Following are the main learning objectives from the chapter. To help you coordinate your studies, these objectives are organized into sub-sections (12-1, 12-2, etc.) and listed with the relevant page numbers from the textbook.
Objective 12-1
(See page(s) 448-452)
Recognize the special nature of moral reasoning.
Know that moral reasoning concerns itself with nonfactual value judgments.
Define value judgments.
Objective 12-2
(See page(s) 452-457)
Be familiar with the general characteristics of moral arguments.
Differentiate sharply between factual claims and value judgments and see how they work together in moral reasoning.
Understand how the naturalistic fallacy arises in moral arguments and how it is to be prevented.
Recognize the ultimate appeal to consistency and fairness in every species of moral reasoning.
Objective 12-3
(See page(s) 459-469)
See, learn, and know the major philosophical perspectives on what moral reasoning is and why it works.
Be able to define moral relativism and subjectivism and differentiate both of them from the anthropological fact of cultural pluralism.
Learn the definition and the basic argumentative strategy of utilitarianism.
Know what deontology is and how Kantian duty theory analyzes moral obligation.
Be able to explain how divine command theory finds a place in moral reasoning alongside the other theories.
Understand what virtue theory is and the crucial points at which it deviates from other moral theories.
Objective 12-4
(See page(s) 469-473)
Know what makes legal reasoning resemble moral reasoning but also which characteristics are unique to each one.
Understand the special nature of legal principles and how they compare to moral principles.
Know the meanings of the four kinds of grounds one might give for justifying a law: legal moralism, the harm principle, legal paternalism, and the offense principle.
Recognize the special role that appeals to precedent play in legal reasoning: be able to explain stare decisis.
Objective 12-5
(See page(s) 473-481)
Become familiar with the defining characteristics of aesthetic reasoning and the methods unique to arguments in aesthetics.
Learn the eight aesthetic principles most often adduced in discussions of art.
Realize that sometimes more than one of these eight principles might be at work in a single argument, but that while these principles might be consistent with one another it is also possible for them to conflict.
Be sensitive to the controversies over what aesthetic arguments mean, controversies parallel in some ways to those concerning moral reasoning but divergent from them in other ways.
