Ethics Philosophy

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NIHILISM

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claim that there’s no difference between right and wrong; rejection of all moral principles and religions. Extreme skepticism.

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SUBJECTIVISM

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people have different opinions, but where morality is concerned there are no “facts” & no one is “right”. People feel differently. Moral Claim= simply what you like
a. Simple Subjectivism: X is moral>X is right>X is good->X ought be done
b. Emotivism: makes statements- states facts, ex: “Gas prices are rising”
c. Problem: all claims off because implies commands-> blackmail, threatening are acceptable to achieve moral preference

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NATURAL LAW:

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a. Christian theory of ethics, natural laws
i. View of rational world, everything has purpose & value by nature
ii. World is in harmony when things serve their natural purpose
iii. We should understand natural laws cause God has given us power to

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Teleology

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(Aristotle) everything has a purpose
i. Ex: acorn→ purpose to become an oak tree

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Divine Command Theory

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act is right if God commands, wrong if he forbids

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Pascal’s Wager

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rationally should believe in God, at most we lose “some fun,” but avoid hell

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RELATIVISM

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reference point “to”
a. Cannot define moral code because of relative difference (ex: culture, social)→Be TOLERANT.
b. Burden of Reason: doesn’t exist in realist view.
c. Problems
i. No absolute truths
ii. Law of Non-Contradiction: something can’t be both true and false.
iii. False Dichotomy: split something in 2, but more than 2 possibilities

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ABSOLUTISM

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philosophical moral approach in which moral principles are absolute, universally, with no exceptions.
a. Direct opposite of relativism

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EGOISM

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a. Psychological Egoism: each person does in fact pursues his own interest exclusively (by nature)
i. We always do what we want to even in altruistic
ii. We do what makes us feel good, always a benefit
b. Problems:
i. We don’t always do what want, but what ought ex: babysitting, sending card
ii. Just because we act on desires doesn’t mean looking out for self. Depends on desire.
c. Ethical Egoism: each person ought to pursue his own interest exclusively.
i. AYN RAND:
1. Altruism (doing good to others without expectations) is self defeating:
a. We don’t understand the needs of others as well as our own
b. “Looking out for others”→ can be seen as intrusion of privacy
c. Charity→ degrading, robs people of dignity
2. We ought to do what will best promote everyone’s interest, thus best way to promote everyone interest is to each pursue own interest exclusively.
d. Problem:
i. Endorses Wickedness
ii. Logically Inconsistent
1. Each person does what’s in best interest→ kill competition wrong?
iii. It is unacceptably arbitrary
1. Why we should care about treatment of others
2. We should treat people the same way unless good reason.

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SOCIAL CONTRACT

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T. Hobbes) morality should be understood as the solution to a practical problem that arises for self-interested human beings. Unwritten agreement
a. Natural Condition: We all need same things and there isn’t enough to go around
1. Equality of Need
2. There is Scarcity
3. There is essential Equality of Human Power
4. There is limited altruism
b. Advantages:
i. What moral rules are we bound to follow and how→behind closed doors out of scope
ii. We all benefit by following moral rules→we can decide type of person to be
iii. If someone else doesn’t follow, you owe them no obligation
iv. Impartiality
c. Ring of Gyges: finds ring that makes invisible, steals and kills then pretends to give back to people who had lost.
i. Socrates asks: Would you use ring?
d. Prisoners Dilemma:
i. If you confess and Smith doesn’t, 0 years for you & 10 for him
ii. If neither confess, each get 1 year & if both confess 5 each.
1. Dilemma of trust: If I hold back will you?
e. Problems (ROUSSEAU)
i. Human Nature is assumed to be good
ii. Equality of Power is false: when laws are made, benefit those we make them (ex: slaves)

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UTILITARIANISM

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Do the action that causes the most pleasure and least pain universally.
a. Hedonism:
i. Pleasure→ good
ii. Pain→ bad
iii. Util= one unit of happiness. Bentham→focuses on quantity
1. Assumptions
a. Principle of Equality→ quickly became seen as radical because women/slaves considered equal
b. Universal
2. Problems:
a. If pleasure trumps always→ “bliss machine”
b. If pain always trumps, killing all would be good
b. Eudemonism:
i. Happiness is final good. Mill→ focuses on quality
ii. Ought to
1. Identify all parties involved
2. Calculate effects of all possible actions
3. Compare consequences
4. Do what’s right
a. Ex: Buying a Porsche: pleasure to self, but others jealous, angry, sad; thus you should buy practical car and donate extra money.
iii. Moral Minimum: the least bit moral that you should be, being moral as you should.
1. Decency vs. Praiseworthiness
iv. Moral Extra Credit: going above just being morally decent, saints.

