Philosophy of Ethics

Stanley Milgram

(1963) Obedience to Authority -15 volts slight shock -150 voltes very strong shock -315 volts extreme Intensity shock 450 volts XXX most people went up to the extreme intensity shock: situational factors, obedience to Authority.

Isen and Levin's

(1972) Dime Study: based on happiness: found a dime more likely to help, didn't find a dime: didn't help.

Darley and Batson

(1973) Good Samaritans: based on how much time they had.

Aristotle

(384-322 BCE) Student of Plato Nicomachean Ethics

scenarios about Simpson's Paradox

scenario 1:both man and wife are 100% happy scenario 2: man and wife and child are 80% happy scenario 2 would be the best choice.

Utilitarianism

the basic idea that moral actions are all about producing good. The more good you produce, the better it is.

Objection 5: Simpson's Paradox

Definition of Simpson's paradox: when a set can be partitioned into subsets that each have a property opposite to that of the superset. -The problem for utilitarianism is that we may be obligated to make EACH person alive less happy, because it will increase the TOTAL global amount of happiness.

Objection 4: supererogation

Definition of supererogation: good action that is greater than what duty requires. -The objective is that there are no supererogatory acts for utilitarians. - You are always obligated to do your best.

Objective 3: relativism about virtues

Do virtue (and vice) depend upon culture? -Or is there a set of virtues that all humans beings ought to have? How would we prove this?

objection 6: Agent-relative intuitions

Don't you have special obligations to your friends and family?

Objective 2 for Utilitarianism: Practicality

Utilitarianism is not practical because there is no way we can predict all of the outcomes of our actions to the end of time, as the theory requires.

Should I preform action A? Virtue Ethics, Kantian, Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism: Will the consequences of A maximize the Happiness of all those affected by A? Kantian: Does the maxim behind A accord with the moral law (categorical imperative)? Virtue Ethicist: Is A the kind of action that a VIRTUOUS PERSON would perform?

Hedonism

Value of an actions consequences is measured only in terms of pleasure or pain.

Objective 1 to Virtue Ethics:

Virtue is compatible with evil

Objective 2: Clashing Virtues

Virtues ethics recommends cultivating all the virtues. -But what about conflicts? What should we do then? example: honesty vs. kindess

JSF

"In the united states farmed animals represent more then 99 percent of all animals with whom humans directly interact. In terms of our effect on the animal world whether its the suffering of animals or issues of biodiversity and the interdependence of species that evolution spent millions of years bringing into this livable balance. -Nothing comes close to having the impact of our dietary choices. -"NO DAILY CHOICE THAT WE MAKE HAS A GREATER IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT"

Jeremy Bentham Quotes

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain, and pleasure.It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do...By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question... I say of every action what so ever and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government."

Mill quote

"When thus attacked the epicureans have always answered that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable...There isn known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect of the feelings and imagination and of the moral sentiments a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.

Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 Quote

"every art and every kind of inquiry and likewise every act and purpose seems to aim at some good - and so it has been well said that the good is that at which everything aims

Mill (1863)

"it is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. If I am asked what makes one pleasure more valuable than another... except its being greater in amount there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it that is the more desirable pleasure."

Robert Nozick's Experience Machine

"suppose there was an EXPERIENCE MACHINE that would give you any experience you desire. It could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel or making a friend or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank. with electrodes attached to your brain. should you plug into this machine for life, programming your life experiences?

John Stuart Mill Quotes

"the creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds the actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absences of pain by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.

How what and how we eat on our health

- the current diabetes epidemic in the U.S. is caused to a significant extent by -the ready availability of extremely, cheap, factory-farmed ingredients for use in unhealthy processed food products. -A recent shift in American society toward consumption of these products over non-processed "whole" foods.

Principles laid out Consequentialism

-IF action X has better consequences than any other you could perform instead, then your duty is to do X -If action X has better consequences than any other action you could preform instead, then you are morally forbidden from doing ANY OTHER action then X. (wrong) -If action X and Y have better consequences than any other action you could preform instead, and X doesn't have Better consequences than Y and VICE VERSA, you are obligated to preform one of the actions, but It isn't morally permissible for you to pick one of them.

Bentham's views on quality and quantity

-IT DOESNT mention quality of pleasure quantity is all that matters, it is pompous moralizing to declaim that one pleasure of are superior in any way.

Aristotle's Claims

-There is some unique end or purpose to human life. This end is happiness or flourishing (eudaemonia) -Happiness is the end, to which all other worthwhile ends such as friendship, family and wealth contribute. -it is the end "that we wish for on its own account choosing all the other as a means to this."

JSF'S Core Argument

-Suffering and pain are bad -Moderate Principle of Preventing Bad Occurrences "if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant we ought morally to do it" -Eating factory-farmed meat eggs and milk contributes to terrible animal suffering and helps perpetuate unfair (and often cruel) exploitation of factory farm and industrial meat-processing facility workers. -It is in our power to prevent animal suffering and exploitation of factory-farm workers without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant we can simply refuse to eat factory farm products (or just eats less of them) -So we are morally obligated not to eat factory farm products (Same argument for eating seafood harvested using contemporary industrial fishing methods.)

