Finals

• Kantian Ethics


  • Achievement of the end
  • Moral action comes from the conviction of the "oughtness" or duty which does not expect any result
  • The very performance of duty in any given circumstance
  • Autonomy and adequacy of practical reason to make moral judgments
  • Invocation to God or any following of the divine will and law is not warranted
• Good Will


  • Kant argues that any judgment of goodness that is not limited and without condition characterizes good will
  • Good Will -that which remains constant despite the changing circumstances
  • The main objective of Kantian ethics is to put morality on a solid foundation
  • For Kant, morality would find itself on a shallow ground and become problematic if there is deficiency, or absence of the ultimate norm of sound judgment
• Categorical Imperative


  • Moral actions are not oriented towards any purpose or end
  • Command an action without any condition attached to them
  • Not based on natural inclinations or end like happiness
  • As an intelligible beings, we do not intend to abide with such law to achieve something
  • Our imperfections do not justify as excuses to settle with inclinations way below who we really are
• Categorical Imperative


  • Universal Law principle
  • The Formula of Humanity "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end, and never as a mere means (to use it only for your own benefit, with no thought to the interests or benefit of the thing you're using)"
• Hypothetical Imperative


  • "if the action is good only as a means of something else, then the imperative is hypothetical"
  • Conditional moral command by which the end becomes the condition
• Kinds of Rights: Legal

  • Kant emphasizes the necessity of social institution to authoritatively regulate behaviours that run contrary to the expectations of social order
  • The civil society serves as an agency to impose law and give punishment
  • Society's legal authority being punitive in character
  • Law as a preventive measure
  • No citizen has the right to meddle with any offender
• Righteous Laws


  • The liberty of every member of the society as a man
  • The equality of every member of the society with every other, as a subject
  • The independence of every member of the commonwealth as a citizen
• Kinds of Rights: Moral


  • Morality must advance the greater freedom so that it can be the basis of all free things
  • The consequences of action are beyond control hence, there are standards to secure the rightness of actions
  • Standard: An objective criterion that applies to all
  • Indeed, moral act should be placed on impartial grounds
  • Applicability to all free beings
  • For an action to be right, it should not be detrimental to other's freedom
• Utilitarianism


  Exoticism: A phenomenon that tries to depict poverty to an extreme degree where people's actual condition is used in order to generate beautiful reviews from a show and profit for the network which produces the show
• Consequentialism


  Works in the idea that the result is more important that the means
• The Principle of Utilitarianism


  • Embraces a norm that will bring happiness to as many persons as possible
  • An action can be measured best to be moral or not if and only if the said action is agreed by all or a great many people to be good
• Utilitarianism


  • Started in the philosophy of Epicurus (Epicurean Philosophy)
  • It's peak began in the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
• Bentham's Categories


  • Intensity: What is the intensity or level or pleasure and/or pain that the action leads to?
  • Duration: What is the duration of that pleasure or pain the action creates?
  • Certainty/Uncertainty: Is there a notable amount of certainty or uncertainty of pleasure or pain resulting from the action?
  • Propinquity/Remoteness: How soon after the action does the pleasure or pain kick in? Is it near or far?
  • Fecundity: How likely is the action to be followed by even more pleasure (if it's a pleasurable act) or pain (if it's not so pleasurable)?
  • Purity: How pure or impure is the pleasure or pain after an action?
  • Extent: Number of people affected
• Jeremy Bentham: '"The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."'
• Mill and the Quality Happiness


  • The idea of today's utilitarianism is synonymous to that of Stuart Mill
  • The qualitative idea of action that will bring happiness to as many people
  • One does not want pleasure for pleasure's sake
  • Mill was able to establish his own version of conscience- the internal sanction
  • Principle of utility establishes that happiness is the ultimate criterion to establish what is moral or not
  • The greatest amount of happiness altogether
• John Stuart Mill: '"The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it . . . . No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness . . . . [W]e have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons."'
• Telos


  • A Greek idea considered to be the vision of an act
  • An idea of seeing through the end
• The idea of personal goals and collective goals are contradictory and sub-alternately opposed
• This problem has been solved through natural, legal, and religious norms
• The nature of man's goodness is preserved via measures that are meant to maintain it while the nature of evil is dispelled via measures that are meant to prevent the actions from happening
• The ultimate goal of the measures is helping one from individualism to collectivism
• There is a real collective telos
• Man is a part of a vast island of people
• The Republic by Plato


  • Plato's philosophy
  • Metaphysics
  • Aesthetics
  • Ethics
• The Republic


  • after justice
  • Justice can reign from individual to collective
  • Each person's function was as important as any other
  • Justice cannot lean on "towards the truth of the stronger"
• The Republic


  • Justice is possible through living a life of virtue
  • There can be no societal justice if there is no personal justice
  • Justice must be distributive
  • The effect of justice has to be fairness
• Life is unfair as everyone can attest to it
• What is illegal and unfair have turned out to be normal
• Fairness


  Fairness happens if and only if there is equality
• John Rawls


  • Theorized on justice and fairness
  • Justice and fairness can only be achieved through veil of ignorance
• According to Rawls, the problem of man is present because he has forgotten his original position
• The standpoint of fairness


  To be fair is to be ethical both to you and to others
• The world has lost its veil of ignorance
• The basis of relation is already grounded within the names/categories attached to them
• Fairness today, is nothing but the tip of an iceberg in the person
• A society that practices a clear ethics promotes justice and fairness
• Globalization


  A process of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets
• Pluralism


  A situation in which people of different social classes, religions, races, etc. are together in a society but continue to have their different traditions and interests
• In a globalized society: great ideas vs concrete realities
• In ethics, there are pluralities of moral commitments