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SINGER (on Utilitarianism):

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a. Practical Welfare Utilitarianism: differs from classical in that “best consequence” is understood as meaning what, on balance, furthers the interests of those affected rather than merely what increases pleasure or pain.
i. Comparable Moral Importance: comparing interests, what’s comparable in deciding & what’s not.
ii. Killing vs. Letting Die:
a. Bob the Bugatti, car on 1 track & kid on the other→ opportunity to save.
b. Difference between 2 is often smaller than we believe
iii. Marginal Utility: the next unit after it becomes helpful
1. Idea to stop giving only when starts to cause you more harm than good
iv. Critiques
1. Ad Hominem Fallacy: critique based on author, did Singer give all extra $
2. Zero-Sum Game: gain is equivalent to loss
a. Objection to Singer in that there will always be people in need, not fixing.
v. Problems:
1. Happiness isn’t only intrinsic good (ex. knowledge, friendship, honor)
2. Consequences aren’t all that matter (ex. Justice, Rights)
3. Some happiness is undeserved
4. Personal Relationships: we can’t treat loved one objectively by nature.
5. Too Demanding
a. Susan Wolf: utilitarianism claims we should all be saints, & if you aren’t we’re jerks. Saints don’t always have best life to life.
i. Be more generous, but complexity is important as well!
b. Paradox of Hedonism: if pleasure is goal of life and pursue it relentlessly, ultimately we get less pleasure. BUT if we limit pleasure we still get less pleasure
i. Finer line between self-interest and being moral than we often assume.
ii. Intuitively moral (comes natural)
iii. Ex: If eat brownies all the time, eventually feel sick. Long term= fat/health problems.

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10) KANT (DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS):

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all (& only) humans have reason
i. Freedom= Rationality= Morality
b. Free Will→ all humans have free will (autonomy), we have the ability to do what we should and not always what we want.
c. Hypothetical Imperatives: non-moral
i. Tell us what to do provided that we have relevant desires
1. If you want to do so-and-so, than you ought to do such-and-such (ex: Dr→ Study hard)
ii. “If” is deciding factor
d. Categorical Imperatives: apply to moral obligations
i. “Right thing,” applies in all places
1. You ought do such and such, period.
e. 2 Formulations of Kantian Ethics:
1. Universal Law
a. Can you make the maxim universal?
b. Ex: MAXIM: “I should steal”→ “Everyone should steal” = X
2. Respect for Persons
a. Never treat people as a solely an ends to a means.
b. Don’t dehumanize people, treat objectively
c. Reciprocity: concept that you give what you get
f. Enlightenment: highest level of moral maturity, become self-governing
i. Under some conditions may have to break law
ii. If every was an enlightened human, we wouldn’t need laws, cold self govern.
iii. AUTONOMY→ freedom to do right thing
g. Problems:
i. Conflicting duties
ii. Is it cruel?
iii. Rigid
iv. Are we really rational?
1. When we actually make choices we aren’t rational at all.
2. Problems with feelings

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BIOLOGICAL MORALITY

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traditional view
a. We have selfish genes
i. Exceptions:
1. Reciprocal Altruism: “I help you today, you help me tomorrow”
2. Kin selection
b. Humans may be different (socially, culture)
c. Biological Moral Categories
1. Harm
2. Purity
3. Fairness
4. Community
5. Authority
ii. Limits: abstraction, cognitive bias, Phineas Gage

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LUST (BLACKBURN):

