Philosophy 3820F/G Study Guide - Summer 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Criminal Law, Distributive Justice, Social Contract
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Philosophy 3820F/G
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Philosophy 3820G Lecture 1
Ethics
John Rawls
The most important political philosopher 20th century writing on Political
Justice
Tries to outline what justice is as setting out a few alternatives, arguing in
favour of one and opposing the others
“A Theory of Justice”
Justice as fairness
The Major Unsatisfactory theory: Utilitarianism
One Rule: Maximize happiness
Consequentialist
Taught as providing a guide as to how to act on personal decisions,
evidently not a good guide
The founder of Utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham (late 18th) “Principals Of
Morals And Legislation”
Typically not good in the eyes of the philosopher
But in the context of Public Policy and Business is good
In Western states and bureaucracy, Utilitarianism is highly influential
We should pass pieces of legislation to make the greatest amount of
people happy
We expect governments to use our information to make informed
decisions
Politician’s and bearcats do not use the term but instead use
Cost/Benefit analysis
The standard difficulty is that it demands too much
The 5 to 1 vacation family example, Snow boarding v. New York
Forces people to make decisions against his own interests
If your preferences are minority preference’s then they may never come
to light
Objection: Suppose there’s a racial and ethnic minority, hated by the
majority, by Utilitarian standards if the majority hates the minority, the
government should persecute the minority
Producing happiness for the majority could cause great unhappiness for
the minority
Deontology
Multiple rule based decision making
Says that the right and wrong of an action is not seen in how people are
doing, it lies within the action
Just consider what kind of action is at stake
Divine command theories
not popular with philosophers but with religious people
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Armstrong (Our Author)
Some kind of deontologist, not exactly clear
Global Distributive Justice
Thinking of it in terms of economic inequality
Utilitarianism v. GDJ
Utilitarianism towards strict economic equality
Rich people ought to make the transfer of money from rich to poor,
because you’re benefitting the bottom more than hurting the top,
according to theory these transfers must continue until everything is
equal (Utilitarian & Marxist Argument)
Diminishing Marginal Utility
The idea is you take any commodity if you have X number of things
then as the variable grows the value of each additional thing goes
down
As your stock grows, each additional unit gives you less utility than
the previous unit did
Peter Unger
Comfortably middle class and up, at a minimum they should be
prepared to give away 20% of their after tax income to poorer
counties, it would highly impact their lifestyles but little impact on the
poor
Sir Geoffrey Warnock
His wife Mary got into the House of Lords
Warnock wrote a small book “The Object of Morality”
Virtue Ethics
What kind of person should I be vs. what should other people be
There’s a problem of limited human sympathies, there are people
you do care about and then there are people you don’t, people in other
countries vs. your own
When you don’t care about people enough it creates problems
The point is to expand our limited human sympathies
When you behave morally it makes people feel better about you and
about life, and maybe good things will get done
He thinks ethics has a purpose and a point, there are a million ways
things can go wrong
There are 4 character traits
Non-maleficence (we want people to not want to hurt each other)
Beneficence (be nice to people, we like seeing nice things) Hume
Truthfulness (a trust issue, keeping promises)
Fairness (Be fair to others, parents, favouritism)
Aristotle, ethics relies on how we raise children
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The most important political philosopher 20th century writing on political. Tries to outline what justice is as setting out a few alternatives, arguing in favour of one and opposing the others. Taught as providing a guide as to how to act on personal decisions, evidently not a good guide. The founder of utilitarianism jeremy bentham (late 18th) principals of. Typically not good in the eyes of the philosopher. But in the context of public policy and business is good. In western states and bureaucracy, utilitarianism is highly influential. We should pass pieces of legislation to make the greatest amount of people happy. We expect governments to use our information to make informed decisions. Politician"s and bearcats do not use the term but instead use. The standard difficulty is that it demands too much. The 5 to 1 vacation family example, snow boarding v. new york. Forces people to make decisions against his own interests.
