Ethics and the Good Life

Catholic Intellectual Tradition

all people have dignity, the rights of person needs to be understood through community, we are creatures of community (gives meaning)

The challenge of cultural relativism:

the principle that a person's beliefs, values, and practices must be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than judged against the standards of another

David Hume queries

• David Hume expresses scepticism about what is right and wrong in the world

• Independent of humans feelings and judgements

• Hume ponders what is the rule of right, what it consists of and how is it determined

• Hume is sceptical that reason by itself can be the foundation of morality

• He believed human feeling must explain moral judgments

Cultural Relativism

• Morality is all a matter of opinion what any takes to be true about right and wrong is relative to their culture, their background, their particular POV

• Each have truth

What are the attractions of this position

• Cultural relativism seems to express a tolerant urbane and even cosmopolitan perspective: live and let live

• Some cultural relativists argue that since each culture or person has their own truth nobody has the right to tell people if they are right or wrong

• They argue that forms of moral universalism, which hold that some values are universal and trans/cross cultural, involve arrogance and paternalism

• They argue that moral universalism is "totalitarian" since it claims to know moral standards that all could uphold

• Almost everyone agrees totalitarians is bad

Problems facing cultural relativist: Self Reflection

1. Self reflection - is the view cultural relativism true itself a culturally relative view

• If not and cultural relativism so universal, then the idea of cultural relativism is false. There is at least one and many other truths across cultures

• Meaning cultural relativism is for instance the viewpoints of comfortable academic liberals in later 20th century and early 21st century nations only, then we can discount it as "one more opinion" in our own searches for truth

• This is a version of the liar paradox and has been argued against relativists since at least Plato

Problems facing cultural relativist: Can we tolerate the intolerant

• We saw that the relativists in liberal societies present their position as tolerance and open-mindedness itself

• But what if these views were intolerant - anti semantic and holds that it is absolutely in the right?

• On one hand the relativist can say that this intolerant opinion is "false" since it violates cultural relativism; these people think they are right

• On the other hand the relativist is committed to recognising the equally valid status of "their opinion" even is that opinion is hateful

• Meaning cultural relativism seems committed to tolerating opinions whose progenitors given political powers would shut down the liberal toleration that liberal relativists value

Problems facing cultural relativist: Hidden dogmatism

• We saw above that relativism presents itself as openness itself - everyone can have truths

• But if we know from cultural relativism that all opinions are equally valid which should we then choose?

• We cannot not have an opinion

• Hence wone we be committed to just choosing one perspective and backing it, knowing that it can the any better than any other

• If we just accept one view, making a decision without claims to be able to justify others wone the only thing that makes our decision and position better than any others be that we know our decision in a leap in the dark, and we stick with it anyway with resolution

• But no stick to a decision despite other reasons is a dogmatic stance and in politics tends to be accepting dictatorship

• Hence relativism licenses forms of dogmatism. Proximity far from being liberal, it licenses dictatorial stances

Problems facing cultural relativist: Self confuting

• Certain basic moral commitments seem basic for any culture to form

• No culture could exist which licences murder of anyone in the in group, without consequences

• No culture could exist which licensees the right to lie

• Hence prohibitions against murder breaking promised, and deceit, are basic to any cultures at all - and are as such, not culturally relative

Where does morality come from?

• Morals are defined by humans within cultures, groups or as individuals.

• Morals are mutually followed, those who do not follow them are criticised for not adhering.

• Established morals are not the same across different societies.

Problem of this view= Moral prohibitions allow for the creation of societies.

Moral Relativism

Moral relativism; morality is relative to societies. (my own words; morality differs across different societies)

Moral relativism can be seen as a criticism of cultural relativism.

Mutually followed rules among individual humans enable societies.

Idea of society of thieves- could this society exist or would it become as "war of all against all"

Different Idead on Morality

1. Divine Command Theory

Morality exists- more than cultural constructs . Norms, rules and values are established by divine command.

