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Glossary of terms used on this site or otherwise helpful terms. The first definition listed after each word is the meaning I intend unless it is clear from the context that I mean one of the other definitions. I have listed good definitions for each word and, for fun, I have in some cases listed some bad, rhetorical meanings that some people use. Of course, it is sometimes wrong to use rhetorical definitions because they:

· Create confusion and blur important distinctions.

· Manipulate an audience into conclusions via definition.

· Create apathy and cynicism about the uses of language and arguments.

Absolute

1. a rule that cannot be outweighed by any other claim

2. having 100 percent probability of being true

3. always or never the case

Absurd

1. the clash between being both object and observer in our lives and being amused by, unhappy with, or in disagreement with the clash or results

2. in conflict with powerful human desires for justice, attachment, purpose, immortality, and understanding

3. ludicrous

4. the realization that what we attach great value may be little more than vanity

5. individual having a chasm between his beliefs and actions; or between his beliefs and the facts, often to the point of being a fool or demagogue or both

6. individual who pretends to have qualities he lacks

7. the chasm between the facts and those who act as if force, fame, image, repetition, persuasion, and aesthetics matter most

Accurate

1. true

2. factual or sufficiently close to the facts

Actor-observer effect

believing others’ bad actions are caused almost entirely by their internal traits and believing our own bad actions are simply responses to situations

Ad hominem

fallacy of making irrelevant claims about an arguer's motives (any mental state) or character (often insults); it is not a fallacy if motives or character are the issue being argued

Adverse selection

occurs when someone in a decision making process has hidden information, uses selfishness, and prevents right alternatives from being selected (example: selling a car without informing the buyer that a safety feature on the car is broken)

Afucracy

a fouled up democracy--part democracy, kleptocracy,

plutocracy, punditocracy, emoticracy and estheticracy

Altruism

1. benefiting others

2. benefiting others regardless of what happens to one’s self

3. benefiting others when their considerations outweigh other

considerations and considerations for oneself

4. actions ostensibly designed to benefit others but primarily serve the interests of personal self-esteem and self-justification

5. kindliness regardless of actual consequences

6. naive self-sacrifice

Ambiguous

1. having at least two clear meanings

2. unclear

3. having a mixture of good and bad traits (often used in descriptions of character)

Antinomianism

1. belief that members of a religion are excused from moral rules because of grace or faith or both

2. questioning or breaking rules merely for the hell of it or the thrill of it

Anxiety

vague, unfocused, almost anemic unpleasant feeling that often lacks an easily apparent cause

Anything effect

no matter how bad almost everything is on TV, the radio, and in newspapers, people will let their attention be controlled by the most enjoyable of the available alternatives

Appeal to momentum

fallacy of believing something because more or fewer numbers of individuals are beginning to believe it

Appeal to novelty

fallacy of believing something simply because it is new

Appeal to popularity

fallacy of believing something because large numbers or small numbers of individuals believe it

Appeal to tradition

fallacy of believing something because individuals in the past believed in it or did it

Arrogant

1. obnoxious claim of being better

2. one with values different from our own, but who does not belong to a culturally protected group

Artificial

1. produced by humans

2. inauthentic

3. any government policy that benefits non-rich individuals more than rich people or that reduces the gaps in goods between rich people and others

Attitude

1. habit of mind or pre-disposition to think some way

2. expressive body posture

3. disagreeable disposition

4. belief

Attitude polarization

tendency to react to several complex, contradictory, strong appearing arguments by ignoring all the arguments and fanatically increasing confidence in the beliefs held prior to hearing the arguments

Authentic

1. an act or product produced with fitting, passionate motives

2. a choice made that accepts responsibility for results, without claiming that outside forces made you do it

3. doing whatever the hell you want with passion and without anxiety, no matter how much harm is done

Autonomy

1. self-directing one’s life; choosing and doing one’s means and ends without coercion, without manipulation, and without seriously flawed psychological health.

2. absence of restraints; freedom

3. the ability to govern oneself

4. actually governing oneself

5. the right to govern oneself

6. ability and willingness to govern oneself

Bad

1. wrong

2. harmful

3. fails to meet the criteria

4. evil

Bad faith

1. dishonesty

2. believing you are a causally determined being, acting as a causally determined being, and pretending your choices and freedoms do not matter

Beauty effect

tendency to believe beautiful or attractive things are good in other qualities as well, even when no evidence exists to support the goodness in other qualities

Belief

an idea held to be true, good, beautiful, false, bad, ugly, better,

worse, beneficial, factual, harmful or so on with some degree of confidence

Beneficence

virtue of having both motives and actions that are directed at creating great beneficial results and good will among humans.

