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Samenvatting Philosophy and Ethics
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Philosophy and Ethics (Eszter Kollar – KUL - HIR)1. What is ethics?
WHAT IS ETHICS?
Easier to understand what is wrong than what is right.
Ethics: what ought we do? (should questions) – how to act and to be in the world – after these
should questions you can start asking why?
Two kind of questions:
- What is the good life?
- How should I conduct (zich gedragen) myself towards others?
Example: who to marry and why? – this is a self-regarding question, this means that I don’t
owe a justification to anybody else.
Other example: smoking: you need to justify because you (indirectly) harm others and there
has to be space for mutual agreement in that space of reason.
Tricky: questions about interpersonal space: considers both the personal level but also
international level (public institutions)
PERSONAL VS PUBLIC ETHICS
Private ethics or personal morality:
- My conception of a good life (conflicts)
- Systems of religious faith are also moral theories.
- Consumption: example: what do I chose to eat, who do you affect (animals?) – moment that
you’re choices affect others, you owe them a justification.
Public ethics:
Private ethics allows for more diversity and more disagreement, while public ethics comes with some
expectation that we can come to an agreement.
- Which ethical principles should guide institutions?
- Which actions/practices should the state intervene in or regulate?
Minimum threshold of well-being up to the point which the state is not going to intervene
and below this the social security is going to intervene.
John Rawls: thinks that the idea of public reason should acknowledge and respect the fact of
reasonable pluralism1 in our societies. Means that we all disagree of the nature of the good
life, but there are certain very basic starting points from which we can start to reason. So,
basic principles these will be the basic ethical fundamental principles where we start from
(example: equality, freedom, dignity)
What we need to decide in public ethics is: which is the better more justifiable, more sound principle
to have?
1
Pluralism: the existence of usually refers to the co-existence of different social and cultural groups within a
society. Pluralism refers not only to the existence of these groups, but also to the different interests these
groups may have that may conflict with each other.
SM
,CASE : toddler abandoned by bystanders after an accident
Consequentialism: action is right or wrong in the light of its consequences.
Deontology (Kant): what matters is the underlying principle of action (motive), killing is morally
different from letting die – action vs omission
Public ethics: government policies that result in severe deprivations? E.g. health insurance policy.
NORMATIVE ETHICS
Which factors matter for moral evaluation?
Right-making features vs. wrong-making features.
Case (Shelly Kagan) – person drowning and I must row out to save her life. What is the right thing to
do?
a. Goodness of outcome (consequentialism): I could commit smaller wrongs but if I put it
on a balance with the life of this person than it would still be a positive outcome.
b. Rights violation (Kantian): individual rights shouldn’t be violated for the sake of
maximizing the outcome. Don’t steal a boat = violation of property right.
c. Causal connection – am I causaly connected to the harm? It’s my child!
d. Special obligation – doctors, oath of Hippocrates.
2. Consequentialism and World Poverty
What ought we do = fundamental question of ethics.
Is torturing allowed for preventing 9/11? Consequentialism is very flexible about these moral
principles. Under some circumstances killing is allowed.
CONSEQUENTIALISM
Maximize collective welfare/happiness/the balance of pain and pleasure. (any moral system has to
take into account that we’re all governed by pain and pleasure) = fundamental idea behind
consequentialism.
Principle: “create the greatest good for the greatest number” (J.S. Mill)
Maximize the amount of goodness in the world. (not always materialistic)
- Not necessarily favour the many (example: 50 euro to 90% of the people for gasoline or 50
euro to the 10% of people without shelter, so not always concerned about the majority) – if
each count for 1, then the majority will always outnumber the minority. Utilitarian calculus
(depending on which metric you will use, you will get a very different answer)
- Not necessarily promote the greatest amount of happiness (example: if you have to look at
the other side of the coin: if there is a lot of misery created to achieve this amount of
happiness – Romans: gladiator fight vs athletic games)
- Look to the future – results matter (for consequentialists, intentions don’t matter)
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, CONSEQUENTIALISM II
Structure
a. Identify the intrinsically good
b. Identify the intrinsically bad
c. Determine your options
d. For each option determine the good/bad results
e. Pick the action that yields the best balance between good and bad
There could already be debates at a and b. This is the way to reason if you’re an utilitarian.
Looks like a cost-benefit analysis. Example: ban smartphones in a car? No, the economic benefits
weigh up to the thousands of people who die.
UTILITARIANISM – ORIGINS
Jeremy Bentham
- Best consequence: greatest possible surplus of pleasure over pain.
- Critique: “philosophy suitable for pigs not humans” (J.S. Mill)
John Stuart Mill
- Introduce the idea of quality of pleasure (higher quality of pleasure in going to the theatre
than arm-wrestling.
Mill’s critique (on Bentham) is that he says that there is no way to distinguish good pleasure from
bad pleasure. Says that there are certain pleasures which are more important than others. (tv
watching vs playing piano). There wouldn’t be any way to determine that as an objective fact. For
every person it will be a different set of preferences/set of hierarchies. Mill says that only those
who’ve experienced both can tell the difference in terms of quality of pleasure. Notice: certain kind
of pleasures need to be cultivated (example: playing piano).
UTILITARIANISM II
Henry Sidgewick
- What is a “higher quality” of something other than getting more satisfaction out of it?
- Maximize peoples preferences (popular among welfare economists)
Modern Economics
o Mental state of pleasure/pain cannot be observed, measured.
o Preference, revealed preferences, choices in the marketplace (vs. pleasure)
ATTRACTIONS OF CONSEQUENTIALISM
Impartiality
- Takes every human being as equal and impartial between their preferences.
Conflict resolution
- Provides guidance about how to solve moral conflicts: maximize well-being
- Givers a very clear calculus.
SM
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