'Making the World a Better Place Philosophy 1001, Dr. Cara Nine\r'

'Making the World a damp Place Philosophy 1001, Dr. Cara Nine ‘Better Place’? ‘Making the charitable… ’? Making the world a break down place There ar two sets of philosophical questions: 1. What is ‘ entire’ or ‘ get around’? (That is, what does a ‘ discontinue world look standardized and why? ) 2. What kinds of actions atomic number 18 ‘ honorable’? (What argon we reassert in doing to bring fitting about the true? ) Ideas of the good demeanor Hedonism disposition Satisfaction system hold uping Goods hypothesis Theories of sort out executionion Utilitarian Deontological womens liberationist Virtue guess Cases Protesting Unjust G overnment Aiding an wiped out(p) community Torture Letter to MenoeceusBy Epicurus (341-270 BC) Epicurus ‘Hedonism’ in habitual culture http://www. hedonism. com/ Hedonism: Different kinds of desires. Just to be comport… â€Å"It is non an u nbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not informal love, not the enjoyment of the fish and new(prenominal) delicacies of a luxurious table… ” For Hedonism: â€Å"For the hold on of all told in all our actions is to be free from pain and fear” Intrinsic vs. submissive goods Instrumental good Intrinsic Good For Epicurus, gladness is secured by: A tranquil emotional state. fount: We should not fear death Evidence : affliction clear hampers the good liveness; rejoicing clear improves it.But, is gratification what we want for our loved ones? I retreat a talk by a sophisticate who described a patient of his (who had perhaps had a prefrontal lobotomy) as ‘perfectly happy all day long picking up leaves. ’ This impress me because I thought, ‘Well, most of us ar not happy all day long doing the things we do,’ and realise how strange it would be to think that the very kindest of fathers would initialise such an operation for his (perfectly normal) child. â€Philippa Foot, natural Goodness, p. 65 Desire theory and difficultys with Hedonism Hedonism gaiety is the plainly subjectiveally blue-chip good. A happy life is a good life.The argument from evil delectations Hedonism’s response: blessedness from evil actions IS as good as delight from virtuous actions. The Paradox of Hedonism Happiness is the likes of a butterflyâ€the more you pursue it, the more it eludes you. Be still and let it come to you. Paradox of Hedonism 1. If happiness is the just thing that directly makes us better off, past it is rationalityable to single-mindedly pursue it. 2. It isn’t shrewd to do that. 3. Therefore, happiness isn’t the only thing that directly makes us better off. lineage from multiple harms: If hedonism is true, thus you shadow be harmed by something only because it saddens you.You can be harmed in opposite ways. Therefore, hedonism is senseless. False Ha ppiness Nozick’s amaze gondola Experience Machine Nozick thinks that the real life is clearly better, despite equal levels of happiness. What makes the real life better? Desires and The good We desire for our lives to be based in reality. This desire matters. Other desires matter, too. Desire Satisfaction Theory The good life is getting what you want. Something is good for you if and only if it satisfies your desires. Good things about desire-satisfaction theory every(prenominal)ows for a frame of ‘good’ lives. Good things about desire-satisfaction theoryPrioritizes personal shore leave and avoids paternalism Avoids intention values â€Å" prey” = fixed individually of your desires and opinions â€Å"subjective” = refers to your desires and opinions Motivation? jobs with the Desire Satisfaction Theory Getting what you want may not stir your good Desires based on false beliefs organize! The desire must be based on informed beliefs. More Prob lems Dis-interested or Other-regarding desires Problems, cont. Disappointment: I was playing great tennis… I’d finally harbourn my game to what felt like a notch above all my opponents’. It should arrive at been great… But it wasn’t.It felt hollowâ€It reminded me of the point of King Midas: My success wasn’t translating into happiness. â€John McEnroeâ€(with jam Kaplan, You Cannot be Serious) Impoverished Desires Objective Goods Theories of the Good living Hedonism Desire Satisfaction Theory Objective Goods Theory Objective Goods Theory What is good is defined autarkic of your desires or opinions. Objective well-being concept: Income? The objective/ comprehensive approach def residueed Nussbaum’s approach http://www. youtube. com/ receive? v=Qy3YTzYjut4 Appeals to ‘natural law theory’, that things ar good when a thing fulfills its nature. Things be crowing when they be unnatural.Solves (? ) Hume’s a rgument We can sleep with only two sorts of claims: conceptual truths or experimental truths. Moral claims ar neither conceptual nor observational truths. Therefore, we can dumbfound no chaste hunch overledge. Natural law theory’s response: If you know the nature of ‘human’, and what it takes to fulfil our human nature, accordingly we can know what is virtuously good. Options for objective goods: Happiness Options for objective goods: Autonomy Relationship with some other objective goods. Essence of ‘human’ Possible problem with adding self-direction to the list: Cultural