Critical Thinking Lecture 13 Moral Arguments

Critical ThinkingLecture 13Moral Arguments By David Kelsey

Moral Evaluations • Value claim (also called value judgments): • non-factual claims that assert that some moral property is instantiated in some object or action or event. • Examples of value claims: • A moral argument is one which asserts as its conclusion a value claim. • Example:

The word ‘moral’: has 2 distinct meanings. Vs. Non-Moral: Non-moral claims… Ex: Vs. Immoral: Immoral actions… Ex: In this class we will use the word ‘moral’ in the sense that is opposed to ____________ Moral vs. nonmoral &Moral vs. immoral

We cannot derive or infer a value claim from merely factual claims. Elliot’s father example: we might argue that Elliot’s father depends upon Elliot so Elliot ought to take care of his father. The problem: Where does the ought come from? So if we are trying to infer a value claim, at least one of the supporting propositions must be a value claim. So to justifiably infer that Elliot should take care of his father: from Elliot’s father depends upon Elliot we need a moral principle that links the 2 claims. What principle would work? Deriving Moral Value Judgments

Critiquing moral reasoning • What if we come across a moral argument we disagree with? • If you agree with the factsbut disagree with the conclusion then what should you try to show false? • Showing a moral principle false: how do you show a moral principle false? • Say you hear this argument: • Abortion is unnatural. Thus, it ought not be practiced. • How do we show this argument is unsound?

A note aboutRelativism • Moral relativism: A very popular view in ethics is moral relativism. • Confusion: often times, the following 2 claims are confused: • 1. What is believed to be right and wrong may differ from group to group, society to society, or culture to culture. • 2. What is right and wrong may differ from group to group, society to society, or culture to culture. • Which claim is Moral relativism? • Problems with MR: • Aren’t there some moral principles that are universal or nearly so? • True and False: • No correct answers: • Settling Disagreements: • It is counterintuitive.

Ethics: it’s three areas • The Discipline of Ethics can be divided into three sub-disciplines, which together comprise it wholly. • They are: • Diagram of the structure of Ethics:

Normative Ethics • Normative Ethics: • Is it first, second or third order ethics? • Here we aim to find the answer to the question: • ‘What ought I do?’ Or ‘What is the right thing to do?’ • Here we look for a moral principle. • What’s a moral principle? • Here we also aim to construct general guidelines for the making of a moral judgment. • Question: What is a moral judgment?

Applied Ethics • Applied Ethics: • Is it first, second or third order ethics? • Here we look to specific cases in which we must determine what the right action or the permissible action is. • We can then apply a moral principle to the specific situation. So what we need is a moral principle to guide our action. We will discuss this in a few slides. • Here we ______ moral judgments.

Meta-ethics • Meta-ethics • Is it first, second or third order ethics? • The study of the nature of ______________. • Here we ask: • What are moral judgments? • Here we analyze the concept of a moral judgment. • For example:

Normative ethics • Normative Ethics: aims to provide a set of guidelines for making moral judgments. • In this class we will look at four such sets of guidelines. • They are: • Divine Command Theory • Utilitarianism • Deontology • Virtue Theory

Divine Command Theory • Divine Command Theory:morality and moral duties are set by God. • God has certain commandments he gives. • Followers of this view derive their understanding of his commandments by interpreting religious texts such as _______________. • The difficulty of Interpretation: • How should ‘Thou shalt not kill’ be interpreted? • Hard cases: • A Paradox: • Is what is right as such because God deems it so? • Did God deem what is right as such because it is so?

Mill John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) He was the greatest 19th century defender of Utilitarianism. He was a child prodigy. Defended women’s suffrage.

Utilitarianism • The greatest happiness principle: • Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, • wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. • Or:

Utilitarianism:it’s two parts • Any version of Utilitarianism (including Mill’s version) is composed of two other views: • Consequentialism: • We determine whether an act is right or wrong by looking at it’s ____________. • Causes and effects… • Hedonism: • This tells us what makes for a better or worse (good or bad) _____________. • Good: • Bad:

Consequentialism Consequentialism: To determine whether or not an action is right: weigh the good consequences of doing the action against the bad consequences of doing it. And do the same for refraining from performing the action. Which action do you perform? Sorting good from bad: To determine whether or not an action is right one must be able to sort the good consequences from the bad consequences. Defining the good then the Right: Thus, Consequentialist moral theories, like Utilitarianism, first define the good. For a utilitarian this is __________. Then they define the right. The right thing is whatever produces the most of whatever is good. So for a utilitarian the right thing is what produces the most of what?

Consequentialism Other ways to define Consequentialism: Between two actions, perform the one that has better consequences. The end justifies the means. The consequences of an action can justify the action itself. Thus, if harming someone will somehow cause more good overall than bad, a Consequentialist would do what?

