IGNOU MPYE 002 Solved Assignment 2022-23 Free PDF : MPYE 002 Solved Assignment 2022 , MPYE 002 Solved Assignment 2022-23, MPYE 002 Assignment 2022-23, MPYE 002 Assignment, IGNOU Assignments 2022-23- Gandhi National Open University had recently uploaded the assignments of the present session for MEG Programme for the year 2022-23. Students are recommended to download their Assignments from this webpage itself.

1. What is discourse ethics? Evaluate the rules of argumentation in discourse ethics given by Habermass.

Ans. Habermas’s discourse ethics is his attempt to explain the implications of communicative rationality in the sphere of moral insight and normative validity. It is a complex theoretical effort to reformulate the fundamental insights of Kantian deontological ethics in terms of the analysis of communicative structures. This means that it is an attempt to explain the universal and obligatory nature of morality by evoking the universal obligations of communicative rationality. It is also a cognitivist moral theory, which means it holds that justifying the validity of moral norms can be done in a manner analogous to the justification of facts. However, the entire project is undertaken as a rational reconstruction of moral insight. It claims only to reconstruct the implicit normative orientations that guide individuals and it claims to access these through an analysis of communication.

Public discourse ethics

This type of ethics consists of conversations about ideas in civic or community contexts marked by diversity of perspectives requiring thoughtful public engagement. This discourse is made up of differing insights that helps to shape the public’s engagement with one another. This type of discourse is meant to protect and to promote the public good. For public discourse ethics to be successful there must be an effective level of civility between people or persons involved. It was Sigmund Freud who once said, “civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock” and that statement is something that continues to be seen in society today. The Harvard Law Review accurately examines public discourse and explains it in a manner that is appropriate and conceptually accurate. “Every man who publishes a book commits himself to the judgement of the public, and anyone may comment upon his performance….Whatever their merits, others have a right to pass their judgement upon them-to censure them if they be censurable, and to turn them into ridicule if they be ridiculous”. For the public discourse ethics to be productive there must be accountability on the public stage as the Harvard Law Review calls into question. Without any act of accountability the ethicality of the discourse is no longer valid and cannot go on. Public accountability consists of three basic factors. The factors are:

• a diversity of ideas,
• an engagement of public decision making,
  and finally
• an account for continuing a practice or way of doing something or a means or reason for changing the practice.

Finally, public discourse ethics puts a great responsibility on the individual. They must continually be asking questions and finding answers. They will not always be right, and that is okay, as long as they are able to make a positive decision in the end.

2. What are the objections of Karl-Otto Apel against previous moral theories? Discuss.

Ans. Cognitivist ethics claims to use reason to show the validity of moral norms. However, it is a widely held view that objective facts and the laws of logic and mathematics are inter subjectively valid, but that the situation is different when it comes to values. No chance for a universal ethics. This would be a great dilemma since the rehabilitation and transformation of practical reason seems particularly urgent today. Ethics can no longer be a matter of face-to-face encounters only but must be rethought on a larger scale: it must take into account ‘globalisation’, the new situation we face in today’s world, whether we like it or not. This includes all issues concerning humanity as a whole, such as ecological problems as well as the continuing threat of weapons of mass destruction on the one hand, but also extensive world trade links and world-wide communication on the other hand.

Apel regards globalisation as “an irreversible fact”, which has taken place “ahead of our reflection”, and “a challenge”. He argues that though “it’s fashionable to be modest as a philosopher”, boldness is what the situation requires: “Philosophy should take the lead” in answering to this challenge.

