Ethics - Deontology

What are the two main criticisms of consequentialist ethical theories?

- Moral luck - sometimes, by chance, someone's actions do not have the intended consequences. Someone could have the intention to cause harm, but by chance, they do not - consequentialists would not condemn them?

- Minorities and rights - utilitarianism discards the rights of the minority, suggests we can let the minority suffer for the pleasure of the majority

Which philosopher is most associated with criticising consequentialism on the basis of rights?

- Scanlon - critical of the "balancing of reasons" that utilitarianism leads to.

- Presented the example of Jones having an accident in the transmitter room of a television station, needing to sacrifice the pleasure of the majority to avoid the pain of a minority

Why does moral agency refer to?

- What makes us uniquely human and morally worthy - reason and the ability to choose

- Utilitarianism relies on the assumption that satiating base desires, animalistic whims, is the greatest good

- Any pleasure-based (hedonic) system of ethics disregards our moral agency

What kind of ethicist was Kant?

- Rationalist - finding a rational and universal basis of ethics, being moral is rational behaviour

- Interested in the world of appearance vs. the world of reality, phenomenal realm vs. noumenal realm

- Neither a compatibilist, nor incompatibilist

What are Kant's perceptions of freedom?

- We only act freely when we act against our appetites and desires

- When we satisfy our desires, we act determinately, for some end beyond our control.

- To act freely is to act autonomously, according to a law I give myself, not natural laws or social conventions

According to Kant, what is autonomy?

- Acting according to determination one gives oneself.

- Choosing to do something for its own sake, as an end in itself

- The opposite of heteronomy

- Makes us morally responsible

According to Kant, what is heteronomy or heteronomous determination?

- Acting according to determinations given outside of oneself

- Heteronomous determination = doing something for the sake of something else, for the sake of something else, for the sake of something else

- The opposite of autonomy

- Makes us exempt of moral responsibility

What are Kant's perceptions of personhood?

- The ability to act autonomously is what gives human life special dignity - marks difference between persons and things

- To respect the special dignity of people means treating them as ends in themselves, not as means to ends

According to Kant, what gives an action moral worth?

- When it is a result of an intentional choice having been made

- The intention and motivation behind it must be to do the right thing, whatever the consequences are, otherwise it is amoral

What does Kant believe constitutes real ethics?

- Categorical imperatives - instructions which have no condition attached to them, duties which are binding for their own sake

- Ethics should not be based on hypothetically desired outcomes, or upon desire at all - only then are actions considered free

According to Kant, what do we act upon?

- Rejecting a moral principle is a logical mistake: it doesn't make sense to not act morally

- Whenever we act, we act on a maxim: a rule/principle - it might be difficult to work out what it is, but there is always a maxim

According to Kant, what are categorical imperatives?

- Moral actions

What is The Categorical Imperative?

- One underlying moral principle established by Kant

- Fundamental test of maxims: all individual categorical imperatives should align with The Categorical Imperative

What are the 3 formulations of Kant's Categorical Imperative?

- For any maxim to be true, you must be able to allow that it could become a law for everyone

- Never treat people just as a means: always see them as a valuable end in themselves

- Act as though you assume that everyone is following the moral law

What does this mean: "It is impossible to conceive of anything at all in the world, even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except good will."?

- The only thing that is good without qualification is good will

- Everything else is only good insofar as they are used for morally good purposes#

Strengths: "It is impossible to conceive of anything at all in the world, even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except good will." - Kant

- Bases morality purely on what can be controlled

- Accounts for how far-removed consequences can be from intention

- Eliminates the problem of moral luck

Weaknesses: "It is impossible to conceive of anything at all in the world, even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except good will." - Kant

- Difficult to measure good will: becomes hard to punish people for their actions without proof of "bad" will

- Relies on the existence of free will

- Consequences become more important because of how subjective "good will" is

What does this mean: "Morality must not lower herself. Her own nature must be her recommendation. All else, even divine regard, is nothing beside her."?

- Morality should not compromise its integrity or principles to gain validation or approval from external sources

- Morality in itself, its inherent qualities should be the primary basis for adhering to moral standards

Strengths: "Morality must not lower herself. Her own nature must be her recommendation. All else, even divine regard, is nothing beside her." - Kant

- Disregards external influences

- Eliminates a level of immeasurability

- Provides a sense of objective moral code

Weaknesses: "Morality must not lower herself. Her own nature must be her recommendation. All else, even divine regard, is nothing beside her." - Kant

- Underappreciates how much of an influence external factors inevitably have

What does this mean: "The distinction between a good man and one who is evil... must depend upon... which of the two incentives he makes the condition of the other"?

