PHIL 335 Midterm Flashcards

Question

Simple/Indirect Rule Utilitarianism

Answer 1

Criterion of rightness applies in the first instance to rules & criterion of rightness serves as decision procedure

Answer 2

Criterion of rightness applies in the first instance to acts but criterion of rightness need not be used as decision procedure

Answer 3

Criterion of rightness applies in the first instance to rules but criterion of rightness need not be used as a decision procedure

Answer 4

Right action is a function of what actually maximizes utility

Answer 5

Right action is a function of what is likely to maximize utility

Answer 6

As moral agents, our primary moral obligation is to the promotion of valuable states of affairs as such rather than to other persons. Our objective as moral agents is to increase the total amount of value (i.e., utility) in the world

Answer 7

Our primary moral obligation is to other (existing persons/sentient beings); must give equal consideration to each person’s interests; principle of utility is an interpretation of what impartial moral consideration of existing interests requires

Answer 8

Thought experiment - Robert Nozick Imagine a person- unlike others- who is incredibly efficient at transforming resources into happiness Utilitarianism would require devoting merely all resources to such a person

Answer 9

Objection by Derek Parfit Such a person is not actually imaginable, it is a deep impossibility Experiment does not provide an important objection to utilitarianism

Answer 10

The Repugnant Conclusion -Parfit

Answer 11

For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be a some larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better, even though its members have lives that are barely worth living.

Answer 12

Non-Identity Problem

Answer 13

Parfits 14 year old girl case This girl chooses to have a child. Because she is so young, she give her child a bad start in life. Though this will have bad effects throughout this child’s life, his life will, predictably be worth living. If this girl had waited for several years, she would have had a different child, to whom she would have given a better start in life

Answer 14

Time Dependency Claim “If an particular person had not been conceived when he was in fact conceived, it is in fact true that he would never have existed.” Time Dependency Claim 2 “If an particular person had not been conceived within a month of the time he was in fact conceived, he would in fact never have existed.”One’s identity as a person depends (in the usual case) on when one was born” he difficulty in reconciling our intuition that impersonal actions can be morally good or bad, with the fact that they do not improve or worsen the lives of any specific people

Answer 15

An act can be morally wrong only if the act harms an existing or future person

Answer 16

This view seems intuitively plausible but the non-identity problem suggests that it is mistaken.Total view utilitarianism does not embrace the person affecting view and hence might seem like a way of explaining the wrongs in non-identity cases such as the 14-year old girl and ‘depletion’.

Answer 17

1. Rightness consists in the maximization of non moral value 2. Goodness is not narrowly defined in terms of human welfare that have intrinsic value and should be promoted (eg. Knowledge, friendship) View is associated with objective list accounts of what makes a life go well

Answer 18

A variety of non-utilitarian (technical) consequentialism

Answer 19

Right consists in the maximization of goodness Locates good to be promoted in distinctive features of human nature that have intrinsic value, often associated with Aristotles idea of eudaimonia Goods that have intrinsic value include: knowledge, friendship

Answer 20

As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator

Answer 21

Wiliams An agent is just as responsible for the things they allow or fail to prevent as they are for the things they more directly bring about

Answer 22

George the chemist Jim the botanist

Answer 23

For Williams Utilitarianism does not show appreciation for the relationship between man and wife Utilitarianism via its mode of moral thinking can alienate people from personal attachements and commitments that supply their lives with meaning

Answer 24

Persons have special personal relationships and commitments to ideals (‘ground projects’) which are a source of distinctive value to their lives. ‘Ground projects’ are (partly) constitutive the very identity of moral agents. The integrity of moral selves requires deep (though perhaps not unqualified) fidelity to such ground projects. Utilitarianism (and especially negative responsibility) can generate alienation from ground projects. Utilitarianism is objectionable because it corrosive to integrity

Answer 25

Subjective integrity Objective integrity

Answer 26

Subjective integrity locates the ground-projects constitutive of the self as the one agents just happen to have irrespective of the moral character of those projects

Answer 27

Agents' integrity in the sense of their current unified self-conception can be incompatible with undoubtedly overriding moral demands. So, revisions to an agent’s ground projects required by utilitarianism cannot be objectionable per se.

