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DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE NOTES THAT I WROTE RATHER RAPIDLY WHEN I WAS NOT
TERRIBLY COHERENT. SOME THINGS MAY BE BLATANTLY WRONG. USE AT YOUR OWN
RISK. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, EMAIL ME AND I'LL TRY TO HELP.
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1. Kant claims that a beneficent action performed out of sympathy has no
moral worth. Why does he think this? Could we have good reasons for
actions that have no moral worth? Discuss the views of at least one critic
of Kant.
For Kant (and deontics) the motive, not the consequence, of action is what
matters. Only actions performed from moral motives have moral worth. Other
actions are not immoral, but they are simply without moral worth. Moral
motives come from good will. Morally worth actions come from acting in
accordance with duty and the categorical imperative. Acting from sympathy,
self-interest, or direct inclination (all non-moral motives) have no moral
worth.
It is simply moral luck to be natural inclined to act in such ways as duty
would require. And rationality is Kant's concern, not Humean sympathy and
emotion.
Kant does not say that we need to perform all actions in such a way that
they oppose our natural inclinations (sympathy, etc), but that the only way
we can know for sure if the motive was moral or not is if the action is
contrary to our sympathies.
I think we want more actions than just those done from moral worth.
See Kant 9-13, Wolf, Williams, Herman.
To be kind where one can is duty, and there are, moreover, many persons so
sympathetically constituted that without any motive of vanity or selfishness
they find an inner satisfaction in spreading joy, and rejoice in the
contentment of others which they have made possible. But I say that, however
dutiful and amiable it may be, that kind of action has no true moral worth.
It is on a level with [actions arising from] other inclinations, such as the
inclination to honor, which if fortunately directed to what in fact accords
with duty and is generally useful and thus honorable, deserve praise and
encouragement but no esteem.
In acting from a motive attached to a moral principle, the moral rightness
of the action gives the agent reason for action. In action from emotion
(compassion), this is not so.... Emotion-based motives fail to support the
necessary internal connection between the motive and the rightness of the
proposed action. This is why Kant holds that maxims of action based on
the motive of sympathy have no 'moral content'.
Williams: even if the motive of duty is enough, to exclude emotions as
motives is to stand in the agent's way of acting humanly ... in a way that
is preferable. Motive of duty requires one to be impersonal to a fault.
The exclusion of the emotions as motives can stand in the
way of an agent's acting in a natural and humanly appropriate way.... The
worry is that if the Kantian agent is required to act from the motive of
duty ... his responses to others will be less personal .... he must
dissociate himself from natural and appropriate responses to others.
Motive of duty is one motive too many
Herman: even a Kantian might have reason to prefer nonmoral action,
provided that the moral motive (duty) is sufficient to bring about the
required act when necessary.
Stocker: want our friends to be our friends not out of duty but out of
natural inclination; unsatisfying if friend Smith visits you in the hospital
not because he is your friend but just because he has a duty.
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2. Aristotle and Mill both identify the end of action with happiness.
Explain their respective conceptions of happiness and the role that
conception is supposed to play in their theories. Evaluate the differences
between the two philosophers in this regard.
Happiness is not a pleasure, but a temperament. Eudaimonia (Aristotle) is
evaluated only at the end of life: "Call no many happy until he is dead".
Happiness for Aristotle involves fulfillment of one's potentials. Function,
excellence, and moderation. The activity of the soul in accordance with
virtue leads to/is happiness.
Bentham: hedonistic pleasure.
Mill: Happiness is pleasure and absence of pain, but there are higher
(intellectual) pleasures.
Smart (on Mill): "To call a person 'happy' is to say more than that he is
contented for most of the time ... 'happy' is partly evaluative."
Happiness is more than enjoyment.
Aristotle: happiness and goodness are linked; goodness is internal state
and happiness the outward display. So happiness is just the expression of
goodness. And goodness is excellence/virtue in intended function. Must be
in a complete life. Contemplative life.
internal state of one individual vs consequences for all
Mill as a combination of Aristotle's eudaimonia and Bentham's pleasure.
eudaimonia --- happiness, well-being, flourishing, having a good guardian
spirit. People do not need to be taught to seek pleasure/happiness
eudaimonia is the state of having an objectively desirable life, whereas
happiness is subjective
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/
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3. Explain briefly why Rawls appeals to a veil of ignorance in setting up
the Original Position. Does this set-up bias the theory illegitimately in
favor of his two principles?
original position --- imaginary situation in which principles of justice are
chosen.
veil of ignorance --- don't know what place in society we would occupy
hypothetical social contract ensures principles chosen will be fair to all,
Rawls claims under the veil we would choose maximin.
principles of justice:
each person has an equal right to basic liberties (liberty principle)
social/economic inequalities must be open to all and must be to the greatest
benefit of the least advantaged members of society (difference principle).