Benefit

1. increasing the probability of helpful results

2. results better than would have been the case had the ideas or actions in question never existed

Bias

1. predisposed to arrive at a bad or inadequately supported conclusion

2. unrepresentative

3. any factor in a situation that introduces errors

4. unjust

Biased assimilation

tendency to under weigh claims that oppose current beliefs

Boredom

an empty, disinterested pain combined with an anxiety that sometimes suggests misuse of internal and external resources

Care

1. pay serious attention

2. concerned

3. protecting and providing for

Categorical imperative (Kant)

If you think others in a similar situation should do a thing, you should do the thing. If you think you should do a thing, others in a similar situation should also do the thing.

Cause

1. a factor that changes the probability of a result; influence, contribute

2. activity that one is dedicated to

Censorship

communication that is legally forbidden

Certain

1. having no doubts

2. inevitable

3. claim with 100 percent probability of being true

Character, Moral

1. aggregate of morally relevant traits in a being, especially the efforts chosen, consequences of those efforts, and the rules chosen; includes the motives and reasons behind those rules, efforts, and consequences

An individual with moral character:

• Is almost always honest.
• Creates values, learns for herself the values others have discovered, and learns from the values she has created.
• Learns from both mistakes and successes.
• Is consequentialist, except when deontological claims should be added in to some alternative(s), giving those altervative(s) some amount of extra weight.
• Feels like a newly arrived anthropologist from another planet around radio, television, and video games.
• Is committed to beneficence, not merely avoidance of large, direct harms.
• Does not assume that merely because he has not directly, verbally, or physically assaulted someone that no harm has been done.
• Is committed to moral reasoning. Demands as much from herself as a well-reasoned critic would.
• Knows it is wrong to cause evil, regardless whether one or more parties agree to the evil. (example: does not cause harm even when a masochist wants harm)
• Does not equate character solely with one personal or provincial trait--or any other narrow definition of character such as equating character solely with sexual behavior, "niceness," loyalty, integrity, prestige, or fame.
• Engages in active citizenship supported by important, well-reasoned knowledge.
• Recognizes the importance of and uses of scorn and indignation for self-motivation and is physically tolerant of non-evil things.
• Is able to take the view from nowhere or somewhere, depending on the situation and good moral reasoning.
• Is needed by others.
• Has ability and willingness to find important truths.
• Keeps commitments worth keeping, replaces poorly reasoned commitments with better ones.
• Is trustworthy to the good and treacherous to the evil.
• Does not let intuitive notions of ethical worthiness dictate self-evaluations.
• Is willing to go to extreme lengths in altering her environment and making it a moral ally.
• Does not fall for nostrum theories, no matter how popular they are, how many experts fall for them, how the experts demonize those who do not fall for them, or how much publicity the theories get.
• Gives proper argument weight to his own rights and the rights of others--as well as his own duties and the duties of others.
• Gives proper argument weight to long-term, overall consequences.
• Is willing to make morally heroic efforts.
• Finds ways to enjoy the process, even when things are not going well.
• Sees her own time as just as valuable as any chief executive views their time.
• Has a fierce attachment to ethics.
• Understands the value of the present and the future.
• Employs careful self-scrutiny.
• Creates virtuous cycles and prevents vicious cycles.
• Holds all moral beings to high, quality standards.
• Does not consider pleasure synonymous with benefit.
• Is willing to trade near certain pleasures for greater rewards of less certainty and greater expected value.
• Shows up in the right situations.
• Lives a life of passionate, purposeful action.
• Resists false dichotomies of social versus personal ethics.
• Avoids trivia and mediocrity.
• Acts to benefit, not merely to do no harm.
• Does not confuse etiquette or blind conformity with good character.
• Has adequate autonomy and strength of will.
• Is a moral universalist for all moral beings.
• Is nonabsolutist.
• Avoids treating herself or others as merely a means to ends.
• Recognizes that sometimes the ends justify the means and sometimes they do not.
• Responds to others in a way that gives adequate weight to their moral character, their humanness, and their basic individual rights. He does not ignore character and become manipulated by others’ power or aesthetic traits.
• Seeks clarity and important details. He does not confuse confidence with clarity.
• Is able and willing to properly weigh arguments.
• Finds important problems to solve, not merely the problems that jump in front of her.
• Tolerates uncertainty.
• Is skilled at finding the chasm between what is and what should be. She ardently pusues what should be.
• Acts well despite harmful emotions.
• Does not let regrets stop him.
• Knows how to relate will, belief, habit, reasoning, environment, and non-habitual actions. She acts on well-reasoned knowledge.
• Finds ways to use circumstances as an ally. He does not let circumstances dictate life.
• Uses scorn and moral reasoning to deal with absurdities.
• Avoids unreasoned conformity and unreasoned non-conformity.
• Does not reflexively reject new ideas.
• Targets compassion, indignation, and other emotions to the proper targets.
• Makes sure her self-respect depends heavily on her own thoughts and actions rather than treatment received by others. She rarely bases self-respect on things that have almost nothing to do with character such as looks, status, popularity, power, genes, icon identification.
• Feels the energy of moral beliefs, causing them to resound within him.

