Moral PhilosophyChapter II

Introduction

Definition• Moral philosophy is the attempt to think critically about right and

wrong, good or bad.

How?• 1. Practical/applied Ethics: Thinking about whether a particular action or

type of action is right or wrong • Is abortion right or wrong?• Is euthanasia right or wrong?• Is it right to treat other animal as food?

• 2. Normative Ethics: Thinking how are we to find the answers to these types of questions? • Normative ethics normally try to create the general theories about what is right or

wrong and prescribe people to do so. • Utilitarianism: only thing that is good is happiness. only thing that is right is whether it bring about most good (most happiness).

• Deontological theories (sometime known as duty ethics): some actions are just wrong, no matter how happy it might make people.

• Subjectivist Ethics• Egoist Ethics • Relativism • Caring Ethics• Rights Ethics• Religious ethics

• 3 Virtue: Think of what is a good person is more fundamental than what should I do. This question obviously will lead to what a good life for a person is.• Plato’s virtue theory: Soul’s components: Reasoning, Spirit, Desire• Aristotle’s virtue theory: Golden Mean

Practical/Applied Ethics• Abortion is right or wrong?• Killing a cruel robber is right or wrong?• Sacrifice your life for your nation is right or wrong?• Not help the victims due to your own security is right or wrong?• Treat other animals as food is right or wrong?• Tell a lie to save someone’s life is right or wrong?• Invade other country in order to help your country develop is right or

wrong?

Normative Ethics • Utilitarianism • Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

• Hedonistic Utilitarianism: Greatest Happiness Principle (pleasure)• Total amount of happiness=sum total of everyone’s pleasure - sum total of everyone’s

pains.• John Stuart Mill (1806-73)

• Deeper dimension including love of honor, beauty, order, or freedom • Higher pleasure (thought, feeling, and imagination)VS lower Pleasure (physical pleasure)• Quality (do you want to be a satisfied pig or a dissatisfied man?)• Ideal Utilitarianism

• Preference Utilitarianism: not happiness as pleasure we should maximize but the preference. • You can not know how much a person have a pleasure.• Easier to satisfy someone’s preference

• Negative Utilitarianism: maximizing the good (happiness) is not as important as minimizing the bad. • Act Utilitarianism:

• Do not know how to predict what consequence • Not clear what action should be right or wrong

• Rule Utilitarianism• Too much focus on law.

• Deontological views• Duty• God and Duty: God tell us to perform the duty which is the right or good thing

• Aquinas: Divine Revelation, Natural Law (seek for what God command us) • Kant: duties are determined by reason

• As rational animals: we do not just do thing, we make choice. • Morality is a set of law applied to everyone. It is Categorical Imperative (certain command)

that we will be irrational if we disobey. • Two shop keepers: A gives correct change because of being fear that he will be arrested

B gives correct change because it is morally right to be honest.

Ethical Subjectivism • Morality is about feelings, attitudes, and beliefs (no one is superior or

better than others)• A Naïve version

• Held with sincerity and conviction (belief)• Ex. Some people sincerely believe that all women should remain in the traditional

roles of wives and mothers• Or believe women should have equal opportunities in all social roles.

• Emotivism version, or a more sophisticated ethical subjectivists• Morality is not about belief because belief can be proved right or wrong. • A case of Pol Pot, for instance, is his killing wrong? Is it your emotion/feeling or your

belief to say he is morally wrong? Which one is easier to prove to be right or wrong

• Subjectivists challenge that no one can be moral if he or she lacks the capacity of feeling.

• Criticism and responses 1. Does emotion contains element of truth or not?

• It does have. Without feeling we will not be moral, and the feeling stimulates us to be morally right. Everybody, or at least the majority of people, are fear of death and want to live the happy lives so by understanding this principle we try to do good to each other.

2. Objectively justified or not? • Sometime but in some cases we will not have.• Ex1. Human rights is objectively justified. • Ex2. Some people are happy to kill while others not.