See Rawls.
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4. Some contractualist moral theories claim that we should treat other
people only in ways that they, if they are reasonable, would agree are
justified. Is this a plausible standard of right and wrong? What might an
adequate account of "reasonableness" look like?
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5. What could it mean for moral truths to be objective, and how might we
learn of them? Is moral disagreement a plausible basis for thinking that
there are no such truths? Discuss whether we would have reason to be moral
even in the absence of a non-relativistic morality.
objectivism (value theory) - values exist in the external world
independently of and external to our comprehension of them; they can be
found and known.
absolutism - the view that value is objectively real, final, and external;
there is only one unchanging and correct objective explanation.
According to relativism there are non-absolute objective truths.
Moral Objectivists hold that there are genuine moral truths, and that some
cultures have got ahold of this truth, while others are somehow missing it.
This would be to treat moral laws as akin to physical laws. All that moral
diversity shows is how very difficult it can be to get ahold of the right
moral laws. So this is one interpretation of moral disagreement: moral
objectivism tempered by a certain amount of moral skepticism, that is,
doubts about our ability to know the objective moral truth. Yet this
suggests is that we can't really rely on our consciences in deciding what to
do. For our consciences were formed in this culture and it's not clear that
this culture has the correct moral views.
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6. In what ways might either utilitarianism or Kantianism be at odds with a
moral agent's personal concerns and commitments? Is this a problem for
morality? Discuss with regard to at least two contemporary critics of
impartiality (e.g., Williams, Wolf, Stocker, Scheffler).
Stocker vs Kant: friend Smith comes to the hospital to visit you not because
he is your friend but because he has a duty
see Baron, the alleged moral repugnance of acting from duty
Dworkin vs util: not adequate enough devotion to individual choice because
to the util action is only valuable insofar as it contributes to the general
(not personal) welfare, so should the two conflict, personal rights must be
given up.
Williams vs Utilitarianism:
integrity - acting from one's own convictions
util places little weight on individual as compared with common good
negative responsibility (Indians) makes you responsible for others
must disregard personal feelings/projects if in conflict
Jim and the Indians
utilitarianism makes integrity (concept of moral identity) as a value
unintelligible;
negative responsibility makes us responsible for our non-actions and seems
to make us responsible for the actions of others; it's the outcomes, not our
role in them that matter; alienates individuals from their actions.
does not allow us to distinguish between harming and not helping
Williams says personal commitments/projects are necessary for happiness, but
this is not allowed in utilitarianism if personal commitments are contrary
to maximizing happiness more generally; to require someone to step aside
from his own projects when utilitarian calculus requires it is to alienate
him from his actions and the source of his actions in his own conviction.
See Williams, 116, Rawls.
Utilitarianism requires that all people be treated as equal, even those who
are your friends, so it devalues personal relationships.
Other normative theories which were current in the 1970s and 1980s can
usefully be seen as responses to the perceived shortcomings of
utilitarianism. One principal criticism of it has been that it is an
aggregative theory. It allows the interests of some to be outweighed by the
interests of others, and can therefore justify the infliction of terrible
atrocities on some persons for the sake of the greater good. What this
shows, it has been said, is that utilitarianism, by aggregating interests
into a single 'general good', fails to recognize the separateness of
individuals. Two forms of ethical theory which have aspired to incorporate
that recognition have been 'contractarian' theories and 'rights-based'
theories. Contractarianism came to the fore in political philosophy with
John Rawls's theory of justice. The idea of basing principles of justice on
a hypothetical contract is that, if they are principles which everyone can
agree to, then no one's basic interests will be sacrificed to anyone else's.
Contractarian attempts to develop a general moral theory include those of
Russell Grice and David Gauthier. Gauthier's theory is very much in the
spirit of Hobbes as an attempt to show how morality can be generated by
agreement between self-interested individuals. Basing morality on rights has
likewise been seen as a way of building in the requirement that no one's
basic interests should be sacrificed. The focus on rights, like
contractarianism, first emerged in political philosophy, and the work of
Robert Nozick and that of Ronald Dworkin have, in contrasting ways,
emphasized the importance of rights as a counter to utilitarian social
theory. Alan Gewirth and John Mackie are among those who have proposed a
comprehensive moral theory based on the concept of rights.