Choicetism

Mistaken beliefs that consist of one or more of the following:

· If someone makes some choice, others do not have any explicit or implied obligations (example: The people in East Timor chose to fight back. It they get their butt kicked, that’s their problem.)

· If you make a choice, it must be the right choice.

· If you make a choice, no one has the right to criticize it.

· Morality is only about choose-didn’t choose.

Circular

fallacy of trying support a conclusion by repeating it, usually with words different enough so the repitition is not obvious.

Clarity

easy to understand

Clarity, despair

improved knowledge and focus as a result of despair

Clarity, philosophical

increased knowledge and memory of that knowledge

Clarity, reamed

improved knowledge and focus as a result of being reamed

Clear

understandable, precise enough, and detailed enough

Coercion

wrongful influence characterized by legal or physical force or the threat of legal or physical force

Collusion

1. two or more interests acting together in a way that is morally or legally wrong--or should be legally wrong.

Compassion

1. sympathy combined with an urge to do something about it

2. charity

3. support

Conscience

intuitive response claiming that something is morally at stake, often guilt or other anxiety

Consequentialism

moral theories and practices concerned with the overall benefit or harm of moral results

Contradiction

1. asserting and denying the same thing in the same or a relevantly similar situation (example: They should pass the football more and pass less is not a contradiction if one means they should pass more on first down and less on second down.)

2. two or more things that sometimes conflict with each other

Courage, moral

doing what is morally right despite major threats to self, others or goods that should be highly valued

Cross-sectional study

compares one group of individuals with another group of individuals

Culture

1. distinguishing beliefs, actions and possessions shared by a group of individuals.

2. high art

3. pretentious art

Deontology

moral theories and practices concerned with moral rules, especially rights and duties; believes a thing is morally good in proportion to the quality of moral rules acted upon

Deserving

1. owed to someone because of their merits or rights

2. owed to someone because of some trait

Despair

1. hopeless sorrow

2. choosing and acting as someone you should not be

3. lacking selfhood

Dignity

self, demeanor, and actions that suggest weightiness, worthiness or

self-respect or some combination of all three

Discretionary income (disposable income)

money left after paying taxes and basic items. Food is considered basic whether it’s a two dollar meal or a 90 dollar meal. Basic is broadly defined by those who make these measurements.

Double loss

goodness lost combined with bad done; difference between goodness opportunity losses and the evil caused.

Dread

1. deep apprehension

2. dizzying apprehension

3. approach-avoidance anxiety

4. anxiety over alternatives, freedoms, decisions, consequences in the present and future

Egalitarianism

belief that the equality of some results is the most important good.

Emotivism

1. the belief that morality is nothing more than emotions

2. overweighing the information carried by emotions to decide questions of truth and goodness.

Environment

1. every physical and non-physical entity that can influence an

individual, excluding the individual’s heredity, body, and consciousness

2. the collection of non-human energies, masses, and forces

Envy

1. sad, alienated desire for what another has

2. wistful, complimentary appreciation for what another has

Equality

similar in some respect regardless of how dissimilar in other respects

Essayist

person who writes 15 pages of anecdotes on how disturbing changes have occurred when a handful of accurate statistics would demolish the anecdotes and reveal the trend in another direction

Ethics

1. morality; suggests what must be done even if you want to do something else, overriding all other claims

2. the study of how to pursue the best available life

Excluded Middle, Law of

every claim that is sufficiently specific for the situation is either true or false

Expiation:

1. lessening guilt by good actions on behalf of victims

2. atonement

Extrinsic motivation

behavior motivated by rewards or punishments or both administered by outside forces

Fair

1. just

2. sufficiently unbiased and impartial in a particular case

3. equal in some way, though not in other ways

4. in accordance with agreed upon rules

Fallacy

Any logically worthless claim that is psychologically persuasive to many, especially premises that do not support conclusions. Fallacies do not make conclusions false or weaken the support offered by non-fallacious premises. Fallacies merely fail to support conclusions. For example, an argument filled with ad hominem attacks can still be strong based on the strength of its good points. And a well-meaning argument with no deliberate fallacies can often be weak.

