Ethics 6

Question 1

Why are public apologies done?

Answer 1

To honour the memory of those who have suffered injustice at the hands (or in the name) of the politicial community, and to recognize the persisting ffects of injuctice on victims and their descendants. Official apologies can help bind up the wounds of the past and provide a basis for moral and political reconciliation.

Question 2

What is an objection to official apologies?

Answer 2

If we are only responsible for ourselves and what we do, then we should not apolegize for things we did not do.

Question 3

What is different from the modern idea of government compared to acient conceptions of politics?

Answer 3

Now is often believed that government should be neutral, however Aristotle believed that the purpose of politics is to cultivate good character and form good citizens.

Question 4

What is the debate over the priority of the right over the goods?

Answer 4

It is a debate about the meaning of human freedom, Kant and Rawls reject Aristotle’s teleology, since it does not leave us room to choose our good for ourselves. Aristotle sees justice as a mattor of fit between persons and the ends or goods appropriate to their nature. But we are inclined to see justice as a matter of choice.

Question 5

What is a logical conclusion if we understand ourselves to be free and independent with respect to other obligations?

Answer 5

Then we cannot make sense of a range of moral and political obligations that we commonly recognize. (e.g. solidarity, loyalty, historic memory and religious faith).

Question 6

What involves moral deliberation?

Answer 6

Choice, but the choices issues from the interpretation, it is not a sovereign act of will.

Question 7

What does moral agency allow for?

Answer 7

It allows others to see more clearly what you need to do.

Question 8

What is at odds with the narritive account according to Alasdair MacIntyre?

Answer 8

Individualism is at odds, since moral reflection requires that I set aside my identities and encumbrances.

Question 9

What are the three categories of moral responsibility? What does this mean?

Answer 9

1. Natural duties: they are universal, they do not require consent. (e.g. the duty to treat people with respect, avoid cruelty)
2. Voluntary obligations: particular, they do require consent (e.g. you say you’re going to paint a friends house then you have an obligation to do so)
3. Obligations of solidarity: particular, do not require consent, they involve moral responsibilities we owe with whom we share a certain history

Question 10

What is patriotism?

Answer 10

Patriotism is the feeling of loving your country more than any others. Most people recognize that we have a responsibility to our own citizens, but not to everyone.

Question 11

Why do some argue that obligations of solidarity are instances of collective selfishness?

Answer 11

They argue that it is an inward-looking tendency.

Question 12

What happens if the narrative conception of the person is right?

Answer 12

Then obligations of solidarity can be more demanding than the libral account suggests, even to the point of competing with natural duties.

Question 13

What is at stake in the debate between narrative account of moral agency and the one the empahasis will and consent?

Answer 13

It is how you conceive human freedom.

Question 14

What should we set aside in debating justice and rights?

Answer 14

Our personal moral and religious convictions and argue from the standpoint of a political conception of the person, independent of any particular loyalties, attachments or conception of the good life.

Question 15

Why are the disagreements in modern democratic societies reasonable?

Answer 15

It is not expected that conscientious persons with full powers of reason, even after free discussion, will arrive at the same conclusion.

Question 16

What do we need to do to achieve a just society?

Answer 16

We have to reason together about the meaning of the good life, and to create a public culture hostiable to the disagreements that will unevitably arise.

Question 17

Why is justice inescapably judgmental?

Answer 17

Questions of justice are bound up with competing notions of honour and virtue, pride and recognition. It is not only about the right way to distribute things, but also about the right way to distribute things.

Question 18

What are some examples of a new politics of the common good look like?

Answer 18

1. Citizenship, sacrifice, and service - if a just society requires a strong sense of community, it must find a way to cultivate in citizens a concern for the whole, a dedication to the
   common good.

2. The moral limits of markets - in our time the expansion of markets and market-oriented reasoning into spheres of life traditionally governed by non-market norms. Unless we want to let the market rewrite the norms that govern social institutions, we need a public debate about the moral limits fo markets. 

3. Inequality, solidarity, and civic virtue - focusing on the civic consequences of inequality, and ways of reversing them, might find political traction that arguments about income distribution as such do not. It would also help highlight connection between distribute justice and the common good.

4. A politics of moral engagement - a politics of moral engagement is not only a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance. It is also a more promising basis for a just society.