Guidelines/Research Paper
College 2020
DiscussionEthics.docx|
Discussion 1
Discussion Introduction: A good cook is a cook that prepares meals well. A good knife is a knife that cuts well. A good pianist is a musician that plays the piano well. Could a good human just be a human that performs the essential human function well? This is what Aristotle thought. For humans to flourish—to attain what Aristotle called eudemonia— humans must perform their essential function well. But what is the essential function of a human? Aristotle considered a variety of functions that humans perform: we eat and grow (vegetative function), we try to get stuff that we want (appetitive function), and we think and reason (rational function). But to be an essential function of humans, Aristotle says that it must be a function that’s shared by all humans while also shared only by humans. But since plants and non-human animals also share in the vegetative and appetitive functions, this leaves only one function that could be the essential function of a human: the rational function. Thus, Aristotle concludes, a good human is a human that reasons well. Discussion Prompt: What do you think about the idea of humans having an essential function? Do you think we have a function just like cooks or knives or pianists? If not, why not—in what ways do we differ? And what do you think of Aristotle’s argument that the essential human function must be to reason? Do you agree? Do you think a human could live a flourishing life without reasoning well? Use your original post to defend your answer to these questions, then use your two reply posts to critique the arguments given by other students or to defend your own answer from the critiques of others.
Discussion Introduction: Aristotle’s notions of virtue and vice have common sense appeal—we all naturally use these character judgments to explain other peoples’ behavior. For example, when someone stops to help you pick up some papers you just dropped, you might think to yourself “oh she is such a kind person!” In this case, you are attributing the virtue kindness to this person as an explanation of her behavior. But, as plausible as this explanation may seem, there’s evidence from contemporary moral psychology that situational factors can play a more important role than one’s character in explaining behavior. Consider our example again: suppose that, prior to helping you pick up your dropped papers, the woman luckily found a dime left in the coin-return of a vending machine. How could finding ten cents have any effect on whether a stranger helps you pick up your dropped papers? Aristotle would likely predict that it wouldn’t! But when this study was actually ran, participants that found the dime were far more likely to help a person who had just dropped their papers than participants that didn’t find the dime!1
Discussion Prompt: So what best explains our moral behavior? Is it our character that determines how we will behave in any situation, as Aristotle argues (e.g., an honest person will be honest in all circumstances)? Or do the situations we find ourselves in have more influence over how we will act (e.g., you are faithful to your partner, but you cheat on exams)? And how might Aristotle respond to the results of the dime study discussed above? Use your original post to defend your answer to these questions, then use your two reply posts to critique the arguments given by other students or to defend your own answer from the critiques of others. 1 Isen, A.M., & Levin, P.F. Effect of feeling good on helping: cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 21, 384-388. The study actually uses a phone booth instead of a vending machine
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Mill’s Hedonism and Foot’s Lobotomy
Discussion Introduction:
You have probably heard people who have children say the following: “All I want is for my kids to be happy.” Perhaps you have said this to your own kids, or perhaps your parents have said this to you. Mill can explain this parental desire quite easily—an essential part of Mill’s utilitarianism is the notion that happiness is the only thing that’s intrinsically valuable (i.e., valuable for its own sake). This view is called hedonism. On this view, our life is going well if we are happy and only if we are happy. While this view might seem obviously true, it’s important to consider why some philosophers reject hedonism.2 Suppose that there is a lobotomy procedure that results in the lobotomized patient being completely happy from very simple activities, such as pouring water into cups over and over again. If hedonism is correct—if happiness is all that matters—then shouldn’t parents want to have their loved ones undergo this lobotomy procedure? After all, once the procedure is completed, ensuring that one’s children are happy will now be as easy as keeping plenty of cups and water available! But something has gone wrong—surely no loving parent would ever want their (cognitively normal) child to undergo such a procedure. So can we then conclude that hedonism doesn’t capture everything that parents want for their children? What else is there besides happiness?
Discussion Prompt:
What role does hedonism play in Mill’s utilitarianism? Do you agree with hedonists that happiness is, at the end of the day, all that matters? What do you think of Foot’s lobotomy procedure—would a child that undergoes this procedure be missing a better life even if they were in fact completely happy? What might Mill say in response to this challenge from Foot? Can hedonism survive this argument? Use your original post to defend your answer to these questions, then use your two reply posts to critique the arguments given by other students or to defend your own answer from the critiques of others.
