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Summary Biology & Society: Ethical and Professional Aspects (WBBY049-05)
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Lecture 1 Ethics IConsequentialism
Moral rightness of action determined by its consequences.
Utilitarianism: Bentham was the founder. An act is right if it leads to the highest amount of happiness for
the greatest number of people.
- The panopticon: a prison at which the guards are centred and the inmates were around them. So the
inmates didn’t know whether they were checked or not. This would steer the inmates for proper
behaviour.
Pleasure can be measured by Hedonic calculus.
Problem 1: Swine morality:
Include animals in the calculus, but also experiment on them and eat them (good consequences).
Problem 2: Naturalistic fallacy:
What is to be desired? That what is desirable! Sadism? Torture might be pleasure.
Petitio principii (circular reasoning)
Problem 3: Delusional happiness:
Drugs and dementia may lead to a certain happiness.
- Robert Nozick’s ‘Experience machine’
Problem 4: Distribution problem:
Utilitarianism legitamizes unfair distribution.
Problem 1, 2, 3, 4 specific problems
Problem a, b, c general problems
Problem a: Demandingness:
One must always strive for maximum utility.
People act, they don’t calculate.
Problem b: Negative responsibility:
A moral agent is also responsible for not acting.
Problem c: Impartiality:
You should save the drowning child actor maximum utility.
Deontology
An act is morally right just in case it does not violate one’s moral duties concerning the principles (regardless of the
consequences).
Kantianism: Immanuel Kant was the founder. Rejected Hume’s naturalism.
Kant’s ethical principles:
Maxim principle
Categorical imperative (2-fold)
Maxim principle: formulating moral agent intentions concerning:
1) Action
2) Conditions
3) End/purpose
Categorical imperative I: ‘’Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law.’’
Categorical imperative II: ‘’Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person
of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.’’
Problem 1: Logical contradictions:
, When is the duty fulfilled?
Also: morality as mere duty seems coldhearted.
Problem 2: Denial of negative responsibility:
Jim and the Indians
Kant would say: let him shoot 20, because you’re not responsible.
Lecture 2 Ethics II
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