Main arguments for/against

Question 1

Pros Consequentialism

Answer 1

z

Question 2

Cons Consequentialism

Answer 2

z

Question 3

Pros Deontology

Answer 3

z

Question 4

Cons Deontology

Answer 4

z

Question 5

Pros Kantian ethics

Answer 5

• The demands of morality are rational demands, and not arbitrary.
• Morality is perhaps not “too demanding.”
• We can accommodate the powerful idea that we may not treat people as mere means, and avoid various repulsive conclusions [side constraints; transplant]
• We can make better sense of the common sense idea of universalizability
• It is not impossible to determine which action is morally right (compare act consequentialism)
• An inspiring idea of morality as true freedom.

Question 6

Cons Kantian ethics

Answer 6

• Absolutism [e.g. in the case of lying to save a life; perhaps the trolley case]
• Anthropocentrism [Kant’s view of nonhuman animals and nature]
• Metaphysically controversial view of free will
• Requires the idea of the “synthetic a priori”
• Insufficient emphasis on empathy and our moral sentiments [contrast with Hume]
• Fails to make sense of the idea that moral decision making can be hard (not just practically hard, but hard to figure out its content).

Question 7

Virtue ethics cons

Answer 7

• Virtue Ethics is Egoistic: agent does what wants +acts to receive eudaemonia.
• fails to meet a central criterion for a successful normative theory: that it be action-guiding
• Virtue Ethics is Relativist
• Virtue Ethics is Self-Effacing

Question 8

Particularism cons

Answer 8

• Without principles it’s hard to know how we find the right answer in cases.