Apel’s philosophy like Eminent learning and thorough knowledge of a great variety of philosophical literature are characteristic of his work. In his main publication, The Transformation of Philosophy, he takes inspiration from philosophers as diverse as Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Kant and Pierce. However, he engages with many other thinkers in the course of the book. This makes his work rich in philosophical content, but unfortunately also rather difficult to read, as he is expecting his readers to follow him through a jungle of professional jargon and a extensive maze of footnotes. Apel seems to move with ease in the terminology of these other authors, involving them in the genesis of his thought. He does this not only in order to frame his principal ideas but to act on them. Inspired by Pierce, Apel is convinced that philosophy emerges in a ‘communication community’ of philosophers, in the ‘argumentative discourse’ between thinkers, it is not the product of a thinker’s solitary quest for truth. He thinks it is important to involve philosophers in this endless discourse, even those who intended their work to be a monologue. It is only through such a ‘transformation of philosophy’ that philosophy acquires its proper form, in which it may do justice to the discursive character of the human context in which we live: As far as our environment discloses itself to us in language, human beings are compelled to use language to try to reach a consensus by argumentation. As practiced within the community of philosophers, philosophy may also serve as a model for political and scientific discourse.

Apel’s transformation of philosophy importantly refers to a transformation of ‘transcendental philosophy’, in other words it deals with the conditions necessary for knowledge to be possible. While Kant related this problem to human consciousness, to Apel it is communication, language in general, which is fundamental and necessary to it. In order to establish the possibility and validity of communication, a ‘transcendental language game’ in an ideal ‘communication community’ beyond all concrete language games has to be assumed. This theory includes the recognition of a principle of ‘communicative ethics’.

Apel’s ‘discourse ethics’ comprises two parts. While the first part deals with an ideal situation, part two is designed to examine the question of “how to act under non-ideal conditions’”. This includes the problems of how to respond to institutions, and how to act in the face of the functional restraints of the legal, political and economic system. Apel distinguishes between three different levels on which we operate when dealing with institutions. The most hopeful is a level ‘outside the institutions’, which empowers individuals to bring about political change. Here we are free to communicate and act as what Kant called ‘the reasoning public’. Today it is a global reasoning public.

3. Give answer of any two questions in about 250 words each. 

a) Evaluate the idea of war in the light of Deontology and Utilitarianism. 

Ans. Because deontological theories are best understood in contrast to consequentialist ones, a brief look at consequentialism and a survey of the problems with it that motivate its deontological opponents, provides a helpful prelude to taking up deontological theories themselves. Consequentialists hold that choices—acts and/or intentions—are to be morally assessed solely by the states of affairs they bring about. Consequentialists thus must specify initially the states of affairs that are intrinsically valuable—often called, collectively, “the Good.” They then are in a position to assert that whatever choices increase the Good, that is, bring about more of it, are the choices that it is morally right to make and to execute. (The Good in that sense is said to be prior to “the Right.”)

Consequentialists can and do differ widely in terms of specifying the Good. Some consequentialists are monists about the Good. Utilitarians, for example, identify the Good with pleasure, happiness, desire satisfaction, or “welfare” in some other sense. Other consequentialists are pluralists regarding the Good. Some of such pluralists believe that how the Good is distributed among persons (or all sentient beings) is itself partly constitutive of the Good, whereas conventional utilitarians merely add or average each person’s share of the Good to achieve the Good’s maximization.

Moreover, there are some consequentialists who hold that the doing or refraining from doing, of certain kinds of acts are themselves intrinsically valuable states of affairs constitutive of the Good. An example of this is the positing of rights not being violated, or duties being kept, as part of the Good to be maximized—the so-called “utilitarianism of rights”.

None of these pluralist positions erase the difference between consequentialism and deontology. For the essence of consequentialism is still present in such positions: an action would be right only insofar as it maximizes these Good-making states of affairs being caused to exist.

b) What do you understand by Right to Life? Discuss the idea of dignified life in the context of cultural relativism and realism. 

Ans. Culture is the beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics shared by groups of people. Given this, someone could very well say that they are influenced by internet culture, rather than an ethnicity or a society! Culture could be based on shared ethnicity, gender, customs, values, or even objects. Can you think of any cultural objects, Some cultures place significant value in things such as ceremonial artifacts, jewelry, or even clothing. For example, Christmas trees can be considered ceremonial or cultural objects. They are representative in both Western religious and commercial holiday culture.

