Ethical Reasoning

Discuss the three consequences of Cultural Relativism according to Rachels

1. One can't say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to your own. 2. One can reason right from wrong from within their own society. 3. The idea of moral progress if called into doubt.

"If Liam admits that he would resent it if someone stole his iPad, then he has a reason not to steal Rory's iPad." Is this true? Explain why it is or why it isn't.

According to Nagel and "simple consistency", in order to be consistent one must apply reasoning placed on everyone and apply it to themselves. Applying this to Liam, it is true that Liam should not steal Rory's iPad because he would resent it if someone stole his iPad. It would be morally wrong to steal the iPad because Liam would not want his iPad stolen. If he did steal the iPad he should feel guilty.

How does the act-utilitarian test for right action differ from the rule-utilitarian test for right action? Give an example showing these tests to be different.

Act-utilitarianism evaluates action directly for their utility. An act is the right act for an agent to perform in some set of circumstances if and only if it is the the act which, of all the alternatives available to the agent in those circumstances, would produce the greatest net sum total of utility or the smallest net sum total of disutility. Rule-utilitarianism directly evaluates general conformity to a rule for utility. A particular act is right if and only if the general practice of acts of that kind maximizes utility and is wrong otherwise. One example would be a transplant scenario where sacrificing the innocent life of one person would save the innocent lives of more than one innocent life, for example four. An act-utilitarian would evaluate the action directly and say yes we should sacrifice the one life for the four because this maximizes direct utility. A rule-utilitarian would disagree with this because society could adhere to the rule "Don't bear false witness against the innocent". According to this rule a rule-utilitarian would not sacrifice even one innocent life to save multiple peoples lives because it breaks this rule.

Is it possible to be a Cultural Relativist without being an Ethical Subjectivist? Argue in support of your answer.

Cultural Relativist - Opinions that are based off of reasoning and not merely a feeling. Ethical Subjectavist - Everything is based off of feeling with no reasoning and nothing more. Moral judgments could be based off of religious texts and therefore are not just a matter of feeling but based off of reason. Yes you can be a cultural relativist without being a ethical subjectivist.

What is Emotivism? How is Emotivism an improvement of Simple Subjectivism? What's wrong with Emotivism?

Emotivism is the use of a language to express attitude. It is an improvement from simple subjectivism because people can disagree in their attitudes. However, it does not solve the problem that we can never tell whether our attitudes are right or wrong based off of moral judgements.

What are the four ingredients of moral arguments according to Hare?

Facts Logic The inclinations or interests of the people concerned A certain power of imagination and readiness to use it in order to envision a case in which roles are reversed.

How do we decide whether it is possible to will that the maxim of an action should become a universal law?

First one universalizes the maxim and considers whether the idea of the maxim becoming a universal law involves a contradiction. If it does then it is impossible to will that the maxim of the action should become a universal law, and so the action is inconsistent with duty. If it doesn't, then we would consider whether our will would contradict itself if we were to will that the maxim become a universal law. If it would, the action is inconsistent with duty.

Discuss some of the similarities and differences between Hare's theory of moral reasoning, and Popper's falsificationism.

Hare makes the comparison. Similarities → moral argument does not establish a moral judgment (Hare) the same way that Popper sayas that scientific reasoning only allows for falsification and not the establishment of scientific hypothesis. Differences→ Poppers says that scientific reasoning is deductive but Hare claims that moral reasoning is not deductive but rather ethical

"If Jill is willing to commit herself to the action of putting her debtor, Jack, into jail because he won't pay his debt to her, and if she is willing to prescribe the same action for anyone else in similar circumstances, then, on Hare's theory of moral reasoning, she ought to put Jack into jail." Is this true? Explain.

Hare's theory of moral reasoning is act only on a maxim whereby you can also will it to become a universal law at the same time. If Jill is willing to commit herself to the action of putting her debtor, Jack, into jail while also willing to prescribe the same action for anyone else in a similar circumstance, then she ought to put Jack into jail. She ought to do this because she is acting on this action while also willing it to become a universal law at the same time.

