Daniel Pierson Ethics Test 2

What is a Conscience?

Applying knowledge of moral principles to a particular situation

Does a mistaken conscience oblige?

According to Aquinas yes, you must follow your conscience because it is your only contact with morality

Does a mistaken conscience Excuse? (include the Three types of ignorance)

• Consequent ignorance:

  • Affected or Direct ignorance(avoid knowledge purposely)

  • “evil choice” or Indirect ignorance (negligence choose other things than obtaining knowledge)

• Antecedent ignorance:

  • ignorant of something we are not obliged to know

• Concomitant ignorance:

  • The person would have done the same thing even if they knew

According to Aquinas a mistaken conscience excuses only when the ignorance is antecedent (not cause by the will)

List and describe the four essential characteristics of law

• Formal cause: ordination of reason

• Final cause: for the common good

• Efficient cause: By one who has care for the community

• Material cause: promelgated (announced clear & articulate)

What is the difference between common, private, and collective goods?

private: only one or limited can use (a sandwich, a car…)

common: anyone can access them but your use reduces what remains for others (Fish in the ocean, ground water…)

collective: your use doesn’t reduce anyone else’s and you can’t prevent others from using them (Clean air, street lighting…)

List and describe the four types of law?

• Eternal: God’s mind & providence

• Natural: Participation of rational beings in the eternal law

• Human(positive law): particular determinations of natural law by human authorities

• Divine: orders to beatitude (revealed through scripture)

What is a self-evident principle?

Truth that is known immediately the statement is necessarily true and we understand the terms and see it immediately (i.e. “The whole is greater than the part.”)

What is the difference between theoretical/speculative reason and practical reason?

• Speculative reason

  • aims at knowing the truth (seek understanding)

• Theoretical reason

  • aims at action(doing the truth)

What is the first self-evident principle of practical reason?

1st principle: Good is what all things seek 

What is the first precept of practical reason that follows from this principle?

We must/should/ought to do good and avoid evil

What are natural inclinations? Be prepared to explain how various specifications of the natural law(e.g. the Ten Commandments) follow from the three basic natural inclinations of the human person

• Natural inclinations:

  • Conscious or non-conscious inclinations that follow from our nature [especially powers of the soul], the existence of which we cannot control.

What are the three basic natural inclinations

• Good of a living

• Good as an animal

• Good as a rational being

What does each of the three natural inclinations mean?

• Good of a living

  • “means that preserve our human life and prevent the contrary”

• Good as an animal

  • “Sexual union of male and female and the upbringing of children”

• Good as a rational being

  • “to know truths about God and to live in society”

Where do the ten commandments fall in the three basic natural inclinations?

• Good of a living

  • Don’t kill (5th)

  • Don’t steal (7th)

  • Don’t covet neighbors goods (10th)

• Good as an animal

  • honor father & mother (4th)

  • adultery (6th)

  • covet neighbors wife(9th)

• Good as a rational being

  • Commandments 1-3 about God and the 8th (bear false witness)

According to Aquinas is the nature of the human sexual act discoverable?

Yes, it is discoverable, this understanding will determine for us how we ought to treat other important issues surrounding it (e.g. marriage)

Since the sexual act involves a physical(biological), emotional, and personal union between two people, what is required morally between the two people who engage in it?

• Not opposing our animal nature / Proper use of sexual organs (1 man, 1 woman)

• mode of reproduction (relating to contraception / IVF)

• Proper upbringing for children (i.e. marriage between 1 man and 1 woman)

On the ‘cosmic’ level, what is the end (or goal) of human sexual activity? Why can it not be pleasure?

• End = Procreation & upbringing (union of spouses)

• Not pleasure b/c it is not the essential end more like a side effect (also subjective, and doesn’t preserve the species)

The human sexual act is essentially ‘oriented towards procreation, yet procreation is neither intrinsic to the act nor a necessary result. Explain?

