Ethics

Front 1

Briefly summarize the idea of natural law.

Back 1

There are 3 types of law: human law (lawyers interpret) eternal law (God as an architect, world is God’s building, eternal laws are the plans), and natural law. Natural law is the rational creatures’ participation in the eternal law, which is God’s divine plan for the universe. In other words, natural law is our understanding of eternal law. Natural law is universal. It is accessible to anyone who can reason, used to obtain natural goods and avoid natural evils, and organize our moral knowledge. Natural law is divided into three groups: 1. Do good and avoid evil. 2. Do not murder, steal, lie, honor parents, etc. 3. Return borrowed goods, respect the elderly, etc.

Front 2

What are Thomas Aquinas’s three groups of natural laws?

Back 2

1. Do good and avoid evil
2. 2nd Group that includes do not murder, steal, lie, honor parents, etc.
3. 3rd Group that includes return borrowed goods, respect the elderly, etc.
NOTE: do not confuse natural laws and natural inclinations
Natural inclination: an instinct – human nature is wired to view certain things as good and evil; examples: self-preservation, sexual instinct, care of young, etc.

Front 3

Explain how these laws are logically related to each other.

Back 3

Aquinas thinks every rational person knows the principles for 1st and 2nd group but not 3rd because they are harder to understand. We can derive principles of 2nd and 3rd groups from those of the 1st. Together, the theory of natural law organizes our moral knowledge; good has the nature of an end; avoid evil (premise), not to live in peace in society is evil (inclination from theory of natural law), stealing tends to destroy social peace (empirical idea): what emerges is the principle: thus, don’t steal; additional premise: not to return borrowed goods (on purpose) is stealing; thus, return borrowed goods

Front 4

Does Aquinas’s theory allow for exceptions? If so, how? If not, why not?

Back 4

Yes. Problem of exceptions: distinction between speculative (theoretical) reason and practical reason. The common principles – everyone knows them and they hold without exception, ex: physical laws (gravity) don’t have exceptions, but moral laws do. Natural law allows for exceptions for the lower principles, but not for the highest law, do good and avoid evil. An example of an exception is Plato’s example about returning borrowed goods: someone owns a weapon, loans it out, but before you return it he goes insane, so you should not return it.

Front 5

Does the theory allow for change? If so, how? If not, why not?

Back 5

Yes, but 1st order natural laws cannot change; they are a base. Rather, adjustments can be made to the 2nd and 3rd groups and can be understood in two ways: addition and subtraction.
1. Addition
-natural laws are a base that human law can add to; ex – human nature does not know private property, but the institution of private property has been added
2. Subtraction
-sometimes natural laws can be broken when exceptions are found over time; ex – at one time, everything that was borrowed fell under the return borrowed goods principle. Over time, exceptions were found to subtract from this principle
(Class of Borrowed Goods) ----Time----> (Class of Borrowed Goods)->(Exceptions)

Front 6

How does the theory account for moral disagreement?

Back 6

Specificity of language invites disagreement, ex: don’t do wrong, don’t murder, don’t perform euthanasia – linguistic differences, differences of generality, tend to agree on the broad sentences and disagree on specific moral language; ex:
Murder is wrong
This is murder
Thus this is wrong (instantial modus ponens)
There is no disagreement over logic of the form, but what if “this” refers to an act of smiling? Then some will disagree with the truth of the conclusion because of “this” in the second premise.

Front 7

How does the theory account for moral mistakes?

Back 7

Moral mistakes are from passion, evil habit, and an evil disposition of nature.

Capote’s In Cold Blood example:
Two robbers came to a house to simply rob them of money. (passion)
During the robbery, one of the robbers killed the family because he had been abused as a child and had a lot of built up rage. The killing was not premeditated. (emotional habit, moral mistakes happen out of evil habits)

Charles Manson example:
People came to Manson to join his group. These people were actively seeking evil, and thus, had an evil disposition of nature.

Front 8

Illustrate how to deliberate as a Thomist in the three cases we discussed in class. Explain any problems that come up in the deliberations.

Back 8

The three questions asked to deliberate like a Thomist are:
1. What are the rules of the moral game?
2. How do I apply them?
3. Why bother?

IN ALL OF THE FOLLOWING CASES WE ARE ONLY ANSWERING, “HOW DO I APPLY THEM?” WITH THE STANDARD PROCEDURE (but I don’t know how, nor did he say how, nor did we do it in class)

Case 1 – Silver Dinner Bowl
-Rules: return borrowed goods
-Apply: give it back
-Why bother?: if you do not give it back, you are either stealing or you must barter for it.
END: OBTAIN NATURAL GOODS, AVOID EVILS

Case 2 – Father’s stroke and living outside a certain doctor’s region for help
-Rules: obtain natural good of self-preservation, provide best care for father
-Apply: either lie about father’s address, don’t lie, or have father move in
-inconsistency problem: stems from the fact that sometimes two natural laws of the same group are telling us to do opposite things. In this case, self-preservation and do not lie are telling us to do different things.