- The distinction between a good person and an evil person depends on which incentive or motive each individual prioritises when making decisions: a sense of duty (moral) or self-interest (immoral)

Strengths: "The distinction between a good man and one who is evil... must depend upon... which of the two incentives he makes the condition of the other" - Kant

- Considers how far-removed consequences can be from the intention

- Places more value on someone's character, something they can control and allows for moral development

Weaknesses: "The distinction between a good man and one who is evil... must depend upon... which of the two incentives he makes the condition of the other" - Kant

- Cannot be sure of intention/motivation behind actions

What does this mean: "Moral grounds of impulse, therefore, be no grounds on which morality and self-interest can coincide."?

- Moral principles that guide are impulses or actions do not necessarily align with self-interest

- What may be morally right or good according to ethical standards may not always coincide with what is in our self-interest or personal advantage.

Strengths: "Moral grounds of impulse, therefore, be no grounds on which morality and self-interest can coincide." - Kant

- Acknowledges that ethical decision making often involves conflict between moral consideration and self interest

Weaknesses: "Moral grounds of impulse, therefore, be no grounds on which morality and self-interest can coincide." - Kant

- Oversimplifies the complexities of moral motivation - maybe moral actions are driven by more than just impulse

- Acting morally can coincide with self interest, particularly where long-term benefits or social harmony are at stake - may be unfair to limit moral actions to those that are purely out of a sense of duty

Strengths: "Treat others as an end, not merely as a means." - Kant

- Places humans at the centre of morality

- Stops being from being used against their will/knowledge

- Anti-slavery, pro-human, centralises respect

- Encourages duty to good

- Equality

- Good principle

Weaknesses: "Treat others as an end, not merely as a means." - Kant

- We could say that any relationship is transactional to an extent - we use people as a means to the end of satiating our need for social contact

- Overly simplistic of human connection

- Any action has a transaction

Strengths: "Some kinds of actions are wrong or right in themselves regardless of the consequence" - Kant

- Aligns with his other views: treating someone solely as a means to an end is always wrong

- Addresses the problem that less prescriptive ethical systems face: allows us to have absolutes/laws

Weaknesses: "Some kinds of actions are wrong or right in themselves regardless of the consequence" - Kant

- How can we decide which actions/intentions are wrong in themselves when we can only observe their consequences?

Strengths: "Always act in such a way that you can also will that the maxim of your action should become a universal law." - Kant

- Logically appealing

- Achieves a justice system

- Provides a clear-cut standard

Weaknesses: "Always act in such a way that you can also will that the maxim of your action should become a universal law." - Kant

- Ignores situational factors, cultural standards, religion causes problems

Strengths: "Do the right thing for the right reason, because it is the right thing to do." - Kant

- Limits morality to actions

Weaknesses: "Do the right thing for the right reason, because it is the right thing to do." - Kant

- Good intentions do not necessarily mean good consequences + we cannot ascertain intention

- Right reason is not always sufficient justification: need accountability for consequences

- Duty is abstract#

What are the overall strengths of Kantian Deontology?

- Kant's distinction between duty and inclination seems sound - what is right is not always what we want

- Grounded in human dignity - not consequence: overcomes the utilitarian flaw of allowing the minority to suffer for the benefit of the majority

- Kant's appeal to reason and universal values is sane and constructive - surely it is best if we can give grounds for our ethics and share those values with others

What are the overall weaknesses of Kantian Deontology?

- Refusal to consider consequences at all seems perverse: how can we say that horrendous/wonderful consequences are not at all important in an action's moral worth?

- Leaves the individual with no flexibility and no chance to consider individual circumstances

- Intuitionism: we seems to intuitively accept that certain rules have sensible exceptions, we might need to lie to protect someone

- Is it really possible to universalise moral maxims? - infinite number of possible moral choices

- Mill: surely occasionally we can sacrifice the minority for the majority

- Ayer's Emotivism: should duty always be preferred over emotion/sentiment?

- Maybe we learn about ethics through experience, not reason

What is Thomas Nagel's approach to deontology?

