PHI 2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: John Stuart Mill, Deontological Ethics, Consequentialism
Document Summary
04/04/2016 (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) Ethical skeptics- doubt whether there is any moral truth. Ethical relativists- deny that there are any universally valid moral principals, different people if cultures have different principals. Ethical absolutists- claim there are moral truths. Teleological ethical theories- look to consequences of actions. Prodigy, read greek at 3, finished high school at 13. Utilitarianism: actions are judged by their consequences. For each option: what could happen if i did this. The right thing to do is the option where the overall consequences are better than the overall consequences of all alternatives. The only thing that is good is good in itself: someone with a good will is someone who wants to do the right thing, makes them deserving of happiness. Duty is the necessity to act out of reservence for the law: applies to moral law (duty) not to human legal systems.