Sex is naturally and essentially oriented toward procreation b/c biological structure and natural function of the act aim at generating new life. Conception is only a possible effect and is not a necessary result because many sexual acts do not lead to it. Thus, the act is oriented toward procreation, even though procreation is neither a built-in part or guaranteed outcome.

List the moral errors concerning sexual matter from least to most to least grave?

1) miuse of sexual organs altogether

2) opposition of the natural mode of procreation

3) the relationship to marriage and the upbringing of offspring

Why are the errors of sexual matter:1) the misuse of sexual organs altogether 2) opposing natural mode of procreation more unnatural then the third 3) the relationship to marriage and the upbringing of offspring

1) Violate the essence of the sexual faculty, they contradict what the sexual organs are

2) prevent the act from fulfilling its natural ordering

3) moral errors but not '“unnatural” in themselves

The violations of 1 & 2 are more ‘unnatural’ because they contradict the sexual faculty’s intrinsic nature where the violations of 3 are a misuse in the moral context but not in the natural structure of the act itself.

What are the various options for the upbringing of offspring?

1) no marriage

2) irregular marriage

3) regular marriage: permanent union of one man & woman

What are the varieties of ‘irregular’ marriage?

• polyandry: 1 woman, many men

• polygamy: 1 man, many woman

• successively (Divorce) or simultaneously

Why does Aquinas seem to think that ‘regular’ marriage is best, given the nature of a rational creature?

B/c children require long-term education and care (moral and intellectual upbringing), the natural option is that both parents cooperate in a stable union. irregular marriages include temporary unions, non-exclusive relationships, unions lacking permanence, and other arrangements that fail to provide stability, exclusivity, and proper order

Give the names and dates for the major philosophers form the beginning of the modern period of philosophy?

Francis Bacon (1626)

Rene Descartes (1650)

Thomas Hobbes (1679)

John Locke (1704)

Of Aristotle’s four causes, which two are gradually rejected in the modern period? which two are left? How is this related to the definition of materialism given in class?

Formal & final cause, leaves the efficient and material causes

Materialists: a belief that ultimate explanation for natural phenomena resides in atoms/molecules and there movements

Related b/c focuses on science and what can be proved / measured

Explain the various ways in which Hobbes accepts, adjusts, and rejects each of the four causes as they apply to a human being?

1) material: flesh, bones, blood…

2) efficient: origin / making cause → parents → first cause of motion

3) Formal (rational soul) rejects by Hobbes, says each is governed by his own reason

4) final (happiness → beautific vision) edited to hobbes changed to “own conservation” & delectation (or pleasure)

In relation to hobbes explain ‘state of nature’?

• Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short

  • Hobbes believes this about humans in a pre-political state (individual or no communities)

  • this is a state of equality meaning the weakest can kill the strongest

In relation to Hobbes explain ‘psychological egoism’?

All of our moral actions are ultimately motivated by self-interest

In relation to Hobbes explain ‘positive law theory’?

Law is what ever the sovereign commands (i.e. does not come from natural or divine law)

In relation to Hobbes explain ‘social contract’?

According to Hobbes, people escape the state of nature by creating a social contract which creates the state and gives the sovereign authority to impose laws

Explain why Hobbes’s state of nature is:
a) a state of equality
b) a state of war
c) solitary
d) poor
e) nasty, brutish, and short

a) weakest can kill the strongest

b) perpetual & restless desire for power

c)Do everything in your own judgement for self preservation

d) no agriculture, industry, tech … no one will invest effort in creating things if others can take them

e) fear, violence, focus on survival (dangerous & unstable)

What are the two “cardinal virtues” in the state of nature?

Force & Fraud

?What proof does Hobbes offer for his rather pessimistic view of human beings in the state of nature?

We avoid being alone, we stay armed, we lock our doors when we sleep, lock chest, civil war shows state of nature

?Hobbes says that right and justice have ‘no place’ in the state of nature. Why?

for Hobbes justice consists in keeping covenants, but in state of nature there is no common authority to enforce covenants. Since no promises can be secure there is no injustice in keeping them or justice.

