RELT340

Religion and Ethics in Modern

Society
 $24, 000
X 5 semesters
$120, 000.00
 Why Ethics?
• Shouldn’t people be free?
• Why should we have to account to anybody.
• Why be moral?
 The
Myth
of
Gyges
Glaucon vs.
Socrates
 Why is the Myth Significant?

• 1. The myth of Gyges raises the following questions:

A. Can justice truly be valued in and of itself?

B. Is it better to act justly than it is to act unjustly?

• 2. The Myth of Gyges forces Socrates to defend his claim that

the just person is happier than the unjust person, and that
justice should be valued in and of itself.
 Summary

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute

power corrupts absolutely. Great men
are almost always bad men,”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

(1834-1902)
 Plato’s Conclusion

“Being moral is inherently valuable,

apart from any additional benefits it
produced or harm that it enabled a
person to avoid”

Do you agree? Defend your position

 Why Be Moral?
• Most people associate doing well with being a
good person.
• For the Christian, being moral is critical to a
life that seeks to honor God.
• Doing well or being good also holds for a
society:
• Most people would not want to live in an
immoral society where right and wrong carries
weight.
It is unlikely that any sort of civilized society could
continue unless it had concern for key moral value
such as;

• Fairness
• Justice
• Truthfulness
• and Compassion

• Ethics give direction to people and societies who

have a sense that they cannot flourish without
being Moral.
A Break down in morality is evident
through the prevalence of the
following:
– Crime
– Drug abuse
– Teenage Pregnancies
– Violence
– Juvenile delinquency
– Sexually Transmitted Infections
– School Shootings as in Columbine High School.
 Why are Ethics Crucial?
1. Moral questions are in the heart of life's most
important issues: Right or Wrong.
What is a good person? What things are morally praiseworthy?
What constitutes a good life? What would a good society look
like?
2. One faces moral choices every day. Ethics
provide a basis on which to make a decision.
3. Ethics helps one in taking a position in a
number of issues like: Abortion, Euthanasia,
Homosexuality, War and Capital Punishment
 What is Ethics?
• Ethics and Morality are sometimes used
interchangeably, however, they are distinct in
meaning
 Morality
• Refers to the actual content of Right and
wrong.
• It is the end result of ethical deliberation.
• The substance of right and Wrong
 Morality
“Morality is primarily concerned
with:
1. the question of right and wrong
2. the ability to distinguish between
the two
3. and the justification of the
distinction.”
 Ethics
• Ethics is the art or the science used in the
process of determining Right and Wrong.

• morality deals with knowledge and ethics

deals with reasoning. the end of ethical
deliberation - the determining of right and
wrong
 What is the Ultimate Source of Moral
Authority?
• Is it a construction of the human heart? (Civil
Laws, public reason/universal consensus etc.)

• Is it from a transcendental source, something

we might call God? A source beyond us?
• There is debate over whether there is genuine
moral knowledge. Philosophical questioning
has moved towards naturalism which includes
the idea that only what can be sensed is real,
what cannot be sensed is not verifiable and
therefore not real knowledge. This then
excludes religious beliefs- theists, argue that
moral knowledge is real and that murder is
wrong, it is not subjective opinion but true,
they argue that no one always lives as if
morality is entirely subjective and that moral
truths exist and can be known.