Samenvatting literatuur Ethics in care and education
Week 1 – Introduction into Ethics, Moral reasoning. Relativism and egoism
An introduction to moral philosophy, Wolff; Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1 MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND MORAL REASONING
Learning Objectives
i. Understand the difference between meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics.
ii. Consider some formal and informal methods of argument, and how they can apply to
moral reasoning.
iii. Explore the role of thought experiments and moral intuitions in moral philosophy.
iv. Understand how some special moral arguments have been used in philosophy.
v. Consider some ways in which reasoning can be biased or flawed.
THE POINT OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY
Even before we can speak, we receive training in morality. Morality and moral questions are
all around us from the start.
Aristotle suggests hat the young man is not ready to study moral philosophy, for he lacks
experience of life, as well as self-control.
Developing a Moral Outlook
From time to time, people turn to moral philosophy because they face a serious moral
difficulty in their own lives which they hope will be resolved, or at least eased, by
understanding the works of the great philosophers. Moral philosophy is a practical subject,
albeit with many significant and important theoretical elements. It can help you to come to a
sharper sense of what does and does not matter from a moral point of view.
Many moral philosophers have offered guidance for particular solutions, but often what the
best moral philosophers do is inspire us to come to a way of seeing the world and our role as
moral beings within it.
Major philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche, Noddings, Carol.
Traditions of Moral Philosophy
We must be aware of the major traditions of Western moral philosophy if we are to
understand world history, literature etc.
THE NATURE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY
Moral philosophy is the practice of reflecting philosophically on morality. It has a subject
matter, morality, and a method, philosophical reasoning. Morality concerns our conduct,
reasoning, emotions, and dispositions, especially in how they relate to or affect others.
However, customs vary across groups withing a given society. The line between etiquette and
morality is pretty fuzzy.
Morality, at least at first look, concerns how our actions help or harm others in relatively
serious ways. Might feel like a duty, but there is more to morality than duty. We also have
moral duties to ourselves.
,There seem to be moral standards. Philosophers have made a three-way distinction among
areas of moral philosophy: meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics.
Meta-Ethics
Meta -> of a higher order. Philosophers want to understand what it means to say that
something is a law of nature. For moral philosophers, questions concerning the nature of
value, where the rules of ethics come from, and how we can learn about them are questions of
meta-ethics.
Normative Ethics
Norm -> a standard.
- Average, what is normal /
- Ideally
The field of inquiry around what, morally, we ought to do is often called normative ethics.
What moral rules, principles, or doctrines should we accept? What standards should we live
by?
Where do the ideal moral standards come from? This questions returns us to meta-ethics.
Applied Ethics
Many people become interested in moral philosophy because of a concern, whether practical
or theoretical, with a particular moral problem. These issues of real life cry out for a moral
analysis = applied ethics. Look at a problem from various points of view to see which
arguments are the strongest and most compelling.
Applied ethics differs from normative ethics primarily in focus and emphasis. In normative
ethics, we try to form a general approach to morality that will have wide application. Applied
ethics tends to begin with a specific problem and then looks for values, principles, or other
normative standards that can be applied to resolve it. It asks about specific moral problems.
QUICK REVIEW – Meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics
Meta-ethics asks questions about the nature and existence of value and our knowledge of it.
Examples of meta-ethical questions include: Are values objective? How do we know what
things or actions are good?
Normative ethics asks questions about what we should do and how we should live. Is there a
set of moral principles that I should follow, or perhaps some other decision procedure for
telling right from wrong?
Applied ethics asks questions about specific moral problems, such as whether abortion or
terrorism are sometimes permissible, or whether it was right to use the atomic bomb in the
Second World War. Normative theories are often used to answer these questions, although
different normative theories may give different answers.
MORAL REASONING
Although there is no agreed overarching methodology, there are many techniques and patterns
of reasoning that occur again and again. Moral philosophy is a tradition of thought, rather than
a set of doctrines to be learned.
Formal Logic: Validity, Soundness, Equivocation, Circularity
Of the general logical techniques that should apply to any rigorous form of inquiry, the most
basic notion is that of an argument.