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not defined as an activity, but as a the thoughts/emotions/desires
a. Emotion vs. Rationality
i. Emotions viewed as the enemy
ii. Essentially a way of interpreting the world combined with the act (motion)
b. Blackburn’s Claim:
1. Object (measurable)
2. Intensity (complex emotional state)
3. Fulfillment
ii. Concern: anything in excess is intrinsically bad, and we can’t typically keep it at low level.
iii. Object of Lust
1. Not towards person but beauty itself
2. Biggest problem, we use this kind of desire and spirit, accomplish goal and we stop. Not accomplishing anything
c. Early Rules of Greeks (PLATO “SYMPOSIUM)
1. Philia→ brotherly love
2. Eros→LUST
3. Agape→ general love, toward group or nation.
ii. Aristophanes: story that humans previously had 2 heads/ all body parts. Zeus split them all in half. Idea of romantic love, “find our other half” souls were split in two
iii. Socrates/Plato:
1. Tripartite soul (internally divided, 3 parts that are against each other)
a. Desire
b. Spirit (spunk not religious)
c. Reason- weakest
i. All 3 are always on different page, conflicted, unhappy and unsuccessful
iv. Stoicism: a good life is a life of self-control. Humans emotions are choices
1. Absolute control at all times
a. Ex. If sex presents itself than have sex, but don’t think about it before or after.
v. Medieval Christianity: all forms of lust are immoral, if must than get married. Adultery isn’t having sex outside of marriage, its feeling LUST outside of marriage.
d. Pessimistic Views of Lust:
1. Degradation: lust animalizes you. Lust=vile, gross
a. Madonna/Whore Dichotomy: women labeled as source of lust &immorality. Only way to get around lust is thinking of mom, & to degrade women. (Mom vs. whore)
b. Role of love? When in love wouldn’t have to degrade
2. Objectification: instrumentality using people to get aroused, treating others as autonomous, disposable, passive, feeling unaccounted for.
a. Sartre “Gaze of Others”: importance of way people look at you, come as threat to your self-image. Get cognition from others.
b. Lust for someone else→ they’ve dominated you, have control over you
3. Puppets of Nature: natural selection and sexual selection
a. No control
b. Dimorphic: when it comes to sex mean report having more than women.
e. Blackburn’s Solution to Lust
i. Hobbesian Unity: pure mutuality→ eliminates objectivity problem because one feels lust for the other person’s lust. Objects can’t feel lust, and experience of communion with someone else
1. Moves in both directions
2. Variable Realized: no one way of doing it, people are pleasure by different things/ways mutually
a. Ex: non-mutual: Clinton “I wasn’t having sex with her, she having sex with me.

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ARISTOTLE (VIRTUE ETHICS):

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Agent centered; focuses on whom we should be, not what we should do or how to act. What kind of person should we be?
a. Eudaimonia: used to mean happiness, now seen as thriving
i. Purpose of life is to thrive→ happiness
ii. Happiness→life is going well: career, family, love etc
1. Own happiness is organized life
2. Others happiness is vital to thriving
iii. Questions:
1. Happy while alive?
2. Something we can use retroactively?
3. Ex: young people haven’t established selves → “potential for happiness”
b. Virtue: trait of character concerned with choice, lying between 2 vices (everything a virtue is but bad, bring unhappiness/lacking temperance) that depend on excess and deficiency
i. Theory of the Mean: desirable middle between two extremes, excess & deficiency
ii. You can tell if trait is a virtue or not if it brings happiness or not
iii. Manifested in habit
iv. Ex: VIRTUE: Honest/ Excess VICE: blunt or naïve / Deficient VICE: dishonest liar
v. Acquisition of Virtues: you are a result of your own choices
1. Practice (try out and get feedback)
2. Proper Upbringing
3. Repetition (habituation)
c. Thesis of the Unity of Virtues: one vice leads to another in most cases therefore, if/when you make a mistake LEARN from it and fix.
i. Ex: Courage: the right amount of fear to the right object, at the right time, with the right response.
1. False Courage’s (develop courage so understand falsities)
a. False Motive
b. Ignorance
c. Passion
d. Appearance of Bravery
d. Character: totality of virtues (roles are how we express) GOOD character will give you a pleasure/happiness. Intentionally create habits actions come out of character.
i. Holism: developing a full sense of being virtuous, understanding what’s good for you to live well.