Hedonism Hedonism: says that a good thing is one that adds to the sum total of human happiness. Happiness: Unhappiness: Hedonism & Happiness: What makes something, anything and not just life, good is the amount of happiness it produces. Happiness is the only non-derivative good: Other things like money, knowledge, fulfilling personal relationships, etc. are _________________.

Problems for Utilitarianism • 1. Hedonism is degrading: • if a pig can live a life completely satisfied, while a morally concerned and thoughtful man like Socrates cannot ever be so satisfied, isn’t the life of the pig preferable? • Reply: Higher vs. Lower pleasures • 2. Problems with the Utilitarian calculation: • Who do we include in our calculation: all those whose interests are effected; family only, local community; what about animals; future generations • How do we even calculate pleasure and pain? Assigning numeric values? Calculating my pleasure vs. yours… • Reply: We estimate… • 3. Utilitarianism is too demanding: • if we really followed Utilitarianism we would have to leave our lives to go help cure world hunger. • Reply: We know what makes us happy…

More problems for Utilitarianism • 4. Utilitarianism ignores the distinctness of persons: • It asks us to make trade off’s between people? • Killing one to save others… • 5. Utilitarianism and Promises: • For a Utilitarian, you ought to keep a promise if and only if doing so will produce more please and less pain than not keeping it. Is this really why we keep a promise though? • 6. The scapegoat: • A Utilitarian wouldn't have a problem blaming an innocent person for a crime he didn’t commit if it were, for example, to prevent a riot or…

The fatal flaw of Utilitarianism The problem with Utilitarianism: a Utilitarian would tell you to kill an innocent if it meant the production of more pleasure than pain. The real problem: the Utilitarian puts the good before the right As long as you do this, critics argue, no act is always morally wrong. Some critics argue that the only way to solve this problem is to put the ______ before the ________. Moral theories that do this are called _________________.

DeontologicalTheories Right Before Good: Rather than put the good before the right, Deontological moral theories put the _____________. Deontological theories do not: first specify some good and then determine what is right by asking what will maximize that good. Instead, Deontological theories: Determine what is right through some other method, and direct you to do it irrespective of the action’s _________________. But Deontological theories don’t think consequences don’t matter. They think consequences are not the only thing that matters. So morality sometimes requires you to…

Deontologists Deontologists like rules. A rule tells us whether an action is right or wrong just on the basis of what kind of action it is, rather than on the basis of its consequences. For example, ‘Never kill the innocent’. Would this be a good rule? Or the Golden Rule: ‘Act the way you would like everyone to act’. What about this one?

Immanuel Kant There are many deontological theories but by far the most influential was that presented by Immanuel Kant. Kant was born in Konigsberg in 1724 in what was then Germany. He lived in Konigsberg his entire life and he was never married. Widely regarded as one of the most influential and important philosopher’s of all time.

Kant’s picture Personhood: Kant’s moral theory stems from his view of personhood. For Kant, a person is just an agent. An agent is rational: To be rational is to be capable of guiding one’s own behavior on the basis of reasons, directives and principles. So to be rational is to act for reasons or by principle. What are reasons and principles? Will: the capacity an agent has to act for reasons, to follow laws. It is a power within us.

Kant’s freedom of the will Freedom: A person is free when bound only by her own will and not by the will of another. We can be commanded only by our own wills. Freedom as a first cause: Freedom (and rationality) consists in seeking to be the first cause of one’s actions wholly and completely through the exercise of one’s own _______. Her actions then express her own will. The authority of the principles binding her will is then also not external to her will. Kant then gives us the ________________ as this binding principle.

The Categorical Imperative Binding our will: So the Categorical imperative is supposed to bind our wills. Binding us to being rational: The CI binds our wills by binding us to being free & rational. A how to guide to being rational…

The Categorical Imperative Not Hypothetical: The categorical imperative is not hypothetical. A Hypothetical imperative: is conditional on some want or desire. For example, ‘If you want to go to heaven do X’. Doesn’t depend on desires: A categorical imperative does not depend on your wants or desires it simply commands you to do X, ___________.

Putting the right before the good • Since the categorical imperative is categorical: • It commands you to act irrespective of the consequences of your actions. • This is what it means for Kant’s theory to put the _______ before the _______.

The Categorical Imperative So what is the categorical imperative? Different formulations: We will focus on the one known as the formula of the end in itself. “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end.”

The Formula of the End in itself The Categorical Imperative: Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end. Means vs. Mere Means: Kant does not say that you should never use another person as a means! We do this all the time. Examples. He says never treat them as a mere means: So if we treat someone as a means make sure to treat them as an end in themselves: respect them as an agent with ends of her own.