In addition, culture can also demonstrate the way a group thinks, their practices, or behavioral patterns, or their views of the world. For example, in some countries like China, it is acceptable to stare at others in public, or to stand very close to others in public spaces. In South Africa, if you board a nearly empty bus or enter a nearly empty movie theater, it is regarded as polite to sit next to the only person there. On the other hand, in a recent study of Greyhound bus trips in the US, a researcher found that the greatest unspoken rule of bus-taking is that if other seats are available, one should never sit next to another person. Numerous passengers expressed that “it makes you look weird”. These are all examples of cultural norms that people in one society may be used to. Norms that you are used to are neither right nor wrong, just different. Picture walking into a nearly empty movie theater when visiting another country, and not sitting next to the only person in the theater. Another person walks up and tells you off for being rude. You, not used to these norms, feel confused, and anxious. This disorientation you feel is an example of culture shock.

4. Give answer of any four questions in about 150 words each. 

a) Write a note on the D. Ross’s idea of human duties.

Ans. The moral order…is just as much part of the fundamental nature of the universe (and…of any possible universe in which there are moral agents at all) as is the spatial or numerical structure expressed in the axioms of geometry or arithmetic.

Thus, according to Ross, the claim that something is good is true if that thing really is good. Ross also agreed with G.E. Moore’s claim that any attempt to define ethical statements solely in terms of statements about the natural world commits the naturalistic fallacy. Furthermore, the terms “right” and “good” are indefinable. This means not only that they cannot be defined in terms of natural properties but also that it is not possible to define one in terms of the other.

Ross rejected Moore’s consequentialist ethics. According to consequentialist theories, what people ought to do is determined only by whether their actions will bring about the best. By contrast, Ross argues that maximising the good is only one of several prima facie duties (prima facie obligations) which play a role in determining what a person ought to do in any given case.

Duties

In The Right and the Good, Ross lists seven prima facie duties, without claiming his list to be all-inclusive: fidelity; reparation; gratitude; justice; beneficence; non-maleficence; and self-improvement. In any given situation, any number of these prima facie duties may apply. In the case of ethical dilemmas, they may even contradict one another. Someone could have a prima facie duty of reparation, say, a duty to help people who helped you move house, move house themselves, and a prima facie duty of fidelity, such as taking your children on a promised trip to the park, and these could conflict. Nonetheless, there can never be a true ethical dilemma, Ross would argue, because one of the prima facie duties in a given situation is always the weightiest, and over-rules all the others. This is thus the absolute obligation or absolute duty, the action that the person ought to perform.

It is frequently argued, however, that Ross should have used the term “pro tanto” rather than “prima facie”. Shelly Kagan, for example, wrote:

It may be helpful to note explicitly that in distinguishing between pro tanto and prima facie reasons I depart from the unfortunate terminology proposed by Ross, which has invited confusion and misunderstanding. I take it that – despite his misleading label – it is actually pro tanto reasons that Ross has in mind in his discussion of what he calls prima facie duties.

Explaining the difference between pro tanto and prima facie, Kagan wrote: “A pro tanto reason has genuine weight, but nonetheless may be outweighed by other considerations. Thus, calling a reason a pro tanto reason is to be distinguished from calling it a prima facie reason, which I take to involve an epistemological qualification: a prima facie reason appears to be a reason, but may actually not be a reason at all.”

b) Write a note on Cultural Relativism.

Ans. Cultural relativism is the idea that a person’s beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person’s own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated using the norms and values of another. It was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: “civilization is not something absolute, but … is relative, and … our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes.” However, Boas did not coin the term.