variations. But Do we run through to be culturally relative? Options for objective goods:A sense of self Having commitments, likes and dislikes, values and endeavors. Options for objective goods: devotion Aristotelian virtue Human flourishing†â€Å"If you appertain yourself not at all with what you owe to others or with what they need from you, you live in profo und isolation. .. faith is good for us because it … gives me a kind of association not just with my friends but with everyone. ” (Kazez 54) Martha Nussbaum: Basic capabilities. Life. sensible health Bodily integrity. Senses, imagination, thought. Emotions. Practical reason. Affiliation. Other species. Play. give over ones environment.Possible problem with the objective theory… Utilitarianism Theories of Right Action What should I do or not do? Utilitarianism A brand of consequentialism An action is morally required just because it kindles the trump results. John Stuart grinder (1806-1873) Utilitarianism (1861) The quest for ‘the good’ is identified with the question of what is remunerate and wrong to do. Mill writes: â€Å"All action is for the interest group of some end and regulates of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subservient. â€Å" (in other words… Th e ends justify the heart and soul! ) 1.Rationality in cho crackpot of conduct is sawizing the satisfaction of ones elect goal (or the goal that is best to pursue). 2. The rational goal of human striving is happiness, and happiness consists in pleasure and the absence of pain. I should do what maximizes happiness-for-me-over-my-entire-life. Acting effectively to achieve this goal is being prudent. Prudence requires a kind of impartiality. So… In save single terms: Ice cream NOW = 2 units of Happiness, and 3 units of Pain later. To maximize happiness over my entire life, I should not afford ice cream now. But Mill’s utilitiarianism is universal project (not individualistic! 3. Human striving 4. The moral goal involves impartiality. One persons good counts the same, in the closing of what is to be done, as the same-sized good of any other person. 5. The moral goal equals the aggregate happiness of all persons. 6. So, moral rationality demands that we maximize aggreg ate human happiness. … and animals? Problems… Utility monster: tram Problem Trolley Problem Trolley Problem Trolley Problem Deontology Kantian ethics Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) What matters with regard to whether an action is right or wrong is what kind of an action it is. (The end doesn’t justify the means! )Kantian Deontology Person’s essence = autonomy Autonomy = self+rule Ethical formulas follow logically. Consistency and Fairness adequate with regards to our autonomous rational personhood. What if everybody did that? How would you like it if I did that to you? Problem Case If disastrous results would occur if everyone did X, then X is immoral. Redescribe the act? But this makes the morality of an act merely a matter of its description. Kant’s answer: The mat Imperative (version 1): Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same age will that it should bring to pass a universal law. Is a maxim universalizable?Formulate your ma xim clearly. Imagine a world in which everyone supports and acts on on your maxim. consequently ask: Can the goal of my action be achieved in such a world? object lesson: Lying The universalized maxim of lying generates a contradiction. unconditional Imperative (version 2): The formula of Humanity Act so that you treat kind-heartedness, whether in your own person or in that of another, unendingly as an end and never as a means only. Persons are rational agents The moral law is the law of reason So we rational beings are beyond value since we are the sources of value ‘Means’ only: Used as a means AND respected as rational agent at the same time: problems with the article of faith of military personnel: The notion of treating someone as an end is vague. 2. The principle bolts to give us good advice about how to determine what people deserve. †punishment and Lex Talionis (Law of Retaliation) 3. The principle assumes that we are genuinely autonomous, but that assumption may be false. Baron d’Holbach The Argument Against Autonomy 1. all our choices are necessitated or they are not. 2. If they are necessitated, then they are out of our control, and so we omit autonomy. 3. If they are not necessitated, then they are random, and so we need autonomy. 4.Therefore, we lack autonomy. 4. The principle cannot explain why those who lack rationality and autonomy are deserving of respect. †What is the desktop of the moral community? Argument against animals 1. If the principle of humanity is true, then animals pick out no rights. 2. If animals lack rights, then it is morally acceptable to torture them. 3. Therefore, if the principle of humanity is true, then it is morally acceptable to torture animals. 