Moral Virtues

-do not arise in us by nature Rather they are instilled minus through habits based on training. -It follows that whether or not we are happy is to a large extent the product of our upbringing.

What is character?

-is a tendency to act in certain sorts of ways. It is a set of habits or dispositions to action. -there dispositions can be thought of in terms of what we ordinarily refer to as personality traits.

Two Potential Responses to Objective 3

1) the tu quoque or "partners in crime": cultural relativism is a challenge but it is just as much a problem for deontologist and utilitarians. (putative) cultural variation in character traits: different cultures have different ideas about what constitutes happiness or welfare 2) Virtue ethics actually has less difficulty with cultural relativity than the other two approaches Much cultural disagreements arises, it may be claimed form local understanding of the virtues and different beliefs, but the virtues themselves are not relative to culture. (relections on the "Nazi Conscience" Koonz)

Jeremy Bentham

18th century utilitarian: measuring pain and pleasure -Intensity: How powerful or intense the pleasure/pain is. strong or week? -Duration: how long will the pain last? -Certainty or Uncertainty: how likely is it that the possible pain/pleasure that we are considering really will occur? -Propinquity or remoteness: How soon is the pain or pleasure? -Fecundity: A sensation is fecund just in case it tends to be followed by the same type of sensation (ex: the pleasures of learning to read leads to other pleasures) -Purity: sensation is impure just in case it tends to be followed by the opposite type of sensation, otherwise it is pure. (pleasures=pure, pain=impure) -Extent: How many people will be affect by your actions?

John Stuart Mill

19th Century -some pleasures of quality than others in a way that just measuring their quantity could not capture. ex: -preform action X or an action Y, both are superior to any other action, but are tied with each other (USUALLY IT DOESNT MATTER WHICH ONE YOU PICK JUST ONE OF THOSE TWO) -however: if quality matters too, then when there is a tie in quantity of pleasure we should choose the action that produces the high quality pleasure

Utilitarianism Part 1

A theory about the structure of morality

Eating Animals

According to FAO livestock is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas and around 40% more then entire transport sector combined.

Golden Mean

Aristotle virtues are the mean between related vices of excess or deficiency. example: excess: rashness, mean: courage, deficiency: cowardice.

What is the proper function (telos/design) of human life then?

Aristotle: the function of human life is to conduct one's actions and undertakings in accordance with REASON. -to preform this function with excellence (arete) is to lead a happy life.

Objective 3: Invasiveness

Every aspect of your life now has moral weight what you have for breakfast, what side of the bed you get up on, when you should take out the garbage.

Arete

Excellence

Raising Animals for food

FAO its the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems from local to global.

Objective 7: Nothing is absolutely wrong

For Utilitarianism there is no action so terrible that it should never be performed under any conditions -there are no inalienable rights.

What does Utilitarianism do?

It makes an answer for moral conflict or dilemma. ex: Should be legalize weed? look at the happiness produced, pleasure, and improvement of lives. Looking at the consequences.

Measuring Pleasure and Pain

Obvious things can be measured like: using a hammer to hit the nail or to hit your head HOWEVER: it is hard for topics like "Making weed legal? abortion? etc"

Livestock pollutes the environment by

Pesticide run off from crops grown to feed animals -sewage contamination -hormones and antibiotics in soil and water -deforestation and loss of habitats. (THE EARTH HAS LOST MORE THAN HALF ITS ANIMALS SINCE 1970)

Intentions have to matter?

Praiseworthy or Blameworthy: Jim shooting you, but missing: his action was good, but not praiseworthy intention.

Objective 4 There is actually no such thing as character

Situational factors are much better predictors of how people behave than rather than supposed stable character traits.

Objective 1 for Utilitarianism

Some forms of Utilitarianism seem to presuppose a prior account of what constitutes moral value.

What is the highest level of Classical Utilitarianism is?

Summum Bonum, but in classical Utilitarianism it is the highest level of Pleasure. Consequentialism+ the highest good is pleasure=Hedonistic Utilitarianism. (choosing lesser of the two evils)

Summum Bonum

The Highest Good

Mill quotes

The theory of utilitarianism "excites in many minds... inveterate dislike. to suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit- they designate as utterly mean and groveling was a doctrine worthy only of swine, To whom the followers of Epicurus were... contemptuously likened.

Utilitarianism Part 2

The theory that the object (goal) or end of morality- That is what morality is aiming for.

Quality and Quantity

We should act in such way as to maximize the quantity of pleasures in the world.

Thinking about the Principles of Consequentialism Consequences for who are we concerned about? (only you, others, non humans) Short term or Long term consequences?

You have to consider the consequences for everyone affected by your action not just now, but indefinitely into the future.

Jonathan Safran Foer: Eating Animals

born 1977 Graduated from Princeton University in 1999 with a digression Philosophy author of everything is illuminated (2002) and extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005).

Part 1: Consequentialism

is an action morally right (All that morally matters is the consequences of actions) -Your intentions don't matter, plan doesn't matter, what u say or what u tried to do, it's all about what you ACTUALLY did.