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Moral Philosophy Revision Notes
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Moral philosophy lecture and revision notes (part of Jurisprudence & Legal Theory).
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Jurisprudence – Moral PhilosophyWeek 1: Why be just?
Questions for reading
What is justice? Is a person who is just happier than a person who is unjust?
Why does Thrasymachus doubt that we have reason to act justly? How does
Socrates respond to Thrasymachus’s concerns?
Why, according to Socrates, is a just person always happy?
If you had the Ring of Gyges, how would you use it?
If everyone had a Ring of Gyges, what would happen?
According to Aristotle, what is happiness?
Essential reading
• Plato, Republic, trans. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004) book I and book II.
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2014) book
I [pp.3-22]
Recommended advanced reading
• Philippa Foot, ‘Rationality and Virtue,’ in Moral Dilemmas: and Other Topics in Moral
Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002) 159-74.
• According to Foot, what is the relationship between desire and virtue?
Plato, Euthyphro in Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1997).
• Why does Socrates want to know what piety itself is, rather than being satisfied to
find out whether what Euthyprho is doing is an instance of piety?
Additional advanced reading
A. Ancient ethics
• Aristotle, Politics, trans. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998) books I and III (ch.
1-13). Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett,
2014) books II-IV. Plato, Republic, trans. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004)
books IV and VI-VII.
B. Contemporary virtue ethics
• Julia Annas ‘Virtue Ethics,’ in Oxford Handbook of Ethics, ed. David Copp (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 2006) 515-35.
• Piers Benn, ‘Virtue’ in Ethics (London: UCL Press, 1998) chapter 7.
Rosalind Hursthouse & Glen Pettigrove, ‘Virtue Ethics,’ Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
• (Winter 2018), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/ethics-virtue.
, C. Virtue ethics and climate change
• Rosalind Hursthouse, ‘Environmental Virtue Ethics,’ in Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics
and Contemporary Moral Problems, ed. Rebecca L. Walker & Philip J. Ivanhoe
(Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007) 55-72.
Recorded lectures:
1.What is philosophical ethics?
Ethics concerns questions about how to live
Broad questions about what we want from life
Moral philosophy Sub-system of ethics, concerns perceptions of what’s right and
wrong. Others consider it as a way oof how people permissibly act with respect to
one and another
Some use ethics and moral philosophy interchangeably
o In this lecture will use (following Williams):
o Ethics to describe the broad concern of how to live
o Morality to describe the narrower concern about how to live with respect to
one another
What does philosophy have to do with ethical issues?
o Philosophy – involves the abstract or rational study of the world as a whole
o Philosophy as a discipline also often prizes abstraction, generality and
consistency
o When philosophy is faced with Qs like “how should I live my life” or “why
should I keep promises” it tends to give abstract and theoretical answers
So why are we interested in these sorts of answers?
Some say it is of no help at all, it is not useful to answer Qs
Helps us to clarify the norms we live with
Can structure our thoughts about these issues so that we can organise
our aims and figure out what/who we are
Another very important aspect – more distinctive when addressing
moral and ethical questions: no final authority in philosophy other
than reason itself. Philosophy has the potential to disrupt hierarchy
2. Book I of Plato’s Republic
Structure of book: Dialogue between characters presenting competing points of
view. The principal character is Socrates (represents the views of Plato). Other
characters: Glaucon and Thrasymachus
Ancient Athens – democracy
Socrates is a divisive figure in Athens
What is justice?
o Not asking which actions or situations or which people are just, but they are
asking about the nature of justice itself
o Answer indicated in: dialogue between Thrasymachus and Socrates
T pushing S to advance this own theory of justice
, T warns S to not to answer the question of what justice is by saying
that it’s the right, the beneficial etc but demand that S tells him
exactly what he means.
S tells him he might not be able to do so.
There might be formal elements to the answer that show the
equivalence between justice and other concepts – end up with an
analysis of justice that tells us how justice is related to other ideas
o Plato’s metaphysics
Plato thinks that there are forms where a form is that in virtue of
which everything has some property or essence. There is a virtue of
justice of which everything that is just is just – forms have their own
independent existence.
Independent existence is important in making eg a city just. A city is
just by participating in the form of justice
o Party in celebration of a goddess – promise of a discussion. Discussion about
justice. T and S
T argues that justice is the advantage of the stronger – he argues that
those who rule are stronger and they still make the laws. They make
laws that are to their advantage and it is just to follow them
T is thinking about things we ordinarily think of justice eg keeping a
promise is just. But overall keeping a promise essentially is for the
benefit of the stronger. So, justice is used to preserve the advantage
of the strongest.
S asks him whether rulers are ever in error about what is best for
them sometimes laws turn out not to benefit those who made
them
T say that when rulers make mistakes they do not act as rulers –
defines rulers in a narrow way. When a ruler rules, he makes not
mistakes. When rules act as rules, they will make laws that are to their
advantage and it is justice to obey them
S asks whether a partitioner of any craft considers what is
advantageous for himself rather than for the weaker (subject of the
craft). S thinks every kind of ruler seeks out nothing but what is best
for the ruled
S suggests that ruling is also a craft therefore ruling cannot be
something that is for the advantage of the ruler. It must be to the
advantage of the ruled
o S’s reply to T’s theory
Justice is stronger than injustice. An unjust man if completely unjust,
is completely incapable of acting just – incapable of achieving any
common purpose
S will argue that a just man is always happy and so gets more than an
unjust man.
, Starting with strength of justice S wants us to think about a
successful unjust city. Asks T if he would say a city that is unjust if it
successfully enslaves other cities. T say yes
S asks can such a city would be powerful without justice
S thinks no – injustice causes quarrel, factions and hatreds among the
members of society. If injustice arises between people, it creates
hatred. On the contrary justice brings happiness and a common
purpose. If injustice arises it makes that thing incapable of acting in
concert with itself bc of the faction and difference it creates.
S suggests that this also happens with individuals – soul is made up of
parts which can come into conflict with one another.
Particularly Plato thinks the soul is made up of 3 parts:
appetitive part: the impulses of living, desires for food and sex
spirited part concerned with honour
rational part – loves knowledge and ideally is in control of the
other parts of the soul. Guides the other parts to work
together
S thinks justice is stronger than injustice
Why does S think that members of a group who are unjust to one
another cannot act in concert with each other – why can’t they
recognise that they can better achieve what they as individuals want if
they work together
S thinks that just people live better and are happier
Argues that a just person is happy, and an unjust person is
wretched.
Just man gets more in life than the unjust bc he is happier
S argues that each thing has a function and that the function
of each thing is whatever enables it to perform its function
well. The virtue of an object is its function to perform it well
S argues that the soul has 2 functions – living and ruling
S argues that the soul rules well by means of justice. Thus,
concludes that justice is a virtue of the soul since ruling is a
function of the soul and justice is a means by it performs that
function well. What is to live well? Simply to be happy. So, a
just person is happy. Justice is always more profitable than
injustice. But does not explain what justice is.
3. Book II of Plato’s Republic
Glaucon expressing dissatisfaction of T in book 1.
G wants to know if justice is instinctively good or instrumentally so
Most people think that justice is something burdensome, something that we
need to care for in order to keep our good reputation but something that we'd
rather avoid. G thinks that other people think that the best would be to be able
to do injustice while without being treated unjustly yourself or the worst would
be to be being treated unjustly without being able to get revenge
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