- Supportive of it: shows that it is still relevant today

- In daily life, we generally assume that there are some fixed duties and expect others to comply with them

- We expect fairness, loyalty etc

What is Peter Singer's approach to deontology?

- Critical of Kant's deontology: removes the element of sympathy and emotion from ethics

- "it is only when a person somehow loses "all sympathy with the fate of others", that "for the first time his action has genuine moral worth.

- It is dangerous to accept the idea of duty for its own sake, this leads to a closed system where people do not inquire into the reasons for our actions

- Without sympathy, we risk "moral fanaticism" - elevation of a perceived sense of duty over all consideration of humanity

Natural Law Theory:

What is divine command theory?

- Morality is ultimately based on the commands or character of god

- The morally right action is the one that God commands/requires

How can we criticise divine command theory?

- How do we know God's will?

- Euthyphro Dilemma

- If God commands to kill infants would this be right? Doesn't this make ethics arbitrary, determined by whim?

- Doesn't this rob us of autonomy?

- Bowie: If you do good simply to obey God, then some would question if you are being good for the right reasons?

- Macintyre: motives count, if you are doing good to avoid hell, this is selfish, potentially corrupting

What is Aristotle's contribution to Natural Law Theory?

- Final and Efficient causes

- Final cause - an aim or purpose, from which it is possible to establish an object or action's good

- Efficient cause - the thing or agent which brings the final cause about

- Actions can be defined as good, if they are what we must do to achieve the final cause

What is Natural Law Theory?

- Absolutist and deontological view of morality

- Exists to assist humans to direct their actions such that they may reach their eternal destiny with God + evaluates both what I do and why I do it

- Basis of roman catholic moral teaching

- Aquinas: moral code which exists within the purpose of nature, created by God

- Does not depend for its moral justification upon any results - an action can be deemed morally good in itself, even if it brings about suffering

What is Casuistry?

- The process by which the general principles of NL are applied to specific cases

Who is the main philosopher associated with Natural Law Theory?

- Thomas Aquinas

What is Aquinas' contribution to Natural Law Theory?

- Christian philosopher and theologian: tried to reconcile Christianity with Aristotle's theories

- Argued there was a basic law from which all other natural laws plays a part: to pursue good and avoid evil

- Theory based on religious conviction that God created the world and established a sense of order and purpose within it, which is a reflection of his will - everything has a final cause with God's ultimate purpose as that final cause

According to Aquinas what role does reason have in determining human purpose?

- Reason is God's gift to humanity and how humans can see their final cause, ultimate purpose and destiny - fellowship with God - then choose either to follow their final good or not

- Reason - a moral life is one lived according to reason

- "To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to condemning the command of God

According to Aquinas, what are primary precepts?

- Fixed and unchanging duties (good acts) that are in accordance with the main purpose

- 5 of them: preservation of the self and the innocent; continuation of the species (through reproduction); educate children; live in society; worship God

- If we fulfil these, we reach the final cause

According to Aquinas, what are secondary precepts?

- Come from the primary precepts

- Rulings about things that we should/shouldn't do because they uphold/don't uphold the primary precept

- He recognises these can conflict with primary precepts, but says we should try to reconcile them

According to Aquinas, what is human purpose?

- "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided"

- Fellowship with God

- Avoiding evil = avoiding being enslaved by non-natural, non-rational desires

According to Aquinas, what is the difference between real and apparent goods?

- Human actions that are not in the pursuit of perfection can be explained as the pursuit of an apparent good

- Choosing an apparent good is an error of reason - not really good for us, despite appearing to be

According to Aquinas, what is the difference between interior and exterior acts?

- He recognises that good intentions don't always lead to good actions, to him both intention and action is important

- Acting in a good way for the wrong reason - good exterior act, bad interior act

What is the only end that Aquinas values?

- God is the ultimate aim open to all humans

- Animals can experience physical pleasures, and not all humans can access intellectual pleasures

What is the law of double effect?

- NLT allows that subsequent consequences of someone's actions are beyond that agent's control, so they cannot be held responsible for them

Why might natural law be a good meta-ethical framework?

- It appears possible to arrive at a 'good' without having to rely on unpredictable consequences or on motive, which is subject to the whim of human nature

- Provides a framework in which universal good can be defined, since no external reference is necessary

How can we use existentialism to evaluate Natural Law Theory?

