Ethics final
If we were to universalize lying, then
everyone would lie whenever it was convenient
Actions performed out of a sense of duty are
genuinely motivated by goodwill
Kant's answer to how we can be sure that we are doing something based on duty instead of a desire to satisfy our feeling and inclinations or to advance our own agenda, was to
¥ universalize what we propose to do.
• So, how can we be certain that good will is the motivating force behind my choices? How do we carefully examine our motives and their genuineness as rooted in good will?
• Kant's answer is duty.
Utilitarianism is concerned with what produces or advances
• pleasure, good, or happiness, either for the individual or for the community.
For John Stuart Mill it was essential to show the truth of utilitarianism in
• practice and especially in public policy.
This was based on the origins of the theory under the guidance of his family's friend and philosopher Jeremy Bentham (d. 1832), who
• used utilitarian ideas for social and political reform of the English penal system.
We learn what goodwill is
• when we learn the meaning of duty.
Those with whom we have special relationships - family, friends, and fellow citizens - deserve
♣ distinctive forms of treatment as a fitting expression of love for them.
Abraham knows that killing Isaac is unethical. However, Abraham decides to "suspend the ethical" - to put ethical concerns on the back burner - because
♣ he has faith in the righteousness of the end (telos) that God will bring about.
Abraham's faith that God will not allow an unethical end (telos) allows him to
♣ make what seems to be an unethical decision.
Thus, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas affirm the duty we have
♣ to love all humans as our neighbors.
But, they also recognized that there is an
"order of priorities" among our loves
Remember that the very word "deontology" is derived from
• duty or what we "must do."
¥ Here's Kant's exact wording of the Categorical Imperative from his The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1885):
"Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Kant's ethical motto
"Duty for duty's sake"
o We will know where our duty lies, if ask the simple but fundamental question:
"Would I wish everyone to behave as I am now proposing to do in these circumstances?"
Other critics maintained that utilitarianism encouraged the satisfaction of
"base sensual" desires
Bentham devised a ___ ___ to ensure that a criminal's sentence struck the right balance between the extremes of being too lax or too excessive of a punishment.
"happiness calculus"
Utilitarians could easily be charged with being
"hedonistic" because of their pleasure based theory
Kierkegaard argues that his philosophical retelling of this story of Abraham demonstrates the importance of a
"teleological suspension of the ethical"
¥ In class, we explored the varied assessment of whether war (violent conflict) can be morally justifiable or is in fact "always wrong." always wrong:
- Position of the Quaker Tradition
o Kierkegaard retells the biblical story with four possible ways that Abraham could have resolved the dilemma:
1) Abraham could kill Isaac in accordance with God's will. 2) Abraham could sacrifice a ram instead of Isaac. 3) Abraham could decide not to kill Isaac and then pray to God to forgive him for having thought of sacrificing his son in the first place. 4) Abraham could decide he cannot go through with killing Isaac.
• As the foundation of ethics, John Stuart Mill's greatest happiness principle maintains that actions are:
1. "Right" in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, 2. "Wrong" as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. o Happiness translates into pleasure and the absence of pain. o Unhappiness means pain and the privation of pleasure.
¥ Thus, for Kant, the following questions become crucial for the moral life:
1. How can we be sure of the motives (or intentions) behind our behavior? 2. How do we examine our motives?
o So, for Kant, the moral life rests on the following foundational points:
1. Our moral convictions stem from our free and inner reasoning. 2. External forces and the world around us are neutral and so have only a limited impact on morality.
Just War Theory of St. Augustine (354-430):
1. The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain. 2. All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. 3. There must be serious prospects of success. 4. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
¥ To better understand Kant's Categorical Imperative, we need take a closer look at his language:
1. categorical vs hypothetical 2. maxim vs law
• In his classic text, Utilitarianism (1861), Mill responded to the following (5) criticisms of utilitarianism from various quarters, which in turn became the explanatory basis for his theory.