Case 3 – Secretly reading roommate’s letter
-Rules: do good and avoid evil
-Apply: read or do not read the letter
-Why bother?:
-privacy principle violated if letter is read, but Aquinas’ laws do not say anything about friendship/loyalty specifically. The closet idea he mentions is stealing (of information, in this case).
-completeness problem: the theory of natural law’s lack of some concepts, such as the privacy principle, therefore requiring natural law to be modified in such cases (stealing applied to privacy principle) so that it applies to the theory of natural law. Although natural law is a good guide in many cases, sometimes theory must be stretched to be applied to other problems which may arise from inconsistency and (in)completeness.

Front 9

What is Aquinas’s answer to the question “Why should I play the moral game?”

Back 9

Aquinas’ answer has two parts to why we play the moral game.
1. The first and most important/prominent reason we play the moral game is to achieve the things we instinctively want (natural goods) and to avoid the things we do not want (evils).
2. Because some of the natural laws are among the 10 Commandments, there is also a religious answer: these divine commands are justification for playing the moral game.
Mention commandments that are natural laws: honor parents, don’t murder, steal, lie

To live morally, we have to follow the rules: what are the rules (ex: keep promises), application of the rules (ex: made promise to a friend to help move, at last minute another friend calls and needs help – what do you do?), why bother (ex: someone who doesn’t work hard gets the scholarship); Aquinas’ answers: what are the rules? – the 3 groups of natural laws; how to apply? – deliberating as Thomists; why bother? – ex: living in peace in society is a good, but not a moral good, rather a natural inclination, instinctual goods and evils, point of playing moral game is that it is the way to achieve these natural goods that we instinctually want and we avoid the natural evils that we do not want

Front 10

Aquinas makes a historical error. What is it?

Back 10

Aquinas says that, according to Caesar, at one time the Germans did not consider theft to be wrong. This is incorrect because Caesar actually says, “robberies committed outside the borders of each state involve no disgrace.” In other words, theft outside the borders was not wrong, but it was wrong on the inside.

Front 11

What moral truth emerges clearly once this error is corrected?

Back 11

The principle has a huge hole because not everyone knows the theory. It brings out a moral truth that society makes us blind to (moral agreements). Morality like a coin – one side is moral agreement, other is moral disagreement – it is difficult to see both sides of the coin at the same time, theory of natural law helps us to see both sides, our society teaches us to focus more on moral disagreement, but theory shows us areas of agreement as well:
Morally good
Morally evil – murder, theft – despite differences/exceptions, most societies agree they are wrong
Morally neutral – ex: using one piece of chalk over another

Front 12

What is Aquinas’s answer to the specific problem of exceptions? To the general problem?

Back 12

-Specific
-Do good and avoid evil has no exceptions
-1st & 2nd group principles do not have exceptions
-3rd group principles do have exceptions
- Heinz’s problem – figure out general problem by looking at a specific one; deliberation: ends: obtain natural goods and avoid natural evils; means: steal drug or not; make a choice using rational tool – theory of natural law – have a rule about stealing, but wouldn’t be stealing for selfish reasons, Aquinas does talk about making exceptions – does Aquinas think all natural laws have exceptions? NO (see above). Stealing is in 2nd group so if using theory of natural law to deliberate then would have to conclude that stealing is wrong and Heinz should not steal here.
-General
-2 issues: are there legitimate exceptions? If so, how do we identify them?
Yes, there are legit exceptions. They are identified by being in the 3rd group.
-Kohlberg handout, dilemma about theft, dilemma on whether or not to make an exception

Front 13

Describe another solution to the specific and general problems of exceptions.

Back 13

Gert’s concept of nonmoral evil – deliberation: ends – minimize nonmoral evil; means – steal or not; choice – ex: if Heinz does steal, have loss of pleasure of druggist; if Heinz doesn’t steal, then wife will experience all of the nonmoral evils; these are both bad options, but have to choose lesser evils, which would be loss of pleasure, so Heinz should steal; so we now have 2 different standards: Thomistic and Gert’s – what counts as morally good or morally evil depends on the standards we use to deliberate – there are many different standards but they are not all equally good; solution to the specific problem from Gert’s POV – steal; general problem – there are exceptions, a legitimate exception avoids nonmoral evil more successfully than the rule; important qualifications: when talking about exceptions it is necessary that the exception is the last resort

Front 14

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Aquinas’s theory of natural law and the logical tool.

Back 14

-Logical tool advantages – clarity and universality
-Logical tool disadvantages – because of ambiguity, vagueness, or lack of empirical information, sometimes we cannot apply the theory of natural law
-Natural law advantages – it is a theory (and not just a list of principles), organizes our moral knowledge, and points out areas of moral agreement
-Natural law disadvantages – problem of exceptions, prescriptive inconsistency, completeness; the strong and weak points of these tools will help us to choose the best one when deliberating
*On test, be sure to develop your ideas more than just listing like this.

Front 15

According to Pojman, does the diversity thesis show that ethical relativism is true? Why or why not?

