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C O U R S E L E C T U R E Euthyphro and the Bad Dad Notes taken on March 26, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
someone in your family does something ethically wrong, what do you do?
A) you act according to the rule "family is family and friends stick with friends", so you support them in their time of trouble
B) you act according to the rule "wrong is wrong, and I can't defend someone who is wrong"
C) I need more information to answer this question
the answers A and B, have something attractive yet distracting about them
they wrong answers that sound right, yet are too simplified for most real world cases
A) family is family is something we feel deep in us, something tribal, we feel that it is right in a very deep, emotional way
B) wrong is wrong is something abstract yet logically true
to say that wrong is right is absurd, so we understand "wrong is wrong" as a truth beyond question
bad news: your Dad murdered a guy
but the person he murdered was apparently a murderer
C) get more information
four questions when analyzing a Greek play
1. What would you do in this situation?
2. What should you do in this situation?
3. What would go through your mind in this situation?
4. What should go through your mind in this situation?
many people can correctly predict that they will do the wrong thing in certain situations, even though they know what the right thing would be
how do you think through an ethical problem when its not just complicated but such that they interfere with reasoning clearly about the case