1.) Define the term “Moral Maturity”
2.) Read the following article:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/knife-arrest-cop-pelted/2008/03/24/1206206967590.html
Discuss the reasons why the 25 year old man mentioned in the article would be regarded as having a lack of ‘moral maturity’.
3.) Identify the differences between ‘morality’ and ‘immorality’.
4.) Watch the following clip and describe the reasons why Governor Spitzer’s actions would be regarded as ‘immoral’.
1.) Which countries have banned the Internet?
Some of the countries that have banned the internet are China and Pakistan.
2.) Describe what the following image is about? (Provide TWO websites to support your findings)
This image is about the emporer banning the internet due to the use of inappropriate sites in his opinion e.g. Youtube being one of the main. Also religious beliefs would have had an effect.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7292130.stm
http://myamarnews.blogspot.com/2008/03/questionable-referendum-in-burma.html
3.) Provide evidence of at least FIVE sources (Websites, newspapers, blogs, videos ect) that discuss the reasons why these countries have taken such a drastic approach.
- Religious beliefs
- Cyber chat and bullying
- Crimes
- Internet Enemies
- Offensiveness
http://myamarnews.blogspot.com/2008/03/questionable-referendum-in-burma.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7264000/7264277.stm
4.) Discuss how you would feel if the Australian government banned the Internet. What privileges would you lose? (2 Paragraphs)
If the Australian Government banned the internet I would loose the privalages of doing research for assignments and entertainment. I would feel a little angry but at the same time a little relieved due to the fact that cyber bullying wouldnt occur regularly to depressed people.
I would feel also that I have lost the privaleges of communication with friends and not being able to chat with people that in which whom I know that I am talking to.
- Editor
Utilitarianism:
Bentham found pain and pleasure to be the only intrinsic values in the world: “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.”
Jeremy Bentham’s foremost proponent was James Mill, a significant philosopher in his day and the father of John Stuart Mill. The younger Mill was educated according to Bentham’s principles, including transcribing and summarising much of his father’s work whilst still in his teens.
In his famous short work, Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill argued that cultural, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures are of greater value than mere physical pleasure, because the former would be valued more highly by competent judges than the latter.
Like Bentham’s formulation, Mill’s utilitarianism deals with pleasure or happiness.
The classic utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill influenced many other philosophers and the development of the broader concept of consequentialism.
Subjectivism:
Ethical subjectivism is the meta-ethical belief that all ethical sentences reduce to factual statements about the attitudes of individuals. It stands in contrast to ethical objectivism, under which ethical statements are independent of personal attitudes. It is a form of moral relativism in the sense that the truth of moral claims is relative to the attitudes of individuals.
It is compatible with moral absolutism, in that an individual can hold certain of his moral precepts to apply regardless of circumstances.
One implication of these beliefs is that, unlike the moral skeptic or the non-cognitivist, the subjectivist thinks that ethical sentences, while subjective, are nonetheless the kind of thing that can be true or false depending on whose approval is being discussed.
Because if one person screams “Allowing abortion is wrong!” and another screams “Allowing abortion is right!” then, according to simple subjectivism, what they mean is “I’m against allowing abortion!” It means that bullying shows or involves a deplorable lack of courage, an unwillingness to overcome fear (by, say, picking on someone one’s own size).
So simple subjectivism does not seem right when we move away from very abstract and general terms like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (which Bernard Williams has called “thin” concepts) to focus instead on richer, more specific concepts such as courage, honesty, cruelty, etc.
Situation Ethics:
It is possible that the average church member does not even know what is meant by the expression, “situation ethics,” but it basically means that there is no ethical standard that can be uniformly or consistently applied, for each situation demands its own standard of ethics. Under that theory, you may commit adultery (or almost anything else) if it is done in love, and no one is hurt by it. You may lie, if you think it appropriate to spare the feelings of someone, or to be socially acceptable. That is, if your host wants to know if you enjoyed the gathering, and you were bored stiff, you may say, “I had a wonderful time” for you are trying to do good to him. You may steal, if you do it to help a needy person, such as a starving child. In fact, there is no action you cannot perform if, in your judgment, the action is for a good cause, and if you have the proper motive in performing it.