1. Virtue ethics

Morality exists- more than cultural constructs. Universal human pursuit of happiness/ flourishing is essential when considering right and wrong.

1. Utilitarianism

Morality exists- more than cultural construct. Universal pursuit of pleasure. Considers what allows for/ prohibits pleasure.  

1. Deontology

Morality exists- more than cultural constructs. Basis of morality = human reason. Uses human reason to create rules to establish what actions are considered 'right'. 

1. Moral sentiment theories.

Morality exists- more than cultural construct. Basis of morality = ability of humans to consider/ approve of actions based on how they benefit others and disprove those that unjustifiably harm others.

1. Care Ethics

Morality exists- more than cultural construct but basis is in the human activity of care.

Ethics vs Morality

Ethics - external, higher principles

Morality - internal, what is right within your culture

Challenges of cultural relativism:

• Darius a king of Persia was interested in cultures

• Interest in Callsyians who cooked and ate their dead fathers in India

• he appreciated differences in cultures

• Eskimos lived in small settlements separated by distance

• Men had more than one wife - would share wives

• female babies killed more

• No universal moral truths

• To call a custom correct or incorrect would imply we can judge on objective standard

Claims by cultural realists

• Different societies have different moral codes

• The moral code of a society determines what is right

• There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societies code - no moral truths

• The moral code of our own society has no special status

• It is arrogant to judge other cultures

Cultural relavists take pride in their tolerance, if their theory supported the intolerance of warlike societies

Cultural relativsm flaws:

We could no longer critizing the code of our own society

The idea of moral progress is also in doubt

some vultures share value - truth

Virtue as inner strength

A virtue is like a skill for acting well, achieving what is truly good for you, over time, across many differences

Stoics - 4 cardinal viertues determiene by greeks

• Courage - deal with fears

• Justice - fairness

• Moderation/temperance - deal with desires

• Wisdom/prudence - select and avoid the right things

• Virtue is the only component of happiness (unconditionally good)

• 
  

Virtues as wellbeing insurance

• bad or challenging things thus happen to anyone

• There is no immunity from facing adversities from anyone

• We cant look outside ourselves in those moments, often

• We need to find sources of internal strength and motivation to keep going, keep believing, keep striving, hang in there

• Virtues are wellbeing insurances

• They are internal dispositions of character that you take with you, in and out of easy and difficult times

How do you develop virtues

1. Nature = how you are born, with your specific aptitudes: this is the raw material (common abilities, and specific aptitudes, potentials)

2. Reason = learning, including perhaps studying ethics, observing the lives of others, stories etc., and deciding how you want to be and act.

3. Habit = constant practice, repetition—again, like learning to play a sport well.

Aristotle on happieness

• Virtues plus some external goods

• Fame, money, connections, postcode, fortune, society

• If you ask people what they want - their life goal, the answer will be happiness or flourishing - eudaimonia

• actualise our potential - money

• give lustre a style to our lives

•  Aristotle says that happiness is the result of virtue and “some sort of learning or cultivation,”

triparite soul

• A fully human life is one in which:

  • Vegetative capacities are fulfilled (we are healthy)

  • We satisfy enough of our animal desires, enjoying the pleasures

  • We reflect upon and shape our actions, decisions, beliefs, life choices, upon reasons, in community with other human beings

• This requires virtues, which bring reasons into our practical life

Stoicism

• Founded by Zeno of Kition, who turned to philosophy after losing everything in a shipwreck.

• Like Aristotle, Stoicism sees happiness as the goal of life – flourishing and living well.

• Stoics believe happiness comes from living in accordance with nature and reason.

• Stoicism follows the four cardinal virtues:

  • Courage – facing difficulties.

  • Justice – treating others fairly.

  • Moderation – controlling desires and emotions.

  • Wisdom – using reason to make good decisions.

• Main difference from Aristotle: Stoics argue that virtue is the only thing necessary for happiness.

• Unlike Aristotle, Stoics believe external goods (money, health, friends, status, etc.) are not necessary for happiness.

