PHIL 103 slides 6-10

familiar antro point

diff cultures have diff moral codes and diff beliefs of what is right and wrong, and have diff social practices, which is not controversial

moral belief variation

descriptive way of saying that people have different moral beliefs

Moral Relativism

truth about what’s really right or wrong—but it is at least sometimes relative to cultural contexts or other circumstances, rather than universal. What’s right or wrong can sometimes vary to some extent across different contexts

Weak Moral Relativism

Some moral truth is relative: that is, some specific truths about right and wrong are relative to socio-cultural context or other variable circumstances, which affect what’s actually right or wrong (some morals can vary between what is right and wrong) 

Extreme Moral Relativism

All moral truth is relative: all truths about right and wrong are dependent on, and so relative to, socio-cultural context or other variable circumstances. For any practice or behavior you can name, even chattel slavery or child molestation, all we can say is that it’s wrong for culture X: it needn’t be wrong for some other culture Y. Nothing is simply wrong, cross-culturally. We an’t properly judge other cultures because ‘everything’s relative’. (Also called extreme cultural relativism.)- (nothing can be morally right/ wrong) 

what combo of views should we accept?

Weak moral relativism and moral universalism. there is such a thing as moral truths, then there are SOME objective moral values or universally valid moral principles/ truths- but that how these apply can vary to some to some extent w relevant differences in natural or cultural circumstances (by excepting this it means that we reject Extreme moral relativism that means that that some things can’t be wrong)

moral universalism

the view that there are some objective, universally valid moral principles, truths or values, holding across cultures and times

examples of weak moral relativism

driving on the left, hour-long showers, public nudity

Morally irrelevant Variation

when people think they mistake something as morally wrong when it actually isnt (ex: driving on the left side of the wrong when it is culturally wrong in the country or mixed race cultures, or clothing choices)

Executions to general rules of weak relativism

when lying prevents you from dying, prevent criminal from carrying out of carrying out a murder

Moral Universialist can accept Weak Relativism

familial duties like assigning different role-based duties and how to care for ones fams; or whether there is a plausible exception to a legitimate general rule, so that something that is usually wrong isn’t wrong in this case; or what specific moral duties people have (which are partly a function of contingent codes or conventions cultures have developed as ways of properly respecting certain general values)

Do not confuse moral relativism with

Variation in moral belief (ppl can believe in diff things like if the earth is flat), lack of scientific proof for moral claims (if god exisits or not), the need for a person to decide for themselves what to believe about right and wrong (what killed the dinosaurs), importance of tolerance for other people's views (respecting freedom of conscience, diff religious beliefs), Potential lack of blameworthiness (earth is flat, but they wouldn’t know based on their scientific knowledge), Relativism With Moral Liberalism (Holding liberal views about particular moral issues, like homosexuality or abortion, does not in any way make one an extreme moral relativist)

Plausible Examples of Universal Truths about Moral Wrongs

slavery, rape, depriving girls of educational opps, anything that involves human equality

Argument against extreme moral relativism

tremendous cruelty and suffering and horrendous disrespect of basic human dignity. These are the wrong-making features of the acts. these practices are/were wrong in those other cultures and times too, for exactly the same reasons! The wrongness won’t vary across cultures and times in these cases because the relevant circumstances are the same; and the circumstances that do vary (like differences in cultural attitudes) are irrelevant to the rightness or wrongness of these practices.

Moral Universalism does not entail

Forcibly interfering to stop all bad practices (it’s a complicated, further question what should or shouldn’t be done to stop bad practices, and how this should be pursued in a productive way); Arrogantly thinking that we have everything right

Altruism

behavior motivated by concern for someone else’s good or welfare for its own sake, where this is sufficient by itself to motivate you (helping others for no motive to help yourself, make someone else happy); Doesn’t need to involve a sacrifice on your own part doesn’t need to be pure: it’s still altruism even if there’s some element of self-benefit in the action, as long as the altruistic motivation was sufficient to motivate the action and you would still have acted even if the self-benefit hadn’t been there. Examples: partential kindness, holding the door, stranger donation

Psychological Egoism

the claim that all human actions are motivated ultimately by self-regarding desires or self-interest (So there are no truly altruistic actions.); is a descriptive way of describing how we as humans act, and is about actual psychology

Rejecting Psychological Egoism

at least some human actions are (sufficiently) motivated ultimately by things other than self- regarding desires or self-interest (sense of duty)

Ethical Egoism

view of how it is good and right to live (how we should act)

Psychological egoism

a descriptive claim about actual human psychology (how we act); some self-regarding or self-interested motives crucially underlie all our actions (for ex: a girl went on a run in a random country and saves a random black-out drunk guy and she moves him from the highway to the st. She can’t post it to get recgonition or a reputation)

