Revision guide - moral philosophy

Specification

  • Normative Ethical Theories
    • Meaning of good, bad, right, wrong within Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and Virtue ethics.
    • Similarities and differences across these approaches.
  • Utilitarianism
    • 'Utility' and 'maximizing utility'.
      • Jeremy Bentham: Quantitative hedonistic utilitarianism (utility calculus).
      • John Stuart Mill: Qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism (higher and lower pleasures); 'proof' of the greatest happiness principle.
      • Non-hedonistic utilitarianism (preference utilitarianism).
    • Act and rule utilitarianism.
    • Issues:
      • Pleasure as the only good (Nozick's experience machine).
      • Fairness and individual liberty/rights ('tyranny of the majority').
      • Problems with calculation (which beings to include).
      • Issues around partiality.
      • Ignoring moral integrity and intentions.
  • Kantian Deontological Ethics
    • Immanuel Kant: Meaning of a ‘good will’.
    • Acting in accordance with duty vs. acting out of duty.
    • Hypothetical vs. categorical imperatives.
    • First formulation of the categorical imperative (contradiction in conception and will).
    • Second formulation of the categorical imperative.
    • Issues:
      • Clashing/competing duties.
      • Not all universalizable maxims are distinctly moral; not all non-universalizable maxims are immoral.
      • Consequences determine moral value.
      • Ignores value of certain motives (e.g., love, friendship, kindness).
      • Morality is a system of hypothetical, rather than categorical, imperatives (Philippa Foot).
  • Aristotelian Virtue Ethics
    • ‘The good’ for human beings: Eudaimonia as the ‘final end’ and the relationship between Eudaimonia and pleasure.
    • Function argument and the relationship between virtues and function.
    • Virtues and vices:
      • Virtues as character traits/dispositions.
      • Role of education/habituation in moral character development.
      • Skill analogy.
      • Importance of feelings.
      • Doctrine of the mean and its application to particular virtues.
    • Moral responsibility: voluntary, involuntary, and non-voluntary actions.
    • Relationship between virtues, actions, reasons, and the role of practical reasoning/practical wisdom.
    • Issues:
      • Guidance about how to act.
      • Clashing/competing virtues.
      • Circularity in defining virtuous acts and virtuous persons.
      • Trait must contribute to Eudaimonia; relationship between individual and moral good.
  • Applied Ethics
    • Application of normative ethical theories and meta-ethics to:
      • Stealing.
      • Simulated killing (computer games, plays, films, etc.).
      • Eating animals.
      • Telling lies.
  • Meta-ethics
    • Origins of moral principles: reason, emotion/attitudes, or society.
    • Distinction between cognitivism and non-cognitivism about ethical language.
    • Moral realism
      • Mind-independent moral properties/facts.
      • Moral naturalism (cognitivist): naturalist forms of utilitarianism (including Bentham) and of virtue ethics.
      • Moral non-naturalism (cognitivist): intuitionism and Moore’s ‘open question argument’ against all reductive metaethical theories and the Naturalistic Fallacy.
      • Issues:
        • Hume's Fork and A J Ayer's verification principle.
        • Hume's argument that moral judgements are not beliefs since beliefs alone could not motivate us.
        • Hume's is-ought gap.
        • John Mackie's argument from relativity and his arguments from queerness.
    • Moral anti-realism
      • No mind-independent moral properties/facts.
      • Error Theory (cognitivist) – Mackie
      • Emotivism (non-cognitivist) – Ayer
      • Prescriptivism (non-cognitivist) – Richard Hare
      • Issues:
        • How we use moral language (reasoning, persuading, disagreeing etc.).
        • Problem of accounting for moral progress.
        • Whether anti-realism becomes moral nihilism.