• Stoicism also provides practical exercises to develop virtue and achieve peace of mind.

• Stoicism strongly influenced Christian ethics, particularly ideas about virtue and self-control.

Calicles

• "better to inflict than to suffer injustice because nature shows us that is it more shameful for one to suffer rather than inflict injustice"

• The weak terrorise stronger men and to prevent these men from having more they say having more is shameful

• They have a equal share when they are inferior

• That’s why by rule this is said to be unjust and shameful to seek to have more than the many, and hey call that doing injustice

• Believes nature shows this - looking a the animal kingdom

• Strong should get pleasur

Socrates

• Then often one wise man is superior to thousands with no wisdom, on your account and he should rule over them, and they should be ruled be ruled and the ruler should have more than the ruled?

  • Superior in what??? - what complex are they better

hedonism

• Pleasure is apart/ the whole of the good life

• This is characterised philosophically as hedonism

• It is the idea that pleasure is the best thing

Callices Hedonism

• A dialogue between Socrates and a group of visiting celebrity intellectuals known as sophists

• Sophists claimed to be able to teach young men how to win power and influence people

• They taught arts of public speaking and persuasion

• Socrates is arguing against Gorgias, their leader and students including Callicles

• Socrates is arguing that is it better to suffer and wrong, than to do wrong

  • To do wrong shows bad character, and makes you even worse person

  • People should treat others with justice and not always put number 1 first

  • They should if they act badly, submit to punishment to improve themselves

Callicles claims

• Socrates mixes up nature and convention (artificial, unnatural)

• The ideal of justice as fairness and equal treatment are merely convention

• By nature, the stronger or better or superior should rule

• Conventional rules reflection rebellion of weak against the strong, to prevent them from taking what the weak desire but themselves cannot achieve

• The best life includes the largest sway of different desires, coupled to the courage, intelligence and strength to compass (satisfy) them

• The most pleasures are the best = hedonism

the leaky jar objection

• Imagine two people with casks: one with sturdy casks, without leaks; compared to one who has only leaky casks

• The one with leaks will need to be constantly be refilling the jar

• The man who aims only at pleasures is like a leaky jar "his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is an agony of pain"

• By contrast, the moderate person is clearly more content than the one with a lot of desires, even if the latter has the cunning or ruthlessness to satisfy them all

Epicureanism

• Some pleasures don’t lasting satisfaction

  • Addiction

  • Not considered a wise idea

Many bodily pleasures cause more pain

• Fragment 37) I spit upon luxurious pleasures, not for their own sake, but because of the inconveniences that follow them

  • With drink - hangover

  • Infidelity in relationships

• Principal Doctrine 8: No pleasure is intrinsically bad: but the effective causes of some pleasures bring with them a great many perturbations of pleasure

 

A Felicific (pleasure based) calculation:

• We must learn to balance short and medium and long term pleasures

Diagnosis: problem = keno-doxia, empty opinions

Descriptively

• We can foolish/false believe and act as if things are real and relevant to us that in truth are neither (the gods, Hades, the afterlife)

• We vainly believe and can act as if things are unreal and not relevant to us that in fact, really do exist (atomic processes, temporal genesis and death of all living things)

Desideratively (in terms of what we wish/desire/want)

• We can foolishly desire that things we by nature do not need to be happy (wealth, power or fame) are necessary for our happiness

• We can vainly wish that things which are necessary within life (like ageing, pain, dying) could be avoided or are unnecessary

The Tertraphamakos, or four-fold cure:

Don’t fear god,

Don’t worry about death;

What is good is easy to get, and

What is terrible (pain) is easy to endure

(Philodemus, Herculaneum) - Papyrus, 1005, 4.9-14

Worrying about death

• The no-sensation argument: when death is present, we are not, so it is not to be feared

• The symmetry argument: being dead will be like being before we were born, which no one fears; so death also is not to be feared

• The renewal of population argument: if we did not come and go, the earth would quickly become overpopulated, and impossible to live in

