Ethics Test 1

Act-utilitarianism: 

• Form of consequentialism, what matters is the consequence of the action

  • The consequences that affect other people 

  • Maximize welfare

Applied ethics: 

• Applying meta-ethics and normative ethics to concrete quotations in envs, business, medical, etc. 

Autonomy: 

• The ability to act on the basis of self-legistlasted reasons

Categorical imperative: 

• Genuinely moral duties/actions

• Only ceases to apply when you are prevented from keeping through with it at no fault of your own

Consequentialism: 

• What matters is the consequences of our actions

Contractualism: 

• What would we reasonably agree to behind a veil of ignorance

  • Veil = tool to think impartially

  • We are all equal

  • Morality is motivating 

Deontology: 

• Looks at the motives of why people do what they do

  • Duty based

  • Look at the rules and try to determine which are right v wrong

Descriptive claim: 

• Tells us something about how the world is, not how it should be

Ethical egoism: 

• Doing whatever actions fulfil our own needs/desires no matter the effect of such actions on others

Ethical relativism:

• There are no universal moral standards 

  • Therefore we should not judge moral practices of other cultures (practice tolerance)

Hypothetical imperative:

• A command that binds an agent only contingently

Impermissible:

• That class of actions (or omissions) that are morally disallowed, or wrong 

Maxim:

• Description of the act/obligation and its intention 

  • General principal

Meta-ethics: 

• Study of abstract questions concerning nature of moral justification or assessment

  • Good, right, permissible, impermissible

• Whether or not we have a reason to be moral 

Moral skepticism:

• There are no moral truths

  • Can’t know what’s right v wrong – impossible 

Normative claim:

• A statement about the way the world should be

Normative ethics:

• How meta-ethics is grounded

Original position:

• We are not aware of certain features (ones that impede impartial judgement)

  • Socio-economic, race, gender, etc.

  • Allows us to 

Permissible:

• The class of actions (or omissions) that are morally allowed or right 

Phronesis:

• Practical wisdom

  • Allows the agent the ability to discern the correct way to achieve the human end

Publicity argument:

• If a principle is deemed to be correct, we have a duty to make its principles public.

  • If we want to justify holding people to account for breaching those principles, they have to know about them

Rule-utilitarianism:

• An act is only right if it conforms to a rule that if everyone follows, will produce the best consequences

Social contract theory:

• The right action is the one that follows the terms of the agreement amongst self-interested agents

Supererogatory:

• Actions that go above and beyond the call of duty

  • Doing something is not a moral requirement (no punishment for not doing it), but potential for praise if you do do it

Unity of the virtues thesis:

• To have any one of the virtues, you must have all of them

  • You can be courageous, but not for the right reasons bc you lack the other virtues 

Universalizability:

• The capacity of a maxim to become a law for everyone

  • Cannot produce a contradiction (or its impermissible)

Utilitarianism:

• What we should strive for 

  • what matters is the consequence of the action

  • The consequences that affect other people 

  • Maximize welfare

Veil of ignorance:

• A tool to help us think impartially

  • We are all equal

  • “The og position” – we are not aware of certain features

    • Socio-economic, race, gender, etc.

Virtue ethics:

• Located halfway between vices of defect and excess

• Actions are made right by being the product of the correct character of the agent performing the actions

Animal welfarism:

•  The view that the primary bearers of value are individual animals (rather than species or ecosystems)

Anthropocentrism:

• Only humans have moral standing (genuine, morally relevant interests)

Extrinsic value:

• Value based on the service it can provide

Intrinsic value:

• Value based on its mere existence 

Moral standing:

• For an entity’s existence and interests to have positive moral weight 

  • Pos. moral weight = means others have to constrain themselves when dealing with such entities

Negative right:

• A right not to be interfered with in certain ways

  • Right to free speech (when not posing danger to others)

Positive right:

• A right to be provided with certain conditions for flourishing 

  • Health care, duty for gov to provide

Speciesism: 

• All animals are equal

Bioaccumulation:

• Build-up of chemical substances in organisms in even greater quantities are they are passes up the food chain (biomagnification)

  • Bioaccumulation is buildup in an individual animal

Biocentric egalitarianism:

• The view that the interests of all living things have equal positive moral weight

Biocentrism: 

• Living things – from the mere fact that they have life – possess intrinsic value

Biosphere:

• The totality of interlocking ecosystems on Earth

Conservationism:

• Protecting natural spaces is compatible with some form of human activity within those spaces

Deep ecology:

• Focusses on a radical emotional and cognitive “reorientation” of our lives and very selves in relation to nature

Dynamic equilibrium:

• Characteristic of a system that is neither purely chaotic nor in full stasis (equilibrium)

Ecocentrism:

• The view that the objects of primary moral concern are ecosystems 

Ecosystem: 

• A geographically specific collection of plants and animals interacting among themselves and with the non-living (abiotic) things – rock, soil, climate – of that area

Ecosystem-based management (EBM):

Gaia theory:

• The view that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism

  • Propounded by James Lovelock

Individualism: 

• The primary object of moral concern are individual plants or animals

Inertia:

• Resistance to change within a system. Ecosystems can display varying degrees of inertia

Land ethic:

• The view that an action is right to the extent that it protects or promotes the stability, integrity, and beauty of the “land” 

Preservationism:

• Protection of natural spaces should have as its goal the maintenance of the pristine condition

  • Thought to be mostly incompatible with human activity within those spaces

Psychocentrism:

• What matters morally is the ability to have psychological experiences, such as pleasure and pain

Resilience:

• An ecosystem’s ability, following a disturbance, to regain the pre-disturbance state

People and their Stance

Immanuel Kant: 

• Categorical imperative

  • Animals have only extrinsic value

    • People’s property

    • cruelty to animals is wrong not for the animal's sake, but because it might lead people to act cruelly toward fellow humans

Hobbe: 

• Social contract theory, 

  • People are motivated by self-interest

  • Agreement legitimizes government 

  • Morality exists where there is agreement to live under the rule of a sovereign or organized government 

    • (morality doesn’t exist in the state of nature)

Rawl: 

• Contractualism, the veil of ignorance, 

  • Act from a sense of fairness 

1. We would all want the broadest possible catalogue of individual basic rights and liberties

2. a. Everyone would have equal access to positions of power within society

b. If economic inequality is to be tolerated, it must be to the benefit of the worst-off in society 

Aristotle:

• Virtue ethics

Peter Singer:

•  against speciesism

  • Argues that we should extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species

Claire Jean Kim: 

• Abolition

  • Criticises racism/speciesism comparison to the ‘abolitionist’ movement that opposes the mistreatment of animals

Bentham: 

• Right to equal consideration based on capacity to suffer

• Sentience is an entity’s most morally importance attribute 

  • Sentience proved by feeling pleasure/pain (which can be quantified)

Tom Regan:

• Intrinsic value & rights to nonhuman entities

• Rights should not be violated no matter what

Donaldson & Kymlicka:

• Animal citizenship

• Wilderness animals – sovereignty

• Liminal animals

Christopher D. Stone:

• Legal rights for natural objects

Paul Taylor:

• Biocentric outlook on nature

1. Humans are members of earth’s community on the same terms as other living members

2. Ecosystems are complex web of interconnected elements

3. Each ind organism pursues its own good in its own way

4. Reject that humans are superior 

Aldo Leopold:

• The land ethic

• The land pyramid

Arne Naess:

• Identification as a source of deep ecological attitude

James Lovelock:

• The gaia hypothesis