social ethics questions

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Summary of Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics

I. Utilitarian:

a. Some aspects:

i. It is empirical, basing itself on observing whatever humans happen to enjoy and dislike in the present moment.

ii. It presupposes that humans are driven by nothing more than sensory pleasure and pain.

iii. It is primarily focused on the ends of pleasure without regard to the means.

iv. Justice is therefore about maximizing utility for pleasure amongst the greatest amount of people, while minimizing pain.

b. Some pros:

i. It at least considers that we are embodied beings, and our felt pleasures and pains are an important part of morally determining a meaningful and happy life.

ii. It appears simple and nonjudgmental in accepting all preferences as equal.

c. Some cons:

i. it makes justice and rights a matter of calculation rather than principle, so that majority rule can easily step over individuals and minorities.

ii. Its supposed nonjudgmental character actually covers up a more severe prejudice that reduces all pleasures to a single uniform measure of value, which Bentham refers to as money.

iii. This tends to sweep morality under the rug since it no longer reasons about meaningful qualitative distinctions amongst our preferences and how we should value some over others according to a norm beyond fleeting commercial interests.

II. Deontology:

a. Some aspects:

i. It is rational, based in the coherent, consistent, universal nature of reason, rather than based on empirical fluctuations between different societies and times.

ii. It presupposes that humans are inherently rational according to a free will able to determine its own ends above the tug of war between sensory pleasures and pains. The will is only free when it acts according to the autonomy of its own reason rather than according to externally determined instincts, sensations or commercial interests.

iii. Its primary focus is on the rightness of the motive behind the act, and not on the results or consequences of the act—as a formal concern about whether the will acted freely in obeying reason alone, it is not only unconcerned with consequences but also unconcerned with whether the person is becoming virtuous through that act.

iv. Justice is about respecting the free will, and thus about making sure majority might doesn’t encroach on the individual right to make one’s own rational choice.

b. Some pros:

i. It holds to a normative conception of the human in its rational capacities beyond fleeting sensations of pleasure and pain

ii. On this basis, and thus against utilitarians, it grounds justice and rights on a principle of human dignity rather than calculation – individual rights are worthy of respect regardless of what the majority finds desirable.

iii. Respect of rights also does not require challenging all the preferences and desires that people do indeed have, since the point of justice is to respect the freedom of choice itself (though in its rational form).

c. Some cons:

i. The normative conception of the human tends to focus too much on the highly abstract form of pure practical reason at the expense of our inherently embodied social nature, thus failing to properly consider the moral weight of our loves, desires, and pursuit of happiness.

ii. Securing rights in terms of freedom of will and choice alone does not really settle most issues, since almost all issues, small or big, require reasoning about ends, purposes, and meanings: about what is socially, economically, and politically good for a properly human life to concretely and holistically become (rather than abstractly recognized only in theory).

iii. Similarly, its abstract focus exclusively on respecting others as ends, fails to account for the required social and civic virtues, along with their required practices and institutions, that could promote and cultivate such respect in the first place.

iv. In other words, it doesn’t adequately address what we should choose in terms of how to become truly dignified beings in both theory and practice.

III. Virtue Ethics:

a. Some aspects:

i. It is rational and empirical, basing its reasoning both on empirically observed qualities and capacities, while reasoning about which ones are potentially distinctive and definitive for a more excellent form of human existence regardless of whether they have yet to be empirically realized.

ii. It presupposes that humans are inherently social and rational. Like Kant, Aristotle held that reason is not a mere instrument but the form of human freedom itself. But unlike Kant, humans are most free when they are able to fully develop their distinctive social and rational capacities, socially in the most holistic sense.

iii. Its focus is on the end goal or common good of happiness, not as pleasure but holistically as well-rounded human flourishing, achievable through the virtues as the right means/practices of building the required character traits/habits.

iv. Justice is about distributing and allocating goods so as to reward and promote social virtues that lead to human excellence.

b. Some pros:

i. More practical and comprehensive in empirically and rationally considering what it means to be an embodied social being.

ii. Has a normative sense of human nature and the common good, beyond commercial interests, to help discern those preferences that are truer to a fully human form of social existence.

iii. Considers reason not in the purely abstract form of a free will alone, but rather in how we substantively reason about common goods and practice social virtues that aim toward, not just the end of respecting individual freedom, but the end of actually making everyone free through social, economic and political organization for the sake of community.

iv. In other words, even if we can’t accept the content of Aristotle’s world, his virtue ethics shows us comprehensively what we should be rationally discussing and arguing about in ethics—mainly, that the freedom of choice, the act of choosing itself, is meaningless unless there is something of a good life of human excellence that we can commonly pursue.

c. Some cons:

i. It is demanding and hard to develop within our fragmented and compartmentalized capitalist society, which does not practice, encourage, or promote certain fundamental social virtues or allow much free time to do so.

ii. It can easily become fixated on narrow conceptions of human nature or the common good and forget that these norms, and how they are to be pursued, are also continually expanding (if the human really is a progressive being) and so must be continually reasoned about and discussed with others.

iii. Similarly, while it is not interested in the elitism of moneyed wealth and power, it can devolve into an exclusionary elitism of moral excellence, forgetting that it is a collective project of building community for the sake of universal flourishing, raising everyone up into human excellence.

Comparison and Contrast chart:

Ethical Paradigm

Normative Standpoint

Dimensions to human being

Main Purpose for ethical action

Primary Means for fulfilling ethical action

Ultimate Social Goal

Utilitarianism

Bentham

Mill

We are only consuming animals without universal standpoint

One-dimensional: pleasure machines with no higher qualities

Maximize and regulate pleasure seeking within given brute nature

Ends justify whatever means

Functional Stability for status quo of commercial society

Deontology

Kant

We are consuming animals, but with a universally shared rational structure

Dualistically two-dimensional:

Pleasure machines + rational will

To restrain and transcend given brute nature when its interests conflict

Focuses on neither ends nor means, but on purifying intentions for obeying duty for duty’s sake

Cosmopolitan respect of individual rights

Virtue

Aristotle

We are inherently social animals with universally shared rational and social potentials for politics

Organically multidimensional: sensible pleasures, social qualities, rational capacities

To transform our brute nature according to its more excellent potentials for holistic development

Virtue as fitting appropriate means to ends: the practice of building up highest powers through habits

A political community of friendship and mutual flourishing