Location
Brock University
Document Type
Paper
Start Date
15-5-1997 9:00 AM
End Date
17-5-1997 5:00 PM
Abstract
Critical thinking texts typically treat ethical reasoning as being in principle no different from non-moral types of reasoning. I argue that there are two distinctive types of ethical argument—those which appeal to principles of right and wrong conduct, and those which appeal to consequences—and that they cannot be properly understood or assessed on the basis of non-ethical models of reasoning. The failure to recognize this produces a simplistic understanding of ethical reasoning, and contributes to the view that ethical judgments are mere expressions of personal feelings.
Creative Commons License
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Response to Submission
William Abbott, Commentary on Hughes
Reader's Reactions
William Abbott, Commentary on Hughes (May 1997)
Included in
Why Ethics Should be on the Critical Thinking Syllabus
Brock University
Critical thinking texts typically treat ethical reasoning as being in principle no different from non-moral types of reasoning. I argue that there are two distinctive types of ethical argument—those which appeal to principles of right and wrong conduct, and those which appeal to consequences—and that they cannot be properly understood or assessed on the basis of non-ethical models of reasoning. The failure to recognize this produces a simplistic understanding of ethical reasoning, and contributes to the view that ethical judgments are mere expressions of personal feelings.
