PHIL: (week 10: 3/23

PHIL: (week 10: 3/23) Does civil society create morality? HW: R: Chapter 10 P: Hobbes, ?On the State of Nature,? 41-51 B: Rawls, Thought Experiment about ?Original Position? Quiz this week. NOTES: Outline of the course Challengest Theories we are currently here Applications Meaning of ?Life? Refinements and Challenges to UTILITARIANISM Criticism #1: Hedonism Bentham and Mill: Hedonism But: CEGs Behind the back gossip Happiness not intrinsically good and sought for its own sake GE Moore: pleasure, friendship, and aesthetics Criticism #2: Consequences aren?t everything Criticism #3: Scope of the Moral Demand 3.1 Morality too demanding Ayn Rand on self-sacrifices 3.2 Special treatment of family immoral i.e. Utilitarian spending $$ on mother with Alzheimer?s would be considered awful Response 1: Cases are overly simple Violations of justice immoral on UT Response 2: Move from Act UT to Rule UT Act UT: each action evaluated on Principle of Utility Rule UT: set of rules evaluated on Principle of Utility Change in focus to adopting rules that maximize happiness for all concerned Responds to anti UT criticisms Rule UT forbids violations of justice Problem for Rule UT: what matters? Justice? or maximizing pleasure? Example: murder killing many many people Act UT: find someone (anyone) to send to capital punishment to calm panicking community Rule UT: Should not convict an innocent person Response 3: Damn Common Sense Common sense is incorrect 3.1 All values have UT basis; anything else is mystery 3.2 Our biases surface when we condemn actions 3.3 only UT prescribes long-term thinking KANTIAN Kant?s Ethical Framework Immanual Kant (1724-1804) Reason dictates duties Not consequences His Two Pathways Imperative and Respect for Persons Reason requires universality Rachels p. 121 First type of contradiction: Contradiction of Conception Categorical Imperative in four steps Form Maxim Universalize Describe Results of Step 2 on the World Determine Whether Step 3 Includes a Contradiction in the Conception of the Rule