In-depth notes taken on every Morality and Value lecture of the fall semester 2o23. Notes cover weeks 1-9 and follow lecture slides with lighthearted clarifications included in definitions. Notes cover all topics including concepts like hedonism, utilitarianism, morality and markets, normative ethi...
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Learn to use discover (essentially library guide)
Read before lecture and after lecture
Administrative questions: ppls.phil@ed.ac.uk
Colour cards bring to every lecture
Do tutorial exercises and reading before the tutorial
Course Structure
Weeks 1 and 2 - Well-Being
Is getting what you want always good for you?
No. Getting what you want all the time enables you to be a prick. It also prevents you from developing
skills like perseverance, grit, and compromise. Getting what you need is always good for you.
Week 3 - Consequentialism
Are there any actions that would be wrong in all circumstances, no matter what was at stake?
Yes. Murder. Even in the sense of one life saves the life of many. I know Kant would say lying but I’m not
sure I entirely agree with that.
Week 4 - Kantian Ethics
Is ‘what if everyone did that?’ a good test of whether an action is wrong?
Not a test of whether an action is wrong but a test of whether an action is sustainable.
Week 5 - Virtue Ethics
What is the relation between an ethical life and a good life? What does it mean to be a virtuous person?
To live a good life you must live an ethical one, the inverse of this is not true though. I think you can
successfully live an ethical life without living a good one.
Week 6 - Deontological pluralism & moral particularism
,What are moral principles? Must there be moral principles?
Week 7 - Population Ethics
Do we have an obligation to bring happy people into existence?
We have an obligation to bring children into a world and circumstance in which they are set up for
success.
Week 8 - The Moral Limits of Markets
Should you be able to sell and buy a kidney? A surrogate mother’s services? How do we decide what is
off-limits.
Week 9 - Political Obligation
Did you ever consent to obey the state? If so, how? If not, does that mean you can break the law?
You consent to obeying the state by receiving the benefits of the state, by using roads built by it and
getting healthcare through it. I consent to obeying the state by possessing a passport and using it and the
state’s name to access other countries. I also previously consented to obeying the state by attending a
public school funded by the state and by receiving an education from it. Not consenting to obeying the
state doesn’t make it right to disobey the law, but if you truly are absent from the working of the state.
Truly and properly absent, then you are not bound by the same moral obligations as those benefiting and
actively a part of the state.
Week 10 - Meaning in Life
Does there need to be a god for our lives to be meaningful?
No. The individual determines what a meaningful life is. The individual endows god with meaning in the
first place which is to say, the individual can endow anything with meaning. Therefore no god is
necessary, and one can bestow meaning upon what they believe to matter. This could mean: raising a
family, doing charity work, reading every book in the world, etc,
It’s one’s own duty to create meaning in everyday life. that can be through god but a deity is not
necessary to live a meaningful life.
Week 11 - Conclusion and Review
The Philosophy of Well Being: An introduction Chapter 1
Questions:
,When we use the word prudential?????
Hedonism
● All and only pleasure is good for us and all and only pain is bad for us
● The balance of one’s pleasure and pain determines their level of wellbeing
○ Called Hedonic level
Hedonist Claim: If lives high in well-being also have high hedonic levels, hedonism must be true
Response: This provides evidence to the truth of Hedonism but proves correlation not causation, given
there could be a third factor present
Hedonist Claim: All human action is to further well-being. Pleasure and pain are the only thing capable
of motivating humans. Therefore Hedonism must be true because all humans act in self-interest to raise
their Hedonic levels.
Response: Not all action selfish. Other things motivate us than pleasure or pain. (ie duty).
Objections to Hedonism
The experience machine: Trudy has a higher level of well-being then Flora but because Flora doesn’t
know her life is a sham they both have the same hedonic levels.
“We want to do certain things and not just have the experience of doing them… We want to be a certain
way to be a certain sort of person.” -Nozick
Pleasure contributes to well-being but so do other things.
Debunking argument aims to show that the source of some belief makes that belief illegitimate in some
way. (that it’s false, unjustified, or has less support/justification that suspected)
Ex:
1 Your belief that dogs should vote stems from you having had dogs your whole life
2 Beliefs that stem entirely from person experience (having dogs your whole life) are illegitimate
Therefore
3 Your belief that dogs should vote is illegitimate
Base pleasures objection:
1. If all Hedonism is tue than all pleasures contribute to well-bein
2. If all pleasures contribute to well-being then base pleasures contribute to well being.
a. Base pleasures meaning immoral pleasures, unidignified pleasures, and pleasures from
low brow sources
3. Base pleasures do not contribute to well being
Therefore
, 4. Hedonism is false.
The Routeledge Handbook of Philosophy
Only things that have experiences have levels of wellbeing
Broad Hedonism: All and only positive experiences good for us and all and all and only negative
experiences are bad for us
Classical Hedonism: All and only pleasure is good for us, all and only pain is bad for us
See Classical Hedonism as a version of Broad Hedonism
Happiness Hedonism: All and only feeling of happiness are good for you, all and only feelings of
unhappiness are bad for you
Objections to hedonism:
● It fails to distinguish between types of pleasure
● It only pays attention to the quantity of pleasure, not the quality
○ Ex: Immoral Pleasures, etc
●
Lecture 2 9/20
Different kinds of value
➔ economic / monetary
➔ cultural/historical
➔ Sentimental value
➔ Moral value
➔ Aesthetic value
➔ Prudential Value (value that contributes to your well-being)
Thinking about prudential value when you have the thought that something is best for you
Considering wellbeing is helpful for
- Thinking about how to live well and give advice to the people we love
- Applied ethical and political issues (ex: allocation of scarce resources)
- Ex: deciding where to build a factory or school
- Examining theories that say wellbeing is morally important
- Ex: Utilitatarianism
Moral theories: tells us 1) whats wrong/right and 2) why
Wellbeing theories: tell us 1) whats good/bad for us and 2) why
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