PHIL 1740 Midterm

Martha Nussbaum - "If Oxfam Ran the World"

-Unger's proposal was too strict bc if we listened to him the world would go to shit because government would have to turn a lot of power over to charities and he does not write as if people will actually take his advice -would end up worse without effective liberty and his problem unsolved -was offensive to readers and did not engage other writers in his paper -Unger's reply: The book isn't about a theory of moral action that we should all adopt; it's an argument to donate more than you currently are The book wasn't meant to be theory-building, and so didn't need to engage closely with the work of the broader philosophical community

Peter Unger-Living High and Letting Die

-vintage sedan vs envelope -conspicuousness: more conspicuous if it attracts and holds your attention more (not moral measure) -slaveowner vs bar puncher -primary & secondary values primary: general moral responsibilities secondary: epistemic (to know we have responsibility)-know moral facts and primary ones -some preservationist replies: none are relevant

Peter Singer - "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"

1) Absolute poverty is bad 2) We should do something to prevent bad if we don't have to sacrifice something of comparable moral significance 3) We can prevent some absolute poverty without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance 4) Therefore, we ought to prevent some absolute poverty If you can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, then you ought to do it, morally

Mary Anne Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion"

1) all persons have a right to life 2) if a fetus has a right to life, abortion is morally wrong 3) a fetus is a person Therefore, abortion is morally wrong to reject conclusion, you must reject 2 or 3 Warren argues to reject 3 --genetics do not matter --5 traits to qualify a person (consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, communication, self-concept and self-awareness) A lot of objections

Don Marquis "Why Abortion is Immoral"

1. It is seriously prima facie wrong to kill a being if that being has a Valuable Future Like Ours (VFLO) 2. Fetuses have VFLOs 3. So, it is seriously prima facie wrong to kill fetuses 4. So, abortion is seriously prima facie wrong ------deprivation view-------badness of death greatest loss on the victim (desire view: fetus doesn't have desire to live and neither do brain dead people)

James Rachels: Active and Passive Euthanasia

Argues against the claim that intentionally killing someone is worse than letting them dies. says active>passive euthanasia proven by Smith & Jones case: want to kill cousin -have same intention but the difference is the means in which they do it (killing vs letting die)

Judith Thomson-"Turning the Trolley"

Bystander in trolley problem Variant Third Principle: A must not kill B to avoid killing five if he can instead kill himself to avoid killing the five It is like stealing money to help OXFAM

Liberationist

Intuitive reactions (judgements) are NOT good guides to people's real moral values Singer and Unger we might be engaging in morally wrong actions as they will be judged in the future-always feel bad

Preservationist

Intuitive reactions (judgements) are good guides to people's real moral values

Amia Srinivasan- Stop the Robot Apocalypse

On "doing good better" consequentialist and effective altruists: make the world a BETTER place do the MOST good -William MacAskill (Qalys-give us info to work with but do not tell us what to do) Criticism: He thinks all moral consequences can be quantified on his model, but the world is too messy and eventually, the model is unable to give us satisfying answers. MacAskill gives us no satisfying reasons to take this step away from decision making based on kindness and sensitivity and toward indifference of who receives our good actions.

Onora O'Neill-Ending World Hunger

Our moral guides are often unhelpful in determining right action in famine and hunger cases To determine the adequacy of a moral theory, we should look at scope and accuracy applies analysis to kantianism and utilitarianism Kantian: actions ex) innocent person is getting tortured by politicians' children. Their parents are about to pass a program that will save many lives. --maxim: let him suffer for beneficial consequences parental status shouldn't come into play bc it doesn't justify the action in all circumstances we should use kantianism but it doesn't involve simple principles the way she wants Kant's view gives us general, but open ended, moral requirement and need to be *interpreted in each case* NEVER USE PEOPLE (as means) what that means in context of famine relief. ex) . recognize lack of power famine vulnerability entails, not dealing with them according to economic relationships that wouldn't be there if they were on equal economic status

Judith Jarvis Thomson - "A Defense of Abortion"

Pro- abortion Even if the fetus is a person, doesn't necessarily have a RIGHT to use the woman's body Doesn't think fetus is a person (like calling an acorn an oak tree) but since difficult to pinpoint exact moment, assumes fetus is person and argues why abortion is permissible violinist people seeds

Margaret Olivia Little-"Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate"

The fact that gestation involves an intimate, physical entwined relation to another developing life form is morally significant. "physical intertwinement" there is an intrinsic moral difference between that and doing other things for another being there is a severe moral badness in standing in physically intimate relationships unwillingly (not arguing for or against abortion) -if the duty to gestate existed, it would be a duty to enter into an intimate relationship -so, the ethics of abortions is partly the ethics of intimacy

Consequentialism

The right thing to do is (always, necessarily) a function of what would produce the best outcome. Outcomes come first in moral thinking, not the what and how of what you're doing Both Singer and Unger hold this view, but their arguments that we have read don't depend on it

Kantianism

The right thing to do is a function of the kind of action (maxim) that you have the option of performing/not performing It is morally permissible to perform an action of a given kind ("act on a given maxim") if and only if the maxim is one that I could perform consistently with {making that maxim a law of action for everyone = respecting everyone as "ends in themselves"}

Nussbaum and Srinivasan

What should you now aim towards/care about? -are advancing justice and doing the most good different? (maybe not-maybe advancing justice will do most good in the long run-maybe the only thing that matters is how well people on the whole are doing {utilitarianism}) Is it always true that in an unjust situation, the morally right thing to do is whatever will maximize overall well-being?

Utilitarianism

idea that the goal of society should be to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

Unger-living high and letting die ch4

trolley problem