We have been hearing of it since Joseph Fletcher made the phrase popular years ago, and knew that not only is the phrase popular, the philosophy has been popular for thousands of years. However, I did not know that it had such a widespread impact in the Lord’s church. In a recent Bible class, the teachers was talking about the things the Lord hates, and are an abomination to him, as listed in Proverbs 6. When he got to the lying tongue and bearing false witness, some questions were raised from the audience regarding when it might be proper to lie.
Relativism:
Ethical relativism is the position that there are no moral absolutes, no moral right and wrongs. Instead, right and wrong are based on social norms. Some have heard of the term situational ethics which is a category of ethical relativism. At any rate, ethical relativism would mean that our morals have evolved, that they have changed over time, and that they are not absolute.
One advantage of ethical relativism is that it allows for a wide variety of cultures and practices. It also allows people to adapt ethically as the culture, knowledge, and technology change in society. This is good and a valid form of relativism.
The disadvantage of ethical relativism is that truth, right and wrong, and justice are all relative. Just because the group of people thinks that something is right does not make so. Slavery is a good example of this. Two hundred years ago in America, slavery was the norm and morally acceptable. Now it is not.
Relativism also does not allow for the existence of an absolute set of ethics. Logically, if there are not absolute ethics, then there can be no Divine Absolute Ethics Giver. Requiring an absolute set ethics implies an Absolute Ethics Giver which can easily be extrapolated as being God. This would be opposed to ethical relativism. Therefore, ethical relativism would not support the idea of an absolute God and it would exclude religious systems based upon absolute morals; that is, it would be absolute in its condemnation of absolute ethics. In this, relativism would be inconsistent since it would deny beliefs of absolute values.
Nihilism:
Ethical Nihilism denies moral principles and ethical values. Human beings are not seen as responsible for what they do, therefore, each individual makes up the difference between good and evil. Since the nihilist denies possessing free will, the ethical nihilist can neither be praised nor blamed for his good or evil behavior. In short, reasoning cannot be trusted to determine the truth of right or wrong.
Ethical Nihilism chooses to ignore that moral principles, are inescapable. Yet even the most basic ideas about good and evil are present in every society.
C.S. Lewis remarked, “cultures may disagree about whether a man may have one wife or four, but all of them know about marriage; they may disagree about which actions are most courageous, but none of them rank cowardice as a virtue.”
Natural Law:
The concept of natural law has taken several forms. The idea began with the ancient Greeks’ conception of a universe governed in every particular by an eternal, immutable law and in their distinction between what is just by nature and just by convention. Stoicism provided the most complete classical formulation of natural law. The Stoics argued that the universe is governed by reason, or rational principle; they further argued that all humans have reason within them and can therefore know and obey its law. Because human beings have the faculty of choice (a free will), they will not necessarily obey the law; if they act in accordance with reason, however, they will be “following nature.”
Christian philosophers readily adapted Stoic natural law theory, identifying natural law with the law of God. For Thomas Aquinas, natural law is that part of the eternal law of God (“the reason of divine wisdom”) which is knowable by human beings by means of their powers of reason. Human, or positive, law is the application of natural law to particular social circumstances. Like the Stoics, Aquinas believed that a positive law that violates natural law is not true law.
With the secularization of society resulting from the Renaissance and Reformation, natural law theory found a new basis in human reason. The 17th-century Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius believed that humans by nature are not only reasonable but social. Thus the rules that are “natural” to them — those dictated by reason alone — are those which enable them to live in harmony with one another. From this argument, by the way, Grotius developed the first comprehensive theory of international law.
1.) Describe the Australian Governments NetAlert program?
It is a website that teachers parents and children about the dangers of chatting online and helps provent them from being contacted by strangers.
2.) Discuss the reasons why they have implemented such a program?
because over half of 11-15 year olds surveyed whoo chat online are contacted by strangers. this is very dangers because they act like someone their own age and are not and then try to meet up with them and they get kidnapped and melested
