Finals Study Flashcards
metaethics
Is there such thing as free will?
Is morality relative to individuals / cultures?
metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language
act-consequentialism
Action is right if and only if its consequences are at least as good as those of any alternative possible action in that situation
utilitarianism
an action is right if and only if its consequences contain at least as large a net balance of well-being minus ill-being as those of any alternative possible action in that situation
expected utility theory
Identify all possible outcomes of action and assess how good or bad they would be, respectively
The expected value of an action is the sum of the value of its possible outcomes multiplied by their probability of occurring
instrumental goodness
valuable as a means to an end- a means to well-being
non-instrumental goodness
good / valuable in itself
Hedonistic Theory of Well-Being
Well-being consists in happiness
Nothing can be good or bad for a person unless they are aware of it
Objections: we want to do certain things, not just have the experience of doing things
Experience Machine
Desire-Fulfillment Theory of Well-Being
Well-being consists in desire-satisfaction
Does not have to be experienced, you can be better / worse off from things that you don’t experience or happen after your death.
Objections: what if the person’s desires are trivial or evil?
Objective-List Theory of Well-Being
Well-being consists in items on an objective list, whether or not a person desires or not
Ethical Egoism
View that an action is right and only right if it better promotes the agent’s interests than any other available action
Hedonistic Egoism
An agent’s interests are reducible to pleasure
Subjective Consequentialist
understands consequentialism as a form of decision-making
Objective Consequentialist
sees consequentialism as a standard of rightness to evaluate actions by
direct agency (DDE)
harm towards victim is direct
indirect agency (DDE)
harm towards victim is indirect and a consequence of doing good
According to DDE, when is it permissible for an agent to bring about harm?
- The harm is necessary to achieve the good
- The harm is proportionate to the good
- The harm is merely foreseen but not intended
positive responsibility
responsibility for me to perform the right actions
negative responsibility
responsibility for the actions others perform; to encourage others to perform the right actions and discourage them from performing wrong actions
integrity of action
Williams argues that utilitarianism requires us to hold the same responsibility for others’ actions and our own actions
integrity of desire
Williams argues that utilitarianism requires us to hold the same importance for others’ desires and our own desires
duty
reasons / motivations
maxim
a general rule that led to my action
Categorical Imperative
something is required in itself, unconditionally, irrespective of any aim.
universal law
Will
motivation / principles on the basis of actions being chosen
a priori
obvious without thinking. “You ought not to harm innocents for no reason”
Hypothetical Imperative
something is required in order to achieve an aim or goal, because it is a necessary means to that goal
The Control Principle
object of moral assessments must be factors under our control. Moral assessments (regarding agent’s praise- or blameworthiness; the rightness or wrongless of theri action, etc) should be luck-independent.
moral luck
a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment
agent-regret
The special form of sadness or pain accompanying the wish that things had been otherwise with regard to something with which ones agency was somehow involved
a kind of sadness or regret, but not guilt or self-blame
circumstantial luck
luck involved in the kinds of problems and situations one faces (if they were in another circumstance, they would have acted better / worse)
outcome luck
luck in the way one’s actions or projects turned out
blameworthiness and deservingness of punishment
causal luck
luck in how one is determined by antecedent circumstances
determinism
constitutive luck
luck involved in one’s having the inclinations, capacities and temperament that one does
fundamental attribution error
we tend to attribute things to people’s character rather than looking at the situation they were put in
the simple argument
if determinism is true, you are not to praise or blame for anything
determinism
Given exactly what went before, the world could now be none other than it is
Can people still be morally responsible?
incompatibilism
If determinism is true, free will cannot exist and there can not be moral responsibility
compatibilism
Even if determinism is true, we can still sometimes be responsible for our actions since we could have acted otherwise if we wished to
simple indeterminism
if things are not caused by my own free will, desires, and impulses, they are not caused at all
libertarianism
An action that is free is caused by the agent who performs it. What we do is sometimes up to us.