Pleasures, nature and necessity

• Natural and necessary objects which yield pleasure (food, drink, sleep): easy to be acquire; to be enjoyed in moderation

• Natural but unnecessary (sex, fine food, fine drink) harder to secure to be enjoyed in moderation

• Unnatural and unnecessary (luxury, fame, power) harder to secure and to be shunned

Epicureous static pleasure

• A pleasure which comes after ones desires have been satisfied: the state of satiety, of no longer being in need or want, is itself pleasurable

• He differs from the Curenaics about pleasure. For they do not admit that pleasure can exist as a state, but place it whole in motion (Diogenes Laertius 128)

  • Fragments 1) Freedom from trouble in mind (ataraxia) and from pain in the body (aponia) are static pleasures, but joy and exultation are… active pleasures involving motion"

  • Epicurus calls this a static pleasure or ataraxia: the absence of any inner turmoil serenity, a quiet life, with trusted friends and loved ones

Jewish context

• Lived as a Jew in Palestine]

  • Yeshua ben Yousef mi'Netzaret

• The law given by God to Moses

  • Torah (Pentateuch)

  • Includes the 10 Commandments

• How we should relate to this law?

Law of Moses

• Divine Command Theory aka Volunteerism

  • An action is right because god prescribes it

  • NOT that god prescribes an action because it is right

  • Injunctions (positive: thou shallt)

  • Prohibitions (negative: thou shallt not)

• Doing what is right; morality

• Rather cultivating virtues: being toward the good; ethics

The Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 5

• The Beatitudes

  • Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

  • Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled

  • Blessed are the merciful, for they will ne shown mercy

  • Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

• Key Ethical Values

  • Blessed

    • State of being in accord with the Good

  • Righteousness

    • Justice: state of being just or far

  • The Kingdom of Heaven

    • Reversals: Lack - Fulfillment

Method and Goal

• Jesus Reworking the Law of Moses

• 5: 44 "But I say unto you, Loe your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you

  • Jesus Method: Active Reversal of obligations based on Partiality

• 5:45 " that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven"

  • The Goal: the Good to be aspired to: to be children of your father in heaven

• For he maketh his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust

  • The Nature of this Highest Good - Universality of Obligation without Partiality

Moral Perfection

• 5:46 "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye (5:47) And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?

  • Partial - limited by reciprocal obligation

  • Mutually beneficial - Self - interested

  • Not of ultimate moral worth (reward)

• 5:48 "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven perfect"

  • Impartial - universal

  • Unidirectional benefits of the others - Beyond self-interest

  • Of ultimate moral worth (reward) Perfection: the highest Good

• Is such perfection actually possible for a human?

  • Yes: Jesus as Moral Teacher - demonstrating fulfillment of the Law

  • No: Jesus as Mediator - needed because it is impossible to fulfill the law

Paul, the Apostle: Romans 2-8 Righteousness and the Law:

1. To reach moral perfection (salvation) is to attain righteousness

2. To attain righteousness give by God to Moses is both to:

   1. Obey the law (external obligations) - no murder or adultery and

   2. Have no inclination to disobey the law (internal state) - no hate or lust

3. But it is only humanly possible to fulfill a but not b

4. Therefore no one is humanly able to reach moral perfection

5. So no one can humanly attain righteousness before the Law of Moses

5.1 Only he who has attained righteousness before the Law of Moses is qualified to pass judgement on failure to upholding the law

5.2 No one can humanly attain righteousness before the Law of Moses

5.2 Therefore no one is qualified to pass judgment on failure to uphold the law

only god and the son can pass judgment

Love

Love is The Good that gives (i) eloquence, (ii) prophecy and wisdom and (iii) generosity their value as goods

• Love acta as a check on the excess or deficiency of previous virtues (eloquence, prophecy, wisdom and generosity)

• "Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails"

  • Love = constant, never exhausted by its object

Christian Virtue Ethics

• Christian Scholasticis:

  • Using the tools of Greek philosophy to better understand and explain Christian Doctrine

