Sacramentality: Unit Three Objective Assessment – Review Sheet
Unit 3: What, If Anything, Am I Supposed To Do?
Unit 3 Essential Questions
If I do care, as a _____, what do I need to do?
Who’s to say? Why can’t I do whatever I want?
What forms and informs my conscience?
Who can tell me what good or bad is? How can anyone? How can I even tell what good or bad is?
Who am I becoming?
Relativism
 Personal/Cultural moral relativism: a person who maintains that there are no moral rules that apply
to al cultures or all people in one culture and that no country or person should impose their (or his)
moral rules on any other culture or person. No moral rules apply to everyone.
 Appealing facets of relativism:
o No science, no knowledge; if it can’t be proved using science, it isn’t true.
o Circumstances do make a difference; this is true. Although circumstances can affect the
morality of a given act, it doesn’t mean that they completely change the morality.
o Tolerance and Compassion; Jesus focused against hypocrisy, and he judged actions, not
people. Relativists do not judge people or actions.
 Unappealing facets of relativism:
o Relativism is self-contradictory
 No objective moral principles.
 Sets forth a moral principle that is objective.
o Relativism is impractical: You have to believe some things are ok in certain situations
which no one could ever believe, such as the Holocaust.
o Different cultures, different moral codes; this isn’t true, most cultures actually have
similar moral rules. Therefore there must be ethical ideals integrated into each person.
Freedom
 Popular Definition (Freedom) vs. Theological Definition (Free Will)
o Popular definition: the state of having little or no legal or physical restraints upon one’s
actions.
o Theological definition: the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, and so to
perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. A capacity to choose that is
particular to humans.
 Philosophies that Oppose the Notion of Freedom
o Determinism: the idea that all human action is dictated by laws of nature (Isaac Newton).
o Conditioning/Behaviorism: General way of understanding human behavior.
 Classical Conditioning (Elephant) – Ivan Pavlov: a natural reaction in a person
or animal is elicited by an unnatural stimulus.
 Operant Conditioning (Rider) – B. F. Skinner: voluntary actions are manipulated
through a series of rewards and punishments.
Aristotle
 Telos/Teleology: All things have a purpose towards which they strive. For humans, this telos is
eudaimonia, or happiness.
 Character: “Ethos” in Greek. A fairly stable set of attitudes, opinions, and dispositions that result
in fairly stable patterns or ways of acting and reacting. In general, a person’s actions determine
their character, and their character determines their actions.
 Parts of a Human Being
o Rational (Rider): Reason. Distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.
o Non-Rational (Elephant):
 Appetitive: various appetites, desires, and emotions that a human feels.
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 Vegetative: controls a person’s involuntary actions.
Habituation: by repeatedly doing a certain action, we become habituated to do that activity.
Practice makes permanent.
The Four Major Character Types
o Virtuous: knows what is right, do it, and feel good about it.
o Continent: knows what is right, does it, and does not feel good about it.
o Incontinent: knows what is right, doesn’t do it, and does not feel good about it.
o Vicious/Self-Indulgent: doesn’t know what is right, doesn’t do what is right, feels good
about it.
The Golden Mean: the virtuous person will try to steer an intermediate or mean course between
two extremes. This intermediate way of feeling and acting is a “virtue,” and the two extremes on
either side of this intermediate are “vices.”
Know Yourself: one should come to “know thyself” and learn to avoid those vices to which he or
she is particularly prone.
The Bent Stick Remedy: A person who finds themselves indulging in a certain vice should try to
go completely on the other end of that virtue to the other vice. Just as if one whishes to straighten
out a bent stick, he or she will have to bend it all the way back in the opposite direction before it
will straighten. Hopefully in doing so, a person will find the Golden Mean.
Media as Conditioning/Behaviorism
 “General Principles of Media Literacy”
o All media are constructions; they don’t always reflect reality, but try to look as though
they do.
o The media construct reality; much of our model of reality comes from the media we've
seen, or that other people whom we take as models (our parents, our teachers) have seen.
o Audiences negotiate meaning; the worth of effect of media is dependent from person to
person.
o Media have commercial implications; media are often controlled by companies and
therefore need to make a profit in order to succeed.
o Media contain ideological or value messages; the media affirm the world as it is, the
status quo, the received wisdom, whatever is thought of by the media makers as the
consensus. And they become reinforcers of that status quo as a result.
o Media have social and political implications; media has important social and political
effects on our lives together in society and as members of the public because they
construct reality.
o Form and content are closely related; You will get a very different experience of a major
event by reading the newspapers, watching TV, listening to the radio, going A media
literate person asks: What about the form of this medium influences the content?
