Class notes
Elements of moral philosophy
- Course
- Philosophy 114
- Institution
- Stellenbosch University (SUN)
Lecture notes of 5 pages for the course Philosophy 114 at SUN (Good exam notes)
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what is morality? 20:02Moral philosophy is the study of what morality is and what it requires us to do
Socrates said its about “how we out to live” – and why
First example:
Baby Theresa
She was born with the disease “anencephaly”
The cerebrum and cerebellum of the brain are missing
And the top of the skull
The brain stem is still there so the baby can still breathe and has a heartbeat
Her parents wanted to donate her organs to other children in need before she died
because not a lot of children can receive the organs they need
Because they were in Florida, it was against the law to donate an organ until the person
is dead
By day 9, baby Theresa died and it was too late for her organs to be donated – they had
disintegrated too much
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There was a case wondering whether or not it was okay to kill person A in order to save
person B
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they used many philosophical reasoning behind it to make it just and to make light that it
was either strictly wrong or perfectly okay
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the second argument was that the autonomy was being violated
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autonomy: the ability to decide for themselves how to live their own lives according to
their own desires and values
a person’s autonomy may be violated through trickery, manipulation, or deceit
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Second example:
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Conjoined twins in Gozo
Mary and Jodie were conjoined twins that the state and parents had to decide whether
or not to separate them or let them grow that way
The results would be that Jodie would live, but Mary would die instantly
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The parents were devoted Catholics so they wanted the children to grow and if they
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were both to die, then let life take its course, but not to force anything upon anyone
Third example
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, Tracy Latimer
A baby born with cerebral palsy
Her father killed her one day in the year 1978?
The mother was glad to have come home to a dead child because she did not have the
guts to kill her herself
The father was tried for second degree murder
But because the baby had this disease and the father was doing it to put her out of her
misery, they lowered the sentence from the mandatory 10 years to only one year in
federal prison
The bigger court system people in Canada interviened and said it wasn’t right to lower
his sentence because it was a “mercy kill”
They wanted him to complete to normal 10 year sentence
This is where it comes in if it is right or wrong to kill out of mercy
The parents felt bad that their child had to grow up feeling this way and will never be a
normal child
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They thought they were doing the right thing when the father put her out of her misery
The Lord Justice of the court thought what he did was understandable, but the higher up
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people in the Supreme Court thought it was inhumane and should be punished for even
more
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“thus if we want to discover the truth, we must let our feelings be guided as much as
possible by reason. This is the essence of morality. The morally right thing to do is
always the thing best supported by the arguments” – page 11
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The ‘Slippery Slope Argument’
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Those who approve of his actions will want to reject them
The rote application of routine methods is never a satisfactory substitute for critical
thinking, in any area. Morality is no exception – page 12
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The requirement of impartiality
Almost every moral theory includes this
It’s the idea that each individual’s interests are equally important
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No one should get special treatment
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We should not treat the members of particular groups as inferior and this it condemns
forms of discrimination like sexism and racism
Closely connected with the idea that moral judgments must be backed by good reasons
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, The requirement of impartiality, then, is at bottom nothing more than a rule against
treating people arbitrarily
Forbids treating one person worse than another when there is no good reason to do so
The Minimum Conception of Morality
Morality is at the very least, the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason – that is, to do
what there are the best reasons to doing – while giving equal weight to the interests of
each individual affected by one’s decision
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This study source was downloaded by 100000830626511 from CourseHero.com on 10-18-2021 09:00:06 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/10617997/Elements-of-moral-philosophy/
, 20:02
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This study source was downloaded by 100000830626511 from CourseHero.com on 10-18-2021 09:00:06 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/10617997/Elements-of-moral-philosophy/
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