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ARISTOTLE (FRIENDSHIPS <philia: brotherly love>):

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friendship is mutual, reciprocated good will. Both think well of other person, and want good things for them. Also activity of spending time together. Physical presence and feeling are necessary.
a. 3 Types of Friendship: defined by object of love.
1. Utility:
a. What you love about them is the benefit BUT still want good will for them
i. Ex: car pool→ like person, but carpool ends friendship will end.
b. Doesn’t last long
2. Pleasure:
a. What you love about the person: love the pleasure you get from person
i. Ex: sense of humor, shared interest
b. Don’t last long, continues good will but will probably fade
c. Will most likely lead to highest form of pleasure, likelihood of growth
3. Golden/Perfect:
a. What you love is the person’s virtues.
b. Take time and commitment. When you come to look at someone who’s worth being a friend too.
c. Push your friend to be excellent. Better person your friend is, better person you’ll be.
i. Ex: if your friend is loyal, it’s likely to make you more loyal.
b. Werther Effect: we tend to do what our friends/ other people around us are.
i. Friendship among good people tends to make them better/ Friendship among bad people tends to make them worse
c. Problems with Aristotle
i. Conflict of Virtues:
1. No advice. Simply that a virtuous person will know what to do
2. Lacking specificity (ex: honesty)
3. Incompleteness
a. Need moral theory about actions, not just agents.

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FEMINIST ETHICS

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I have traditionally had diminished rights. That’s bad.
a. CAROL GILLIGAN→ Heintz Dilemma: Heintz’s wife is sick and will die without medication. They cannot afford the medicine so should he steal it to save his wife?
i. Men: “ A life is more important than money”
1. Justice of Ethics, Abstract Principles
ii. Women: “Has Heintz talked to pharmacist? Options? If steal go to jail, then what?”
1. Concrete, Listening
iii. The difference is in moral voices, often smaller than we think,
b. Ethic of Care: tendency to look at relationships. Who’s discussed the situation? Can we relieve stress?
i. Relational Self: understanding yourself helps with others
ii. Difference Celebrated: amplify moral differences, listen to each other
iii. Conversation Metaphor: bring out all voices to get through
iv. Care (moral) = Active Concern (partial)
c. Critique of Ethics of Care (KOEHN)
i. Just caring won’t give you answers
ii. Socially naïve
iii. Harmful care (ex: stalker)
iv. Partiality is dangerous

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ESSENTIALISM

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sex and gender are inherently linked. Implies if you have a certain body you will think in a certain way.
a. Traditionalism: neither better nor worse, but different. Should be treated different because different roles.
i. Aristotle: women bodies are such that they cant transcend themselves, cant control their behavior→ can’t be properly virtuous
ii. Medieval Dualism: humans = bodies (not free) + soul (free). Women have less control of sin.
iii. Enlightenment: humans are fundamentally rational, but women can be “hysterical”
b. Mary Daly: reversal of value
i. Wanted to invert earlier thoughts of gender

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NON-ESSENTIALISM

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sex and gender are NOT inherently linked, but measurable differences→source is not biology.
a. Mary Wollstonecraft: rationally women could be just as good as men but they aren’t given the opportunity.
i. Society is responsible to give opportunity.
b. Simon de Beauvoir:
i. “One is not born a woman, one becomes one”
ii. Gender= Oppression
c. Androgyny: essentially genderless humans; having the positive characteristics of both genders is the goal. Possible?

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PETER SINGER:

