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phil2306_ppt_ch2.pptJohn Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Consequentialism: the rightness or wrongness of an action depends entirely on its consequences.
Utilitarianism: a version of consequentialism. The rightness or wrongness of an action depends entirely on the utility of its consequences.
Utility: the net balance of pleasure vs. pain that would be produced by the action, taking into account all creatures affected by the action.
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John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Mill's principle of utility (or “Greatest Happiness Principle”: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”
Distinction between higher and lower pleasures
As a response to “doctrine of swine” objection
“Proof” of the Principle of Utility
“. . . the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it.“
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St. Thomas Aquinas, “Treatise on Law”
Aquinas presents a classical version of the natural law theory of morality.
Natural law: that part of God's eternal law that concerns how human beings ought to conduct themselves.
All moral obligations follow from a first precept which is the core of natural law.
This first precept is self-evident and thus known by all.
The first precept of natural law: “good is to be done, evil is to be avoided.”
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St. Thomas Aquinas, “Treatise on Law”
The natural inclinations of human beings indicate which ends are intrinsically valuable.
These inclinations are a part of human nature. Thus, morality is ultimately grounded in facts about human nature.
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Immanual Kant, “The Moral Law”
Kant's fundamental principle of morality: the Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative is formulated in three ways:
In terms of universal law
In terms of humanity as an end to itself
In terms of the kingdom of ends
Kant applies the first formulation to four issues: suicide, false promises, allowing one's talents to rust, helping others in need.
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Immanual Kant, “The Moral Law”
First formulation: “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
Second formulation: “Act as to treat humanity, whither in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.”
Third formulation: appeals to “a systematic union of rational beings by objective laws, i.e., a kingdom which may be called a kingdom of ends.”
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John Locke, “Natural Rights”
Locke accepts a natural law conception of morality, but in the textbook selections he focuses on “natural” rights.
Examples of our natural rights:
The right to life
The right to health
The right to liberty
The right to possession
“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone….”
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John Locke, “Natural Rights”
Locke allows for situations where the natural rights of an individual may be justifiably violated.
The right to punish transgressors of the natural law may justify harming another.
The right to taking reparations may justify taking another’s property.
“And thus it is that every man in the state of nature has the right to kill a murderer … to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate.”
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Aristotle, “Virtue and Character”
Characteristics of the good
The good is the end of action.
The good is complete.
Criteria of completeness
“[A]n end that is always [choiceworthy, and also] choiceworthy in itself, never because of something else, is unconditionally complete.”
Happiness meets this criterion.
Happiness is also self-sufficient, according to Aristotle.
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Aristotle, “Virtue and Character”
The best good of a human being is determined by the function of a human being.
This function is to live a life that involves activity in accordance with virtue.
Thus, the good life is essentially involves this kind of activity.
How virtue is acquired
“Virtue of thought arises and grows mostly from teaching, and hence needs experience and time.”
In other words, virtue is acquired through habituation, rather than from “a process of nature.”
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W. D. Ross, “What Makes Right Actions Right?”
Ross is a moral pluralist—i.e., he holds that there is a plurality of irreducible moral rules that are basic in moral thought.
These moral rules are distinct from one another and may conflict at times.
Contrast this with Bentham’s principle of utility and Aquinas’s first precept of natural law, each of which is supposed to be a single moral principle that produces all other obligations.
Ross endorses a form of the ethics of prima facie duty.
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W. D. Ross, “What Makes Right Actions Right?”
We have a prima facie duty to do something when there is some moral rule that gives us a moral reason to do that thing.
In cases where we have conflicting prima facie duties, morality requires that we use our moral judgment to determine which duty overrides which.
What we ought to do (after all prima facie duties are weighed appropriately) is a proper duty.
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John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”
Rawls is a social contract theorist.
The main ideas behind his theory:
Justice as fairness: the principles of justice are those principles that free and rational persons would accept in an initial position of equality.
The original position: hypothetical scenario where everyone is deciding on guiding social principles with the intention of advancing their own interests.
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John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”
The main ideas behind his theory (cont'd):
The veil of ignorance: individuals in the original position are ignorant of, for example:
Their place in society
Their social status
How talented they are compared to others
Their conception of the good
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John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”
Two fundamental principles of justice that, according to Rawls, would be chosen by occupants within the original position:
The principle of equal liberty: I have the right to as much liberty as is possible without compromising the liberty of others
The difference principle: Inequalities are to be arranged so they are to everyone's advantage and attached to positions and offices open to all.
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John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”
These two principles are taken to be special cases of this more general principle:
“All social values ... are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution ... is to everyone's advantage.”
Roughly, then, injustice is “inequalities that are not to the benefit of all.”
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