Other critics of utilitarianism have argued that by focusing exclusively on
outcomes it gives insufficient importance to the significance of moral
agency. A more 'agent-centred' approach can be found, for instance, in the
work of Bernard Williams. He suggests that a person's moral identity is
constituted by his or her 'ground projects' and 'commitments' and that
utilitarianism, in so far as it would require one to abandon these whenever
the actions of others so order the consequences as to make it necessary, can
give no adequate account of concepts such as 'moral integrity'. Another
approach which can be called 'agent-centred' is the work of Philippa Foot
and others which refocuses attention on the virtues. Whereas utilitarianism
assesses actions by their production of good consequences, virtue ethics
aims rather to identify those ways of acting which go to make up a good
human life. Foot, indeed, has argued that the idea of 'the best state of
affairs', which is supposed to serve as the utilitarian criterion of right
action, does not as it stands have any clear sense.
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7. Discuss the charge that moral facts play no important role either in
explaining the content of our moral beliefs or the nature of our moral
motives. Give a brief account of the debate. What are the strongest
arguments on both sides?
"Queerness" of moral "facts": Physical facts are relatively straightforward:
we know what it is for something to have weight, mass, color, etc. But sorts
of things are "moral facts"? How does one detect a moral fact? If we live in
a physical universe, is there any room in it for moral facts?
So: what can we learn from the fact of moral variation between cultures?
First, some of what we call right and wrong might not be a matter of
objective moral truth, but just a matter of local custom, more along the
lines of traffic laws than laws against murder. But second, this is
compatible with there being large areas of our moral lives in which there
are genuine moral laws; universal truths about how to conduct ourselves.
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8. What do some feminist moral philosophers object to in traditional
justice-based approaches to ethics? Why are some feminists nevertheless
wary of embracing wholeheartedly the "care" approach?
In addition to the non-feminist criticisms that have been raised against
Gilligan, several feminist criticisms have been directed against her work.
Of these criticisms, the most powerful worries that even if women are better
carers than men, it may still be epistemically, ethically, and politically
imprudent to associate women with the value of care. To link women with
caring is to promote the view that because women can care, they should care
no matter the cost to themselves.
In Femininity and Domination (1990), feminist critic Sandra Lee Bartky
argues that women's experience of feeding men's egos and tending men's
wounds ultimately disempowers women. She notes that the kind of emotional
work practiced by women in some service-oriented occupations often causes
these women to lose touch with their own emotional base. For example, to pay
a person to be "relentlessly cheerful"--to smile at even the most
verbally-abusive and unreasonably demanding customer--means paying a person
to feign a certain set of emotions. Yet, a person can pretend to be happy
only so many times before that person forgets how it feels to be genuinely
or authentically happy.
Bartky concedes that women insist that, far from draining them; the
emotional work they do energizes them. Indeed many wives and mothers claim
the experience of caring for their husbands and children is meaning-giving
and self-validating. The better carers they become, they more they view
themselves as the family's or marriage's indispensable backbone. Yet
subjective feelings of empowerment are not the same as the objective reality
of actually having power, says Bartky. She explains how women's androcentric
emotional work can work against women distorting women's moral integrity.
Bartky points to Teresa Stangl, wife of Fritz Stangl, Kommandant of
Treblinka. Despite the fact that her husband's monstrous activities
horrified her, she continued to "feed" and "tend" him dutifully, even
lovingly. In doing so, however, she played footloose and fancy free with her
own soul, for a woman cannot remain silent about evil and still expect to
keep her goodness entirely intact. Since horror perpetrated by a loved one
is still horror, women need to analyze "the pitfalls and temptations of
caregiving itself" before they embrace as ethics of care wholeheartedly
(Bartky, Femininity and Domination, 1990).
Mullet reinforces Bartky's fears about a feminine ethics of care. She
distinguishes between "distortion of caring" on the one hand and
"undistorted caring" one the other. According to Mullet, a person cannot
truly care for someone if she is economically, socially, and/or
psychologically coerced to do so. Thus, genuine, or fully authentic caring
cannot occur, for example, under conditions characterized by male domination
and female subordination. Only under conditions of sexual equality and
freedom can women care for men without men diminishing, disempowering,
and/or disregarding them. As long as men demand and expect more caring from
women than women demand and expect from men, both sexes will remain morally
impoverished. Neither men nor women will be able to authentically care.
