PHIL 2103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Monism, Value Pluralism
7 May 2018
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Ethical pluralism
• Ethical monism: one primary of fundamental rule for the basis of morality
o Supreme of primarily rule has 2 features:
▪ Absolute-does’t perit a eceptios
▪ Fundamental-serves as sort of rock bottom basis of explanation
• But, we could not adopt ethical pluralism instead, the idea that there is more than one
primary/fundamental moral rule
• Types of pluralists
o Absolutists-whatever fundamental rules are there, they are absolute
o Non-absolutists-can break a rule if justified
• Argument from disaster prevention:
o If there are absolute moral rules, then we are never permitted to break them
o Every rule may be permissibly broken
o So no absolute moral rules
• Doctrine of double effect (DDE)
o Provided that your goal is worthwhile, you are sometimes permitted to act in ways that
foreseeable cause certain types of harm, though you must never intend to cause such
harms
o 2 effects that an action can have
▪ Those things we intend to bring about
▪ There are effects we could foresee, but not aim/intend for those to happen
• The argument from contradiction
o If there is more than one absolute moral rule, then those rules are bound to conflict at
some point
o If absolute rules ever conflict, then this generates contradiction
o If a theory generates contradiction, then it is false
o Therefore, any theory that endorses the existence of more than one absolute moral rule
is false
▪ Absolute rules that are negative (I should not do ____), cannot conflict with
each other
• Argument from irrationality
o If perfect obedience to a rule can frustrate the underlying purpose of the rule, then the
rule is irrational
o Perfect obedience to any absolute moral rule can sometimes frustrate its underlying
purpose
o Therefore, absolute moral rules are irrational
• Doctrine of doing and allowing (DDA)
o It is always morally worse to do harm than to allow that same harm to occur
o
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