,Argument = a dispute between two or more people that may have little to do with calm
rationality.
Formal logic = method of argument, using deduction, in which conclusions are derived from
premises according to a set of logical rules.
Deduction = A logical argument in which a conclusion is derived from one or more premises
by strict logical rules. A valid deduction from true premises must yield a true conclusion.
An argument is said to be logically valid, or a valid deduction, when the conclusion logically
follows from the premises. If the premises are true, the conclusions must be true too.
However, this is unfortunately not always the cases. Conclusion can be false, even though the
premises are true.
Arguments are sound and valid if the valid arguments come from true premises. If the
premises are not true, an argument is unsound even if it is logically valid.
A logically valid argument can be used in two different ways. It can be used to attempt to
prove the truth of the conclusion. Or it can be used to attempt to prove that one of the
premises is false.
QUICK REVIEW – Logical argument
An argument is a logical deduction starting from one or more premises and ending with a
conclusion.
An argument is valid if the conclusion is correctly deduced from the premises. The argument
is invalid if the conclusion of the argument cannot be deduced from the premises, even if the
conclusion is true. If the premises are true, and the deduction is valid, then the argument is
sound and the conclusion must be true as well.
One way to test for validity is to ask whether it is possible for the conclusion to be false while
the premises are true. If the conclusion could conceivably be false while the premises are true,
then the argument is invalid.
Sometimes an argument has an implied premise (a claim that is not explicitly stated), which
must be added when evaluating the validity of the argument.
Logic shows you what follows from certain beliefs, or what is not consistent with them, but
cannot show you whether or not a belief is true. An argument only gives you reason to believe
a conclusion if you already have reason to believe the premises. Likewise, a false conclusion
validly deduced from a set of premises demonstrates that at least one of the premises is false.
Logical Traps
Equivocation = fallacy, the same word has a different meaning in different premises.
Example:
Premise 1: Every river has two banks.
Premise 2: A bank is a financial institution.
Therefore
Conclusion: Every river has two financial institutions.
, Circular argument/ begging the question = fallacy, although the conclusion validly follows
from the premises, the premises already assume the truth of the conclusion.
Informal Logic: Analogy, Induction, Inference to the Best Explanation
Analogy = Making a comparison between two areas of knowledge or investigation in the hope
that what is known about one area will bring insight into the other.
An inappropriate analogy can be misleading.
A simple view of science is that it is a process of accumulating data to a point where it
becomes possible to develop a general principle or law.
Induction = Providing support for a general hypothesis by observing repeated instances of it.
However, induction is never proof.
Abduction / inference to the best explanation = arguing for a theory on the basis that it
provides the best explanation of some observed phenomenon.
Thought Experiments and Moral Intuitions
Thought experiment = Case in which a hypothetical situation is devised in order to stimulate
people to think deeply.
The thoughts that occur to you when thinking about moral cases are known as your moral
intuitions. A moral theory that is in line with people’s moral intuitions is usually regarded as
having a great advantage. The use for thought experiments is as a way of testing a moral
theory by considering how it fares against our moral intuitions. However, it is infallible.
Intuitions can be wrong.
Singer is using your moral intuitions as part of an argument that you have a moral duty to
contribute a larger part of your income to charity.
Moral intuitions can be used in at least four ways: to support a theory, to provide
counterexamples, to set a puzzle about our moral thinking, and to develop a moral argument.
Special Moral Arguments
Universalization = Considering the moral appropriateness of an action by imagining a world
in which everyone did what you propose to do.
There seems to be an important distinction between the facts that are involved in ordinary life
or in science and the values that we deal with in moral philosophy. What actually happens and
what ought to happen (distinction between descriptive and normative)? This is often regarded
as a line that should not be crossed.
Slippery slope = The argument that although something seems relatively innocent or
harmless, it is likely in some way to lead to something much more problematic.
Doctrine/double effect = The argument that what matters from the point of view of moral
responsibility are the effects that you intend, even if you can foresee that your actions are very
likely to have harmful side-effects. The concept is often used in discussions of the ethics of
war.