What is natural liberty for Hobbes?

absence of external impediments (state of nature is a state of equality & state of liberty)

Hobbes: What is Natural Right?

The liberty that each man hath to use his own power (‘self-assertion’) (i.e. unconstrained to assert yourself / exert your power)

According to Hobbes, is the family a natural or voluntary institution? Explain

• Voluntary b/c there is no right or wrong until there is positive law

• Example from class: if a woman ‘chooses’ to nurture a child then the child owes the mother its life

?Explain how Hobbes envisions us leaving the state of nature and entering into political society?

We leave the state of nature when people driven by fear and guided by reason agree to give up their natural right to do whatever they want. Through a mutual covenant they transfer their right to a single sovereign. This act creates political society and makes justice, law, and stability possible.

What is the Leviathan? What role does it play in Hobbes philosophy?

Leviathan (old testament sea monster) is Hobbes’s name for the sovereign or artificial person created by social contract.

The Leviathan takes us out of the state of nature

According to Hobbes, can there be unjust laws? Explain

There cannot be unjust laws it is only unjust to break valid laws the sovereign created. (sovereign is the source of law, sovereign cannot break a covenant and cannot be unjust as the creator of law)

What is liberalism?

Moral political movement that places an emphasis on the continual increase of freedom and equality for individuals and groups of individuals → liberation

?What is Hobbes’s contribution to liberalism?

Hobbes often called the first modern liberal, his contribution is that he grounds political authority in a social contract among free equal individuals, rejecting divine right. Emphasizing natural rights equality, and consent, Hobbes provides the first systematic foundation for the liberal tradition.

Why is utilitarianism considered a form of consequential-ism?

b/c you judge only by the result of the actions

Describe the ‘principle of utility’?

Determines what it means to be right or wrong for every action (both public & private action).

Judge each action “according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question”

Bentham: what does it mean to be ‘for the interest’ of an individual?

tends to add to the sum total of pleasure (= happiness = benefit = advantage = good )

What are the various considerations that must be made, in order to perform Bentham’s ‘moral arithmetic / hedonistic calculus’?

• 1) Intensity

• 2) Duration

• 3) Certainty

• 4) Propinquity (nearness / remoteness)

• “in relation to what follows”

• 5) Fecundity ( bringing the same in its wake)

• 6) Purity (not tainted by its opposite pleasure / pain)

• “In relation to others”

• 7) Extent (# of people affected)

Explain how Bentham’s utilitarianism might be at odds with the demands of traditional justice?

Bentham’s interest is in the sum total of pleasure not giving each person what they are due (emphasizing total happiness vs individuals having rights that need to be protected in traditional justice)

?What does Singer’s essay contribute to liberalism?

argues principle of equal consideration of interest applies to all sentient beings not just humans. Capacity to suffer is the true basis for moral equality. Singer extends liberalism to overcome specie-ism making a more consistent, universal, impartial ethical framework.

?What is the basic ‘principle of equality’?

like interests should be given equal moral consideration, regardless of who has them (for two beings: suffering matters equally & comparable interest count the same)

What capacity is fundamental for having interests?

the capacity to suffer and enjoy things

?Why does Singer think that selecting any set of characteristics that all human beings have in common will fail to properly distinguish human beings form non-human animals?

any characteristic shared by all humans will also be shared by many non-human animals. (Traits like rationality or language exclude infants & others while sentience includes animals thus no set of traits can morally separate all humans from animals)

Which morally relevant characteristics do adult mammals possess in a more obvious way than human infants?

sentience, self-awareness, memory, preferences, and complex desire whereas human infants have these traits in limited / undeveloped forms.

Does Singer believe that there is an intrinsic dignity of each human individual? Why or why not?

No, Singer argues that such claims are speciesist because they rely on species membership rather than morally relevant characteristics. For Singer moral consideration depends on interest and the ability to suffer no on the idea of a uniquely human ‘dignity’.

What does singer mean by speciesism?

speciesist rely on species to determine morality (allow interest of own species to take precedence over other species)