first-order desire
desire to do or not do something
second-order desire
desire to have or not have the first-order desire (desire to do something)
second-order volition
a desire that the first-order desire will be our will
principle of alternate possibilities
there is no moral blame or merit in anyone who could not have acted otherwise
Frankfurt’s Principle of Responsibility
we are morally responsible for action X if we have a second-order desire that our will be to do X
Harm Principle
only time power can be executed against an individual is to prevent harm to himself or others
telic egalitarians
The Principle of Equality: it is in itself bad if some people are worse off than others
Take equality to be good in itself
Even if nothing can be done to remove inequalities, it is still bad
Equality is intrinsically valuable
A more equal outcome is in one respect better than a less equal outcome
pluralist
deontic egalitarians
we should avoid inequality, insofar as it is the product of unjust human agency
If nothing can be done to remove inequalities, it cannot be unjust
pluralist egalitarian
believe that besides equality there are other things that also matter, such as total well-being or a decent minimum
care about equality and utility
middle ground between utilitarianism and egalitarian
Principle of Utility
it is in itself better if people are better off overall
the priority view
The moral value of raising a person’s utility by a given amount is greater, the worse-off the recipient.
Avoids the Leveling Down Objection since there is no reason to make the better-off worse off if we cannot alos improve the absolute standing of the worse-off.
the problem of collective harm
individual harms do not have much of an effect, but when it adds up to the collective there are large-scale harms
oppositions: universalization over generates moral prohibitions
Triggering case of collective harm
Cases where each act likely makes no difference at all. Yet, some act makes a great deal of difference. In effect, some single act works as a trigger– bringing about the morally relevant difference.
If we don’t know which act was the triggering act, then it seems that all we can say is that our own individual act is overwhelmingly likely not to have made a difference.
Imperceptible Difference case of collective harm
it isn’t literally true that most individual acts makes no difference at all. Rather, individual acts make a real, but imperceptible, difference along some dimension.
Liability Mode of Responsibility
The dominant liberal paradigm for thinking about injustice operates on a liability model of responsibility, which seeks to causally connect the injustice to wrongdoings by an agent or group of agents, who are assigned responsibility for it.
political responsibility
The guiding question isn’t “who is to blame for this injustice?” But “who is responsible for addressing it, by reforming the social structures that give rise to these injustices?”
paternalistic
A policy is paternalistic if and only if it places constraints on the liberty of persons for the purpose of protecting and promoting their own good
commodification
things traded in market are valued in a certain way, namely for the use we get out of them (“use-value”)
numerically identical
X and y are numerically identical = x is the same individual as y.
Ex. you and you 15 years ago
qualitatively identical
x and y have the same properties but are not (necessarily) the same individual
Ex. two cans of the same Campbell tomatoes
The Origin View
each person has this distinctive necessary property: that of having grown from the particular pair of cells from which this person in fact grew.
if this is true, the time dependence claim is true
time dependence claim
if any particular person had not been conceived within a month of the time when he was in fact conceived, he would in fact never have existed.
comparative view of harm
an action harms a person if and only if it makes the person worse off than they would otherwise have been if the action had not been performed.
disjunctive view of harm
an action harms a person if and only if it either makes the person worse off than she would otherwise have been or causes her to exist with a life that is not worth living for her.
Principle Q
if in either of two possible outcomes the same number of people would ever live, it will be worse if those who live are worse off, or have a lower quality of life, than those who would have lived.
We ought to bring out the better outcome, all else equal.
average utilitarian
compares the average well-being of a population rather than the aggregate
dignity
The unconditional (or ‘interest-independent’) value that a person has in themself, in virtue of their rational nature
Exchange Claim (against suicide to avoid pain)
suicide to avoid pain is self-undermining since it is out of self-interest, and makes the person only have conditional [interst-dependent] value
Benign Carnivorism
practice of eating only farm animals that have been reared without being caused to suffer and that have been killed with minimal pain and fear
supererogatory
not morally required but morally praise-worthy. “above and beyond” moral duty.
person-affecting claim
an act is wrong only if it makes someone worse off