What’s wrong with punishing an innocent person for Kant? • An objection to Utilitarianism: • Recall that one objection to Utilitarianism is that it could permit or even require you to punish an innocent person in order to prevent a riot and thereby save many other lives. • What’s wrong with this according to Kant?

The Good Will • The Good will: Kant thought that “the only thing good without qualification is a good will”. • To be good without qualification… • Acting for the sake of duty: Kant thought that for one to act for the right reasons he must act always for the sake of duty. • One acts for the sake of duty when: • she performs some action X and her reason for performing x is merely that it is what the moral law prescribes her to do. • So what is morally required in performing some action? • The good person: What makes a good person good is his possession of a will that is determined by the moral law

Kant’s theory in action • Costco Example, False Promises & other examples:

To sum up • So the big picture for the Kantian looks like this: • Following the Categorical Imperative gets you the following: • 1. • 2. • 3. • But following the categorical imperative isn’t enough: • To be a truly good person you must do what the categorical imperative tells you to do just because it is Right.

Problems for Kant’s Theory So why we can’t just opt out of rationality: Why not live like the animals? Plausible responses: It’s rational to be rational? Can we say this though? Another problem: Kant’s view of morality stems from the notion of a person. Why should this be our starting point?

Problems for Kant’s theory Acting for the sake of the moral law: makes the agent seem cold and heartless. Say you go to visit your friend in the hospital. She is very sick. So you bring her some flowers and a get well card. You say hello and chat with her for a while. Then you stay for a bit while she sleeps… She then asks you: ‘why did you come to see me today?’ For Kant, to be a truly good person what will your answer have to be?

Aristotle Lived from 384-322 B.C. A student of Plato who surpassed his master. Thought to be the greatest philosopher ever. Writings include: The Nicomachean Ethics, Metaphysics, Categories, Physics and many others. Developed virtue ethics.

Virtue ethics • Right Action: • for Aristotle, some action X is the right thing to do if and only if X is what a virtuous person would do in those circumstances. • But what would a virtuous person do? • A virtuous person is virtuous…

Virtues • A virtue is a kind of excellence of character. • Virtue and Function: A virtue is “the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well.” • A virtue is a state in which a man functions properly…

Examples of Virtues • Some of the virtues include: • Courage. When one is fearful or confident • Pride (regarding one’s honor and dishonor) • Good tempered (with regard to anger). • Others?

The virtues • Virtues and the soul: • Virtues are a way the soul is (being states of character) • They must be in the right kind and in the right quantity.

Excess and defect • Excess and Defect: It is in the nature of things to be destroyed by excess or defect. • “Both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it. So too is it, then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other virtues.” (579)

The mean and the doctrineof the mean • Intermediate: Every virtue is an intermediate between some excess and defect. • So acting virtuously is acting according to the mean. Never too much excess, nor too much defect with regard to a state of character. • “an intermediate between excess and defect…that which is equidistant from each of the extremes…neither too much nor too little.” • “For instance, if ten is many and two is few, six is the intermediate…” (581)

The Doctrine of the Mean:Examples • So every virtue is the mean between some excess and some defect. For example: • Courage the mean between rashness and cowardliness • Pride: the mean between empty vanity and undue humility • Good temperament: the mean between irascibility and in-irascibility • Truthfulness: the mean between boastfulness and mock-modesty • Friendliness: the mean between flattery and quarrelsome.

The virtuous agent • The Virtuous agent: For Aristotle, being a virtuous agent isn’t just doing the virtuous thing. • One must get pleasure in acting justly for an action to count as a just act at all.

The second requirement • Another requirement: • And being a virtuous agent is more than merely doing the virtuous thing and gaining pleasure in her doing the virtuous thing. • Resisting the appetitive soul: • To be virtuous one’s appetitive soul mustn't lead one away from doing the virtuous thing. • The appetitive soul: that part of the soul which brings about desires and impulses that pull one away from acting rationally • The virtuous agent is neither continent nor incontinent. • The continent man: does the virtuous thing but… • The incontinent man: doesn’t do the virtuous thing… • So your motivation must be pure!

Education &Training • Training & Education: To be a virtuous agent takes training and education. • “Hence we ought to be brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right education.” (579) • Experience: Being virtuous takes experience in the real world. Putting oneself in situations where she learns to act virtuously. • Experience is the teacher • Habit: Being virtuous is acting virtuously out of habit.

Objections to Virtue Ethics First objection: Virtue ethics is too vague and unclear to be action guiding. Virtue ethics tells us to do whatever the virtuous agent would do. But how are we supposed to understand what a virtuous agent would do? The response: Rules that include the virtues…

The Second objection:Demandingness The second objection: The demands that virtue ethics makes are too high: No one can live up to them, except maybe Mother Theresa or Jesus. To be truly virtuous one must: 1. 2. 3. Who could ever live up to these standards?

Critical Thinking Lecture 13 Moral Arguments