Notes of the Ethics lectures from Ferguson & Wempe
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Course
Ethics
Institution
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)
Notes of all (4) Ethics lectures of Ferguson (3) & Wempe (1). Although the notes in itself are not very extensive, they are highly complementary to the other course material, and will therefore provide you with a more complete understanding.
Lecture 1 (4-1)
Benjaminferguson.org - password: steiner - business ethics
What is ethics?
3 reasons for relativism/skepticism
1. There’s no truth, so ethical claims can’t be true
a. If there is a truth, than ethical claims can be true as well
b. If there is no truth, this statement is also not true
2. Ethical claims are preachy and paternalistic
a. Ethical claims are normative claims (you’re ought to do so)
b. They are special normative claims
c. One account says they balance competing individual preferences
d. This allows that they do not give content to individual preferences
e. Ethics may be relative to individual preferences, but this doesn’t mean anything goes
3. Ethical claims are opinions, not facts, so they are not true
a. Metaethics (talking about normative principles)
b. Metaethics asks questions about ethics
c. Relativism reason 3 is a claim about ethics, it claims that ethical statements are
opinions and thus are not truth-apt (capable of being true or false)
d. We can infer facts about opinions
Doing ethics
1. How do we decide who’s claims are overriding (sex example)?
2. We use reflective equilibrium to bring our theory in line with cases
3. We can constantly adjust both our intuitions about cases and our principles
4. This is called normative ethics (you should not steal)
5. Applying theory to cases is applied ethics
Cases
1. Right/wrong
2. Good/bad things to do
3. Legal/illegal
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