"Given what Kant apparently means by treating someone as an end, it would be logically impossible for Justin Trudeau to steal Donald Trump's orange umbrella while at the same time treating Donald Trump as an end in Kant's sense." Is this true? Explain why it is, or why it isn't.

Kant's second version is to always treat someone as an end and never as a means. What Kant means by this is that one must always treat someone in a way that they would assent to. Thus, it would not be logically impossible for Justin Trudeau to steal Trump's orange umbrella while treating him as an end. Trump could actually hate the umbrella and want the umbrella to be stolen by him. This would mean that he assents to the stealing of his umbrella and would be treated as an end.

Singer presents both a strong and a moderate version of the principle of preventing bad occurrences. Explain the difference between the two versions using an example.

Moderate - If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening without thereby sacrificing anything of moral significance, we ought, morally, to do it. Strong - If we can prevent something very bad from happening without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. For example, if you were at a park and not doing anything morally significant and a child falls into a pond and starts drowning, according to the strong version, you are morally obligated to help the child because nothing of morally comparable importance would be sacrificed when saving the child's life. However, according to the moderate version, one could say that ruining their shoes is a moral sacrifice and would not be morally obligated to save the drowning child because something of moral importance would be sacrificed.

Suppose that if David breaks the promise he has made to Liz, this will produce more utility than disutility for all concerned. Does this mean that from an act-utilitarian point of view the right action for David to perform is to break his promise to Liz? Why or why not?

One would have to take into account all other possible options of action before deciding if David should break his promise or not. Let's say another scenario is that David keeps his promise and the net utility of this option is higher then if he broke it. Then an act-utilitarian would go with the option that has the highest net utility. An act-utilitarian evaluates actions directly for their utility.

What is the Fact/Value question? What are the two possible positions with respect to this question? What are the main reasons offered for each position?

The fact value question stems from Hume and essentially asks what the logical relations between facts and values are or that between factual statements and value judgments. One position with respect to this question is that a set of factual statements cannot entail a value judgement non-trivially. Factual statements and value judgments perform different roles, factual statements are descriptive and value judgments are prescriptive. An argument whose premises are factual statements, and whose conclusion is a value judgement, cannot be a non-trivially valid argument. There is a 'logical gulf' between facts and values. Another position states that if there is a logical gulf between facts and values, it is not unbridgeable. Factual statements themselves can be action-guiding and certain factual statements are capable of entailing value judgments.

"For natural-law theory, the idea that there are no ethical absolutes has an unacceptable consequence." What is that consequence and why does natural-law theory consider it unacceptable?

The unacceptable consequence is that human life is incalculable. If there are no ethical absolutes, then each human life has a value to be weighed calculatingly in the balance against other values. 2. But the value of each human life is incalculable. Therefore, 3. There are ethical absolutes. In other words: the idea that there are no ethical absolutes has an unacceptable consequence and is therefore false. Modus Tollens

What is Simple Subjectivism? Discuss the two main objections to Simple Subjectivism.

When a person says something is morally good or bad, all they are saying is if they approve or disapprove of that something. Two main objections are that simple subjectivism cannot account for disagreements and it implies that we are always right.

Does Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative entail that lying always wrong? Why? Why not?

Yes, it does entail that lying is always wrong. The lying promise (a promise made without any intention of being kept and thus a lie) fails the second step of Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative. The idea of a world in which people acted in conformity with this law involves a contradiction. If everyone makes lying promises whenever they thought it would benefit them to do so, this would undermine the practice of making promises because people would cease to believe promises. Promises would become 'impossible.' The idea of a universal practice of making lying promises involves both the idea of promises being made (on an ongoing basis) and the idea of promises becoming impossible. This is a contradiction.