  • St Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

  • Four Cardinal virtues (cf Plato and Aristotle)

    • (i) wisdom, (ii) courage, (iii) temperance/self restraint, (iv) justice/morality

  • Now regarded as the 4 human virtues

• + 3 divine virtues, cf Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13

• "And now these three remain (i) faith, (ii) hope, and (iii) love. But the greatest of these is love"

Augustine on the 4 Human virtues

• All the virtues are actually ways of training and directing love

  • Love is the matter that the virtues are made of

  • Love as a potentiality made by God (divine in origin)

• All love is ultimately (for the sake of) love of God (as the perfect object of love)

  • Love of God is the perfect form of love

  • Love's highest actualisation or fulfilment of its highest potential

• Therefore, all cultivation of the virtues is ultimately a refinement of perfect love of God

The Problem of Akrasia: Weakness of Will

• Akrasia = weakness of will.

• Knowing what is right/best, but choosing to do the opposite.

• Often caused by temptation or strong desires.

1. To believe in God is Not just to believe that God exists

2. To believe in God it to actively choose to do God's will

3. To actively choose to do God's will is to obey his precepts/commands

   1. Implies that we accept his moral precepts/obligation as incumbent

   2. Therefore, to believe in God = to accept his moral precepts/obligations as incumbent upon us

   3. So, if we believe in God

      1. It is impossible for us to know what God wants us to do without also understanding that we ought to do it

Augustine: Knowledge, Capability, Freedom and Sin

1. Knowledge

   • Of Gods moral percept (to do X)

   • As morally binding on me - I ought to do X

   • Given God as all knowing, loving and powerful, his precepts presuppose:

1. Capability: I can do x (it is possible for me to do X and God wouldn’t ask me to)

2. Free will: I choose to do X (because otherwise God wouldn’t give me a choice)

3. Free will: possibility that I choose not to do X

   1. Sin = knowledge of the Good (Gods will) impeded by our willed choice not to do it

St Thomas Aquinas

• God as ultimate object of love

• Love: Desire/striving for conformity/to communion with an object - highesr virtue

 

Aquinas on the 3 Divine Virtues:

• The 3 Divine Virtues: faith, hope and love

  • Bestowed by divine grace

  • Free and voluntary response

  • Beyond just obligation

Love to God as a virtue

• What is the perfected form of love that we direct towards God

  • Anwer: Charity

    • Love purely for the sake of the object alone (not ourselves) - determined by intention

  • Love of the objects pure in-itseflness (not its for-ourselveness)

• Such a love can ultimately only be for God, Why?

  • God alone is sufficient in Himself (the only thing purely or self-sufficiently in-itself

  • God does not need anything external to Himself

  • God, being eternal (always perfect) is never exhausted as an object of love

• So we love God when we love others selflessly

4 Laws of Thomas Aquinas

1. The Eternal Law: God's unchanging plan and vision

2. The Natural Law: The Rational being participation in the eternal law: the eternal laws we find, through the use of reason, in the natural world

   • In built reasons in humans implanted by god = humans as made in the image of God

   • The Rational Laws by which god's creation unfolds in time, accessible to reason

   • A natural sense of right and wrong derivable from these laws

   • Conscience then applies them to specific situations

   • Universally shared in common by all rational beings (Christian and non-Christian)

3. The Human Law: Explicit Laws of the State: culture specific

   • Ideally should match the Natural Law (hence amenable to reason)

4. The Divine Law: God's commands; Biblical Revelation (Christian only)

Ancient ethics

• Focus: How to live

• Agent-centred

  • Ancient theories talk about the virtuous person and the flourishing life. Gives us a discussion of how to live.