Answer 28

For the agent to have objective integrity, her self-conception must be grounded in reality: it must not be based on her being seriously deceived either about empirical facts or about the moral obligations she actually has. In particular, her self-conception as being morally decent must be grounded in her leading a genuinely morally decent life Ashford says that agents have a sure grasp on moral obligations

Answer 29

Yes it does, because in the correct world despite someone finding value in personal relationships and leisure in life, current world utilitarianism requires such ground projects to be forsaken.

Answer 30

A supererogatory action is one that brings about good consequences but which is not morally required. (It can be praiseworthy but persons cannot be morally criticized for failing to do it.) Utilitarianism seems to deny that there any genuinely supererogatory actions

Answer 31

there are two distinct (and largely incompatible) ‘moral voices’ each associated with fundamentally different moral concepts. One focuses on ‘justice’, the other focuses on ‘care’

Answer 32

the ethic of care is a characteristically female moral perspective and the justice-based ethic is a characteristically male moral perspective. [There are now doubts about whether the empirical evidence supports this claim.

Answer 33

The ethic of justice is centered on maintaining obligation, equity, and fairness through the application of moral principles, rules, and established standards, whereas the ethic of care is centered on maintaining relationships through responding to needs of others and avoiding hurt 1. Moral reasoning via abstract principles (‘justice ethic’) vs. moral reasoning focused on particularities & concrete fact 2. Morality as impartial concern (‘ethic of justice’) vs. morality as fundamentally partial (‘ethic of care’)

Answer 34

Since consequentialism in its standard form requires us to maximize the good, impartially considered, it looks like producing good is a never-ending project.

Answer 35

Acknowledge that morality CAN be demanding in some cases Emphasize cooperative character of utilitarianism: the duty to maximize utility is shared by all In most instances, when duty is discharged by all demands of utilitarianism are not excessively burdensome Resist picking up moral slack of non-compliers

Answer 36

The maximization of overall welfare can justify: - violation of legal rights - violation of moral rights - violation of considerations of moral desert - violations of promises/contracts - violation of fairness in the distribution of benefits and burdens

Answer 37

Constraint of Realism Theoretical Sophistication Priority of Theory over Intuition

Answer 38

Troubling tensions between considerations of justice and utilitarianism only arise in highly unrealistic cases

Answer 39

Justice considerations can be integrated into a sophisticated form of utilitarianism (e.g., by allowing that considerations of justice serve as decision procedures that generally serve the utilitarian criterion of rightness

Answer 40

Where there are genuine divergences in realistic cases between the requirements of utilitarianism and our intuitive judgements we should revise our intuitive judgements in light of the overall normative power utilitarianism as a moral theory

Answer 41

a philosophy and community focused on maximising the good you can do through your career, projects, and donation

Answer 42

There are no reasons for action per se but reason can reveal causal relations that are relevant to facilitating the achievement of an agent’s ends. (On this view, strictly speaking, we can never say that an agent has a reason to act in anyway

Answer 43

Non-sceptical view reason can guide agents in the achievement of their ends and agents have reasons to pursue their ends but reason cannot assess the rationality or reasonableness of ends

Answer 44

Non sceptical view reason can guide agents in the achievement of their ends and agents have reasons to pursue their ends but whether pursuit of a given end is rational can depend on whether the end adopted by agent is consistent with what the agent would adopt under certain idealized conditions – e.g., full-information, calm reflection, absence of distorting factors.

Answer 45

1. Rational egoism 2. Rational altruism

Answer 46

Reason can illuminate what is in a person’s interest and directs persons to maximally pursue their own interest (Rational Egoism endorses the Normative Primacy of Self Interest)

Answer 47

There are many ends (including moral ends) that reason can identify as rational (or irrational/unreasonable) and reason can determine what it is most reasonable to do in given circumstances but reason does not always require agents to pursue their self-interest.