The Discussion Board posts are a chance for you to engage me as well as your peers. You are required to submit an original post based on the question/prompt for that Discussion Board as well as a peer response; you should have two posts, minimum.
Please answer one of the following:
1. On page 45, the author claims that Adam Smith supplanted at least one of the roles of God in ethics (that role being the judge of our actions). He supplanted the role of God in ethics by substituting the role of our fellow human beings. While this has the potential to be problematic (imagine you hang out with thugs and reprobates and want them to think highly of you), it is very interesting because people (usually) give us instantaneous feedback. What do you think of the pros and cons of this approach?
2. On page 46 there is a lenghty quote by Hume. In the quote, Hume lists a series of characteristics that are good for people to possess. Among these are caution, enterprise, economy, presence of mind, etc. Are there any he listed that should not be on the list? Before you answer, please do your due diligence when researching what Hume means when he says certain terms. One term he uses is “address,” which in this context means the way you carry yourself in your interactions with others. Try to use real life examples of when these things would be bad.
3. On page 47, when the author is talking about the role of reason, he calls it the “supreme human capacity.” Here is a two part question: is reason the supreme human capacity? If it isn’t, what is? If it is, does that mean someone is somehow wrong (i.e., immoral) for not developing this capacity?
4. The author says, on page 50, “Better to buy the cheap running shows and not think too much about how they got made.” People are often amazed at how inexpensive certain items of clothes are (I mean at a normal store, not at Goodwill or a thrift store), often acting mind-boggled at how a shirt or a pair of jeans/shorts can be so inexpensive. It isn’t a secret and it’s fairly obvious if you think about it; many stores contract their work out to agencies that subcontract that work to agencies that use cheap labor (i.e., sweatshops and child labor). [BTW, this is well-documented and I invite you to research it!] Is this a concern you should have when shopping? When determining what you want to buy to cover your body, what difference does the oppression of a child make, especially one you’ll never meet or even know about? Isn’t a good sale worth it? Is it up to the consumer to know these things, or is ignorance really the best policy here?