LESSON 5: ETHICS, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION
RELIGION
- Latin word: Religare
- Meaning: “to bind fast (see rely), via notion
of “place an obligation on,” or “bond
between humans and gods” (tie)
- A belief in something
- The belief is not necessarily substantiated by
physical or material evidence
- Religious knowledge obtained through holy
writings, authority, revelations, and religious
experiences
- Religious knowledge is qualitative and not
quantitative
- Religious knowledge is not gotten through
measurement
- Knowledge is taken as either true or false
- Religious knowledge is neither progressive,
nor tentative
SCIENCE
- Latin word: Scientia
- Meaning: knowledge, a knowing,
expertness, or experience for knowledge
- Scientific knowledge is a relationship
between observations
- The observations are subject to refinement
- Scientific knowledge is progressive and
tentative
- Scientific knowledge is neither true nor
false, but rather consistent with the
observations and consistent with prior
knowledge
- Formulates quantifiable questions
- Uses units, numbers, directions along with
mathematics to express knowledge
IS SCIENCE AND RELIGION RELATED?
- Science concerns itself with the natural
- Religion concerns itself with the
Supernatural
- Science focuses on testable claims and
hypotheses
- Religion focuses on individual beliefs
- Both place an emphasis on a way to know or
understand the world, even as these ways
vary dramatically
ASSUMPTIONS OF SCIENCE
1. The world is real
2. The real world is knowable and comprehensible
3. There are laws that govern the real world
4. Those laws are knowable and comprehensible
5. Those laws do not (radically) change according
to place or time, since the early stages of The
Big Bang
6. Nature is understandable
7. The rules of logic are valid
8. Language is adequate to describe natural realm
9. Human senses are reliable
10. Mathematical rules are descriptive for the
physical world
11. Assumptions are accepted without proof
12. Form the basis of all scientific thinking
13. The basic assumptions of science are accepted
on faith
LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE
1. Science cannot answer questions about value
2. Science cannot answer questions of morality
3. Science cannot help us with questions about the
supernatural
QUESTIONS SCIENCE ASKS AND ATTEMPTS
TO AN ANSWER
1. When, where, how many, why (by what means),
how does a living thing function?
2. What are the fundamental forces?
QUESTION RELIGION ASKS AND ATTEMPTS
TO ANSWER
1. Why am I here?
2. Is that the right thing to do? How valuable am I?
3. Does God exist? Does God act (theism)? Will
that God respond if I pray?
QUESTIONS BOTH ASK (BUT BY DIFFERENT
MEANS)
1. How and when did life originates?
2. How and when did the universe originate?
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS WHICH SEEM TO
RELATE TO SCIENCE
1. Consciousness (What is consciousness and why
are we conscious?)
2. Origins of life
3. Origin of the universe (Why is there anything?
(as opposed to nothing))
SCIENTISM
-
Acceptance of scientific theory and
scientific methods as applicable in all fields
of inquiry about the world, including
morality, ethics, art, and religion
SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM
- Accepts only one reality: the physical
universe, composed as it is of matter and
energy
- Everything that is not physical, measurable.
Or deducible from scientific observations, is
considered unreal
- Life is explained in purely mechanical
terms, and phenomena such as Mind and
Consciousness are considered nothing but
epiphenomena—curious by-products, of
certain complex physical processes (such as
brain metabolism)
LESSON 6: VIRTUE ETHICS
- The Ethics of Ethos (character)
ETHICAL THEORIES
1. Teleological
- Ends, consequences, calculation
- Action
2. Virtue
- Character, habits, living
- Habit of character
3. Deontological
- Rules, absolutes, obedience
- Action
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
- Is a philosophical inquiry into the nature of
the good life for a human being
- To discover the nature of human happiness it
is necessary to determine what the function
of a human being is, for a person’s
happiness will consist in fulfilling the
natural function toward which his being is
directed
- The goal of the ethics is to determine how
best to achieve happiness
- This study is necessarily imprecise, since so
much depends on particular circumstances.
Happiness depends on living in accordance
with appropriate virtues
- Virtue is a disposition rather an activity
- “The soul lust first be conditions by good
habits, as land must b cultivated by good
seed”
TWO CATEGORIES OF VIRTUE
1. Intellectual Virtues
- Virtues of the mind
- Such as the ability to understand, reason,
and make sound judgment
- May be taught, like logic and mathematics
by teachers
2. Moral Virtues
- Not innate, rather they are acquired through
repetition and practice, like learning a music
instrument
- It is through the practice and the doing that
one becomes a type of person
- Over a period of time virtues become second
nature
VIRTUE SUMMARY
- Habit of character
- Involving both feeling and action
- Seeks the mean between excess and
deficiency
- Promotes human flourishing (eudemonia in
Greek)
- Intellectual and moral
HOW TO ACHIEVE EUDEMONIA
- Aristotle defined Good as something that
fulfills its end purpose
- The Telos of humanity is to be rational
- The ergon (function) of practical reason
(phronesis) is to identify virtue
- “The good for human beings is an activity of
the soul in accordance with arete”
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