This document discusses several concepts related to ethics and moral reasoning, including: - Moral relativism, which is the belief that morality depends on the society and cannot be evaluated outside of cultural contexts. - Self-interest theory, which claims that people are inherently selfish. However, some argue people may receive hidden benefits like praise or feeling good about helping others. - Definitional arguments for self-interest theory, which say that people feel guilty if they don't help others, so helping makes them less selfish, but choices are still selfish by definition. - Utilitarianism, which is the theory that the morally right action is the one that maximizes happiness for the greatest number of people.

1.  Ethics
 Moral reasoning: Individual or collective practical reasoning about what, morally, one
ought to do.
 Moral principles: the principles of right and wrong that are accepted by an individual or a
social group.
 Moral relativism: the belief that morality is relative to the society where it exists and that
its criticism and evaluation are irrelevant.
 Self interest Theory (included 2 of the 4 supports): It is a theory that generally states that
people everywhere are always selfish.
 The hidden benefits argument: people tend to have hidden benefit such as gratitude;
praise and a positive image of themselves-from bring kind to other people. People believe
that if they help someone when they are in trouble, then those people will help them
when they need help. Sometimes people do good things (donate blood or repay the debt)
not to make them feel good about themselves but to enhance their reputation as “good
people.’ Criticism: People leave tips at the restaurants that they might not even going to
visit again and they do not expect anything in return; selfish?
 Definitional Argument: It is at the state that people choose to do something over another
thing just because they feel guilty and believe something that they truly want to do will
make them become selfish, i.e. playing tennis and helping the poor. You want to play
tennis, but you feel guilty and selfish if you don’t help the poor. People have different
taste; it does not mean that people doing good things are less selfish than other who
chooses to live their lives normally. Some people might like to help others or devoted
themselves to the poor, which is what they like so they are also equally selfish as a person
who wants to spend their lives being model/actresses.
 Criticism: Definitional arguments robbed the meaning of “selfish,” which
means that people will tend to be selfish no matter what they do so selfish
is not a word for criticism anymore.
 Utilitarianism: Deceptive simple theory of ethics. It says that there is only one supreme
moral principle- humans should seek the greatest happiness of the greatest number.