The first use of the term recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary was by philosopher and social theorist Alain Locke in 1924 to describe Robert Lowie’s “extreme cultural relativism,” found in the latter’s 1917 book Culture and Ethnology. The term became common among anthropologists after Boas’ death in 1942, to express their synthesis of a number of ideas he had developed. Boas believed that the sweep of cultures, to be found in connection with any subspecies, is so vast and pervasive that there cannot be a relationship between culture and race. Cultural relativism involves specific epistemological and methodological claims. Whether or not these claims necessitate a specific ethical stance is a matter of debate. The popularization of cultural relativism after World War II was somehow a reaction to such historical events as Nazism, and to colonialism, ethnocentrism and racism more generally.

c) Write a note on the social responsibility of media. 

Ans. Social responsibility means that businesses, in addition to maximizing shareholder value, must act in a manner benefiting society, not just the bottom line. Social responsibility has become increasingly important to investors and consumers who seek investments that not only are profitable but also contribute to the welfare of society and the environment. While critics have traditionally argued that the basic nature of business does not consider society as a stakeholder, younger generations are embracing social responsibility and driving change.

• Social responsibility means that besides maximizing shareholder value, businesses should operate in a way that benefits society.
• Socially responsible companies should adopt policies that promote the well-being of society and the environment while lessening negative impacts on them.
• Companies can act responsibly in many ways, such as by promoting volunteering, making changes that benefit the environment, engaging in ethical labor practices, and engaging in charitable giving.
• Consumers are more actively looking to buy goods and services from socially responsible companies, hence impacting their profitability.
• Critics assert that practicing social responsibility is the opposite of why businesses exist.

d) Write a note on MacIntyre’s virtue ethics. 

Ans. MacIntyre is a key figure in the recent surge of interest in virtue ethics, which identifies the central question of morality as having to do with the habits and knowledge concerning how to live a good life. His approach seeks to demonstrate that good judgment emanates from good character. Being a good person is not about seeking to follow formal rules. In elaborating this approach, MacIntyre understands himself to be reworking the Aristotelian idea of an ethical teleology.

MacIntyre emphasises the importance of moral goods defined in respect to a community engaged in a ‘practice’ – which he calls ‘internal goods’ or ‘goods of excellence’ – rather than focusing on practice-independent obligation of a moral agent (deontological ethics) or the consequences of a particular act (utilitarianism). Before its recent resurgence, virtue ethics in European/American academia had been primarily associated with pre-modern philosophers (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas). MacIntyre has argued that Aquinas’ synthesis of Augustinianism with Aristotelianism is more insightful than modern moral theories by focusing upon the telos (‘end’, or completion) of a social practice and of a human life, within the context of which the morality of acts may be evaluated. His seminal work in the area of virtue ethics can be found in his 1981 book, After Virtue.

MacIntyre intends the idea of virtue to supplement, rather than replace, moral rules. Indeed, he describes certain moral rules as ‘exceptionless’ or unconditional. MacIntyre considers his work to be outside “virtue ethics” due to his affirmation of virtues as embedded in specific, historically grounded, social practices.

5. Write short notes on any five in about 100 words each. 

a) Panchasila

Ans. The Five Principles, as stated in the Sino–Indian Agreement 1954, are listed as:

• mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,
• mutual non-aggression,
• mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs,
• equality and co-operation for mutual benefit, and
• peaceful co-existence

These principles are a strict interpretation of the Westphalian norms of state sovereignty.

The panchsheel agreement served as one of the most important relation build between India and China to further the economic and security cooperation. An underlying assumption of the Five Principles was that newly independent states after decolonization would be able to develop a new and more principled approach to international relations.

According to V. V. Paranjpe, an Indian diplomat and expert on China, the principles of Panchsheel were first publicly formulated by Zhou Enlai — “While receiving the Indian delegation to the Tibetan trade talks on Dec. 31, 1953  he enunciated them as “five principles governing China’s relations with foreign countries.” Then in a joint statement in Delhi on 18 June 1954, the principles were emphasized by the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Premier Zhou Enlai in a broadcast speech made at the time of the Asian Prime Ministers Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka just a few days after the signing of the Sino-Indian treaty in Beijing. Nehru went so far as to say: “If these principles were recognized in the mutual relations of all countries, then indeed there would hardly be any conflict and certainly no war.” It has been suggested that the five principles had partly originated as the five principles of the Indonesian state. In June 1945 Sukarno, the Indonesian nationalist leader, had proclaimed five general principles, or pancasila, on which future institutions were to be founded. Indonesia became independent in 1949.

