Week 4

• Normative ethics


  The study of moral standards that determine right from wrong conduct
• Normative ethics


  • Concerned with how one ought to conduct themselves in various situations
  • End goal: determine the proper course of action for human behavior, which comprises the most moral, correct, and just ways of thinking/acting
• Main strands of normative ethics

  • Consequentialism
  • Deontology
  • Virtue ethics
• Consequentialism


  • Normative focus: consequences/outcomes
  • Definition of good: acting to promote best outcomes
• Deontology


  • Normative focus: maxims; responsibility/intention/duty
  • Definition of good: Fulfillment or discharge of moral obligations
• Virtue ethics


  • Normative focus: agents; individual well-being
  • Definition of good: flourishing (eudaimonia)
• The consequences of an action are the ones that ultimately matter in judging whether the action is morally good or bad
• The morality of an action is solely determined by the kind of consequences that the performance of the action leads to
• No actions are good or bad in themselves. It is the outcome of what we do to other people that matters
• Not all consequences are considered morally relevant by consequentialism, only those that involve an intrinsic good
• Intrinsic good


  Any good that is good in itself or desirable for its own sake, e.g. happiness, peace, justice
• Instrumental good


  The kind of good that is desired for the sake of something else, e.g. successful career, good health, fame (because they serve as means to achieve happiness)
• For consequentialists, good consequences are ones that are good in itself
• Main varieties of consequentialism

  • Hedonistic consequentialism
  • Non-hedonistic consequentialism
  • Agent-relative consequentialism
  • Agent-neutral consequentialism
• Hedonistic consequentialism


  Pleasure is the only intrinsic good
• Non-hedonistic consequentialism


  Pleasure is not the only intrinsic good there is
• Agent-relative consequentialism


  The only consequences that morally matter are the agent-related ones
• Agent-neutral consequentialism


  Both agent-related and non-agent-related consequences morally matter
• Epicureanism


  • Epicurus' ethical theory is roughly consequentialist: it is hedonistic and agent-relative
  • An action is morally good if it gives maximum pleasure to its agent, while it is morally bad if otherwise
  • Happiness is not gained "through a constant succession of intense sensual pleasures," but through "the state of serenity"
  • Active v. passive pleasures: Epicurus wants passive pleasures because they are less intense but long-lasting
• Utilitarianism


  • The most influential form of consequentialism
  • Championed by British philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
  • At its most basic level, it states that if one can increase the overall happiness of the world, or that of an individual, then one should
  • Both Bentham's and Mill's strands of utilitarianism are hedonistic and agent-non-relative
  • They are also welfare-oriented and aggregationist: The morally good act is one that produces the maximum aggregate (greatest total sum) of welfare of all affected persons
• Bentham's quantitative utilitarianism


  • Emphasizes the quantitative differences among types of pleasures
  • There is no significant difference between physical and mental pleasures
  • Introduced the calculus of felicity or hedonistic calculus to measure the quantity of pleasures
  • The greater the good of the action, the more hedons (positive utility units) it is worth
• Jeremy Bentham: '"By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness"'
• Mill's qualitative utilitarianism


  • Emphasizes the qualitative differences among types of pleasures
  • There is a significant difference between physical and mental pleasures
  • Mill developed his own version of utilitarianism in the course of answering certain objections to utilitarianism
• John Stuart Mill: '"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied"'
• John Stuart Mill: '"Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure. Pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and all desirable things are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain."'
• Other types of consequentialism

  • Rule utilitarianism
  • Ethical egoism
  • Ethical altruism
  • State consequentialism
• Rule utilitarianism


  Follow rules which ultimately lead to the maximization of pleasure
• Ethical egoism


  Actions should maximize personal benefit only (the effect on others is irrelevant)
• Ethical altruism


  Actions should maximize the benefits to others (the effect on you is irrelevant)
• State consequentialism


  Actions should benefit the state
• Consequentialism: Attractions and criticisms


  • Attractions:
  • It stresses the way people (or sentient beings) are affected by our actions
  • It rejects all forms of egoism and ethnocentrism
  • It presents a general solution to moral quandaries
  • It has a definite answer to every question concerning the moral rightness of actions
  • It has proven itself to be a theoretically fruitful philosophy
  • Criticisms:
  • It disregards the weight of some morally unacceptable consequences
  • It is too demanding as a moral framework
  • It relies on speculative outcomes (intended consequences of actions)
  • It is incomplete and groundless
  • It fails to put due consideration to individual agency and commitment to personal values