Ethical Egoism• Morality is about reasons but reducible to one 'own good or self-

interest.• Ayn Rand (1905-1982), novelist-philosopher• “Concern with his [or her] own interests is the essence of a moral existence.”• She is against altruism, which, according to her, is immoral.

• Altruism is concern to promote the well-being of others for their sake rather than solely for what one can gain from them.

• We should help others only when it benefits us, in particular through trades and exchanges in which we gain things we want for ourselves.

• How does Rand support Egoism?• Biology: life has to struggle to survive• Self-respect: altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting

man. Altruism hold degrading attitudes toward themselves as being servant to others. Furthermore, it causes dependency.

• Criticism • We are social creatures. We need to have friendships, loves, and community

loyalties to enable us to survive and flourish. • Altruism is not always deteriorating self-respect. Do we all need help? Does

help always make us dependent?

• Rights Ethics• Focus on the nature of action (whether respect rights of the individual or not)• Introduce a concept of human rights by specifying the moral significance and

authority of each human being.

• “We hold these truths to be self-evidence; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are LIFE, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of HAPPINESS”

Two Rights ethicists • Locke (1632-1704) and Liberty Rights• Rights could not be given or taken away• The human rights in any treaties or legal documents are recognized but not

created by those documents; • Three fundamental rights: Life, Liberty, and Property. • Locke was especially interested in liberty Rights, the rights to be left alone by

the government and by citizen majorities. • This liberty rights called the negative rights or Libertarian rights.

• Libertarians focus on the rights to property and to privacy;• They oppose all government welfare programs such as aid to education, the

elderly, and the disabled.

• Melden (1910-1991) and Welfare Rights• Welfare Rights or positive rights believed that liberty rights is too narrow• Welfare system need to be institutionalized in order to help ensure that rights

of the individuals are respected; especially in the case of the disadvantaged, the vulnerable, the poor, …

• At least, people need to have basic needs to live the dignified and respected lives. • Melden provided only one fundamental rights: the Right to pursue one’s

legitimate interests; • Legitimate interests are those interests that do not violate other people’s

similar and equal rights. Liberty rights + welfare • It is so bad to say someone have rights but their lives are so miserable, could

not even have food to eat, house to live, clothes to wear, medicines to consume when they are sick;

• Virtue Theory• What is the difference between “how Shall I be” and “What should I do”• Morally good traits of character. • Plato’s theory: Soul has three parts. 1. reason (wisdom), 2. spirit (courage), 3. desire

(self-control).• Aguinas: Faith, hope and charity• Aristotle: agreed with Plato but focus on training.

• Virtue of characters (feel desires and emotions well)• Virtue of intellect • Doctrine of the mean (golden mean)

Plato • Divide mind (souls) into three parts: Reason, the Spiritual Element,

and the Appetites. • Reason coordinates and directs the diverse activities of the individual• Spiritual Element (sense of humor or pride) has the task of

supporting reason in controlling the Appetites • Appetites maintain the body by satisfying physical cravings for food,

drink, exercise, and sex.

Why Plato divided mind? • To explain the psychological conflict.• Ex. Reason conflicts with Appetite • Wrong-doing occurs when Reason and the Spirited Element are unable to

control the Appetites.

• Immoral action is a symptom of a disordered personality whose proper functions are out of balance• Right action is a sign of inner harmony, in which each part of the mind

performs its function well.

• Each mental part has its own distinctive virtue that enables it to perform its function with excellence. • Wisdom is the virtue to enable reason to effectively guide both the

appetites and the spirited element• Courage, another virtue, makes it possible for Spiritual Element to

support reason in controlling troublesome Appetites• Temperance or Moderation enables the Appetites to be satisfied to a

healthy degree and without overindulgence. • Justice reflects how the three aforementioned are in balance.