• Morality is interwoven into all aspects of life

  • Morality can be impacted by non-moral reasons and involves emotion

• Character based

  • Ancient theories give description of character dispositions to frame normative action

Modern ethics

• Focus: How to act

• Act-centered

  • Modern theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism give us decision procedures for how to act

• Morality is a separate sphere

  • Moral reasons override and do not interact with other prudential reasons and emotional responses

• Principles-based

  • Modern theories give us principles (greatest happiness; categorical imperative) for acting

Deontological ethics

• Means the study of duty

• Deontological ethics argues that the morally right act is one that conforms to an appropriate moral norm or rule

  • Follow our moral duty

• Two main variants

  • Kantianism -(Immanuel Kant) act accordingly to the law that a rational agent would prescribe

  • Intuitionism (W.D Ross) act in line with our intuitive duties

Utilitarianism

• Utilitarianism if formed from the term utility which means benefit

• Most utilitarians understand it as producing happiness

• The right action is the one that produces the greatest total amount of happiness

• Two main variants:

  • Act utilitarianism (Benthem) - chose the action that would produce greatest amount of utility

  • Rule utilitarianism (J.S Mill) - act according to the rule of which general adherence to would produce the greatest amount of utility

Kantian Ethics

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

• Kant give us a particular way to determine our moral duty, and it is developed out of his understanding of the structure of moral rules

• Kant held that moral rules were categorical they applied regardless of ones desires

  • It doesn’t matter if you want something you shouldn’t steal

  • Kant thought that our desires or concerns about happiness could mislead us. So we needed a morality that was not based on desire

Categorical Imperative

• Kant argues that moral law that is valid for everyone (who is rational). Using that idea he formulate a test for actions/decisions which he calls the Categorical Imperative

  • One proposed action is acceptable if it meets the following:

  • "Act only according to that maxim (principle of action) by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law"

• What it means - you can only act if you think it is permissible if everyone acts in the same manner as you

• kant doesnt like lying

• Kant also gives us another form of the Categorical Imperative

• The Formula of the End in Itself:

  • "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity.. Never simply as a mere means, but always at the same time as an end"

Intuinism

• Intuitionism is a deontological theory that attempts to deal that problem. It develops a more pluralistic and open account for the content of duty

 

Intuinism:

• Developed by W.D Ross (1877-1971)

• Ross held that we could determine what constitutes our duty through an examination of our intuitions. All valid ethical principles were "self-evident" upon reflection

• Does this mean that ethical principle are whatever we or anyone else things they are? What would be the problem

  • Moral relativism

Categorical Imperative - 4

 

Categorical Imperative: - treat others the way you want to be treated

1. Autonomous/Free

2. Apriori - before the experience

3. Internal - inside you there is law, comes from you towards others

4. Universal - Universal Law

Hypothetical Imperative - 4

 

Hypothetical Imperative:

1. Dependant - you don’t have faculty of deciding for something

2. Aposteriori - choices come outside the experience

3. External - comes outside

4. Particular - only applies to you

John Stewart Mill on utilitarianism

• "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain"

• Act in the way that will produce the greatest amount of happiness in the world

• Emphasise the outcomes/consequences of our action; he is not focused on our intention to conform to a rule

Utilitarianisms:

Utilitarianisms:

• Approach to utility or pleasure

1. Quantitative (simple) utilitarianism

   • All pleasures are equal (Jeremy Bentham)

2. Qualitative (perfectionist) utilitarism

   • Some pleasures are more valuable than others (J.S Mill)

• Bentham argue that there was no qualitative difference between different forms of pleasure assuming that they were as intense and lasts as long - only quantitative

• Mill took exception to this position. He argued that some pleasures are of higher quality

Approach to Action guidance

1. Act utilitarianism

   • Choose the act which will produce the greatest overall utility (Bentham)

2. Rule Utilitarianism

   • Follow the rule that has been shown to produce the greatest overall utility (Mill)

Approach to action:

• Bentham's approach goes by the name 'act utilitarianism' and it says to choose the action that will produce the greatest total amount of utility

  • In deciding on a course of action we are to evaluate the intensity, duration, likelihood that pleasure will result, proximity of the act to the consequential pleasure, and propensity of act to lead to additional pleasure

