Key Scholars Ethics

Aristotle

“man is, by nature, a social being.”

John Locke

“The law of nature stands as an eternale rule to all men.”

Tabula rasa

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”

Richard Dawkins

“We are born selfish.”

Our genes “instruct us to be selfish.”

Thomas Hobbes

“without a common power, there is no law.”

“Life is nasty, brutish, and short.”

Aquinas NL

“Do good, and avoid evil.”

“there is a single standard of truth and right for everyone… which is known by everyone.”

“Life is good to be protected in every way possible.”

Joseph Fletcher SE

“It relativises the absolute, it does not absolutise the relative” (no 1 action is always wrong)

Quoted a St Louis cab driver who said “Sometimes you’ve gotta put your principles to one side and do the right thing.”

William Temple SE

“There is only one ultimate and invariable duty… ‘Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself.’”

Bishop J.A.T. Robinson SE

“an ethic for humanity come of age.”

William Barclay SE

“God is love”

“There are situations where man has to take the law into his own hands.”

“Life is not tidy. There is no book of rules which covers every situation.”

Kant KE

“action for the sake of duty alone.”

“genuine moral worth… beyond all comparison.”

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

Shopkeeper analogy

Axe murderer analogy

Alasdair Macintyre KE

“Kantian ethics removes morality from the lived experience of real human beings.”

David Hume KE

“Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions.”

“It is impossible, that this passion can be opposed by, or be contradictory to the truth and reason.”

David Hume NL UT

Naturalistic Fallacy

“You cannot derive an ought from an is.”

Onora O’Neill KE

“Kantian ethics avoids the utilitarian tendency to trade off the suffering of some for the benefits of others.”

Bowie KE

“justice for individuals is safeguarded by the universal character of the categorical imperative.”

J. Bentham UT

“The greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

“maximise happiness.”

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two soverign masters, pain and pleasure.”

Hedonic calculus

J.S Mill UT

Harm Principle

“it does not mean that all pleasures are of equal value.”

“It is better to be a human dissatsified than a pig satisfied.”

Higher and lower pleasures

Peter Singer UT

“An action contrary to the preference of any being is, unless outweighed by contrary preferences, wrong.”

“The decision whether or not to undergo euthanasia should be the patient’s.”

Coffey and Brown UT

Pleasure is “polymorphous” – it takes many forms, such as preference. How much difference truly is there?

Johnathan Glover Euth

“I must be convinced that your decision is a serious one; it must be properly thought out, not merely the result of temporary emotional state.”

Leon Kass Euth

“The preservation of life and health, and not their destruction, lies at the heart of medicine’s special obligation.”

G.E.M Anscombe Euth

“Once you permit killing for mercy, you permit killing for all sorts of reasons.” - Slippery slope

Thomas Friedman BE

“The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.”

“A corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers.”

Edward Freeman BE

“Business is about purpose. It’s about creating value for stakeholders.”
“The job of a manager is to look after the health of the entire system, not just the owners.”

Adam Smith BE

Free market capitalism harnesses self-interest for societal gain, as if guided by an “invisible hand.”

“symbiotic” relationship between consumers and business