Ethics Paper

Abstract #3 Chapter Eleven: New Values (pages 146-156)

Thesis: There may be forms of society in which a variety of criteria are employed to justify and explain moral, social, and political standards (MacIntyre, 147).

Major Metaphors:

Synopsis: The chapter expresses three views of moral rules that relate to new values. The Greek view, which concludes that human life, pursues goods with training. The Christian view is that God is the commander of obedience and will punish any disobedience. The Sophist view is what action will produce the most out of what we want now. Christianity’s greatest moral weaknesses are two: first, the sheer extent of its metaphysical commitments; and second, the fact that it has to assert that the point and purpose of this life and this world is in the end to be found in another world (MacIntyre, 148). The sophist view is incomplete, it does not include the joy a person could be feeling when doing evil and may outweigh misery. The Greek view is superior, in the fact that it could command the most “good” out of a person without force.

Abstract #3 Chapter Twelve: The British 18th -Century Argument (pages 157-177).

Thesis: Any man that has any possession, or enjoyment must give consent and must obey all of the laws of government.

Major Metaphors: Whig Oligarchy- type of government that was setup and enforced between 1714-1760.

Synopsis: Locke’s contract exists to safeguard property rights; property right is what is most important to him. Locke’s ideas are not presocial or premoral, Property is basically bought and owned based on a persons labor. If a person has a surplus, they may purchase property of others. Locke bases society on an implied consent to a social contract. Every moral proposition can be proved through mathematics. Henry More argues that twenty-three moral principles should be self-evident moral truths. Anthony Ashley, the Earl of Shaftesbury argues that moral distinctions are made by moral sense and not by reason. A moral judgment is thus the expression of a response of feeling to some property of an action, just as, Shaftesbury’s view, an aesthetic judgment is the expression of just such a response to the properties of shapes and figures (MacIntyre, pg. 162). Bernard de Mandeville questions moral sense. Mandeville attacks Shaftesbury’s two central propositions, the first is that man’s natural bent is to act in a altruistic way, and the second is that altruism and benevolence that procure social benefit (MacIntyre, 162). Public good essentially is created by private action and egotistical self-interest. Frances Hutcheson also advanced moral sense by making benevolence the core feeling. Hutcheson became the father of Utilitarianism by coining the term “that nation is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers, and that worst which in like manner occasions misery” (An Enquiry into the Original of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue, II, 3). One person that argued against Hutcheson was Joseph Butler. He argues against the use of benevolence and states, the future happiness of mankind cannot be sufficiently determined. David Hume argues for moral sense. He believes that feelings are what rises one to action. Reason is entangled with emotions and desires. Richard Price, a Unitarian minister argues that moral distinctions are intellectually grounded as just as the rationalists said they were. The basic ideas of right and wrong are “simple ideas”, not susceptible of further analysis (MacIntyre, 176). Adam smith was one of Hume’s friends and an economist. Smith, like Hume, appeals to sympathy as the basis of morals (MacIntyre, 176). He also used Hume’s imaginary impartial spectator, which judged individual actions. Smith, like many other successors of Hume achieved very little in the fact that the problems that were too great.

Abstract #3 Chapter Thirteen: The French Eighteenth-Century Argument (pages 178-189)

Thesis: The factors that men are governed by, are examples of the past customs, manners, and influences that arise in a general spirit.

Major Metaphors: Exhibiting benevolence – showing well meaning

Synopsis: The lawgiver must know the “spirit of the laws” and know which laws are appropriate. Montesquieu, the French aristocrat had the view of societies being independent entities themselves, influencing and being influenced by individuals. The types of society enumerated by Montesquieu are three: despotic, monarchical, and republican (MacIntyre, Pg. 179). His own morals come in to view in two ways, first in his tone of voice, which goes against the admiration for republics, the approval of monarchy, and the dislike of despotism. Secondly, were the moral percepts that were applicable to all persons at all times. Claude-Adrien Helvetius belief was solely in the chains of sensation. Everyone desires his own pleasure and nothing else (MacItyre, 181). Denis Diderot tried to find the replacement of institutions with various alternatives that allowed human desires to be expressed. He believed in eternal moral laws and is also very aware of moral variations between societies. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the man credited with the rise of romanticism, the decline of the west, and the French revolution was the most subtle of the enlightenment thinkers. He felt that, human nature was corrupted by political and social institutions. Natural man is moved by self-love and was in conjunction with sympathy for others. Natural man entered a social contract to have an institution make and enforce laws that were required. Natural man wants to live civilized with others, so that they can live as a civilization instead of just individuals. Man’s place on earth is with the social relationships that he holds.

Abstract #3 Chapter fourteen: Kant (190-198)

Thesis: Things that we experience will conform to Newtonian laws, because of human perception.

Major Metaphors: Categorical Imperative – Central philosophical concept in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Thesis: Kant’s theories are directly in the middle of the great dividing points in the history of ethics. He was in a sense both a typical and supreme representative of the Enlightenment, because of his belief in the power of reasoning and in the effectiveness of the reform of institutions. He was supreme because, he thought that he either solved the problems of the Enlightenment or reformulated them in a better way. Kant says, “concepts without perceptions are empty; perceptions without concepts are blind”. It was this statement that Kant went on to argue, that morals lay outside the natural universe. Morals must be independent of how the world goes, for how the world goes is nonmoral (pg. 191). Kant is among the philosophers that see science and morality as “it is what it is” and nothing else. Nothing else is good, but a good will. Health, wealth, and intellect are only good so long as they are used the correct way, but a good will is always going to be considered good. A good will essentially is used for duty and duty alone. Duty consists in what is brought together upon all rational human beings. What is universally brought together is a moral imperative that can be universalized. A universalized moral imperative is essentially a categorical imperative. In short, a categorical imperative has no conditions that limit it. One should not look to the consequences of their actions, but the duty that lies ahead of them. Do what your duty has in store for you and don’t look to the consequences. Essentially Kant’s theories and reasoning’s were misguided and misinterpreted for people lacking sufficient ingenuity.

Abstract #3 Chapter Fifteen: Hegel and Marx (199-214)

Thesis: The individual and the state have become segregated because of Christianity.

Major Metaphors:

Synopsis: Hegel seeks to show that Christianity divides the individual and the state. He attempts to show the history of philosophy lies at the very core within it. Hegel views the most basic forms of human life as unreflective. The individual lives in a closed society, which he acts out his customary roles. This changes, as society grows more complex and alternative ways of life form. The roles of Master and serf are played out when the self-conscious person realizes itself in social roles. The master envisages himself alone as a fully self-conscious person; the serf seeks to reduce to the level of a thing, a mere instrument. The attempts to resolve the deficiencies of the master-serf relation are stoicism, skepticism, Catholicism each of these, which lead to unhappy consciousness. Marx transforms Hegel’s thought by insisting that a historical circumstance is its means to producing material goods.