b) Svadharma 

Ans. Svadharma In Hinduism, one’s own right, duty, or nature; one’s own role in the social and cosmic order. Svadharma is relative to one’s caste and stage of life (cf. varṇāśramadharma), and to one’s situation (cf. āpaddharma). Svadharma or relative dharma often conflicts with sādhāraṇa dharma, universal dharma, or sanātana dharma, absolute or eternal dharma. For example, to kill is a violation of eternal dharma, yet a warrior’s svadharma (own duty, nature) is to kill.

Swadharma, meaning one’s own Dharma, is derived from the words Swa meaning for oneself and Dharma. Swadharma has been explained as the lawful conduct of oneself based on one’s ability. It requires one to be aware of one’s strengths, abilities and weaknesses. The idea of Swadharma is emphasised in the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita states that if one accepts Swadharma, the actions that one performs becomes effortless. This is because the ability to perform these actions come naturally and the complexity of the task is not an impediment. The Bhagavad Gita also says that it is better to perish while performing Swadharma rather than perform actions that should be performed by others. This is because one will perform one’s Swadharma with great conviction but such conviction is not guaranteed when doing someone else’s Dharma.

c) Distributive Justice 

Ans. In social psychology, distributive justice is defined as perceived fairness of how rewards and costs are shared by (distributed across) group members. For example, when some workers work more hours but receive the same pay, group members may feel that distributive justice has not occurred. To determine whether distributive justice has taken place, individuals often turn to the behavioral expectations of their group. If rewards and costs are allocated according to the designated distributive norms of the group, distributive justice has occurred.

Five types of distributive norm are defined by Donelson R. Forsyth

1. Equality: Regardless of their inputs, all group members should be given an equal share of the rewards/costs. Equality supports that someone who contributes 20% of the group’s resources should receive as much as someone who contributes 60%.
2. Equity: Members’ outcomes should be based upon their inputs. Therefore, an individual who has invested a large amount of input (e.g. time, money, energy) should receive more from the group than someone who has contributed very little. Members of large groups prefer to base allocations of rewards and costs on equity
3. Power: Those with more authority, status, or control over the group should receive more than those in lower level positions.
4. Need: Those in greatest needs should be provided with resources needed to meet those needs. These individuals should be given more resources than those who already possess them, regardless of their input.
5. Responsibility: Group members who have the most should share their resources with those who have less.

d) Situation Ethics 

Ans. Situation ethics

The right thing to do depends on the situation

In situation ethics, right and wrong depend upon the situation.

There are no universal moral rules or rights – each case is unique and deserves a unique solution.

Situation ethics rejects ‘prefabricated decisions and prescriptive rules’. It teaches that ethical decisions should follow flexible guidelines rather than absolute rules, and be taken on a case by case basis.

So a person who practices situation ethics approaches ethical problems with some general moral principles rather than a rigorous set of ethical laws and is prepared to give up even those principles if doing so will lead to a greater good.

e) Deontology 

Ans. Deontology is an ethical theory that says actions are good or bad according to a clear set of rules.

Its name comes from the Greek word deon, meaning duty. Actions that align with these rules are ethical, while actions that don’t aren’t. This ethical theory is most closely associated with German philosopher, Immanuel Kant.

His work on personhood is an example of deontology in practice. Kant believed the ability to use reason was what defined a person.

From an ethical perspective, personhood creates a range of rights and obligations because every person has inherent dignity – something that is fundamental to and is held in equal measure by each and every person.

This dignity creates an ethical ‘line in the sand’ that prevents us from acting in certain ways either toward other people or toward ourselves (because we have dignity as well). Most importantly, Kant argues that we may never treat a person merely as a means to an end (never just as a resource or instrument).

 

 

 

 

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