- "existence precedes essence" - criticises moral law overall

- Says that we are not born with any set purpose - we exist, we act, then we choose our own purpose and create meaning in things ourselves

- If there is no purpose, such as fellowship with God, then how can we act only to fulfil it?

What are the overall strengths of Natural Law Theory?

- Those of deontological, absolutist principles

- Final cause, after being established, can be applied universally

- Social attitudes, personal preferences play little role

- No need to depend on consequences/predictions

- Potentially very clear-cut

- Though it may come from religion, ultimately anyone can use it no matter their beliefs, as its basis is reason: can be examined as a rational theory, relating behaviour to basic features of human life and survival.

- Supports other general views of moral behaviour

- Different cultures can be seen to have basic principles on the same grounds as the primary precepts

- Gives guidance on day-to-day questions of how to live and links them to fundamental principles of life

- Secondary precepts being more situation-based make it more flexible

- Enables us to establish common rules in order to structure communities - an attractive option in present society where relativism is causing a breakdown in traditional social structures and moral uncertainty

What are the overall weaknesses of Natural Law Theory?

- Unstable premises: we cannot be sure if a God or final cause exists, and if neither does, then the whole theory falls apart.

- How can we decide what is natural? - understandings of nature are constantly changing, so how can we establish fixed criteria for right/wrong?

- Dispute over the presence of a common natural law/human nature altogether

- Highly conceivable that humans have different/unchangeable natures (shown in variety of sexual identities etc)

- Aquinas could be wrong about his primary precepts/definition of human purpose

- Joseph Fletcher: NML is supposedly Christian, yet Jesus Himself seemed to follow the principles of situation ethics more than legalistic morality

- Can day-to-day rules be effectively deduced from primary precepts?

What is Hume's perspective on NLT?

- Is-ought gap

- Natural Law is based on a false premise

- What is the case and what ought to be the case are two logically different concepts

- It is true that sex leads to pregnancy, but this cannot mean that sex should only be used for procreation

How would science receive NLT?

- NLT tries to explain the world in purely physical terms.

- Natural order is simply the way things are and any apparent order or purpose is due to the evolutionary process

What is the Church of England's response to NLT?

- Whilst NLT may provide an objective moral good, it can be difficult to decide what a thing's final purpose is - e.g., sex

- NLT - any sexual behaviour that is not intended to bring about pregnancy is wrong.

- Implicitly suggests that the only purpose for sex is procreation

- C of E states 3 purposes, one being 'that they may know each other in love' - says that sex should not necessarily be condemned if it isn't for children

Which philosophers/philosophies can we use to support Natural Law Theory?

- Aristotle: everything has a purpose revealed in its design, good is when that purpose is fulfilled

- Cicero: 'True law is right reason in agreement with nature'

- St Paul: 'Law is written in the hearts of men' (Romans 2:14)

- Stoicism: belief in a fundamental design and purpose and that morality should align with that purpose

Which philosophers/philosophies can we use against Natural Law Theory?

- Protestant thinkers (e.g., Calvin): human reason has 'fallen' and cannot provide a sound basis for moral principles

- Christian ideas about monogamy/adultery suggest there is more to sex than procreation, because forbidding it unless between man and wife is not the best way to populate earth

- Kevin T. Kelly: moves away from the idea that actions have moral value in themselves - Christian ethics are focused on human dignity

- Sartre: existentialism

- Epicureans (Ancient Greece): no inherent purpose or meaning in life, have to set own goals/ideals

- Kai Neilson: cultural relativism - "no such thing as essential human nature"; "concept of human nature is a rather vague cultural concept; it is not a scientific one"

How do philosophers Vardy and Grosch criticise Natural Law Theory?

- If you don't believe in God, then NML does not seem relevant as the aim/purpose of life for you would not be to reach God

- Sex is about more than procreation; it can be for the relationship and for pleasure

- Some people can seek to do what they feel is good but be mistaken

- Secondary precepts can be altered - while this allows for situational factors, it makes NML unhelpfully subjective as it is unclear how/when they can be changed

- How can we justify celibacy if a primary precept is to procreate?

- Why must preserving the species being a primary precept necessarily mean that every discharge of semen must allow for reproduction? - not enough explanation for jumps between primary precepts and secondary precepts

What are some examples that disprove Natural Law Theory?

- Culture changes over time, as does moral law

- Homosexuality: used to be considered wrong, but now is not in some places

- Hitler - can we really justify the opinion that Hitler thought his antisemitism was good?#