No, I'm not trying to start a deep moral conversation, though I'm certainly capable of such. I'm just venting about the suckitude of my intro to ethics professor, because I can tell I'm going to be miserable in that class for the next 17 weeks or so.
To Start with, I was a Lincoln - Douglas debator for four years in high school. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, think of it like this: I studied ethical philosophy for four years in hs. So when I bring up the concept of of morality vs. mores (read: morays) vs. conscience and my prof blows it off like something she's never heard of, I immediately sense a problem. Today in class she discussed cultural relativism, completely supporting the idea that anything is morally correct as long as any particular society says it is. As in, as long as x society says that murder is okay, we have no place to say that they are wrong about it. Total crap.
Besides all this, the writer of our miniscule book is a complete hack. I saw that there was a section on a philosophy that I particularly enjoy, ethical egoism. I decided to see what he said about it, and skipped straight to the section "Three arguments for ethical egoism." In it, he actually does give three arguments for ethical egoism. And at the end of each, he explains why it's a terrible argument and you should disregard it. This is immediately followed by "Three arguments against ethical egoism." The standout here for me was when he claimed that EE (I'm getting lazy now) showed the opposing philosophy in its worst light to make itself sound more plausible. Know why it stands out? Because that's exactly what he did throughout the entire section. he left out major facets of the philosophy that actually give it logical weight so that he could decry it. And my prof seems determined to consider this hack as the standard for what is right in ethics.
And back to the prof. She mentioned Thomas Hobbes today in class. The first thing to note is that she can't pronounce the title of his foremost work, Leviathan. She says something more like Leviathon, making it sound like a call-in show hosted by Jerry Lewis. Second, I don't necessarily agree with Hobbes. He grew up in a time of revolution, so he was a bit emotionally scarred, and it showed in his philosophy. But the generalization she gave of his social contract was so terrible that I'm almost certain whatever remains of him in this world (skeletal remains, if that) began to cry. So yeah, I'm going to hate every minute of that class, where the professor doesn't know what she's talking about and dismisses standard definitions of morality as though I'm stupid.
It felt good to get that out. Yippy skippy. I'm done ranting for now. Enjoy.
To Start with, I was a Lincoln - Douglas debator for four years in high school. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, think of it like this: I studied ethical philosophy for four years in hs. So when I bring up the concept of of morality vs. mores (read: morays) vs. conscience and my prof blows it off like something she's never heard of, I immediately sense a problem. Today in class she discussed cultural relativism, completely supporting the idea that anything is morally correct as long as any particular society says it is. As in, as long as x society says that murder is okay, we have no place to say that they are wrong about it. Total crap.
Besides all this, the writer of our miniscule book is a complete hack. I saw that there was a section on a philosophy that I particularly enjoy, ethical egoism. I decided to see what he said about it, and skipped straight to the section "Three arguments for ethical egoism." In it, he actually does give three arguments for ethical egoism. And at the end of each, he explains why it's a terrible argument and you should disregard it. This is immediately followed by "Three arguments against ethical egoism." The standout here for me was when he claimed that EE (I'm getting lazy now) showed the opposing philosophy in its worst light to make itself sound more plausible. Know why it stands out? Because that's exactly what he did throughout the entire section. he left out major facets of the philosophy that actually give it logical weight so that he could decry it. And my prof seems determined to consider this hack as the standard for what is right in ethics.
And back to the prof. She mentioned Thomas Hobbes today in class. The first thing to note is that she can't pronounce the title of his foremost work, Leviathan. She says something more like Leviathon, making it sound like a call-in show hosted by Jerry Lewis. Second, I don't necessarily agree with Hobbes. He grew up in a time of revolution, so he was a bit emotionally scarred, and it showed in his philosophy. But the generalization she gave of his social contract was so terrible that I'm almost certain whatever remains of him in this world (skeletal remains, if that) began to cry. So yeah, I'm going to hate every minute of that class, where the professor doesn't know what she's talking about and dismisses standard definitions of morality as though I'm stupid.
It felt good to get that out. Yippy skippy. I'm done ranting for now. Enjoy.
