Robert Cavalier
Philosophy Department
Carnegie Mellon
Part I History of Ethics
Preface: The
Life of Socrates
Section 1:
Greek Moral Philosophy
Section 2:
Hellenistic and Roman Ethics
Section 3:
Early Christian Ethics
Section 4: Modern
Moral Philosophy
Section 5: 20th
Century Analytic Moral Philosophy
Part II Concepts and Problems
Preface: Meta-ethics,
Normative Ethics and Applied Ethics
Section 1:
Ethical Relativism
Section 2:
Ethical Egoism
Section 3:
Utilitarian Theories
Section 4: Deontological
Theories
Section 5: Virtue
Ethics
Section 6: Liberal
Rights and Communitarian Theories
Section 7: Ethics
of Care
Section 8: Case-based
Moral Reasoning
Section 9: Moral
Pluralism
Part III Applied Ethics
Preface: The
Field of Applied Ethics
Section 1:
The Topic of Euthanasia
Multimedia
Module: A Right to Die? The Dax
Cowart Case
Section 2:
The Topic of Abortion
Multimedia
Module: The Issue of Abortion in
America
Postscript:
Conflict Resolution
Modern Moral Philosophy
Broadly speaking, the Medieval Mind gradually gave way to the Modern Period through a series of cultural and political changes that involved both the Renaissance (c 14th-16th centuries) and the Reformation (marked by the 1517 posting of Luther's '95 Theses'). The former involved the expansion of trade and the rise of money-based economies, the invention of printing, Copernicus' challenge to Ptolemaic astronomy, and Galileo's confrontation with Aristotelian 'physics.' The New Sciences, with their empirical methods and mathematical tools, set about to provide a new grid by which to measure the universe. The Protestant Reformation, begun with an attack against 'indulgences' and a belief in power of simple faith, ended in schism and political dissent from the once 'universal' (catholos) Church.In this historical context, Thomas Hobbes' political and moral writings represent the first truly 'modern' view of ethics.
Thomas Hobbes
