Moral Philosophy Flashcards
Normative Ethical Theories
looks for meaning of good, bad, right and wrong.
Utilitarianism AO1
What is meant by utility + maximising utility:
Bentham’s quantitative hedonistic utility, (calculus).
Mill’s qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism (higher + lower pleasures) and his proof of the greatness happiness principle.
Non-hedonistic utilitarianism (preference).
Act + Rule utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism Issues
Whether pleasure is the only good (Nozick’s experience machine).
Fairness and individual liberty/rights (tyranny of the majority).
Problems with calculation (animals).
Ignores moral integrity and intentions of individual.
Kantian Deontological Ethics AO1
What is meant by good will.
Distinction between acting in accordance with duty and acting out of duty.
Distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives.
First formulation and second formulation of the categorical imperative.
Distinction between contradiction in will and conception.
Kantian Deontological Ethics Issues
Competing Duties
Not all universalisable maxims are distinctly moral, not all non-universalisable are immoral.
Consequences of actions determine their moral value.
Ignores the value of certain motives, eg love.
Morality os a system of hypothetical, rather than categorical, imperatives.
Aristotelian Virtues Ethics
Virtue Ethics - Eudaimonia
The ‘good life’
Final End - for its own sake.
To Flourish, just as a plant does.
A life as a whole.
Virtue Ethics Overview
Eudaimonia = good life.
Good life must consist of something unique.
Reason is unique characteristic (Ergon).
Good life = acting asccording to reason.
Virtues enable us to act according to reason.
Virtue Ethics - Virtues
Enable us to choose our actions according to good reason.
Character Trait.
Mid point between vice of deficieny + excess.
Develop through habit, training - skill analogy.
Virtue Ethics - Ergon and Arete
Ergon:
Function of a thing
Knife - to cut things.
Humans - use reason.
Arete:
A virture that enables a thing to achieve ergon.
Knife - sharpness.
Humans - Virtues
Virtues Ethics - doctrine of the mean
States that virtues are the average between two extremes.
Cowardly, Reckless, Courageous Example.
Virtues Ethics - skill analogy
Nobody born virtuous, but have capcity too.
Can’t read about it, have to actually do it. Gain experience - practial wisedom.
When you first start its hard.
Overtime it becomes automatic, part of our character and more sophisticated.
Example - Piano.
Virtue Ethics - voluntary + involuntary actions
Only praise or condemn actions if they are done voluntarily.
Only judge voluntary actions.
Voluntary:
Acting will full knowlege and intention.
Involuntary:
Compulstion
Ignorance (accident)
Moral Cognitivism
Moral language expresses ethical beliefs.
Describe how the world is and so can be verified as true or false.
Mind-to-world, change our belief to fit ther world.
Moral realism - other than Mackie.
Not motivating.
Moral Non-cognitivism
Moral language express attitudes or feelings towards the world.
Do not aim to descibe the world.
Cannot be verified as true or false.
World-to-mind, change the world to satisfy our desires.
Moral anti-realism.
Motivating.