2 The following material is drawn from Russ Shafer-Landau’s discussion of Philippa Foot’s comments concerning hedonism and a possible case of prefrontal lobotomy, found in The Fundamentals of Ethics, 4th Edition, Oxford UP; p.30 (2018)
· The Principle of Utility and the Trolley Problem
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Discussion Introduction:
Imagine that you come across a run-away trolley, speeding along the track uncontrollably. If it stays on its current track, you see that it will end up hitting and killing five innocent people who have been tied to the track. But as it happens, you are standing next to a switch that, when pulled, will cause the trolley to move to a nearby track. This second track only has one innocent person tied to it. If you pull the switch, you can prevent the five innocent people from being hit and killed by the trolley, though the trolley will then unfortunately hit the one innocent person tied to the nearby track. When given this switch case, most people say that it would be morally okay to pull the switch. And Mill’s principle of utility can easily explain why it’s okay to do this: if the only two actions available to you are to pull the switch or to leave things as they are, presumably pulling the switch will do the most to promote happiness over misery (i.e., preventing five innocent deaths at the expense of one). But now imagine another scenario—same run-away trolley that’s about to hit and kill five innocent people tied to the track. But this time there’s only the one track: there’s no second track or switch-lever to use to alter the trolley’s direction. But the track does go underneath a footbridge before it reaches the five innocent people, and there is an extremely large (though completely innocent) man on this footbridge. This man is so large that you realize you could use his mass to stop the trolley, preventing it from hitting and killing the five people. If you push this large man over the footbridge (against his will, it should be added), he will land in front of the trolley, stopping it, but killing him in the process. When given this footbridge case, most people say that it would be morally wrong to push the large man. This result isn’t easily explained by Mill’s principle of utility: if the only two actions available to you are to push the large man or to leave things as they are, and if pulling the switch was morally okay because it would prevent five innocent deaths at the expense of one, then how can it be wrong to push the large man when this is also the only way to prevent five innocent deaths?3
Discussion Prompt:
Do you agree with the common responses to these cases? If so, why? If not, why not? The Trolley Problem has been used by philosophers as a way to challenge the principle of utility--how might Mill respond? Finally, if you think pushing the large man is the right thing to do, why do you think so many people regard this action as morally wrong? Use your original post to defend your answer to these questions, then use your two reply posts to critique the arguments given by other students or to defend your own answer from the critiques of others.
3 Both the switch case and the footbridge case were first presented by the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson in her 1985 paper “The Trolley Problem.” The switch case is itself a variation on a different trolley case first presented by the philosopher Philippa Foot in her 1967 paper “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect.
Which Came First—Moral Parable or Moral Knowledge?
Discussion Introduction:
It might seem quite natural to think that we first learn what’s morally right and wrong by way of example. After all, virtually every culture uses moral parables: stories specifically designed to highlight or contrast good behavior from bad. Perhaps one of the most well-known parables in Western society is Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan: an injured man is in desperate need of help on the side of the road, but the righteous, wealthy and well-respected people all pass him by. Yet a Samaritan man—a man who is part of a community shunned by people like this injured man, and thus has perhaps the most reason to pass him by—instead stops to help, ultimately taking the injured man to an inn and paying whatever was needed to heal him and care for him. Didn’t this parable teach us that helping people is good? Kant says no! Kant thinks this explanation gets things entirely backwards! Kant argues that just observing the Samaritan’s behavior in the story wouldn’t have been enough to teach us right from wrong. After all, we also observed the other people pass the injured man without helping him—what prevented us from concluding that keeping to our own business is the morally right thing to do, thus judging the Samaritan’s behavior as wrong? Kant has an answer: we were able to determine that the Samaritan’s behavior is good because we already knew what’s good and what’s bad before we ever heard the parable. On Kant’s view, moral truth is something we know a priori (i.e., before experience; from the understanding alone).
Discussion Prompt:
Do you think that we must first watch other people, or read stories or listen to parables, in order to know right from wrong? Is morality a case of “monkey see, monkey do”? Or do you agree with Kant that this gets things backwards—that we actually already have knowledge of what’s good and evil before we ever hear our first parable? And how does Kant’s view here compare to Mill’s on determining what’s morally right? Use your original post to defend your answer to these questions, then use your two reply posts to critique the arguments given by other students or to defend your own answer from the critiques of others.
Kantian Ethics and the Problem of Moral Luck
Discussion Introduction:
On Kant’s view, the results of our actions are morally irrelevant because the moral worth of actions is only to be found in the autonomous willing of the act.4 But it is this feature that leads the Kantian view to deny the existence of moral luck – cases where the morality of an action seems to depend on factors outside of our control. Here are some common examples of moral luck: (1) an otherwise good parent shaking their baby, and (2) an otherwise good driver succumbing to negligent driving. If the baby dies due to the shaking, we may judge this parent quite severely. If the driver’s negligence results in the death of an innocent pedestrian, we may judge this driver quite severely. But notice that we don't usually make similar judgments of such parents or drivers if the bad consequences don't occur (i.e., the shaking doesn’t harm the baby, or the negligent driving doesn’t result in a pedestrian’s death). We usually treat the unlucky case differently from the lucky case despite the fact that the behavior in both cases was exactly the same.
Discussion Prompt:
What do you think about the idea of moral luck? Are we perhaps holding a moral double standard in the above cases – letting the lucky parent/driver off the moral hook while holding the unlucky parent/driver to a harsher standard? Should we perhaps remove this double standard by either being less harsh on the unlucky parent/driver or more severe with the lucky parent/driver? Or do you think—contra Kant’s view—that such a double-standard is actually justified? Use your original post to defend your answer to these questions, using the parent or the driver example, then us your two reply posts to critique the arguments given by other students or to defend your own answer from the critiques of others.
4 The following material, including the two examples of moral luck, is drawn from Russ Shafer-Landau’s The Fundamentals of Ethics, 4th Edition, Oxford UP; p.188-9 (2018).
