PHL105Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: John Stuart Mill, Natural Selection 2, Welfarism
Document Summary
Phl105 lecture 5 john stuart mill. What is a moral action: an action is an action caused by moral feeling. Moral feeling: a feeling about actions done to others and, that has been selected for by natural selection. Attractions: fits inside of and draws upon the theory of evolution by, corresponds nicely with current neuroscience and natural selection physiology, explains the arbitrariness of morality, explains cultural variation, explains the prevalence of moral behavior, explains moral motivation. Problems: hume"s law: you cant get an ought" form an is", the theory cannot explain the prescriptive nature of moral action, if an action is moral, then one ought" to do it. Is a combination of 2 theories: consequentialism. A moral action is an action that produces best overall result (*consequence) What is valuable: welfarism valuable own sake. Well-being is the only thing which is basically. Everything else is valuable as a means for its: valuable as a means to some further value.