Hedonistic Psychological Egoism

All actions, even apparently altruistic ones, are really done ultimately in order to feel good in some way, or to avoid feeling bad. All we ultimately care about non-instrumentally, in itself, is our own pleasure and avoidance of pain. So that aim is behind all our actions, making them all ultimately selfish- to reject this, just because one feels pleasure for performing that action, it does not automatically prove that one is selfish/ egoistic (like would lincoln take that amestia pill to forget seeing the pigs or would he just do it because he wants to make sure the pigs are fine)

Unconstrained Ethical Egoism

only ethical obligation an agent has is to maximally promote their own interests; there are no ethical obligations to do anything that does not serve one’s self-interest (not even obligations to refrain from harming others/ i cannot harm you but i dont have to help you cause you have rights)

Constrained Ethical Egoism

While there are negative obligations to refrain from violating other people’s negative rights (i.e., their rights of non-interference, or rights not to be harmed), there are no positive obligations to aid others in any ways that do not maximally serve one’s self-interest. There are still no positive obligations of altruism. (only help others if they help you)

Argument for against ethical egoism

you only can care about yourself but that would just be narcissim, but that would be harming your own interests/ would make you miserable, because if you go out of your way to care about others or help others, you are promoting your own interests and happiness, which is fine since you are acting on your own interests

The Normative Structure of Ethical Egoism

a theory that your welfare has great ethical significance and meaning in terms of giving you very strong obligations or reasons to do things that promote it; and my welfare has great ethical significance and meaning in terms of giving me very strong obligations or reasons to do things that promote my welfare

Commonsense morality

there are reasons for me both to take care of myself and to take your welfare into consideration too, for its own sake (even if I may favor myself to some extent).

Singer’s Two Main Theses

1) The common attitude and response, on the part of relatively affluent people, to the radical need of many other people, especially in other parts of the world, is morally unjustifiable (ppl die of hunger, water, poverty, preventable diseases)

2) We need to revise the common moral outlook that says it’s okay for some to continue living in luxury even in the face of radical need on the part of others, which the more fortunate have the power to satisfy.

One Issue about Singer’s thesis: Role of Past Injustice

legacy of slavery which has resulted in unjust institutions and practices that are responsible for other’s poverty 

Singer’s argument

• P1: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.

• P2: "If it is in our power to prevent something [very] bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, [then] we ought morally to do it

• P3: It is in our power to prevent a great deal of suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance--e.g. by giving a portion of our wealth to relief agencies, such as UNICEF or Oxfam, and making do with less in the way of consumer goods

• C: Therefore, we ought morally to prevent a great deal of suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care--e.g. by contributing significantly to such groups as UNICEF and Oxfam

• P4: We could give away so much of our wealth as to change our lifestyles dramatically, bringing ourselves down close to the point of equal marginal utility (i.e. the point where further giving would cause us as much suffering as it would prevent elsewhere), before we would reach the point of sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance in our efforts to save others from desperate suffering and death

  • Like selling your extra car or not eat out (but donate that money you are not using to donate- bc it isn’t morally significant)

• C: Therefore, we ought morally to provide aid to those in radical need, and to such an extent that, as long as such need persists, we give until we are at least close to the point of equal marginal utility ourselves, thus changing our lifestyles radically

FitzPatrick’s pond example and argument

argument is valid. see child drowning, can pull kid out, but pants will get wet on the way to class. Has to help. But the second premise helps explain that if there were two kids drowning in a diff pond, then you would go to the one with 2 kids

Two common but problematic objections to the argument:

Physical Proximity: Many people would say that the principle in premise 2 is true with regard to very bad things that are happening close by, but that it's false with regard to very bad things that are happening far away (location should not make a difference), Fairness: Many people reject the principle in premise 2, holding that it goes too far, and that our moral obligations are limited to doing our fair share. Suppose we could substantially wipe out hunger if everyone in the world who could afford it were to give $100, generating billions of dollars.

A Better Objection (to singer’s argument)

The limitless demands of need all over the world like student debt and traveling (we still want to have fulfilling and satisfying our lives, and not just work ourselves to fingers and bones. We want to be able to enjoy time w fam and hobbies and understanding our value as a human) and premise 2 takes akk if tgat away

how to make singer’s argument better

Replace Singer’s original premise 2 with: (2*) "If it is in our power to prevent something [very] bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of significant importance to our well-being or flourishing as human beings, [then] we ought morally to do it." (can argue that having hobbies and having the money to further your child’s education are valid examples of things for why you can keep your money because it is significantly important to their wellbeing)

Veil of Ignorance

is when youre making a decision when you don’t know who you will be in the world so you try to create fair rules 