• Plato emphasized more on wisdom and created the Doctrine of the Unity of the virtue. • Do good, receive bad, do bad receive money. • Why he said the most happy life was that of the philosopher?

Aristotle • Two kinds of Virtues• Moral Virtue: The courage, temperance, justice, and generosity• Intellectual Virtues: wisdom, intelligence, and prudence.

• Intellectual virtues represent excellences in reasoning skills that can be taught through inquiry and study• Moral Virtues are products of habits that begin in childhood and are

strengthened in adult life.

Golden meanVice of Too Much Virtue Vice of Too little

Foolhardiness (ហ៊ា� នជ្រ�លុ) Courage Cowardice

Overindulgence(បណ្តោ� យជ្រ� ុល)

Temperance Inhibition (ខ្មា� សណ្តោ��នជ្រ�លុ)

Extravagance (ខ្ជះខ្មា្ជ យ) Generosity Miserliness (កំញ់)Vaulting ambition (ណ្តោ�ភ�ំច)

Proper ambition Unambitiousness

Vanity ( គិតតែតខ្លួនឯង) Proper Pride Sense of inferiority

Boastfulness Truthfulness False modesty

Irascibility (ខឹងងាយ) Patience Apathy (�ត់ខ្វល់�ី)

Obsequiousness (ចង់តែតទ្ណ្តោគ) Friendliness Rudeness

Shyness Modesty Shamelessness

Buffoonery ( ណ្តោ*្វី�្វីឆ្កួតឲ្យណ្តោគណ្តោសីច)

Witness (គួរសម) Boorishness ( �ត់គិតអារម�ណ៍នរណ្តោទ)

Aquinas (1224-1274): Religious Virtues• Aquinas agreed with Plato and Aristotle that one of purpose of

human beings is to live by reason which will help bring about happiness or well being.• However, he primarily used reason as the way to prove God exists and

to explain how God build natural law in your very nature. • He developed his virtue ethics as a synthesis of the Greek’s four

cardinal virtues_ wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice and the key Christian virtues_ faith, hope, and charity (love)

SimilaritiesGreek ‘s Cardinal Virtues Christian Virtues

Wisdom Faith, hope, love

Courage Endure the dangers of this world, temptation of sin on the journey to salvation.

Temperance Patience and humility, fasting and chastity

DifferencesAristotle Aquinas

Christian virtue of humility as more like the vice of failing to have proper pride

Humility ( មិនមានណ្តោមាទនភាព)

Greek Exuberance ( ការរកីលូត�ស់*ំធាត់នៃនសារពាង្គកាយ) in the physical

Chastity and fasting ( តមណ្តោរ?ងណ្តោភទសម្ព័ន្ធ និង ការតមអាហ៊ារ)

Only if that person has high degree of virtue

Charity (loving mankind)

Betrayal to God

Pride beyond God is worst sin (7 sins: Pride, envy, anger , sloth (ខ្ជិល), avarice (ណ្តោ�ភ), gluttony (ណ្តោ�� ភសី៊), and lust ( ណ្តោ�� ភ

ណ្តោរ?ងណ្តោភទ))

Hume (1711-1776)Benevolence and Sympathy• His view on human nature is not based on religious faith nor on praise

of reason. • Hume looked at benevolence as the highest virtue• He divided the human mind into two domains _ reason and

sentiment. • He believed that reason can help us to identify facts and logical

relationship among ideas but not moral end of human life. • Moral purpose of our human life is from sentiment (from our

emotional capacities and attitudes)

• Will you feel distress when you see others in distress? • Will you be pleased when you see them happy?• Why? Because sentiment has the sympathy. • Even Sympathy is not virtue but it will help bring about benevolence,

the highest virtue according to Hume. • In the text, why Hume said justice is artificial virtue? • Why he believed in Natural virtue? Please provide examples

Questions • We have gone through four Virtue ethicists, according to your life

experience what is the best theory, and why it is the best?