week 2 ethical living and kantian ethics

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Week 2 Morality:

Contrasting Views, Ethical Living: Different

Perspectives, & Elements of Kantian Ethics

Chapter 1, pp. 1-2 Chapter 2, pp. 9-13 and pp.18-27

Chapter 12, pp. 176-182


Ethical LivingPart 1:


Follow Your Reason or Follow Your Heart?

• To act ethically, is it essential to overcome one’s feelings and suppress sentiment in order to follow true rational moral principles that transcend our natures?

• Or is ethics rooted in our sentiments, our feelings of compassion and kindness that are not derived from reason, that come from nature?


Reason or Feelings: History of Conflict

• This fundamental conflict can be traced to religious tradition– Jewish adherence to divine law– Christian tradition of caring for the less fortunate– Confucian belief in the natural goodness of human

beings that stems from an innate compassion• In contrast – Thomas Hobbes– The natural state of humanity is war, in which life is

“nasty, brutish, and short.”– Guided by self-protection


Affection and Duty: The Case of Huck Finn

• Huck Finn’s moral quandary: help Jim escape slavery or become his legal owner– Huck believes that his “moral duty” is to turn Jim

in– Huck’s sentiments, his affection for Jim, prevent

him from reporting Jim

• Was Huck’s act to protect Jim morally good?


Hume Versus Kant

• Hume – the primacy of feelings over reason – Ethics is in the realm of feelings and passions

• Kant – ethical system based on pure reason– Sets rational beings apart from the physical world


Sentimentalism

• Sentimentalism: feelings/sentiments are vital to the proper understanding of ethics; without the right kinds of feelings, there would be no ethics.– Two views of ethical sentimentalism:• Objective: our feelings and sentiments can guide us to

objective ethical truth• Subjective: feelings-based ethics is not objective


Sentimentalism

• Contrasts with– Rationalism: ethics is a purely rational process.– Utilitarian ethics: the right act is the act that

produces the best possible overall consequences (i.e. pleasure and alleviation of suffering)

• Differs from – Intuitionism: what is intuited is not the feeling,

but the direct insight, which is immediately known


Sentimentalism

• Moral Sense Theory– Our feelings and sentiments are guides to an

objective moral truth (ex. my sense of shame informs me that my act was immoral)

– Often relies on analogies with the aesthetic sense• a sense of beauty and with feelings or judgments of

taste

– Your moral sense guides your appreciation of virtue and detestation of vice.


Sentimentalism

• How do we know that our moral senses are reliable?– Anthony Ashley Cooper and Francis Hutcheson

(design argument)• The moral sense is given to us by God, and God would

not instill in us a faulty moral sense• Our moral sense is designed by God so that we

perceive virtuous acts as lovely and attractive– Lord Shaftesbury• Everything must be understood in terms of purpose

(i.e. how it fits into God’s divine design of the universe)


Sentimentalism• Criticism of the design argument– Hume: sentiments are the vital mainspring for all of

our behavior, including moral behavior. But those sentiments do not come from God.

– Differing interpretations of Hume:• Rejects all objective ethical standards (ethics is a matter of

feelings and not truth)• Sentiments can guide us to correct ethical behavior

– Neosentimentalism – we cannot draw legitimate moral guidance and conclusions from feelings, but must carefully consider whether those feelings are appropriate, justified, and we can genuinely endorse them.


Intuitionism

• Intuitionism: reason is not the source of basic ethical truth, but neither are feelings. We know the basic truths of ethics by intuition.– Where does intuitive power come from?

• God• Nature

• What Do We Intuit?– What types of intuitions do we have?– Many intuitionists believe we have a specific type of

intuition that guides our ethical behavior.


Intuitionism

• Questions About Intuitionism– How do we know that our intuitions are sources

of truth?– How do we distinguish intuitions from feelings?• The limited answer is you just know when you

experience them. The truth of intuitions is self-evident.

• Which Intuitions Should We Trust?– Our intuitions can change as we age (W.D. Ross)– Disputes about moral intuition can be difficult to

settle


Ethics, Emotions, and Intuitions

• David Hume (Scottish, b. 1711)– A Treatise of Human Nature

• Adam Smith (1723-1790)– Theory of Moral Sentiments

• Jonathan Bennett (b. 1930)– The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn


Break!!!!!


Elements of Kantian EthicsPart 2:


Reasoning About Ethics

• Reason and Emotions– Most philosophers favor reason over emotion,

because emotions can lead us astray

• Reasoning about an Ethical Issue– Some object that reason does not apply to ethics• Judith Jarvis Thomson

– Sarah Sloan hypo as analogy for the ethics of abortion following rape

– If we have control over what happens to our own bodies, even to the detriment of others, then everyone does



• Reasoning about Conditional Principles– Hypothetical or conditional conclusion: • if this, then that

– Applying Thomson’s argument: If you believe that you have a right to decide what happens to your own body, then others also have that right

– Reason becomes more difficult to apply when we consider categorical claims, unconditional claims with no ifs about them



• Kant and Categorical Principles– Categorical arguments are unconditional

principles (ex. Cheating is wrong)– Kant: reason can supply absolute categorical

ethical principles that reveal universal truths. In fact, only pure reason can reveal absolute ethical truths.• Reason can discover eternal, absolute ethical principles

that can be known with rational certainty



• Kant’s Categorical Imperative– Always act in such a way that you could will that

your act should be a universal law• Similar to the “Golden Rule,” except

– Kant claims that the rule can be derived through pure reason

• It is categorical, not hypothetical or conditional

– Another formulation of the imperative: Always treat all persons as ends in themselves, and never merely as means to our ends


Elements of Kantian EthicsReason and Will

Two key elements of Kant’s ethical system:Ethics is based on pure reasonThe capacity to follow the purely rational dictates of the

rational moral law come from the special capacity of the human will

Nonnatural EthicsGenuine moral acts stem from our special nonnatural

powers of reason and will, not anything naturalActs generated by natural inclination have no moral

worth


Criticisms of Kantian Ethics

• Who Is Excluded from Kant’s Kingdom of Ends?– Kant’s system counts all people as moral equals– But to count as a person you must be capable of

rationally deliberating about universal moral principles• What happens to the rationally impaired?• Someone without rationality (ex. an Alzheimer’s

patient) has no moral standing to Kant


Criticisms of Kantian Ethics

• Conflicts among Principles– Focuses on moral principles, but ignores moral

behavior– Even universal laws can have a variety of different,

and possibly conflicting, practical effects• Ex. Hiding Jews from the Nazis

– The Kantian system does not always provide clear moral answers to serious moral quandaries


Ethics and Reason

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)– Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of

Morals• “Transition from the Common Rational Knowledge of

Morality to the Philosophical”


Break!!!!!


MoralityPart 3:


Darwin and the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals

Michael RuseDarwin posited that features evolve gradually.

Morality must exist, at least in traces, in animals.

week 2 ethical living and kantian ethics

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