Key Terms
- Altruism
- the selfless care for others’ well-being.
- Anti-realism
- the philosophical position that argues that morality is subjective, not objective.
- Arête
- the ancient Greek word for virtue. It can also be translated as “excellence.”
- Ataraxia
- the goal of Epicurus’s hedonism: tranquility, or freedom from mental, emotional, and physical pain.
- Categorical imperative
- Kant’s concept of moral reasoning and action. “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law” (Kant [1785] 1998, 31). This means you know an action is moral if can be universal for everyone.
- Cognitivism
- the philosophical position that values are cognitive and express statements about properties of things or states of events.
- Compassion
- the ability to care or share in others’ suffering.
- Conscience
- an individual’s inner sense of right and wrong.
- Descriptive claims
- statements that describe matters of fact or how the world is.
- Divine command theory
- the philosophical position that uses God as the principle for morality. What is good is determined by God’s commands.
- Emotivism
- a branch of non-cognitivism that argues that value judgments only express emotion.
- Empathy
- the ability to share others’ feelings.
- Ethical naturalism
- the philosophical position that argues that moral values are based on natural facts about the world, not individuals’ subjective feelings or beliefs.
- Eudaimonia
- the ancient Greek term for “happiness” or “human flourishing.” It literally means “good” (eu) “spirit” (daimon).
- Euthyphro problem
- a challenge to theistic ethical systems. It asks whether something is good because God commands it or if God commands it because it is good.
- Evaluative claims
- statements that express a judgment about something’s value or how the world ought to be.
- Everyday aesthetics
- an approach to aesthetic theory that focuses on aesthetically meaningful experiences in people’s ordinary day-to-day lives.
- Experience machine
- a thought experiment in which the possibility is raised that a person might lead a pleasurable life by being plugged into a machine stimulating pleasurable experiences in their brain.
- Extrinsic value
- the quality of being valued for the sake of something else.
- Fact-value distinction
- the distinction between what is the case (facts) and what people think ought to be the case (values) based on beliefs about what is good, beautiful, important, etc.
- Faith
- beliefs that are not or cannot be proven.
- Fallacy
- an error in logical reasoning—for example, jumping to a conclusion without proper evidence.
- Feminist care ethics
- an ethical theory that proposes that morality is based on caring for others and that caring for others arises out of women’s experiences as caregivers.
- Foundation
- a principle, concept, or assumption on which a philosophical position is founded.
- Fundamentality
- the issue of foundations, the philosophical inquiry into the basis for an idea or system of ideas.
- Hedonism
- a philosophical approach to moral theory based on the idea that pleasure dictates what is good and pain dictates what is bad.
- Ikigai
- reason for being; what makes life meaningful in an intuitive way.
- Incommensurability
- when there is no standard of evaluation between two or more goods or values.
- Intentional fallacy
- the faulty argument that the intention of the artist determines the meaning of the work of art.
- Intrinsic value
- the quality of being valued for its own sake.
- Intuition
- cognition that seems completely self-evident and impossible to deny.
- Is-ought problem
- problem that asserts the challenge of moving from statements of fact (something is) to statements of value (something ought to be).
- Kingdom of ends
- Kant’s hypothetical, ideal society in which every individual is treated as an end and no one is treated as a means to an end. It is an idea that can be used to judge the morality of an action.
- Metaethics
- branch of philosophy that focuses on moral reasoning and foundational questions that explore the assumptions related to moral beliefs and practice.
- Monism
- theory that argues that there is only one fundamental intrinsic value that forms the foundation for all other values.
- Moral realism
- the philosophical position that morality is objective, not subjective.
- Moral relativism
- the philosophical position that there are multiple moral frameworks that are equally valid because values are relative to individuals, communities, and cultures.
- Moral skepticism
- the philosophical position that morality is not objective.
- Natural law theory
- an ethical position that asserts that morals are objective and derived from nature.
- Naturalistic fallacy
- an error in reasoning that assumes one can derive values (what people ought to do) from facts about the world (what is the case).
- Non-cognitivism
- the philosophical position that values are not cognitive because they do not necessarily make statements about properties of things or states of events and have more to do with a psychological state of mind.
- Ontology of value
- the study of the being of values.
- Open-question argument
- G. E. Moore’s argument against the naturalistic fallacy, which he sees as trying to derive non-natural properties from natural properties. For Moore, arguing that something is “good” (a non-natural property) based on natural properties is circular and leaves an open question.
- Perfectionism
- an approach to ethics that bases morality on the highest attainable good for an individual, human nature, or society.
- Pluralism
- theory that argues that there are multiple fundamental intrinsic values rather than one.
- Realism
- the philosophical position that asserts that ethical values have some basis in reality and that reasoning about ethical matters requires an objective framework or foundation.
- Reason
- a methodical way of thinking that uses evidence and logic to draw conclusions, or the capacity to think this way.
- Satisfactionism
- a philosophical position that defines well-being as satisfying desires.
- Telos
- the purpose, end, or goal of something.
- Utilitarianism
- an ethical theory that bases morality on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.
- Value theory
- the philosophical investigation of values. In its narrow sense, it refers to metaethical concerns. In its broader sense, it addresses a variety of values (ethical, social, political, religious, aesthetic, etc.)
- Values
- beliefs and evaluations about morality, politics, aesthetics, and social issues. They often express a judgment about what people think ought to be the case.
- Virtue ethics
- a philosophical approach to ethics based on the examination of different virtues.
- Well being
- concept referring to what is good for a person, not simply what is good in an abstract sense.