  • But the main ideas is that we evaluate acts in terms of pleasure produced

Difficulities Utilitarianism

• Utilitarianism makes sense of many of our ethical intuitions

• However

  1. It has trouble with rights

  2. There will be debate about which pleasures are highest

  3. It may also be too demanding, requiring us to always think about how to maximise happiness

Morality - care ethics

• Involves passion

• Humans have moral sentiments

• Aren't grounded in reasoning

• Our approval or disproval comes first - feelings

• Morality is felt and judged

Ontological - theiry of what is

• Kantian ethics, utilitarianism and liberalism see a person

  • Individuals who are

  • Self-sufficient

  • Independent

  • Rational

  • Autonomy

  • Self-interested

Care ethics see a person as

• Relational

• Not self-sufficient

• Dependant on others

• Emotional

• Capable only of relational autonomy and often (not self-interested)

Care ethics

1. Normative

• Not truly universal: treat the perspectives of adult male free citizens "judges, legislators, policy makers and citizens" as paradigms of moral understanding

  • This excluded children, women, the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, those living in authoritarian states.. And the kinds of situations and choices they regularly face

• Unemotional, overly rational: underplay or even ignore the moral guidance provided by the emotions, especially "empathy, sensitivity, and responsiveness to particular others"

• Over-formulaic: utilitarianism and Kantianism reduce moral understanding to the application of a single principle, making morality into "rational impartial calculations"

• Impersonal "unsocial": fail to account adequately for close personal relationships, treating interpersonal relationships as if these were all "contractual bargains based on self-interest" parenting or loving is not rightly or fully a contractual relationship

• Parasitic on care, which they cannot explain: ignores background social ties, such as bonds of "social cohesion, or trust civic friendship" that are needed to realize liberal values such as justice, fairness, equality and respect for rights

Why focus on care in ethics?

1. Recovery of neglected aspects of human moral experience: Because submerged under concern for justice, right action, rights, norms, reason.

   • Balancing foci of other theories

   • Held: dominant moral theories such as Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, are modelled on the experience of men in public life and in the marketplace

2. Recovery of private, intimate sphere: return to first, formative, vital experiences in all our lives (home, children with carers) tends to be less considered by moral philosophy

   • A stronger claim: leads into criticism of other theories, by neglecting care, have neglected constitutive, formative, vital component

3. CE recaptures ways of relating traditionally associated with women in the femine, which has arguable been insufficiently captured and respected in prior moral philosopher

   • Some feminists have propounded care ethics positions, not all, and not all care ethicists are femine, but there is an intersection between feminism and CE

Children before adults:

• We are each dependant on carers - no one would survive without them

• Beyond mere survival children will not develop well unless they receive loving attention and are valued for their own sakes

• CE challenged other ethical theories, emphasing human dependency and the consequent need and basic reality of care from others in any human life

• Critical claim: any moral theory that doesn't account for the nature, extend and distribution of the responsibilities to care for helplessness and dependant human beings is decisively unrealistic, as well as normatively incomplete

Strengths of care ethics

• Care is a substantial moral concern we all face at different moments, throughout life (as cared for, carer, then cared for again)

• CE develops a plausible account for missing chapters in moral psychology: how moral agents immersed in daily practice go about understanding their situations and determining what to do

• CE gives a plausible account of the perspective of an historical, flesh and blood, natal, relational moral agent, especially one who is engaged in caring activities

• Not a top-down, detached, third-person, theoretical perspective from which such activities would be contemplated and assessed

• Emphasises our relationality, our vulnerability, our biology, our partiality, emotionality and responsiveness to need, as sources of moral guidance

• An account of what it's like to be one who cares for others, and who has been cared for - to be a mortal human

Care in real world

• Care should not be limited to the private sphere; it is also important in public life

• Care and justice should remain distinct but both are needed

• Law: justice and rights should have priority, with care still considered

• Family/friends: care should have priority while basic justice still matters

• Kantian ethics, utilitarianism and contractualism have similarities:

  • Focus on interactions between relative strangers

  • Emphasise impartiality

  • Rely on universal rules or calculations