Unit 1 Ethics, Morality and Daily Life I. Read the survey.

Give answers that are true for you. Is it OK to ... 1. 2. 3. . !. $. '. buy copies of designer products like watches and clothes? read a whole magazine in the store without buying it? use an article from the Internet in a class assignment and say you wrote it? keep money that you found in the street? a"oid paying ta#es? buy a %acket& wear it once& and then return it to the store? make copies of ()s or software for your friends? yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no no no no no no no sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes

II. Ethics isnt just a class in universities. ideas with those of your &artner. 'ituation 1

ave you ever !een in situations li"e these# $o%&are your

*here+s a big concert ne#t week& and my fa"orite group is playing. *he theater is "ery small so there weren+t many tickets for sale. I was really lucky and got one ticket for ,2-. .ut now I don+t ha"e enough money to pay my bills this month/ 0y friend really wants to go to the concert& and he says he+ll buy my ticket at any price. (an I sell him my ticket for , -? 'ituation ( I+"e worked as a secretary in a big international company for the last si# years. *he %ob is OK& but my salary is really "ery low compared to similar %obs at other companies. *he good thing about my %ob is that I+m not "ery busy in the afternoon& so I like to make phone calls to my sister and my friends when I don+t ha"e any work to do. 0y sister doesn+t like that though& because she says I+m stealing from the company. 1m I? 'ituation ) I+m an 2nglish teacher at a language institute for business people. 0any of my students will get a promotion in their company if they recei"e a good grade in my class. 2"ery year& some students gi"e me presents for the holidays. *hese are usually small things like candy or a (). 0y students know that this doesn+t influence their grades for the course& but the other teachers say I shouldn+t accept presents from students. 3hat do you think? III. Read the followin* te+t, I now go back to what I said at the end of the first chapter& that there were two odd things about the human race. 4irst& that they were haunted by the idea of a sort of beha"iour they ought to practise& what you might call fair play& or decency& or morality& or the 5aw of 6ature. 7econd& that they did not in fact do so. 89: If you take a thing like a stone or a tree& it is what it is and there seems no sense in saying it ought to ha"e been otherwise. 8...: 6ow ha"e you noticed what follows? It follows that what we usually call the laws of nature ; the way weather works on a tree for e#ample ; may not really be laws in the strict sense& but only in a manner of speaking. 3hen you say that falling stones always obey the law of gra"itation& is not this much the same as saying that the law only means <what stones always do+? 8...: .ut if you turn to the 5aw of =uman 6ature& the 5aw of )ecent .eha"iour& it is a different matter. *hat law certainly does not mean <what human beings& in fact& do+> for as I said before& many of them do not obey this law at all& and none of them obey it completely. 8...: 1

7ome people say that though decent conduct does not mean what pays each particular person at a particular moment& still& it means what pays the human race as a whole> and that conse?uently there is no mystery about it. 8...: .ut as an e#planation of why we feel as we do about @ight and 3rong it %ust misses the point. If we askA <3hy ought I to be unselfish?+ and you reply <.ecause it is good for society&+ we may then ask& <3hy should I care what+s good for society e#cept when it happens to pay me personally?+ and then you will ha"e to say& <.ecause you ought to be unselfish+ ; which simply brings us back to where we started. 8...: 6ot that men are unselfish& not that they like being unselfish& but that they ought to be. *he 0oral 5aw& or 5aw of =uman 6ature& is not simply a fact about human beha"iour in the same way as the 5aw of Bra"itation is& or may be& simply a fact about how hea"y ob%ects beha"e. On the other hand& it is not a mere fancy& for we cannot get rid of the idea& and most of the things we say and think about people would be reduced to nonsense if we did. 1nd it is not simply a statement about how we should like people to beha"e for our own con"enience> for the beha"iour we call bad or unfair is not e#actly the same as the beha"iour we find incon"enient& and may e"en be the opposite. (onse?uently& this @ule of @ight and 3rong& or 5aw of =uman 6ature& or whate"er you call it& must somehow or other be a real thing ; a thing that is really there& not made up by oursel"es. C(. 7. 5ewis& Mere ChristianityD III.1. Match the followin* words fro% the te+t with the correct definitions -there is an e+tra word, which does not corres&ond to any definition., 1 ; haunt> 2 ; decency> 3 ; otherwise> ; make up. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. ; conduct> ! ; ought to> $ ; fancy> ' ; nonsense> E ; con"enience> F

something not real& a product of one+s imagination the manner in which one beha"es an idea& something said or written& or beha"iour that is silly or stupid to cause repeated suffering& worry or an#iety ?uality of being suitable& freedom from trouble or difficulty beha"iour that is good& moral and acceptable in society "erb used to indicate ad"isability or recommendation in another or a different way

III.(. Re&hrase the followin* state%ents so that the %eanin* stays the sa%e. /e &re&ared to !rin* ar*u%ents for0a*ainst each state%ent. a. Geople always knew they should beha"e decently but did not always do so. 1lthough 9 b. *he laws of nature do not in"ol"e any deliberate decision. 6o deliberate decision 9 c. H0orality really comes down to what works best for the largest number of peopleI. It was argued that 9 d. *he fields of ethics and morality o"erlap entirely. *here is 9 e. If standards of morality are not uni"ersal& uni"ersal moral laws cannot be defended either. Jnless 9