|
Science Of Morality
The science of morality may refer to various forms of ethical naturalism grounding morality in rational, empirical consideration of the natural world. It is sometimes framed as using the scientific approach to determine what is right and wrong, in contrast to the widespread belief that "science has nothing to say on the subject of human values". Overview Moral science may refer to the consideration of what is best for, and how to maximize the flourishing of, either particular individuals or all conscious creatures. It has been proposed that "morality" can be appropriately defined on the basis of fundamental premises necessary for ''any'' empirical, secular, or philosophical discussion and that societies can use the methods of science to provide answers to moral questions. The norms advocated by moral scientists (e.g. rights to abortion, euthanasia, and drug liberalization under certain circumstances) would be founded upon the shifting and growing collection of human understandi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethical Naturalism
Ethical naturalism (also called moral naturalism or naturalistic cognitivistic definism) is the meta-ethical view which claims that: # Ethical sentences express propositions. # Some such propositions are true. # Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world. # These moral features of the world ''are'' reducible to some set of non-moral features. Overview The versions of ethical naturalism which have received the most sustained philosophical interest, for example, Cornell realism, differ from the position that "the way things are is always the way they ought to be", which few ethical naturalists hold. Ethical naturalism does, however, reject the fact-value distinction: it suggests that inquiry into the natural world can increase our moral knowledge in just the same way it increases our scientific knowledge. Indeed, proponents of ethical naturalism have argued that humanity needs to invest in the science of morality, a broad and loosely defined field that us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Harris
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. Harris's first book, ''The End of Faith'' (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: ''Letter to a Christian Nation'' in 2006, '' The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values'' in 2010, the long-form essay ''Lying'' in 2011, the short book ''Free Will'' in 2012, '' Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Rel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Punishment
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular action or behavior that is deemed undesirable or unacceptable. It is, however, possible to distinguish between various different understandings of what punishment is. The reasoning for punishment may be to condition a child to avoid self-endangerment, to impose social conformity (in particular, in the contexts of compulsory education or military discipline), to defend norms, to protect against future harms (in particular, those from violent crime), and to maintain the law—and respect for rule of law—under which the social group is governed. and violates the law or rules by which the group is governed. Punishment may be self-inflicted as with self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh in the religious setting, but is mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have governance, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments and subsidiary organizations. The major types of political systems in the modern era are democracies, monarchies, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy, and tyranny. These forms are not always mutually exclusive, and mixed govern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism. Orwell produced literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is known for the allegorical novella ''Animal Farm'' (1945) and the dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949). His non-fiction works, including ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and ''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture. Blair was born in India, and raised and educated in England. After school he became an Imperial policeman in Burma, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Association (psychology)
Association in psychology refers to a mental connection between concepts, events, or mental states that usually stems from specific experiences.Klein, Stephen (2012). ''Learning: Principles and Applications'' (6 ed.). SAGE Publications. . Associations are seen throughout several schools of thought in psychology including behaviorism, associationism, psychoanalysis, social psychology, and structuralism. The idea stems from Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories, and it was carried on by philosophers such as John Locke, David Hume, David Hartley, and James Mill.Boring, E. G. (1950) It finds its place in modern psychology in such areas as memory, learning, and the study of neural pathways. Learned associations Associative learning is when a subject creates a relationship between stimuli (e.g. auditory or visual) or behavior and the original stimulus. The higher the concreteness of stimulus items, the more likely are they to evoke sensor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Character Strengths And Virtues (book)
The VIA Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS), formerly known as the "Values in Action Inventory," is a proprietary psychological assessment measure designed to identify an individual's profile of character strengths. It was created by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, researchers in the field of positive psychology, in order to operationalize their Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook (CSV).Peterson & Seligman. (2004). ''Character strengths and virtues: a handbook and classification.'' Washington, DC: APA Press. The CSV is the positive psychology counterpart to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) used in traditional psychology. Unlike the DSM, which scientifically categorizes human deficits and disorders, the CSV classifies positive human strengths.Snyder & Lopez. (2007). ''Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths.'' Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Moreover, the CSV is centered on helping people ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtue
Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards: doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong. The opposite of virtue is vice. Other examples of this notion include the concept of merit in Asian traditions as well as '' De'' (Chinese 德). Buddhism's four brahmavihara ("Divine States") can be regarded as virtues in the European sense. Etymology The ancient Romans used the Latin word ''virtus'' (derived from ''vir'', their word for ''man'') to refer to all of the "excellent qualities of men, including physical strength, valorous conduct, and moral rectitude." The French words ''vertu'' and ''virtu'' came from this Latin root. In the 13th century, the word ''virtue'' was "borrowed into English". Ancient Egypt Maat (or Ma'at) was the ancient Egyptian goddess of truth, balance, orde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Certainty
Certainty (also known as epistemic certainty or objective certainty) is the epistemic property of beliefs which a person has no rational grounds for doubting. One standard way of defining epistemic certainty is that a belief is certain if and only if the person holding that belief could not be mistaken in holding that belief. Other common definitions of certainty involve the indubitable nature of such beliefs or define certainty as a property of those beliefs with the greatest possible justification. Certainty is closely related to knowledge, although contemporary philosophers tend to treat knowledge as having lower requirements than certainty. Importantly, epistemic certainty is not the same thing as psychological certainty (also known as subjective certainty or certitude), which describes the highest degree to which a person could be convinced that something is true. While a person may be completely convinced that a particular belief is true, and might even be psychologicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Carmichael
Leonard Carmichael (November 9, 1898 – September 16, 1973) was an American educator and psychologist. In addition, he became the seventh secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1953. Education and academic career Carmichael, the son of a physician and a teacher, was born in 1898, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He received his B.S. degree from Tufts University in 1921, and his PhD from Harvard University in 1924. He was a brother in the Theta Delta Chi fraternity during his time at Tufts. He became an instructor at Princeton University's Department of Psychology in 1924 and was appointed to assistant professor in 1926. In 1927 he joined the faculty at Brown University, where he taught for fourteen year and did research on the behavior of primates. In 1937 he moved to the University of Rochester and then, in 1938, he was appointed president of Tufts University, where he remained until his departure for the Smithsonian in 1953. Secretary of the Smithsonian Carmichael serv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Is–ought Problem
The is–ought problem, as articulated by the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, arises when one makes claims about what ''ought'' to be that are based solely on statements about what ''is''. Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between descriptive or positive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and that it is not obvious how one can coherently move from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones. Hume's law or Hume's guillotine is the thesis that, if a reasoner only has access to non-moral and non-evaluative factual premises, the reasoner cannot logically infer the truth of moral statements.Cohon, Rachel, "Hume's Moral Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/hume-moral/.> A similar view is defended by G. E. Moore's open-question argument, intended to refute any ident ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. Beginning with '' A Treatise of Human Nature'' (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as an Empiricist. Hume argued that inductive reasoning and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, they result from custom and mental habit. We never actually perceive that one event caus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
