Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Religion

Judith Jarvis Thomson's Defense of Abortion

Judith Jarvis Thomson, in her seminal essay "A Defense of Abortion," begins by granting, for the sake of argument, the premise that a human embryo is a person.

She then challenges the notion that one can effectively argue from this premise to the conclusion that all abortion is morally impermissible.

Thomson asserts that the Basic Argument (a term used by the author of this summary, not Thomson herself) fails to justify the idea that all abortion is morally impermissible.

Thomson's Philosophical Project

The Basic Argument Against Abortion

• The fetus is a person, and every person has a right to life.
• Therefore, the fetus has a right to life.
• The mother has a right to decide what happens in and to her body.
• But

1. Killed an Egyptian and cut a person’s life short, so his life is cut short. Moses strikes the rock more than once to make sure he’s doing it right because he messed up so many times and wants to make sure.

Moses sends 12 spies to find out their weaknesses.

Moses' successor: Joshua

2. Rahab; width

She provides shelter and food. She hides two spies in her house because Canaanite soldiers come for them.

Tells her to put a red ribbon outside her house to not get killed.

Her fate: safety of her and her children.

Not sure why she takes them in, but it's guessed it is because she was abused by Canaanites.

3. Surrounds the Canaanites. Starve them out. Walls originally supposed to protect, now a trap.

Ark of Covenant - circling the city with it. God is...

Key Terms in Catholic Moral Teaching

• Human Dignity: The value and worth that we share because God created us in His image and likeness.
• Modesty: The virtue by which we think, speak, act, and dress in ways that show respect for ourselves and others.
• Chastity: The virtue by which we use our human sexuality in a responsible and faithful way.
• Moral Decision Making: The process by which we make choices between right and wrong, good and evil, eternal life and sin; for any act to be morally good, its object (nature), intention (purpose), and circumstances (consequences or results) must all be good.
• Natural Law: The law of God within us, which is known by human reason.
• Justice: Respecting the rights of others and giving them what is rightfully theirs; a

Ancient Greek Political Origins

Ancient history.

Western political philosophy has its origins in ancient Greek society, when city-states were experimenting with various forms of political organization (monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy).

Plato's Republic and Justice

Plato's Republic is his best known work. In it, Socrates and various Athenians discuss the meaning of justice.

Aristotle's Politics and Community

In Aristotle's Politics, Aristotle concludes that a man is by nature a political animal. According to Aristotle, the community or city is prior to the individual: they place the well-being of the community above the well-being of the individual.

In the Greek world, citizens identified strongly with the city they belonged to, and exile...

Passions in Christian Morality

In the context of Christian morality, the passions are the feelings, emotions, or impulses of the natural sensibility—components of human psychology—which tend to act or not act in view of what is perceived as good or as bad. The primary passions are love and hate, desire and fear, joy, sadness, and anger. The fundamental passion is love, caused by the attractiveness of the good. One can only love what is good, whether that good is real or apparent.

The Role of Moral Conscience

Moral conscience, present in the depths of the person, is a judgment of reason which, in due course, urges a person to do good and avoid evil. Through it, the human person perceives the moral quality of an act to be performed or one already...

The Baptism in the Jordan and the Ministry of Jesus

The Gospels emphasize the significance of baptism within the narrative of Jesus, helping us understand why He chose this path.

1. Religious Streams of Judaism in Jesus' Time

During the time of Jesus, religious life in Israel was dominated by two primary groups:

• The Pharisees: Representing the middle and upper-middle classes, their religious focus was the scrupulous observance of the Law.
• The Sadducees: The aristocratic and conservative priestly class, who held significant power and influence within the Jerusalem Temple.

2. The Baptism Preached by John

Many preachers and "baptists" of the era invited people to a baptism of purification as a sign of conversion and hope. The uniqueness of John the Baptist...

Item 4: The Rise of Medieval Universities

In the thirteenth century, the city grew, and the bourgeoisie emerged within a social organization that included nobility, soldiers, and servants. As cities advanced, cathedrals and universities arose. During this time, the Church held significant influence, as the Middle Ages were dominated by supernatural beliefs, superstition, and magic. However, the sacredness of the Church and the mendicant orders allowed them to conquer universities, organs of power, and address heresies. The Church organized Crusades to conquer the Holy Land, which facilitated an information exchange between Islam and Europe and led to the rediscovery of ancient Greek culture and Aristotelian philosophy.

The Structure of Medieval

Víctor Català: The Life of Caterina Albert i Paradís

Víctor Català, the pseudonym of Caterina Albert i Paradís, was born in 1869 in L'Escala. She was the firstborn daughter of a wealthy landowning family. Her father was a lawyer who stood out in local politics prematurely and died in 1890, forcing his daughter to assume the role of head of household and family income administrator at just over 20 years old. Attaching great importance to her social and family obligations, she occasionally prioritized them over her literary vocation.

This attitude justifies the use of the pseudonym Víctor Català, which hid her true status as a woman, as it was not well accepted by the conservative society of the 19th century. We must remember the scandal...

Nihilism and the Death of God

The Genesis of Nihilism

The widespread notion that the decline of philosophy does not mean one should ignore the various philosophical theories of the past, or try to substitute other ideas, ultimately seeks an in-depth examination of the shift from philosophy. To see that this mode, involved in the genesis of language that governed culture and common European customs, justifies the examination and appraisal of that genealogy. This leads to the realization that the search for the permanent is insufficient to express life.

Knowledge of the truth is unsatisfactory; its adoption, ingrained in old Judeo-Christianity, reinforces this. This means that the language included nothing definite or scientific, as there is no...

Sartre's Concept of Human Nature

Sartre's Existentialist Project: Sartre considers that human nature is not fixed or predetermined. He holds that there are no possible characteristics or comparisons that define human beings beforehand. He defends that human beings are originally nothing; only their choices and actions make up their personality.

However, there is one thing common to all of human nature, which we all call the human condition. Sartre introduces the concept of the human condition, which are the limits that all people face in the world. These are the following boundaries:

• Being cast into the world
• Having to work
• Living in the midst of others
• Being mortal

The Four Inevitable Facts of Human Life

Every individual must confront these experiences,...