1. christianity's belief in the positive meaning of suffering 2. equating pleasure with sensual desires 3.elusive meaning and certainty genuine happiness 4. impartiality 5. determination of consequence
2 major problems with duty
1. clash of competing duties 2. blind obedience to authority
questions that help distinguish between utilitarian and deontological ethical theories
1. does the end justify the means? 2. is an action intrinsically right or wrong?
distinguish between two types of hedonism
1. egoistic hedonism 2. general hedonism
aspects in deontology
1. immanueal kant 2. good will 3. duty
• Therefore, in Kant's ethical program, we must examine what prescribes or informs us of our duty. o The three main sources for duty include:
1. laws and customs 2. policies and job descriptions 3. overarching natural order - the "natural law"
five positive functions of laws, rules, and norms for the moral life
1. moral norms pass on to present and future generations the accumulated wisdom from the past 2. moral norms afford us needed degree of pyschological and social security 3. moral norms help to prevent present indecision and moral paralysis 4.norms and rules serve as prods adn correctives in the moral life 5. moral rules help us to create a common world with a common authority
• By taking a close look at this question, we can get an initial grasp of both "utilitarian" and "deontological" ethics.
Does the end justify the means?
To better appreciate the complexities of a clash of duties that pits family against a higher, spiritual calling, we focused on Kierkegaard's ethical analysis of
God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac in Genesis 22:1-14
The idea that happiness - and even worse pleasure - should be the exclusive aim of human behavior presented a challenge to Christian faith founded on the concept of
Jesus' redemptive suffering
In class, we explored the varied assessment of whether war (violent conflict) can be morally justifiable or is in fact "always wrong." sometimes morally defensible:
Just War Theory of St. Augustine (354-430):
bc he was a product of the age of enlightenment, when confronted with an ethical dilemma,
Kant would uphold our capacity to think and reason as the ultimate resource for making the best decision.
clash of competing duties
a) In response to the call of duty we often encounter conflict and are challenged to prioritize among several competing duties: o family o career o country o cause o God/spiritual calling
Mill's critics focused the vulnerability of basing an ethical theory on happiness, since:
a) It is impossible to arrive at a universal meaning of happiness. b) It is difficult for most people to be certain that they have achieved happiness. c) Goals that will make us happy can be manipulated.
Moral norms afford us needed degree of psychological and social security.
a) Psychological Security - For the purposes of identity and organization of our personal energy, we like to know: o What is expected from us. o What we will be and will not be held accountable for. o What will be tolerated in our behavior and what is simply not acceptable. b) Social Security - Moral rules help us to order the common life against the forces of chaos and anarchy.
1) CONCLUSION: Behaviors that fall under the designations of "categorical" and "law" mean that:
a) There will be no exceptions. b) There will be no individual cases. c) There will be no special pleading.
here are 3 factors that could be seen as the means that drive our decisions
a) motives b) intentions c) principles
The question now becomes, how
can we be sure of where our duty lies?
For Kant, we are not empty slates but a
combination of experiences, gut level intuitions, and intellectual concepts.
Abraham performs a teleological suspension of the ethical when he
decides to kill Isaac
o Etymologically, it comes from the combination of two Greek words:
deion + logos = "the account of the musts."
If we are more comfortable with weighing means instead of just considering the outcome of a decision, then we would fall into the camp of
deontological ethical theory
Mill was convinced that anyone who had access to both pleasures would
habitually choose the higher over the lower.
the essential part of Kant's profile for ethics is the fact that
he was a product of the age of enlightenment
To establish his point, he distinguished four types of pleasures
high/strong, high/weak, low/strong, and low/weak.