Back 15

*I don’t have an easy explanation for this one because my original answer was wrong. Can someone send a better explanation please? The little information I have below is all he would tell me because he just pointed me to the page in the text and said figure it out.
No. The diversity thesis is neutral. From text:
“Many societies have radically different moral codes. Cultural relativism seems to be a fact, but even if it is, it does not by itself establish the truth of ethical relativism. Cultural diversity in itself is neutral between theories. For the objectivist could concede complete cultural relativism, but still defend a form of universalism; for he or she could argue that some cultures simply lack correct moral principles.” p. 45 column 1

Front 16

Pojman distinguishes moral relativism, moral objectivism, and moral absolutism. How?

Back 16

-Moral absolutism: there are nonoverrideable moral principles that ought never to be violated
-Moral objectivism: valid rules of action that should generally be adhered to, but may be overridden by another moral principle in cases of moral conflict
-Moral relativism: principles differ from society to society; there are not absolute universal moral standards on men at all times

Front 17

According to Pojman, what is core morality? What does he mean by comparing core morality to vitamins?

Back 17

Core morality are principles necessary for the good life; they are not arbitrary.
Core moral rules are like the vitamins necessary to a healthy diet. We need an adequate amount of each, and amounts of each may be different from one person to the next, but by whatever means/dietary intake, we all get the right amount. Examples are do not kill, cause unnecessary pain/suffering, steal, etc.

Front 18

Who’s to say what’s right or wrong? Can you summarize Pojman’s answer?

Back 18

We all agree that there are cultural differences, but Pojman says that these differences do not imply that there are better or worse ways of living. Because of this, we are to decide what’s right and wrong with the best reasoning we can bring forth, as well as sympathy and proper understanding.

Front 19

How would you summarize Hobbes’s mechanism? (by “mechanism,” he means “philosophy”)

Back 19

Hobbes’ mechanism tries to construct a view of the world through the lens of science. “Life is but a motion of limbs,” a saying constructed by Hobbes for his mechanism that builds off those of Aristotle and Descartes. Everything is matter and motion and can be explained by the laws of force. Example: a billiard table. Table is world, balls are everything else, and to move the balls, you need force.

Front 20

Describe Hobbes’s mechanical starting point for ethics.

Back 20

The mechanical starting point for ethics is war. A state of war exists even if there is only the threat of violence. War takes our ordinary description of life and subtracts from it, disrupting virtually everything in society. The only concern during war is self-protection. Hobbes’ solution for protection stems from two faculties within humans: passions and reason. Passions allow everyone to share the will to live. This commonality leads people to agree that living in a state a peace is better than war, and thus, seek peace. Reason is the mean to arriving at peace, with the solution in moral science.

Front 21

Are Hobbes’ rights of nature and laws of nature the same or different? Why?

Back 21

Hobbes’ Rights of Nature and Laws of Nature are not the same thing; the Rights of Nature deal with liberty whereas the Laws of Nature deal with obligation. The Rights of Nature have no moral foundation, just the right to self-preservation. A state of war is a state of nature, and in a state of war, there is no morality. In nature, there are no laws, just force. If you are living in a state of war, and you have the ability to do something you think will help with your self-preservation, you have the right to do it. You have the right that your power gives you. The Laws of Nature, are obligation that constrain and restrict movement. Reason tells us the Laws of Nature are the way to get to a state of peace.

Front 22

Does Hobbes think that the passions are part of the problem of self-preservation or part of the solution?

Back 22

Hobbes says regardless of our differences, we all have passion to live, therefore, self-preservation is part of the solution. Thus, we all agree we are better off in a state of peace, rather than a state of war. Hobbes’ believes in a common human goal to restructure society from being in a state of war to a state of peace (Solution). We use reason to arrive at peace.

Front 23

How does Hobbes think that reason can help solve the problem of self-preservation?

Back 23

Reason provides the means and solution of how to get to a state of peace. This means is provided through the Laws of Nature. The Laws of Nature are a moral science and have a geometrical structure. A moral postulate is stated and then a moral theorem is derived from it. Reason also provides the sovereign, the third step in the process of self-preservation. The sovereign enforces the social contract and punishes when people break it. There are three forms of the sovereign, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Hobbes favored the monarchy.

Front 24

Explain the role of the sovereign in this solution. (same information as above)

Back 24

Sovereign is the third step in the three-step process of self-preservation. The sovereign enforces the social contract and punishes when people break it. Forms of the sovereign: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. Hobbes favors the monarchy because he lived during the time of Henry VIII and the Reformation in England. But it does not matter what form the sovereign takes, it is just necessary to have a sovereign to enforce and punish.

Front 25

Illustrate how to deliberate as a Hobbesian in the cases we discussed in class.

Back 25

-Woman blinded with acid
-The applicable law of nature is law of retribution – make decision based on future good. Hobbes would rule-out the “eye for an eye” idea because she lost her eye in the past and law of retribution only focuses on future events. This leaves 3 other options for punishment: deterrence, reconciliation, and reform. Deterrence stands out for Hobbesians because it focuses on future good and would have the largest affect on society.
-World hunger case
-Welch told me to know the idea behind the case, but we do not need to know how to deliberate it since we did not finish it in class.