Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and exercises for Philosophy and ethics for University

Thomas Pogge identifies three primary areas of concern: 1. International justice, 2. International ethics, and 3. The rights of nations.

Two Approaches to Moral Justice

There are two distinct ways to approach the problems of moral justice:

• Interactive Analysis: This focuses on the actions and effects produced by individual and collective agents. It looks for flaws within the agents and their relationships.
• Institutional Moral Analysis: This examines the effects of how our social world is structured, including our laws, conventions, social institutions, and practices. We look for flaws in the rules and institutional designs.

Intra-national and Inter-national Perspectives

• Intra-national: A world inhabited by people, families, corporations, and associations

Nietzsche's Will to Power: Truth, Error, and Epistemology

The bottom line is no longer whether a judgment is true or false, but whether or not it is conducive to life, if it preserves life, if it makes life bigger. Human logic serves to equalize, stabilize, and take an overall view. To be determined by its appearance is only useful to assert and settle within constant change.

The truth is just an appearance that strengthens our perspective, imposed by custom, but it would still be a mistake.

This is the essential meaning of the radical nature of Nietzsche's thought, which he calls the Will to Power. This justifies error as a necessary condition for the affirmation of life. The Will to Power is, therefore, the will to appearance, even illusion,...

The Sacrament of Marriage

"The family is at the center of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and what is opposed to love."

The sacrament of marriage takes this for the other: to be the sacrament of something that already exists in the economy of creation, be the same conjugal covenant instituted by the Creator at the beginning.

Marriage is, according to the will of the Creator, a res sacra. Also among the non-baptized, marriages are, in the natural order, a sacred reality.

It requires: "Enter only one man and one woman."

The Nature of Law and Right

The law, as all social reality, is subject to the law of change.

Any human law reflects the physiognomy of the author, be it individual, corporation, or a nation....

Karl Marx's Core Philosophy and Influences

Key Influences on Marx's Thought

The most important influences in the thinking of Marx derived from several key sources:

• German idealist philosophy, especially Hegel.
• The materialism of Feuerbach.
• French utopian socialism.
• Great capitalist economic theorists such as David Ricardo and Adam Smith.

Major Works

In his extensive body of work, notable productions include: The Holy Family, The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, and Capital.

Materialism vs. Idealism

Against idealist philosophy—which he viewed as speculative, merely theoretical, or false ideology—Marx proclaimed a materialist philosophy: one that was useful, responsible, efficient, and committed to changing the world.

Marx's thought stems from...

Understanding Lease Agreements

In this type of contract, the lessor grants the use of an asset in exchange for a fee, without transferring ownership.

The tenant agrees to pay the stipulated price and has the obligation to return the property upon the termination of the contract.

This contract may apply to movable or immovable property. Real estate is subject to specific legislation depending on whether the property is rustic (governed by the Law of Leases of December 31, 1980) or urban (governed by the Tenancies Act of November 23, 1994). This text focuses on the latter.

Key Characteristics of Urban Real Estate Leases

The law distinguishes between contracts based on their purpose:

• Housing: Property leased as a primary residence for the tenant or

St. Augustine: Natural Law and Universalism

St. Augustine posits that Christianity is rooted in universalism, asserting that all individuals are equal under one Lord. The distinction between Jew and Greek is abolished, and the faithful are called to complete submission to political authorities, respecting all existing pagan hierarchies.

Eschatology and the Two Cities

Eschatology, the doctrine concerning the afterlife, operates on two levels: nature and grace. The human process of seeking truth brings the soul closer to God. The degradation of human nature necessitates the natural grace of God, a concept supported by the early chapters of Genesis.

Augustine describes two contrasting cities: the City of God (the saints) and the City of Man (the wicked)

Overcoming Nihilism in Nietzsche

The ongoing development of art is linked to the duplicity of the Apollonian and Dionysian. These trends have been perpetuated in the tragic play by creating a fruitful antithesis. However, the tragic feeling is not the pessimism attributed to the Greeks or Socrates; rather, we can define it as the Dionysian affirmation of life in all its aspects, from the most sublime to the hardest.

The problem is that the Dionysian value is being subjugated by the Apollonian, which has led to nihilism. Nihilism signifies the denial of self and life. This thinking has influenced Western thought, leading to a series of errors based on the dominance of Apollo over Dionysus:

• Platonism: Views the world as true only for the pious,

Core Elements of a State

The territory consists mainly of three elements:

• People
• Land
• Land Law or Power

The People as a State Component

The People, as a component of the state, refers to the Electoral Village as a whole—those who can exercise the right to vote. Subjects bound to the state by a political and legal bond are linked by Nationality, making them subject to the decisions of that state's legal system.

Sovereignty Defined

Sovereignty is the inherent right of every state to make its own decisions.

Territorial Theories

Uti Possidetis Juris Theory

"What was, is"—this principle holds that I possess that of which I have legal title. When independent American states, such as Venezuela, were created, each state was established within a given territory...

Hume's Empiricism and the Problem of Causality

For Empiricism, it is impossible to have experience of a thing that has not happened. David Hume uses the example of the billiard balls to show that we cannot establish a necessary relationship between two successive events in terms of cause and effect. Causality is a product entirely unjustified in our mind, which acts guided by Custom (or Habit).

The Role of Habit and Custom

Example: Thinking that whenever there are dark clouds, rain is necessarily coming is a product of habit. However, the fact that this has happened often does not justify the belief that it will happen forever.

The Association of Ideas

Hume argues that if ideas were completely detached and unconnected, they could only be joined...

The Transcendental Dialectic: Reason's Illusion

The Transcendental Dialectic is the central theme of Kant's critical philosophy. Here, Kant begins to resolve the problem of the transcendental illusion by analyzing the subjective principles of pure reason.

The Three Faculties of Knowledge

This section addresses the third faculty of our knowledge: Reason. All knowledge stems from the senses, is processed through the understanding, and culminates in reason. Reason has two primary uses: logical and pure.

Logical and Pure Uses of Reason

By logical reason, we minimize the multiplicity of empirical knowledge provided by the understanding. Logically, there are three types of reasoning:

• Categorical
• Hypothetical
• Disjunctive

Reason produces three corresponding...