Mill was in alignment with the first Greek philosophers who pointed to the term eudaemonia to
identify "human flourishing and fulfillment" as the way to gauge a happy life overall.
deontological ethics
immanuel kant
We have looked at this many times in the course - the principle of double effect - and come to realize that
it is rarely possible to state with absolute certainty the outcome of our behaviors
This will turn out to be self-defeating because
no one will believe what anyone says
Categorical" vs. "Hypothetical"
o "Hypothetical" means that something should be done: ♣ under certain conditions ♣ if certain consequences are desired o Thus, hypothetical conveys the notion of a piece of "advice" or an "admonition." o However, a "categorical" imperative is not like advice or an admonition. ♣ It stands unconditionally.
maxim vs law
o "Maxim" is a subjective or personal principle of action. ♣ Here, Kant means a rule or policy of life adopted by any particular person, but not required by anyone else. ♣ Thus, maxims vary among us. o A "law" applies to everybody. ♣ By making a law of our personal maxim, we are deciding that we will always and in all situations act in a certain way.
The words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah more accurately describe the complexity of trying to determine the outcomes in our interactions with each other -
o "more tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9)
However, Mill countered this challenge by asserting that people would react
o "reasonably" to decisions in their interactions with one another.
In class we studied the example of the use of torture to gain intelligence that was featured on a recent episode of PBS News Hour - "Is torture effective for gathering intelligence?
o Essentially, we explored the idea of whether the "end" of obtaining important information (intelligence) justified the "means" of torture needed to obtain it.
how was the happiness calculus calculated
o For every course of action, a criminal court official would add up all the various pleasures of everyone concerned and then subtract the amount of pain. o The official would then compare that total with the amount resulting from alternative courses of action. Finally, the official would choose that course of action that achieved balance between just the right level of pleasure and pain
While seemingly straight forward, Kant's questions are actually challenging for us.
o On the surface, our actions may appear to be either good or bad, but carefully examining the intentions behind them often reveals that we operate with less than noble motives.
As we have seen, it is easy to deceive ourselves about our own motives
o Selfish desires are readily blurred with an expression of duty.
¥ We now can look at Kant's most important contribution to moral thinking, but first a recap of Kant's concepts is necessary:
o The only thing that makes our behavior truly good at the outset is the good will. o Our perception of genuine good will is brought about by our awareness of duty.
A perfect duty is one which we must
o always do, and so we must always refrain from lying to others.
Finally, utilitarianism was criticized because it is impossible to determine the
o consequences of our decisions with any degree of reasonable certainty. `
This is especially the case because our decisions
o impact others, and trying to gauge or predict their reactions is less of science and more of an art.
Our minds and their reasoning abilities act
o like "umpires" to organize conflicts and complexities when applying intuitions and concepts to our experiences.
¥ Traditionally, the following actions have been considered intrinsically wrong:
o murder o rape o torture o euthanasia o theft o lying o adultery o wars of aggression
Even if it is the case that the "lower" pleasures are more certain of fulfillment than the "higher" pleasures, Mill maintained that
o no human happiness is truly possible without a "sense of dignity."
utilitarians apply usefulness and practicality to ethics under the banner
o of "the greatest happiness principle" or the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number.
While ethics requires universal respect for all persons - impartiality - it also requires
o respect for their distinctive identities.
As we deliberate about whether or not to tell a lie to someone, we heed Kant's recommendation using the categorical imperative to project what would happen if we were to
o universalize the option to lie.
Utility is all about what is
o useful in practice.
Whether our behavior is in itself "good" is not possible to say until
o we decide how it has been motivated.
Good will is what our motives and intentions are when
o we decide to behave in a particular way in our dealings with other people.
Since we have a constant need of truth in our dealings, this is something
o we must practice at all times.
Utilitarian ethical theory aligns well with the findings
of the natural sciences
So, the end does justify the means, which becomes one way to capture the meaning
of utilitarian ethical theory
From an examination of animal behavior, natural scientific research has demonstrated that
only pain and pleasure are effective in causing behavior of one kind or another.
There are "higher" levels of pleasure - intellectual, aesthetic, imaginative - and these were
preferred to the satisfaction of mere animal instincts.
(in response to critics about "base sensual" desires) Mill countered by arguing that pleasures could be "graded" according to
quality
egoistic hedonism
seeks the maximization of personal pleasure. ♣ This is best exemplified by the Epicurean motto: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."
general hedonism
seeks the maximization of pleasure for aggregate body of people - "the greatest good for the greatest number." ♣ This form of hedonism that best describes the position of Mill's utilitarianism.
