Ethics Terminology

Question 1

What is public health ethics?

Answer 1

A field of scholarship that uses particular concepts describe in precise (and debated) language.

Question 2

What is a “Descriptive” claim?

Answer 2

One that describes the world.

Can be investigated by looking at epidemiological evidence (e.g. smoking increases your risk of lung cancer).

Question 3

What is a “Normative” claim?

Answer 3

One that describes what we ought to do.

Offers guidance as to what we ought to do (e.g. we SHOULD…) and includes various assumptions (e.g. long term health of children is more important than their freedom to consume what they want).

Question 4

New evidence can overturn a ______ claim.

Answer 4

Descriptive

Question 5

New evidence alone cannot overturn a _______ claim, although it may lead you to re-evaluate it.

Answer 5

Normative

Question 6

When we seek to define a concept, we should specify both the _____ and the _____ conditions for that concept.

Answer 6

Necessary; sufficient

Question 7

What is a synonym for “Obligation”?

Answer 7

Duty

Question 8

What does obligation do?

Answer 8

Pushes us to do things.

Question 9

What are individual values?

Answer 9

Those that promote or defend individual ideas (such as autonomy, privacy, and liberty).

Question 10

What are examples of collective values?

Answer 10

Reciprocity, solidarity, community, equity, how humans relate to other creatures and the environment.

Question 11

What is metaphysics?

Answer 11

A branch of philosophy that considers the nature and existence of things (e.g. is a ‘community’ a collection of individuals? Or does it have its own independent status beyond the collection of individuals?)

Question 12

What is consequentialism?

Answer 12

The view that normative properties depend only on consequences.

Whether an act is morally right depends only on CONSEQUENCES (as opposed to the circumstances or the intrinsic nature of the act or anything that happens before the act).

Question 13

In consequentialism, what is considered best/right?

Answer 13

What is best/right is whatever makes the world best in the future because we cannot change the past.

Question 14

Define “act consequentialism”

Answer 14

The claim that an act is morally right if and only if that act maximises good (i.e. (total amount of good for all) - (total amount of bad for all) > (net amount for any incompatible act available to the agent on that occasion).

Question 15

Define “hedonism”

Answer 15

Claims pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain is the only intrinsic bad.

In hedonism, the value of the consequence depends only on the pleasures and pains in the consequences (as opposed to other supposed goods, such as freedom, knowledge, life).

Question 16

What does classic utilitarianism deny?

Answer 16

That moral rightness depends directly on anything other than consequences.

Question 17

Define “actual consequentialism”

Answer 17

Whether an act is morally right depends only on the ACTUAL consequences (as opposed to foreseen, foreseeable, intended, or likely consequences).

Question 18

Define “direct consequentialism”

Answer 18

Whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of THAT ACT ITSELF (as opposed to the consequences of the agent’s motive, of a rule or practice that covers other acts of the same kind).

Question 19

Define “evaluative consequentialism”

Answer 19

Moral rightness depends only on the VALUE of the consequences (as opposed to non-evaluative features of the consequences).

Question 20

Define “maximising consequentialism”

Answer 20

Moral rightness depends only on which consequences are BEST (as opposed to merely satisfactory or an improvement over the status quo).

Question 21

Define “aggregative consequentialism”

Answer 21

Which consequences are best is some function of the values of PARTS of those consequences (as opposed to rankings of whole worlds or sets of consequences).

Question 22

Define “total consequentialism”

Answer 22

Moral rightness depends only on the TOTAL net good in the consequence (as opposed to the average net good per person).

Question 23

Define “universal consequentialism”

Answer 23

Moral rightness depends on the consequences for ALL people or sentient beings (as opposed to only the individual agent, members of the individual’s society, present people, or any other limited group).

Question 24

Define “equal consideration” in consequentialism.

Answer 24

In determining moral rightness, benefits to one person matter just as much as similar benefits to any other person (as opposed to putting more weight on the worse or worst off).

Question 25

Define “agent-neutrality” in consequentialism.

Answer 25

Whether some consequences are better than others does not depend on whether the consequences are evaluated from the perspective of the agent (as opposed to an observer).