False cause

fallacy of claiming without adequate support that one thing caused another

False denial of cause

fallacy of claiming without adequate support that one thing did not cause another

Fault

being that is morally blameworthy for causing an event (a being

that caused an event is not always the being or sole being with the duty to change the situation)

F-feet

having feet that lack vigor

Fiscal policy

governmental tax and spending policies

“For example” and “such as”

An illustration designed to increase understanding, not intended as a premise to support a conclusion

Freedom

1. lack of external coercion

2. lack of governmental coercion

3. availability of, possession of, and ability to use resources and opportunities

4. autonomy

5. lack of government coercion in proportion to the amount of wealth or power one has (conservatives)

6. presence of beneficial opportunities and absence of harmful

restraints

7. amount of psychological health

8. range of plausible alternatives available

9. having control and feeling in control

10. believing that other things are more important than fate or luck

Fundamental attribution error

attributing others’ actions solely or almost solely to internal factors

Funstruction

masochistic seeking and enjoyment of feelings of guilt, shame,

inferiority, incompetence, persecution, mistreatment

Futility thinking

Thinking that one should not do much or anything because there would be so much evil left in the world despite one’s efforts. –Peter Unger

Good:

1. “Passes the test of appropriate criteria.” —Roth and Mullen

2. just, right, correct

3. beneficial

4. adequate

5. enjoyable

6. a sought after physical or non-physical trait or possession

Goodness lost

Difference in moral goodness between best available choice and actual choice. Morality opportunity losses.

Gordian knot

a problem that can be best solved by drastic measures.

Greed

excessively self-interested actions or motives or both.

Harm

1. increasing the probability of destructive results

2. results worse than would have been the case had the ideas or actions in question never existed

3. directly, immediately sufficient and necessary to produce destructive results

Hawthorne effect

improvements resulting from interest and attention, independent of the factor intended to improve results, often from novelty

Hero

individual with a great weight of good decisions and actions outweighing his bad decisions and actions

Immediate cause

factors that are nearer in time, geography, closeness of relationship

Indignation

anger at something believed morally wrong

Induced compliance

saying something nice instead of something honest or good

Integrity

1. degree of consistency between one’s actions and

beliefs

2. willingness to say what one thinks; frankness

3. character

4. ability to lie and promote evil while using words and body language that expresses lots of sincerity, and “straight shooting”

Interactionism

belief that human consciousness affects the physical world and the physical world affects human consciousness

Intrinsic

necessary attribute of a thing for it to be that thing

Intrinsic motivation

1. Behavior motivated by instant pleasure or the perception of instant pleasure

2. Behavior motivated by internal factors

3. Behavior motivated by ongoing enjoyment

Intuition

reflexive or habitual response arrived at without current reasoning, though the intuition is often formed by previous reasoning

Ironic

1. unexpected, paradoxical

2. temporary detachment

3. habitual sarcasm or contempt

4. belief that many things in the world are cynical, derivative, and manipulative; that things are produced by beings who are willfully ignorant of the consequences of their actions, beings having motives other than those professed, by beings who are oblivious to their motives or by beings who pretend evil motives are noble and go to a great deal of effort to ensure others go along with the ruse

5. a lifestyle of detachment

Irrelevant

fallacy of using a claim that has nothing logically to do with the conclusion being argued, regardless of whether the claim is true, or whether the claim would be a good point in some other argument

Just, Legally

in accordance with the best available legal arguments

Just, Morally

1. agreeing with the best available moral consequences, except when rule(s) or other consequences combined with a rule(s) deserve enough extra weight to outweigh the best available consequences; morally right

2. morally owed because of one’s actions or traits; deserved

3. sufficiently impartial

4. in accordance with impartially agreed upon rules

5. well-reasoned

6. supported primarily by deontological arguments

7. beneficial.

Knowledge

1. a range of factual, related ideas

2. a range of true, related ideas

Libertarianism

1. a surrender to simplicity by saying whatever benefits rich adults the most must be right and the most free

2. best friend of neoconservatism

3. philosophy that agrees with conservatives on nearly all important issues, yet pretends to be neglected and powerless

4. sheep-think masquerading as reason

Liberty

see freedom

Lie

1. Any deliberate deception or deception resulting from laziness

2. Any deliberate deception –C. Bok

3. deliberate deception in personal matters, but not policy matters—Jonathan Chait on the conservative definition

Logic

study and application of right reasoning.

Logical

in accordance with right reasoning.

Longitudinal study

same individuals are studied over a period of time

Love, romantic

a complex mixture of many or all of the following: friendship, honesty, respect, devotion, resilience, sexual passion, ardor, enchantment, spontaneity, humor, tenderness, expressiveness, admiration, affection, responsiveness, gratitude, purposefulness, autonomy, toughness, courage, mutual efficacy, reliability, duty, romance, kindness, resourcefulness, solidarity, high standards, reliance, trust, concern, trustworthiness, care, supportiveness, yearning, interest, closeness, mutual beneficence, intimacy, seriousness, commitment to the process, comfort in presence, faithfulness, general mutual passion, shared goals, tolerance, adoration, inter-reliance, enjoyment of company, loyalty

Love, nonromantic

1. strong affection

2. great enjoyment

3. sibling-like affection

4. friendly affection

4. parental affection

—J.T. Fournier

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