Reading Questions for “Value Theory” and “Ethics”

As you read the sections “Value Theory” and “Ethics,” use the following questions to guide you. You won’t be asked to turn in your answers to these questions, but these questions, or questions very similar to them, may appear on a quiz – and you will be allowed to use your notes, including your answers to these questions, on the quiz.

1. Suppose you and I are discussing a person. What might be a descriptive characterization of this person? What might be an evaluative characterization of this person?

2. How do disputes about descriptive characterizations differ from disputes about evaluative characterizations?

3. What is value theory?

4. What is aesthetics?

5. What is ethics?

6. What’s the difference between applied ethics and theoretical ethics?

7. What is relativism?

8. What is consequentialism?

9. What is deontology?

Continue to the reading.