1. Philosophy for Dummies Reading Guide, Chapter 8 p. 1
Name: Due Date: Block:
Philosophy for Dummies by Tom Morris, Reading Guide
Please write your answers clearly. Have this waiting on the top left corner of your desk the day it is due. When this is
returned, put it in your notebook under “reading guide” in proper page order.
Chapter 8
1. What kind of people does ethical living produce?
2. What is morality about?
3. What does Morris suggest about morality and freedom?
4. Morris says of the divine command theory that when we say the decrees of God themselves are good, we use the
term good in a “logically empty sense that they (the decrees) conform to themselves.” What does this mean?
5. Morris proposes (in a very short paragraph) a divine nature theory that he says suffers from one of the same
problems that the divine command theory suffers. What is the problem?
6. Fill in this chart about the social contract theory:
Good Bad (problems)
7. Fill in this chart utilitarianism:
Good Bad (problems)
8. What is the difference between act-utilitarians and rule-utilitarians?
9. What is the deontological theory?
10. What is the sociobiological theory?
11. What is virtue theory?