Flashcards

Teleology | Morality grounded in telos (end/purpose) and human flourishing (Aristotle)

Deontology | Morality grounded in duty and respect for persons; right action depends on maxim and intention, not consequences

Utilitarian Consequentialism | Rightness depends only on outcomes: maximize net happiness, minimize suffering, impartially

Telos | The natural end, goal, or mature fulfillment of a thing

Eudaimonia (Chief Good) | Human flourishing; the complete end desired only for its own sake

Hexis | Stable state of character, built by habituation

Matter (Hyle) | The physical stuff something is made of

Form (Eidos) | The structure/essence that gives matter its identity and drives development

Actuality (Energeia) | The fully realized state of a thing, vs. potentiality (dynamis)

Four Causes | Material, Formal, Efficient, Final (telos)

Ergon Argument | Humans' unique function is rational activity (not nutrition like plants or perception like animals); the good = activity of soul in accordance with virtue, in a complete life

Kinesis vs. Energeia | Kinesis = activity aimed at an external product; energeia = activity that contains its end within itself (virtuous action constitutes eudaimonia)

Why the young are unsuited for ethics | They follow passions, not reason; the goal of ethics is action (praxis), not knowledge

Good Will | The only thing good without qualification; valuable in itself, not for its results

Acting from duty vs. in accordance with duty | From duty = motive is reverence for moral law (has moral worth); in accordance = merely matches duty (e.g., prudent merchant)

Hypothetical Imperative | Conditional command: "If you want X, do Y"

Categorical Imperative | Unconditional moral command for all rational beings

Formula of Universal Law (FUL) | Act only on maxims you can will to become universal law

Maxim | The subjective principle of volition behind an action

Contradiction in Conception | Universalized maxim undermines itself (e.g., universal false promising destroys promising)

Formula of Humanity (FHE) | Treat humanity never merely as a means, always also as an end

Mere means | Using someone without informed, voluntary consent (deception or coercion)

Autonomy | Self-legislation; the rational will gives itself the moral law

Heteronomy | Will guided by external forces (desires, fear, reward, divine command)

Kingdom of Ends | Ideal union of rational beings under common laws they give themselves

Dignity vs. Price | Price = relative worth, exchangeable; dignity = unconditional worth of rational beings

Arnold & Bowie (4 requirements) | Follow local labor laws; no coercion or deception; safe conditions; living wage

Greatest Happiness Principle | Actions are right as they promote happiness, wrong as they produce the reverse

Utilitarianism's 4 features | Consequentialism, welfarism/hedonism, aggregation, impartiality

Bentham (quantitative hedonism) | Pleasures differ only in quantity (felicific calculus)

Mill (qualitative hedonism) | Pleasures differ in quantity and quality; higher > lower

Competent Judges Test | Those who've experienced both higher and lower pleasures prefer the higher

Agent-Neutrality | Evaluate the total state of the world; everyone counts equally (utilitarianism)

Agent-Relativity | You're specially responsible for your own actions, not others'; some acts forbidden even to prevent others doing them (deontology)

Overdemandingness Objection | Utilitarianism demands constant sacrifice and erases personal projects and special ties

Sheriff / Transplant / Torturer / Christians & Lions | Counterexamples where utilitarianism seems to permit punishing/killing the innocent or mob cruelty

Acts and Omissions Doctrine (AOD) | Failing to act is morally less bad than doing an act with identical foreseen consequences

Glover on AOD | Rejects it: same foreseen, preventable outcome means equal responsibility

Singer's Strong Principle | If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to

Singer's Moderate Principle | If we can prevent something very bad without sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought to

Singer on distance and bystanders | Distance and number of other bystanders are morally irrelevant

Singer on duty vs. charity | Collapses the distinction; giving is a duty, not supererogation

Supererogation | Above and beyond the call of duty; good but not wrong to omit

Duties of Justice (O'Neill) | Perfect duties: never act on maxims that use others as mere means (no deception, coercion, exploitation); overriding

Duties of Beneficence (O'Neill) | Imperfect duties: foster others' autonomy and ends; discretionary; secondary to justice

Perfect Duty | Strict, non-discretionary duty (e.g., don't lie, don't murder)

Imperfect Duty | Discretionary duty (e.g., beneficence) allowing choice in execution

