Philosophy 2700F/G Study Guide - Summer 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Utilitarianism, Ethics, Immanuel Kant

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Philosophy 2700F/G
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
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Philosophy 2700G Lecture Notes
1 | P a g e
Week 1: January 9th, Tuesday
I siged up fo this ouse o that da, so… eah!
Week 1: January 11th, Thursday
Moral Philosophy:
- Divided into three different subclasses. These can be distinguished from each other, but some of
them can be continuous with each other in that they have some commonalities
o Meta-ethics: about the presuppositions of moral discourse and argument. Focuses on:
Semantics: the meaning of moral terms; ought, wrong, good, bad,
meaningfulness, etc.
Metaphysics: to what extent (if at all) are moral claims true? What is the nature of
moral truths if there are any?
Epistemology: what is the nature of moral knowledge and justification (if there is
any; some people think there are no moral truths, in which case there are no
moral knowledge)? Are we ever justified in asserting a moral claim?
o Normative ethics: two main questions
1. What is non-instrumentally good? What is non-instrumentally bad?
Why (subjective; depends on individual feelings)? What are the features of,
e.g. a state of mind or character, that makes it good or bad?
2. What is right/obligatory? What is wrong/impermissible?
Why (somewhat subjective; but these are more concerned with morality on a
fundamental level)? What are the features of actions that make them
right/obligatory or wrong/impermissible?
o Practical/Applied ethics: two main questions
1. How I ought to live (more personal and determines what you want to do with
your life and your own values)?
2. How ought my society be organized/constituted? Rely on or utilise findings in
normative ethics to answer. These tend to be moral and ethical questions in
society (climate change, abortion, veganism, research ethics, etc.)
*This course will focus on Normative Ethics of Moral Philosophy (the question of good/bad and
right/wrong). The te o-istuetall good/ad efes to soethig that is itisiall
good/bad. These are things that are worth having for their own sake; not something that is desirable for
its own implications pleasure, knowledge, and achievements are examples of intrinsically good things.
On the other hand, instrumental things are worth having because of what they result in (not something
people might want for itself) money and food for example, are valuable only because they can get you
something (if you could not get something with money, you would not need it; food is needed to
survive, so that you can obtain those intrinsic goods).
Some values can be both. Friendship and knowledge for example, can be both you can try to obtain
these for their own sake; but they can also be a means to something else (friendship = connections and
achievements; knowledge = money and achievements; etc.). Pluralists value many things, all of which
are things they believe are intrinsically good. Monists believe that all good things are essentially a means
to one intrinsically good thing (i.e. achievements, friendship, etc. are means to happiness).
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Philosophy 2700G Lecture Notes
2 | P a g e
Moral Skepticism (John Mackie 1979, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong) people who deny that moral
claims are true, that a moral theory could be true. Derek Parfit considers and deflects two arguments for
this claim (opposes moral skepticism):
1. Argument from Relativity/Disagreement
- P1: There is a deep ad idespead aiatio i oal odes fo oe soiet to aothe
ad fo oe peiod to aothe… [as ell as] diffeees i oal eliefs etee
diffeet goups ad lasses ithi a ople ouit 36.
- This is an empirical or anthropological claim. It seems well supported
- P2: The best explanation of this disagreement is that people adhere to and participate in
different ways of life, not that they possess inadequate evidence or are reasoning
inaccurately about moral matters
- That is, the atual variation in the moral codes are more readily explained by the
hypothesis that they reflect ways of life than by the hypothesis that they express
peeptios, ost of the seiousl iadeuate ad adl distoted, of ojetie alues
(37). Here, Mackie is supporting the hypothesis that people simply choose different
lifestyles, leading to differences in opinions (however, the other hypothesis is that one
group of these people have a fundamentally distorted belief, which makes their point of
view wrong this hypothesis is overlooked by Mackie, but it is possible in some cases)
- Conclusion: Therefore there are no universal moral truths or objective values; rather, the
truth of moral norms is relative to society.
Pafit’s Respose (specifically considering a metaphysical argument of truths):
Just find the theory that resolves our disagreements. This hard! So in the meantime, the
following two arguments cast doubt on moral skepticism:
a. There exists reasons for action: suppose that unless I move, I shall be killed by a
[falling] rock and I wish to live. It seems obvious that I have reason to move. We can
accept this claim; [so] it is true. If there exists reasons of this sort, then perhaps there
are also moral reasons.
b. Moral skepticism is not all or nothing. Some parts of morality might be objective.
Some might not. We might find a Unified Theory about this objective part (not the
subjective parts). The problem is, we have to find out what these objective moral
questions are isolating these will lead to this Unified Theory
2. Argument from Queerness
Parfit believes that we can have high hopes about the progression of moral philosophy, because it is
only recently that people have began to consider ethics separately from religious doctrine.
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Document Summary

I sig(cid:374)ed up fo(cid:396) this (cid:272)ou(cid:396)se o(cid:374) that da(cid:455), so (cid:455)eah! These can be distinguished from each other, but some of them can be continuous with each other in that they have some commonalities: meta-ethics: about the presuppositions of moral discourse and argument. Rely on or utilise findings in normative ethics to answer. These tend to be moral and ethical questions in society (climate change, abortion, veganism, research ethics, etc. ) *this course will focus on normative ethics of moral philosophy (the question of good/bad and right/wrong). The te(cid:396)(cid:373) (cid:862)(cid:374)o(cid:374)-i(cid:374)st(cid:396)u(cid:373)e(cid:374)tall(cid:455) good/(cid:271)ad(cid:863) (cid:396)efe(cid:396)s to so(cid:373)ethi(cid:374)g that is i(cid:374)t(cid:396)i(cid:374)si(cid:272)all(cid:455) good/bad. These are things that are worth having for their own sake; not something that is desirable for its own implications pleasure, knowledge, and achievements are examples of intrinsically good things. Pluralists value many things, all of which are things they believe are intrinsically good.

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