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9. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that moral decision-making
is guided primarily by one's developed moral judgment. How is the moral
judgment he envisages to be developed? Does it seem reliable enough?
Virtues are acquired, training is essential
Excellence we get by first exercising them, learn by doing.
Forming habits in accordance with virtue, taught from very young age.
We ought to have been brought up to delight in and be pained by the things
we ought.
(Aristotle, 376-379)
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10. Virtue theorists claim that their theories give a more adequate account
of our moral commitments than do theories based on principles. Evaluate
this claim and explain what is at stake in the controversy between virtue
theorists and the proponents of theories based on moral principles.
Virtue theory --- learn what is virtuous, internalize, and acting naturally
to maximize happiness is then in accordance with virtue.
Principle (Kant, Util) --- rational, calculated, rule.
Kant --- act from motive of duty/cat imp, not from pursuit of happiness
because happiness, being not based on reason, may lead to vice and emotions
are fickle.
Also, virtue theory allows us to pursue our own personal
projects/commitments, whereas rule-based must deny this if there is a
conflict.
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11. What kind of moral obligations might we have to people we do not know or
specially care about/ Evaluated Hume's "narrow circle" argument and compare
or contrast it with the views of at least one contemporary philosopher.
---------------------
12. How does Mill attempt to defend moral rights and justice? Are his
arguments utilitarian? Do they succeed?
See Mill chapter 5, sparknotes,
http://xavier.xula.edu/rberman/mill5.htm
Russell Hardin, Arthur Kuflik
Utilitarianism typically doesn't say anything about rights or justice, but
Mill ties them in by saying that justice and rights are based on utility.
Justice is respect for moral rights. Defending such rights is a necessary
minimum for happiness/utility. Justice leads to good consequences so
follows from a utilitarian system.
How is utility related to justice? Justice consists in respect for the legal
or moral rights of all persons. Injustice consists in the violation of the
legal or moral rights of anyone. Justice is by nature impartial and equal.
Justice implies not only what is right and wrong, but what each individual
can claim from other individuals as a moral right. The concept of justice
enforces a rule of conduct, and enacts punishment against violations of this
rule of conduct.
While the conduct of each individual must be just, punishment for violations
of the rule of conduct must also be just. According to Mill, the justice
which is grounded in utility is the most important part of morality. Justice
is more important to social utility than any other principle of morality.
Thus, justice does not become less of a priority for the sake of some other
moral principle. Another moral principle may have to become less of a
priority for the sake of justice.
Mill offers two counter arguments. First, he argues that all moral elements
in the notion of justice depend on social utility. There are two essential
elements in the notion of justice: punishment, and the notion that someone's
rights were violated. Punishment derives from a combination of vengeance and
social sympathy. Vengeance alone has no moral component, and social sympathy
is the same thing as social utility. The notion of rights violation also
derives from utility. For, rights are claims we have on society to protect
us, and the only reason society should protect us is because of social
utility. Thus, both elements of justice (i.e. punishment and rights) are
based on utility. Mill's second argument is that if justice were as
foundational as nonconsequentialists contend, then justice would not be as
ambiguous as it is. According to Mill, there are disputes in the notion of
justice when examining theories of punishment, fair distribution of wealth,
and fair taxation. These disputes can only be resolved by appealing to
utility. Mill concludes that justice is a genuine concept, but that we must
see it as based on utility.
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*GENERAL
************************
see also xrefer - moral philosophy, history of
- IEP -
moral realism --- moral principles have an objective (not subjective)
foundation
moral skepticism --- no (knowable) objective morals
moral relativism --- moral standards are relative to societies/cultures
psychological egoism --- act out of self-interest
Humean --- motivated by emotions, slave of passions
virtue theory --- less emphasis on learning rules and more on good habits of
character (benevolence, etc)
for Aristotle virtues are good habits that regulate emotions, mean
deontic theory --- duty, rights, categorical imperative
consequentialist theory --- ethical egoism, altruism, utilitarianism
(rule/act)
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*ARISTOTLE
************************
- IEP, VIRTUE -
Contemporary issues --- whether virtue ethics can be completely independent
of moral rules (eliminatist/essentialist), good persons rather than actions
- XREFER, HAPPINESS -
eudaimonia, quality of ones life as a whole (call no man happy until he is
dead), fulfillment of one's potentialities
- STANFORD -
eudaimonia --- happiness or flourishing (well-spirit)
arete --- virtue, excellence
search for highest good
highest good is desirable for itself, not desirable as the means to another
ends, and all other goods are desirable as means to the highest good
where does happiness come from?