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a. Euthanasia (“good death”) given the presence of appropriate legal safeguards, there are no paternalistic reasons that justify denying voluntarily euthanasia.
i. Voluntary euthanasia is understood to be active euthanasia following the consent of the person killed.
1. A person is a self-conscious, rational agent.
2. Only persons have rights (and only persons can generate the principle of respect for autonomy). To have a right "one must have the ability to desire that to which one has a right."
ii. Death: defined as state that you can’t come back from.
1. Life that is destined for pain and suffering, NO chance at happiness
iii. Problems:
1. Under what circumstances is it okay?
2. Sanctity of Life
3. Case by case and circumstantial. Giving to much weight to individual freedom?
b. Animal Moral Consideration: unreasonable to think animals don’t feel pain, we must give them some moral consideration.
i. Principle of Equality: if there isn’t a morally compelling reason to not treat something/someone of a different equality the same, then you shouldn’t.
1. If you can’t think of a moral reasons to consider animals different→we can’t
ii. Difference between humans & animals:
1. *Human Life/ Species
2. Rationality/Intelligence (implies smarted humans have moral rights than dumber?)
3. *Relationship to Pain (ability to suffer)
a. If you can feel pain then you have the right to be considered. If not then you shouldn’t be.
iii. Speciesism: form of prioritizing a certain species just because you happen to be a part of that group.
iv. Questions:
1. How do we figure out what makes a life morally worthwhile? Once open pain and pleasure door, conditions follow.
a. Ex: Abortion→ if have life suffering ahead, why not prevent?
b. Ex: Euthanasia→ terminal disease and no potential for pleasure, why prevent?
2. How to apply across the board?
a. Must find a way to be morally consistent
b. Why should we care if no consequence? (*GYGES)
i. Idea that no one can see you but yourself.
3. Problem of Other Minds: we never know if anyone has internal consciousness, if what goes on in their head is the same as yours (Singer says absurd)
4. Wittgenstein: thought=language→ if you don’t have language, you can’t consciously think
c. Infanticide: ethically permissible with regard to the happiness of others.
i. Killing a “defective” infant isn’t morally equivalent to killing a person
1. Person: being capable of anticipating the future, having wants & desires for the future.
ii. Death of a disabled infant → birth of another infant with prospects of a happy life t
1. Total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed rather than slowly letting die on life support.
2. No difference between infanticide and abortion, merely out of womb.

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NIETZSCHE

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most important moral choice to make is relationship you have with yourself.
a. Reevaluation of All Values:
i. Psychobiography: why would “A” write this? Try to psychoanalyze people based on their writings.
ii. Genealogy: family tree, looking back at relationships. Morality is generally treated as sacred because we assume there is some transcendental ground for our morals, be it God, reason, tradition, or something else. BUT idea that our different morals have taken undirected route to arrive in their present shape.
1. Punishment doesn’t mean the same thing it did years ago.
iii. Birth of Values: noble ideal→started with warrior societies (strength/courage/respect)
1. Independently different times or places have own (diff) moral rules
b. Slave Morality: re-sentiment—revaluing that which the master values. Strays from the evaluation of actions based on consequences to the evaluation of actions based on "intention”
i. Originates in the weak (in opposition to master morality= strong)
ii. Reaction to oppression, villainizes its oppressors
iii. Characterized by pessimism and cynicism
iv. “The powerful are few in number compared to the masses of the weak, the weak gain power by corrupting the strong into believing that the causes of slavery are 'evil', as are the qualities they originally could not choose because of their weakness.
v. By saying humility is voluntary, slave morality avoids admitting that their humility was in the beginning forced upon them by a master,
1. Ex. Slave: Altruistic, Master: Egoistic/ Slave: Humble, Master: Proud
vi. Nietzsche Criteria for Good Life:
1. Pragmatic: look at the effect (whether true or not)
2. Aesthetic: look at life as work of art, the beauty of existence.

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SARTRE:

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a. Absolute Freedom: says humans live in this, doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want, but that we always have choices. Most of us, most of the time, deny our freedom to ourselves because if we’re free, we’re responsible.
i. Contingency: things that can be changed, by what means
ii. Facticity: necessary, raw facts
b. Bad Faith (Excuses)
1. Drop in the bucket: no matter what you do you’re outweighed
a. Global Warming: I wont recycle because it doesn’t make a difference anyway
2. Everyone’s doing it: others, why not me?
3. Emotion: extreme emotion to justify certain actions ex: blinded by anger/love
4. Gender: “Sorry I cheated, men are gods”
ii. When using these excuses, we’re lying to self and denying our freedom. LIVING POORLY.

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MORAL INSTINCT:

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a. Steven Pinker is idea that moral thinking is fundamental part of the human brain.
b. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch
c. The rules it invokes are felt to be universal