Common theories

• Ethical Theories

  • The Trolley Problem
  • The Trolley Problem: take 2
  • The Transplant Surgeon
  • Consequentialism
  • Deontology
  • Relativism
  • Ethical Subjectivism
  • Cultural Relativism
  • Moral Development & Maturity
  • Utilitarianism
  • Hedonistic Utilitarianism
• Consequentialism

  • Rightness depends on consequences
• Deontology


  • Rightness depends at least in part on a formal moral rule or principle
• Relativism

  • What I feel is right is right. What I feel is wrong is wrong. - Jean Jacques Rousseau
• Ethical Subjectivism


  • There are no objective moral truths – only an individual’s feelings or preferences
• Cultural Relativism

  • All moral values are nothing more than cultural customs and laws
• Some Criticism of Relativism: No arbitration between views possible, other than the exercise of power. Anyone can harm others if it feels right to them. And we do tend to think that arbitration is possible – we do it all the time. And that it’s wrong to harm others for such a reason.
• Following the law is not the same thing as acting morally. Laws can be immoral. Laws can provide insufficient direction. Laws can be ambiguous. Doing the moral minimum is doing what you are morally obligated to do (not doing bad). Doing good: going beyond your obligations
• Moral Development & Maturity

  Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. The more you think about your choices, the more you think about your reasons and the reasons of others, the more you open your mind and widen your horizons, the more your moral reasoning is likely to mature! Post-conventional thinking does not need to reject cultural norms, but rather to evaluate them. If it accepts them, it’s because they are the right norms to have – not because they are the norms we do have
• Some Criticism of Moral Development & Maturity: Justifies any self-interested action – no matter how it affects others. Selfishness is usually associated with immorality, altruism with morality
• Ayn Rand: '“The achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose” - The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)'
• Ethical Egoism


  • Everyone ought to do what is in his or her own rational self-interest
• Utilitarianism


  • “The greatest good for the greatest number”. The morally right act for an agent at a time is that act available to the agent at that time, that will maximize the total amount of good in the world (that will have the best consequences). - Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1831)
• Hedonistic Utilitarianism


  • Pleasure and the absence of pain are good. Pleasure is any sensation you would rather have than no sensation at all; and pain is any sensation you’d rather not have than no sensation at all.
• Advantages of Utilitarianism according to Bentham

  • Determinate in principle – in principle, you can use the hedonic calculus to get an actual answer to the question of “what should I do in this case?”. Neutralistic – treats everyone in the same way. Realistic – it’s based on real psychology. It works with people as it finds them and organizes society so that they being that way actually has
• The Hedonic Calculus


  1. Perform the action-alternative with the highest total

  2. Determine Intensity x duration

  3. Determine Probability

  4. Calculate Total = (intensity x duration) x Probability
• How do we regard different types of pleasures?
• What counts as pleasure?
• Are there higher and lower pleasures?
• Bentham: the source of pleasure doesn’t matter
• J.S. Mill: There is an objective quality to different pleasures that should also be factored into our calculations
• Quality comes from what people would choose if they had access to all possible pleasures
• Bentham: It’s a subjective criterion – “Pushpin is as good as poetry”
• What about sadistic and masochistic pleasures?
• Are all goods commensurable?
• Can all pleasures be roughly compared? Can they be reduced to some sort of homogenous value?
• Utilitarianism & business
• Forms of Utilitarianism

  • Rule Utilitarianism
  • Preference Utilitarianism
• Rights and duties
• One way to think of a right is as a trump against the claims of the general welfare
• Rights hook into correlative duties: if you have a right not to be killed, then I have a duty not to kill you
• Types of rights

  • Negative rights
  • Positive rights
• Kantianism
• Moral actions follow from the right moral principles
• To find out whether a moral principle is ok to act from, you see if it’s compatible with the Categorical Imperative (CI)
• All moral rules must rest on a categorical imperative (CI)
• Hypothetical imperatives are conditional, rather than categorical/absolute
• How do we know if our moral principles are good ones?
• The Categorical Imperative


  1. 1st formulation of Categorical Imperative: "Act only according to that maxim that you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (a rule that applies to everybody)

  2. 2nd formulation of Categorical Imperative: “Never treat a person merely as a
• Categorical Imperative


  • 1st formulation: "Act only according to that maxim that you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
  • 2nd formulation: “Never treat a person merely as a means to an end, but always treat them as an end in themselves”