PHIL 237 Final: Phil 237_ Reading Notes
Introduction
❖ How to make the right sort of decisions and what contributes to a good life?
❖ Distinguish between moral ‘oughts’ and other types of ‘oughts’
❖ Different normative concepts associated with prudence, rationality, aesthetic.
❖ If we fail to do something that we ought to do but isn’t a moral ought; we harm ourselves
and not others, it is a failure of prudence or aesthetics, etc not morality
❖ Someone who wrongfully harms another does something that he or she ought not to so
in the moral sense of ought
❖ Move away from simply focusing on right conduct in articulating a moral theory and
toward placing more emphasis on character evaluation
❖ Moral theories primarily concerned with
➢ Providing moral guidance
➢ Moral evaluation of human conduct
❖ Moral principles can help guide action
❖ An ethical theory may also provide criteria for evaluating an action
➢ Some idea of how we ought to act and reasons relevant in justifying praise and
blame of action
❖ Utilitarianism holds that an action, or a law is right if it produces the best outcome →
greatest good for the greatest number
❖ Theory enables us to delve beyond our surface intuitions about what is right and wrong
to get at the underlying explanation for that judgement
❖ For the utilitarian, the person who is killed is being deprived of his or her further pleasant
experiences and that is why its wrong
❖ For the Kantian, it is a failure to adhere to a universal norm and a failure to treat the
person who is being killed with respect
❖ Descriptive ethics different from normative as it is evaluative
❖ Normative ethics also differs from law i.e laws may be normatively immoral (eg: slavery)
❖ Moral relativism is the view that there are no universal moral standards
1. Torturing innocent persons is wrong
● This is relative under moral relativism
● Truth or falsity of a normative claim such as this
○ Is relative to what ppl happen to believe in a culture
● If moral relativism is true then problem for normative ethics because no
universal justification can be provided
❖ One central problem in ethics has to do with accounting for the source of normativity
❖ Normative theories can be divided into two categories:
➢ Those theories that identify source to be external to human (eg: God)
➢ Those theories that identify theories to depend on human nature
❖ Obligatory actions: Actions we ought, morally to do (eg: telling truth)
❖ Right actions: Not wrong, not obligatory
❖ Forbidden actions: Wrong, morally required not to do (eg: going back on a promise)
❖ Superergatory actions: Good, but not obligatory (eg: helping others without them asking)
❖ Bad, not forbidden (eg: not giving up your seat on the bus for the elderly)
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❖ Permissible: morally acceptable inc. obligatory, right and superergatory, suberogatory &
neutral actions such as eating an orange instead of an apple
❖ Value theory: intrinsic, extrinsic and instrumental value of the good
➢ Intrinsic: value in and of itself; eg. pleasure
➢ Extrinsic: value depends on an external factor; eg. we might think a painting has
value due to our reaction to it as sentient beings
➢ Instrumental: value brought out or through consequences
❖ A theory is good if it is consistent, comparable to other theoris, and how well the theroy
provides answer to the question
➢ Ethical theories should also provide some novel guidance
➢ It also helps if the theory is simple
Theorizing about Ethics
❖ We dont always know whats in our best interests → can adopt some ideas of interests
from our environment and people we interact with
❖ May confuse our wants with our interests
❖ We may be unable to determine relative importance of interests
❖ Even if we know all this, we might not act on it
❖ Thus to pursue self interests, we need to think abstractly about
➢ What it means for something to be an interest
➢ How to detect behaviour and goals which advances your interest
➢ How to understand the interconnections b/w interests
➢ Find a procedure for coping with conflicts b/w interests
➢ Learn how to act on the outcome of these rational deliberations
❖ Actions can affect others, indirectly or directly
➢ Thus need to make choices: your self interest or interest of others
❖ Traditionally, morality primarily involves other
➢ Conversely, Kant thinks harm to self is morally wrong
❖ Some moral decisions are easy, we don’t even need to think about it eg stealing money
from a co worker so you can go on vacation or drugging another person
➢ However, there are also decisions we think are easy but we need to think about
them more
➢ Our unquestioning acceptance of status quo can also blind us eg. our ancestors
may have been good people but they were part of the status quo that didn’t give
women the right to vote
❖ Therefore, to critically evaluate our moral values we should theorize more abstractly,
consistently, and coherently to make the best decisions overall
❖ Mistakes in ethical deliberations
➢ Inconsistent ethical principles: we should treat two creatures the same unless
they are relevantly different eg. abortion or free speech and paternalism and risk
debate → need consistency to prove moral arguments
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➢ Inappropriate moral standards: employ appropriate guidelines, principles,
standards or make the appropriate judgements
➢ Employing moral standards inappropriately: one might misapply rules prohibiting
lying and harming others feelings → eg when someone asks if they look good and
you think they dont so you can lie or harm the others feeling, in doing so
■ One might not see a viable alternative
■ One may be insifficiently attentive to the others needs and interests
■ One may be ubduly influenced by self interest or personal bias
■ One may know what to do, but not be motivated to do it
■ One may be motivated to act a certain way, but not know how to do it
● These are all moral failing with moral significance
Just a matter of opinion?
❖ No clear way of deciding with certainty which actions are the best, we have ways of
showing those that are morally defective
➢ For eg, we know that moral judgements on misinformation, shortsightedness,
bias, lack of understanding, or bizarre principles are morally defective
➢ We may not always know how to act; we may find substantial disagreement
about some highly contentious ethical issues; but this doesn’t all moral values
are created equal
➢ At times circumstances ask for us to act even it there isn’t a unique moral action
➢ However, at the end we should choose to perform the best action and at the
same time recognize our fallibility & uncertainty & be open to new ideas
The Role of Theory
❖ When discussing a practical issue, we are discussing not only that particular issue but
also underlying theoretical perspectives
❖ Ethical theories are simply formal and more systematic discussions of second level,
theoretical discussions
➢ These are philosopher’s efforts to identify moral criteria, the weight or
significance of each criterion, and to offer some guidance about how to
determine whether an action satisfies those criteria
❖ Knowing someone’s theoretical commitment doesn’t mean we know what actions she
thinks right and wrong → only tells us how they think about moral issues
Main Types of Theory
❖ Consequentialist: hold that we should choose the available action with the best overall
consequence
➢ Morally obligated to act in which that produce best consequences
➢ Same reasoning as pridential (self-interested) decisions→ thats why appealing
➢ Despite similarity, they are both different; ts, consequentialism requires us to
consider the interests of all affected
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Document Summary
Distinguish between moral oughts" and other types of oughts". Different normative concepts associated with prudence, rationality, aesthetic. If we fail to do something that we ought to do but isn"t a moral ought; we harm ourselves and not others, it is a failure of prudence or aesthetics, etc not morality. Someone who wrongfully harms another does something that he or she ought not to so. Move away from simply focusing on right conduct in articulating a moral theory and. Moral theories primarily concerned with toward placing more emphasis on character evaluation in the moral sense of ought. An ethical theory may also provide criteria for evaluating an action. Some idea of how we ought to act and reasons relevant in justifying praise and blame of action. Theory enables us to delve beyond our surface intuitions about what is right and wrong. For the utilitarian, the person who is killed is being deprived of his or her further pleasant.