Teleological Suspension of the Ethical
soren kierkegaard
The earlier philosophies of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas was cited in order to find a way to salvage
the value of impartiality in the moral life, while at the same time acknowledging that different people receive varying degrees of care from us
While "utilitarianism" is a cumbersome word, it clearly conveys the idea of
utility.
In other words, if we realize our fullest potential in life, then
we will have attained happiness
Responding "yes" to the question:
¥ Essentially, we are saying that the result, the outcome, or the consequences are the most important. ¥ This means that when we are trying to decide what to do and what is the right or wrong choice to make, it all boils down to "do whatever it takes (means) to accomplish the best result possible (end)."
¥ What is the basis of true "moral worth" for Kant? o In other words, what can we unreservedly describe as "good"?
¥ For Kant, it is the good will.
Immanuel Kant: Biographical Sketch and Intellectual Context
¥ His life revolved around the University of Königsberg and its small college town. ¥ His religious upbringing was Lutheran - strict "pietism." ¥ He led a very disciplined, almost "rigid," lifestyle.
is an action intrinsically right or wrong? responding yes to the question:
¥ If we believe that the actions we can decide to do are "inherently" or "intrinsically" right or wrong, then we would be leaning toward deontology and concerned for what lies behind the choice that prompts us to act.
is an action intrinsically right or wrong? responding no to the question:
¥ If we think that nothing we do is ever automatically right or wrong but rather "depends," then we are tending toward a utilitarian stance. ¥ Since it's all about the results or consequences.
A. Perfect Duty toward Others: To Refrain from Lying
¥ In order to apply the categorical imperative, Kant discusses different levels of duties. 1) Perfect duty toward oneself 2) Perfect duty toward others 3) Imperfect duty toward oneself 4) Imperfect duty toward others
Moral norms help to prevent present indecision and moral paralysis
¥ It is often necessary for us to decide and act before we have had the opportunity to weigh everything involved in a decision. ¥ Norms and rules help us to be ready to meet such occasions by forewarning and forearming us on the basis of the previous experience of others. ¥ If every situation we encountered in life were unique and unlike anything else, we would be overwhelmed by the randomness of it all and in turn paralyzed to decided and act.
Norms and rules serve as a prods and correctives in the moral life.
¥ Rules help us to be self- critical and recognize our shortcomings and failures. o This in turn prods us to correct and improve ourselves. o Otherwise, without such prods we would easily become complacent.
Moral rules help us to create a common world with a common authority.
¥ To live in community and to sustain a degree of social unity and purpose, we need a shared set of values: a) articulated in law b) under a common accepted authority.
Moral norms pass on to present and future generations the accumulated wisdom the past
¥ We are not the first to wrestle with moral issues. ¥ Others before us have done so, and to ignore the wisdom gained from their experience would be foolish and even arrogant. ¥ Few of us have the leisure or genius to be another Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, etc., but we can benefit from their insights as well as those of lesser-known ethicists - family members, mentors, and friends - in our own lives.
Responding "no" to the question:
¥ Would mean we are more concerned about the "means," or what was behind the choice we made, instead of its final outcome.
Without moral rules, which specify and concretize our ideals, we would
¥ become vague and abstract about what they require. o We could easily rest content with broad, generic, and platitude like goals for our moral lives like "I want to be a better person" or "I meant well when I said or did this to you."
The behaviorism of psychologist B. F. Skinner (d. 1990) advanced the claim that
¥ the chief effect of animal and human behavior is the avoidance of or escape from so-called "aversive" (painful) features of the environment.
o When we act out of sense of duty we have a clear line through all our uneven intentions and maintain a consistency among much conflictedness apparent in the following:
♣ ulterior motives ♣ overt malice ♣ treating others as less than human - "objects" who have only instrumental value ♣ seeking praise