social ethics questions

5/4/22, 12:41 AM Reading Assignment Questions: Week 4

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/assignments/7016120#submit 1/2

Reading Assignment Questions: Week 4

Due Apr 23 by 11:59pm Points 2 Submitting a text entry box or a file upload

Provide substantive answers to the 7 following questions. This week a few of the questions ask that you dig a little deeper and make reasoned judgements about what you think some of the texts are saying. Be sure to provide answers that draw from both the primary and secondary texts as well as my lecture notes, and also be sure to provide page number references to your sources.

1. What does Jeremy Bentham mean by “happiness”? How does it differ from Aristotle’s understanding of happiness?

2. Bentham believes that there is no qualitative difference between various pleasures so that all pursuits of pleasure are essentially the same. Do you believe this is a non-judgmental claim? Explain why or why not while also elaborating on what might be his ultimate judge for determining utility?

3. What does Bentham mean when he claims that “community is a fiction” and what is the significance of this claim for ethics (think about this in relation to Aristotle’s claim that we are social animals and therefore community is a real need)?

4. Elaborate on how you think the ultimate worth of a human being is determined within Bentham’s framework. (think of how he valued the beggar, or think of how utilitarianism views the worth of a cabin boy on a stranded life raft, as both cases are referred to in the Sandel text)

5. In differing from Bentham, how does John Stuart Mill make the claim that some pleasures are qualitatively distinguished as higher than others (beginning at p. 17)? What is his normative conception of our "higher faculties" by which this claim is supported?

6. In his Principles of Political Economy what are several reasons Mill gives as to why the wage relationship and private ownership of capital are problematic? Is there something about the capitalist mode of production that deprives humanity of realizing its higher faculties?

5/4/22, 12:41 AM Reading Assignment Questions: Week 4

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/assignments/7016120#submit 2/2

7. According to Mill what is a more ethical social relation of production that would better realize humanity’s distinctive faculties and capabilities?

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