Positive Law | Statutory law written by human legislatures

Natural Law | Objective moral law grounded in human nature, accessible through reason

Lex injusta non est lex | An unjust law is not law

First Principle of Practical Reason | Good is to be sought, evil avoided

Good vs. Evil (Aquinas) | Good fulfills and perfects human nature; evil frustrates or destroys it

Value Perfectionism | The good = full development of capacities essential to human nature (telos)

Moral Perfectionism | Right acts promote, preserve, and foster essential human capacities

Value Hedonism | The good = pleasure and absence of pain

Nutritive Soul → Good of Life | Preserve existence, health, physical integrity

Sensory Soul → Good of Family | Procreation, child rearing

Rational Soul → Knowledge and Sociability | Seek truth (God); live in organized, just society

Rawls's Critique of Utilitarianism | It doesn't take seriously the distinction between persons

Original Position / Veil of Ignorance | Choosing principles of justice without knowing race, gender, wealth, class, talents, or conception of the good

Rawls's Equal Liberty Principle | Equal right to the most extensive equal basic liberties

Rawls's Difference Principle | Inequalities must benefit the least advantaged and attach to offices open under fair equality of opportunity

Global Justice | Principles for the moral acceptability of global institutions, laws, practices

Global Distributive Justice | Principles for the fair global allocation of resources, wealth, opportunities

Distributive Statism | Distributive justice applies only within nation-states (Rawls)

Distributive Cosmopolitanism | Distributive justice applies globally to all individuals

Intrajustice vs. Interjustice | Justice within a state vs. justice between states

Corrective Justice | Compensation or rectification for past wrongs

Baskin's 4 Requirements | Cut CO2 within carbon budget; share burdens equitably; don't deepen inequality; avoid global conflict

Contraction and Convergence | All nations converge to equal per-capita emission rights

Greenhouse Development Rights | Rich nations cut steeply; poor nations get temporary room to grow

Polluter Pays Principle | Those who caused historical emissions pay (critique: polluters may be dead or acted in ignorance)

Ability to Pay Principle | Those with greatest economic capacity pay, regardless of fault

Beneficiary Pays Principle | Those who benefited from industrial pollution pay

Isolationism | Treat climate as separate from poverty and trade

Moderate Integrationism | Combine climate policy with adjacent development concerns

Strong Integrationism | Fold climate justice into a total restructuring of global economic and distributive justice

Political Realism | States act on national self-interest; moral claims are rhetoric

Moral Absolutism | Some acts are intrinsically wrong regardless of consequences: one may not do evil that good may come

Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) | Permits an act with a foreseen bad effect if conditions are met

DDE Condition 1 | The act itself is good or indifferent

DDE Condition 2 | Agent intends only the good effect; bad effect foreseen but unintended

DDE Condition 3 | Bad effect is not the means to the good effect

DDE Condition 4 | Proportionally grave reason for permitting the bad effect

Direct vs. Indirect Agency (Quinn) | Direct = harm intended as means or end; indirect = harm merely foreseen side-effect

Strategic vs. Terror Bomber | Strategic aims at military target, civilian deaths foreseen side-effect; terror bomber uses civilian deaths as the means

Jus ad Bellum | Justice of resorting to war: just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, proportionality, last resort, reasonable chance of success

Jus in Bello | Justice in conduct of war: discrimination/non-combatant immunity, proportionality of force, no intrinsic evils

Shue's Mystery | What needs explaining is combatant non-immunity; combatants lose immunity because they pose a lethal threat

Nagel: True Object of Hostility | Hostility must target what is provocative about a person (combatant role), not their mere humanity

Nagel's Two Restrictions | Only target combatants; certain methods (WMD, torture, poison) are banned even against them

Anscombe: Mr. Truman's Degree | Truman was a mass murderer for Hiroshima and Nagasaki; killing the innocent as a means is always murder

Fools and Knaves (Anscombe) | Drop the absolute ban on killing innocents and every fool can be as much of a knave as suits him

Walzer on Terrorism | Random murder of innocents to spread fear; targets people for who they are, not what they do; shatters war convention and political code

McPherson on Terrorism | Not distinctively wrong: war kills more civilians, spreads equal terror, stretches proportionality, both violate immunity in practice

McPherson's civilian statistic | 1900-1990: 62 million civilians vs. 43 million soldiers killed in state wars