someone says capital punishment is morally justified because it is the courageous, most honest thing to do, you have a good idea virtue ethics is being applied because ‘courage’ is a particular type of virtue being used to justify the action. The weakness with virtue ethics, as also discussed in the textbook, is that there really is no way to tell which virtue is more important than another. If you have to lie to save someone and sacrifice yourself there is really no way to determine which virtue is more important: being honest or self-sacrifice. In this sense, the virtues can compete or conflict with one another.    Prima facie duties are duties that apply depending on the circumstances. If, for example, you are called to pick up your kid from school because he/she or they got sick, but you receive another call your daughter (or other child) is having an asthma attack, then W.D. Ross (the founder of this moral theory), would say you have a prima facie duty to help your daughter having the asthma attack. Basically, your duty to your first child is trumped by the duty to help the second child- given the nature of the situation. So, act x is right, with this moral theory, until you have a more pressing duty.  If you see an author talking about things like beneficence, you have a good idea prima facie duties are in play. Check out the following link and scroll to the bottom for the actual prima facie duties that can help you distinguish prima facie duties from virtue ethics:  https://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/ethics/rossethc.htm#:~:text=A%20prima%20facie%20duty%20is,in%20favor%20of%20doing%20it.     The weakness with prima facie duties is that there is little to no way to determine which prima facie duty is more important when there are conflicting duties, per page 26 of our textbook (Timmons, 2019). You can kind of see this one too. After all, if you have one really important case, like rushing your daughter’s inhaler to her to save her from an asthma attack, but your son needs his inhaler immediately too, and you are the only one that can help, let’s assume this for sake of argument, which duty is more pressing?         For care ethics, act x is right if it is an action that maximizes attributes associated with good care. So, what do you associate with caring, loving actions? Sympathy, concern, love, kindness, warmth, and, perhaps, minimizing suffering are all traits we tend to associate with care. Well, for a care ethicist treating a patient for example, act x is right when the best care is given to someone- represented by traits like sympathy, concern, love, kindness, etc. As explored on pages 30-31, many charge that care ethics really is just another form of virtue ethics- that this one is not a moral theory unto itself (Timmons, 2019).  This means care ethics is subject to the same weakness as virtue ethics. You can kind of see this too. After all, if I tell you a nurse was right for giving a patient the fatal dose of morphine that ends up killing his, her or their patient to relieve their suffering, thereby exemplifying traits like warmth, care and concern, traits like warmth, concern, sympathy, can be easily viewed as virtues.  And what do you do if those virtues conflict?  Consequentialism is the position that x is right if the best results are produced. So, let’s say you have to kill five people to save a million. A utilitarianist would say this action is right because the best results were produced by the action: saving a lot of people. This is an example of consequentialism because the moral worth of the action depends on maximizing the results. I think, perhaps, you were trying to say this in the attachment submitted so I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and will not deduct points for defining consequentialism, but I encourage you to review the information above to make doubly sure you do understand what it is because this is a hugely important moral theory!   The biggest weakness with consequentialism, as discussed further on page 11, is predicting results (Timmons, 2019). It is impossible to know a result or outcome of an action until the action has happened. I mean, this makes sense, right? If you argue an action is right based on producing results, you have to have some idea the results are going to happen. Let’s say, then, you are arguing active euthanasia is flat-out wrong because it results in innocent deaths (this is the result), you have to specific examples from the past to prove the outcome is likely going to happen, but even so, you cannot know the outcome of every case of euthanasia, even to a reliable degree.  Put another way, you are basically trying to foretell the future.    Rights based moral theories involve the position that x is right if it upholds rights and that x is wrong if it violates rights. The weakness with this one is that rights based moral theories do not appear to have enough ‘meat’ to stand on their own as a moral theory. Some people even describe rights as duties to carry out towards others. As Timmons explains in pages 22-24, rights themselves are pretty much part of other notions like duty and that is more the stuff of deontology or prima facie rights (2019). Whether, as such, rights can stand on their own as a separate moral theory is, then, a big question. And you can kind of see this whenever applying rights to a problem.  They don’t seem to have enough substance to account for or address the entirety of certain ethical situations. .   Deontology is another term for rule-based ethics.  Basically, deontology is kind of like a duty to follow a set code of conduct, also sometimes described as a set of rules.  So, for example, someone who follows the Ten Commandments is an example of a deontologist, because they are ultimately following a set of rules by some sense of duty to do what is right, to determine whether an action is moral. Someone following the Golden Rule is another example of a deontologist.   Deontology tends to be a bit too rigid and there seems to be little to no way to distinguish the importance of one rule over another. Per the unit videos, if you are hiding a victim from a serial killer, let’s assume the serial killer only wants and wants to kill the victim you are hiding, it can be just as wrong to lie as kill. With Kant’s system, for example, which is an example of deontology, you would be just as wrong to lie to the serial killer about hiding the victim, as killing the serial killer or victim yourself.  In this sense, then, there is no way to stack or determine in counterexamples like the one above, that lying is okay to save the victim. Duty ethical This theory posits that individuals are obligated to behave morally uprightly based on a specific set of principles and rules, irrespective of the consequences. The regulations may exhibit excessive rigidity and lack of adaptability, or they could be formulated by individuals needing more ethical principles. For, you have a legal obligation not to trespass on private land