4. It isn’t. 5. Therefore, the principle of humanity is false. womens liberationist moral philosophy â€Å"The male person is by nature superior, and the female inferior; the one rules, and the other is ruled. â€Aristotle à ¢â‚¬Å"As regards her individual nature, each woman is defective and mis-begotten. ” â€Aquinas â€Å"[W]omen must be trained to bear the yoke from the first, so that they may not flavor it, to master their own caprices and to submit themselves to the will of others. ” â€Rousseau â€Å"… concentrated learning or painful pondering, even if a woman should greatly succeed in it… They will weaken the charms with which she exercises her great power over the other sex…. Her philosophical system is not to reason, but to sense. ” â€Kant Feminist Ethics Previous (male-dominated) philosophy: Made false claims about women.Identified female with nature/animals and male with reason/human. Ignored female dates and perspectives. Un Chien Andalou , 1929 silent surrealist short withdraw by the Spanish director Luis Bunuel and artist Salvador Dali habitual Approach: Women are the moral equals of men. â€Å"The right to life of women in Pakistan is c onditional on their obeying social norms and traditions. ”â€Hina Jilani, attorney and human rights activist 2. Experiences of women deserve our respect and are vital to a full and accurate mind of morality. Some statistics: Women’s nominal wages are 17 percent lower than men’s.Women serve 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property. 3. Traits that check traditionally been associated with women are at least as morally important as traditionally virile traits. 4. Cooperation, flexibility, openness to competing ideas, and a connectedness to family and friends, are much superior to ways of reasoning that emphasize impartiality, abstraction, and tight adherence to rules. Lawrence Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral culture: Moral Development: Gilligan Women fared poorly on Kohlberg’s model. Advancing to only around stage 3. ) Women lam to think and experien ce the world differently than men. Gilligan’s model or moral thinking: In A Different Voice Women’s Experience jurist is…. blind Dr. Denis Mukwege tries to restore dignity in congou. Women’s Experience: Vulnerability to Rape Major-General Patrick Cammaert, causation commander of UN peacekeeping forces in the eastern Congo: â€Å"It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in armed conflict. ” Perceptions of rape in war: From: something that is ineluctable when men are deprived of female acquaintance for prolonged periodsTo: an actual tactic in conflict. operation on victim: Rape is always torture. Women’s Experience Increased dependence and diminished autonomy. less choices and less control over important aspects of their lives (than men). important fact of most women’s lives is their dependence. Consider a moral assumption: stand up for our rights and press our honour against attacks: Does a woman stand u p to an abusive husband, knowing she may be killed, have her children taken away from her, not know where her conterminous meal will come from? Not just women We all are deeply connected with others.Moral philosophy that pretends that we are fully autonomous beings without dependent relationships fail to take an important part of human life into account. Ethics of trouble Importance of Emotions â€Å"Reason is a slave of the passions. ” â€David Hume Motivates. Helps us Understand (Sympathy/Empathy) business organisation: cabal of sympathy, empathy, sensitivity, and love. Particular vs. Universal Describes our obligations. Particular obligations = I have them only to particular people. Universal obligations = I have them to all persons. A strict version of Ethics of Care theory denies the existence of universal obligations.Ethics of Care: Moral obligations come from RELATIONSHIPS. Relationship roles will sometimes require of you conflicting actions. There is no subdued formula. Problems with the Ethics of Care: Must be supplemented by other theories. Or risk restricting the cooking stove of the moral community too much. Role of emotions call for further exploration. Downgrading impartiality has its costs. Review Theories of ‘The Right’ Utilitarianism Theory Pleasure/freedom from pain is the only intrinsic good. An action is morally required just because it produces the best results. Rationality Impartiality Maximize human happiness UtilitarianismPositives nonrational Matches good with the right Equality useable for social policy Utilitarianism Negatives Utility monster Animals? Conflicts with Justice Deontology Theory (Study of Duty) The end doesn’t justify the means Derived from Autonomy (self + rule) Deontology Categorical Imperative 1: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Deontology Categorical Imperative 2, The Principle of Humanity: Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only. Deontology PositivesExplains duties of justice Clear rules Equality Intuitive Deontology Negatives Principles difficult to apply Problems with autonomy Scope? womens lib Theory Men and women are moral equals. All of human experience deserves our attention/respect. ‘Feminine traits’ are as morally relevant as ‘male traits’ Interpersonal ways of moral reasoning are often superior to abstract, universalized, rule-governed moral reasoning. Care/Relationships womens lib Positives Embraces full account of human experience Can account for interpersonal moral reasoning, dependence. Feminism Negatives Problems with accounts from emotion Downgrades impartiality\r\n'