Some possible Types of Societies

traditional society, utilitarian society, market-driven society, perfectly egalitiarian society, fair equality of opportunity

traditional society

where white men are privileged w the right to vote and own properties which isn’t allowed for anyone else, also not allowed to have political input, higher edu, little mobility (Wouldn’t want this bc you wouldn’t know if you would get the privileges or not)

utilitarian society

aggregate social utility is maximized; policies are always geared toward maximizing the sum total of happiness in the society (Wouldn’t want this bc there could be a hidden minority of ppl who are used to cure diseases bc it would help w overall happiness)

purely market-driven society

(i) basic liberties are equally protected--there is no racial, gender or religious discrimination or persecution, and (ii) there is virtually unlimited social mobility for those who have certain talents that happen to be economically rewarded in the society (e.g., the talents of a corporate lawyer or investment banker) and who happen to have access to relevant opportunities, such as high-quality education. The society thus allows for virtually limitless accumulation of wealth for such people (Wouldn’t want bc you can’t guarantee that you have the talents or the access to have/ get those skills)

perfectly egalitarian society

i) basic liberties are equally protected and (ii) wealth and income are distributed in a perfectly egalitarian way: everyone is given the highest level of wealth and income compatible with everyone else's being at the same level (A worry about this is this bc w some inequality would benefit everyone bc it would create a better economy, tech innovations,w risk)

option E

A society in which (i) basic liberties are equally protected and (ii) everyone is guaranteed genuine fair equality of opportunity, and (iii) everyone is guaranteed a basic social minimum for their contributions, though the society is not perfectly egalitarian, with everyone exactly at the same level of wealth. In fact, it may be largely market-driven and they may be some economic inequalities.

why would you want option E for a perfect world for a rational person

But the structure will constrain the operations of the free market to benefit less advantaged people, specifically:

• (a) ensuring fair equality of opportunity to all and

• (b) limiting economic inequalities as needed to prevent radical

power differentials that erode the effective political liberties of the less advantaged. (That is, we protect the conditions needed for people to live together as social and moral equals and as fully functioning members of society). (We would want this one bc there is some inequality to have some people who want to take the risk, but everyone will have equal opportunity)

Rawl’s Two Central Claims

People choosing from behind the veil of ignorance, in the Original Position, would choose roughly the structure of society represented in E, over all the others. (Though he puts it in terms of the organizing principles they would choose. Later.) This fact about hypothetical choice under these idealized circumstances implies that the principles implicit in E are therefore the most JUST ones.

Raul argues for the second claim (three main ideas)

Axiom of Freedom and Equality, Contractualist Framework (Ideal of Democratic Reciprocity), (c) an Equivalence Claim

Axiom of Freedom and Equality

all members of society are free and equal persons (in the sense of having equal basic human worth and dignity, so any legitimate set of principles must treat people as free and equal beings

Contractualist Framework (Ideal of Democratic Reciprocity)

In trying to discover what JUSTICE is, we're looking for a legitimate set of principles to govern the basic structure and institutions of a free and respectful society--a society that is a system of cooperation among free and equal persons who are respected as such. And a set of principles for such a society is morally legitimate IF AND ONLY IF the principles can be justified to each person in the society, AND principles can be justified to each person in the society only insofar as it can be shown that it is reasonable to expect them all to accept such principles and to live under such a system.  the ideal of Democratic Reciprocity, implicit in the axiom of freedom and equality. 

Equivalence Claim

a set of principles can be justified to each and every person as something it is reasonable for him or her to accept IF AND ONLY IF these principles would be accepted by someone deliberating in the Original Position (i.e., from behind the veil of ignorance).

why is it important to make choices with the veil of ignorance

it would NOT be tainted by all sorts of moral arbitrary factors (good luck or bad luck) and thereby fail to respect all persons as equal and thus fail to yield principles justificable to each and every person (this can be seen as people act with self-interest and the circumstances that would benefit them (ex: born to rich parents who have poor ppl working for them and make a significant profit from there work where the deal is exploitative. By taking advantage of the good luck and bad luck of the other person who is desperate because it is their best option, it fails the contractualist condition of justification because you are not a free and equal person which is why the choice of principles have to be done from the original position, behind the veil of ignorance)

rawl’s two principles (premise 1)

Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all. This includes e.g.,: (Political liberty (right to vote, hold public office), Freedom of speech and assembly, Own property), fair value of political liberities is NOT realized if (It is not actual realistic to hold office, wealthy, or well connected, Political voice is not used if not wealthy or powerful, Meaningful exercise your right to vote (jim crow laws)

rawl’s two principles (premise 2)

Socioeconomic structures must be designed to allow general significant inequalities only where they are (1) attached to positions and offices open to all, with fair equality of opportunity, and are (2) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage--in particular, benefiting the least advantaged more than alternative schemes (the 'difference principle').