The secret of happiness is: find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
—Dennett, 2012
Is there such a person?
—Plato, 399 B.C.E.
Week 4 of Ethics is beginning. It marks the halfway point of the Summer Semester coursework. And, I've read a substantial amount of work on theoretical ethics, practical ethics, normative ethics, meta ethics, and applied ethics. At least, those are the categories I recall reading in the blur of text that comprised my previous month.
Are there categories of ethics? There sure are! Here's a sampling to get you thinking:
- Utilitarianism
- Deontology
- Virtue ethics
- Ethics of care
- Egoism
- Religion or divine command theory
- Natural Law
- Social contract theory
- Rawls’s theory of justice
- Moral relativism
Are you intrigued? Are you overwhelmed? If so, maybe start with Borgmann's device paradigm...and question your ethical choices surrounding time spent reading on a wifi-enabled device.
In the interest of sharing, and in the self-serving interest of helping myself grow as a "scholarly" writer, I am posting a recent paper written for my current doctoral level ethics course. Feel free to comment with some focused, global feedback.
For a peek at Week 4's required readings, check out this PDF.