 “The Merchants of Cool: A Report on the Creators & Marketers of Popular Culture for Teenagers”
o Cool Hunting/Culture Spies: People hired by companies who actively seek out the
trendsetters and what is “cool” in order that it may be used in marketing techniques by
companies.
 Trendsetters/Early Adopters: those who are ahead of the curve and who “set”
what is cool.
o Under-the-Radar Marketing: marketing that isn’t obvious or upfront. Product placement
for example is under-the-radar marketing.
o The Mook: the term used to describe the raunchy, immature, and idiotic caricature that
entertainment/advertising companies have found is most popular with young males.
o The Midriff: the term used to describe the sexualized and appearance-obsessed caricature
that entertainment/advertising companies have found is most popular with young
females.
o The Giant Feedback Loop: the term used to describe the reality whereby, “The media
watches kids and then sells them an image of themselves. Then kids watch those images
and aspire to be [those caricatures] in the TV set. And the media is there watching them
do that, in order to craft new images for them and so on.”
What Difference Does God Make to the Good?
 Natural Law: Belief that God placed in every human being an ability to determine right from
wrong using reason alone.
 Natural Virtues: Aristotelian virtues that assist in the leading of a good life.
 Theological Virtues: Faith, hope, charity (agape). Virtues from God that help to perfect the natural
virtues. We all have the ability to live a good life, and the theological virtues straighten out that
path.
o Faith: belief in God. Freely committing one’s entire self to God. Seeking to know and to
do God’s will.
o Hope: Desiring the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as happiness; placing trust in
Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of
God.
o Charity: Loving God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for
the sake of the love of God.
Immanuel Kant
 Kant vs. Aristotle
o In contrast to Aristotle, Kant believed the pursuit of the happy life was distinct from the
pursuit of a moral life. The life of reason and/or the virtuous life isn’t necessarily a happy
one.
 A Good Will
o Kant believed the telos of humanity to be a good will, in contrast to Aristotle who
believed it to be eudaimonia.
 Deontology: Focus on duty and intentions, not on the context/circumstances,
outcomes/consequences, or even the actions.
 Categorical Imperatives (General)/The Categorical Imperative (Specific)
o General: Moral rules/commands that must be followed by everyone in all situations.
o Specific:
 The Formula of Universal Law: Act only if you wish all people to do the exact
same at the same time. If the world could not cooperate in a correct manner if all
humans were to act in the same way, then do not act in that way.
 Formula of the End in Itself: Act in such a way that you treat humanity as an end
and never simply as a means.
Phillip Zimbardo
 Three Factors that Contribute to Evil:
o Dispositional: “The Bad Apples” – those who are inherently bad.
o Situational: “The Bad Barrel” – Situational factors that could cause a “good apple” to do
evil.
o Systematic: “The Bad Barrel-Makers” – the system that puts people in bad situations.
 Three Possible Responses to Evil
o Perpetrator of Evil: sees the evil and continues to expand upon it and to spread it.
o Passive Inaction: sees the evil and does nothing about it, thereby passively recognizing
that it is ok.
o Hero: the socio-centric everyday people who are willing act when others are passive, to
deviate from the norm, and defend moral principles.
Conscience
 Definition: the instinct within us to do good and avoid evil. The process of actively seeking to see
the truth and to think honestly. “What does God want me to do?” In order to have this, you must
be your own person. Be the man you want to be.
o Superego: not the same as conscience. Superego comes from the outside world and can
lead to good or bad things.
 Responsibility (objective) vs. Culpability (subjective)
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The responsibly of a person is always the same when they have chosen an immoral
action. However, the culpability can change as certain factors change.
The Parts of a Moral (or Immoral) Act
o Object: what you have chosen to do; the concrete action.
o Intention: why you have chosen what to do; often times there are many intentions or
levels of intentions.
o Circumstances are secondary elements that affect the person or the action itself that have
the potential to increase or decrease the culpability of a person in a given situation.
**Morally good actions will have a good object, will be done with the right intentions, and will be
done under proper circumstances.