reason
a lifetime (not just a moment)
living well consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance
with virtue or excellence
happiness is virtuous activity
excercising certain skills or virtues
need to be schooled in virtue (moral education)
mean and stable disposition (hexis), internal harmony
virtue as an intermediate between excess and deficiency
a happy life must include pleasure
pleasures may interfere with other activities
the highest good is a pleasure
take pleasure in the pursuit and achievement of good
pleasure is not the only good; so is wisdom
- XREFER, VIRTUES -
virtue ethics claims that morality is understood in terms of virtues, not
rules or goals
Aristotle, Nussbaum, Rorty, Foot, Williams
- VIRUTE, DRURY UNIV -
virtue --- excellence in fulfillment of particular function
happiness --- sense of well-being from achieving excellence
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*MILL
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- XREFER, HAPPINESS -
happiness as the ultimate aim of human action
happiness as standard for judging rightness/wrongness of action
actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote (general) happiness
pleasure and absence of pain
quality of pleasures
- XREFER, UTILITARIANISM -
outcome utilitarianism, overall well-being
consequentialism
acts are morally right or obligatory because of how much well-being they
produce
act --- consequences of single action
rule --- consequences of general maxim
- WILLIAMS -
problems with utilitarianism:
impersonal
no personal projects
no integrity
(see marked pages)
- SPARKNOTES -
utilitarianism as pleasure principle
happiness not just Bentham's hedonism
actions are right in proportion to happiness they promote
happiness is pleasure and absence of pain
different kinds of pleasures (higher intellectual ones)
achievement of goals such as virtuous living leads to happiness
utilitarianism coincides with natural sentiments to happiness
things people want are means to the end of happiness
criticism:
inadequate protection of individual rights
happiness more complicated than Mill says
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*KANT
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- XREFER, DEONTIC -
consequentialist --- rightness of act depends upon outcome
deontic --- duty, one must, acts are inherently right/wrong
problems with deontic:
can't kill innocent to save others
separation of right and good
- GROUNDING -
only good is good will
non-moral scenarios:
prudent merchant not overcharging
beneficence done because it causes inner pleasure
cannot:
allow suicide
lie to borrow money
let talent go to waste
not help others
there imperatives:
universal law
ends, not means
kingdom of ends
- SPARKNOTES -
when are actions moral:
(1) actions are moral if and only if they are undertaken for the sake of
morality alone
(2) moral quality judged not be consequences of action but by modem
(3) actions are moral if and only if undertaken out of respect for moral law
categorical imperative
moral law as general formula applicable in all situations
(1) we should act in such a way that we would want the maxim of our actions to
become a universal law
(2) don't treat others as a means to an end; people are ends in themselves
(3) kingdom of ends, all rational beings are makers and subjects of all laws
freedom, autonomy, rationality
* IEP, CAT IMP *
categorical imperative
(1) law of nature: act as if the maxim of your action were to become through
your will a universal law of nature
(2) end itself: treat people never as means, always as ends
(3) autonomy: so act that your will can regard itself at the same time as
making universal law through its maxims
(4) kingdom of ends: so act as if your were through your maxims a law-making
member of a kingdom of ends
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*RAWLS
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- XREFER, ORIGINAL POSITION -
original position --- imaginary situation in which principles of justice are
chosen
veil of ignorance --- don't know what place in society we would occupy
hypothetical social contract ensures principles chosen will be fair to all
- RAWLS, GLOSSARY -
maximin --- maximize the minimum (least-worst possible outcome)
principles of justice:
each person has an equal right to basic liberties (liberty principle)
social/economic inequalities must be open to all and must be to the greatest
benefit of the least advantaged members of society (difference principle)
- RAWLS, LECTURE 7 -
principles that would be chosen by individuals in original position
aim at reflective equilibrium
- RAWLS, JUSTICE -
under veil we don't know about ourselves so we choose maximin
(not a bad article for veil question)
- RAWLS, ORIGINAL -
objection to utilitarianism --- does not protect the one from the many
consider worst-off
(again, good for veil question)