Bentham’s Utilitarianism

  • What is good?
    • Bentham: Mankind is governed by pain and pleasure.
      • Psychological hedonism: Humans avoid pain and seek pleasure; this motivates actions.
      • Prescriptive statement: Pleasure should be the basis for ethical decisions.
      • Classic or hedonistic utilitarianism: Right action increases general happiness.
  • The Principle of Utility
    • 'Utility' means 'usefulness'.
    • Moral actions have utility if they maximize happiness and minimize pain.
    • ‘The greatest happiness principle’:
      • Decide if an action is morally good or bad by whether it leads to the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
      • Good action: Brings about happiness.
      • Bad action: Brings about more pain than pleasure.
    • Bentham argues that this principle underpins all ethical systems, including religions.
  • Act Utilitarianism
    • Apply the principle of utility to each action.
    • Useful in guiding moral action by considering potential consequences.
    • Difficulties:
      • Predicting outcomes, especially long-term.
      • Focusing only on consequences can lead to wrong decisions (e.g., scapegoating).
  • Bentham’s Utility Calculus
    • Quantitative hedonistic approach: Measure pleasures and pains using the utility calculus.
    • Hedonic calculus/felicity calculus.
    • Act utilitarianism: Look at each action individually.
    • All types of pleasure are equally valid.
      • “The game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry”.
    • Seven steps of the utility calculus:
      1. Intensity: Intense pleasures more valuable than mild.
      2. Duration: Lasting pleasures more valuable than transient.
      3. Certainty or uncertainty: Prioritize more certain pleasures.
      4. Propinquity or remoteness: Give less weight to distant benefits.
      5. Fecundity: Acts likely to cause more pleasure are better.
      6. Purity: Acts causing only pleasure are better.
      7. Extent: The more people who enjoy the pleasure, the better.

Evaluating Bentham’s Utilitarianism

  • Strengths
    1. Aligns with how we make moral decisions.
      • Counterargument: Aligning with current practices doesn't make it morally right; normative theories help determine what is morally right.
    2. Fair and objective due to its egalitarian nature.
      • Every person counts for one, avoiding self-interest.
      • Counterargument: Some activities are inferior, like gaining pleasure from torturing animals.
    3. Clear way to make moral decisions, especially with small numbers.
      • Counterarguments:
        • Situations are too complex (e.g., abortion).
        • Impossible to accurately predict long-term consequences.
  • Weaknesses
    • The Impartiality Objection
      • Requires equal consideration of everyone's happiness.
      • Counter-intuitive: We value our own happiness and that of our family/friends more.
      • Unreasonable to sacrifice ourselves for overall happiness.
      • Counterargument:
        • Reason should transcend instincts.
        • Rule utilitarian: look after your family and friends first and for every country to look after their own citizens first.
    • The Moral Integrity Objection
      • Bernard Williams: Utilitarianism may demand actions challenging personal/moral integrity.
      • Example: Jim and the Indians; utilitarianism doesn’t allow you to draw a line in the sand.
      • Example: Convicting an innocent man to appease the public.
      • P1: Personal integrity requires things you would not do.
      • P2: Utilitarianism can create scenarios where doing those things is right.
      • C: Utilitarianism undermines personal integrity.
      • Counterargument:
        • Personal/moral integrity is culturally acquired.
        • Questioning moral intuitions leads to moral progress.
        • Considers immediate pleasure plus the fear of being wrongly convicted.
    • The Calculation Problem
      • Doesn't explain how to get relevant information.
      • How to rate pleasure intensity, duration, etc. on a scale of 1-10?
      • Impractical: Takes too long to calculate.
      • ‘Extent’: Where to draw the line on who to include (e.g., embryo, extended family, wider community, animals)?
      • Counterargument:
        • Action is right according to ‘the tendency which it appears to maximise happiness’ - a rough guide only.
        • Peter Singer: Not including animals is speciesism.
    • The Epistemic Problem
      • Effects of actions continue indefinitely into the future.
      • Saving a drowning child who becomes an evil dictator illustrates never assigning a final moral value.
      • Counterargument:
        • An action is right if it appears to be useful in bringing about more happiness and this would apply to saving a drowning child.
        • Rule and preference utilitarianism argue
    • The Issue of the intentions behind the action: that saving drowning children usually increases happiness.
      • Only focuses on consequences, ignoring intentions.
      • Example: Same outcome for charity, but different motives (praise vs helping people).
      • Government policies may be intended to win voters or from genuine concern - intention is hard to identify with certainty.
      • Counterargument:
        • Intention is a red herring.
        • Blame and praise distinct from moral worth of action.
    • The ‘Tyranny of the Majority’:
      • Oppression and mistreatment of individuals and minority groups when considering only the quantity of pleasure.
      • Example: Sadistic guards torturing an innocent man.
      • Counterargument:
        • Putting different values on different types of pleasure is impossible to do.
        • Negative utilitarianism could solve the problem.
        • Impact on minority groups can be part of the utility calculus.
    • The Repugnant Conclusion:
      • Derek Parfit: Overall happiness is high, but individual happiness is low.
      • Large population with little individual happiness cannot be better than smaller population with more individual happiness.
      • Counterargument: Question on what basis it is considered to be better that fewer people feel more happiness vs more people feeling less happiness.
      • Looking at average happiness rather than overall happiness
    • The Lack of Respect for human rights:
      • Bentham: Human rights are ‘nonsense on stilts’.
      • Freedom is only valuable if it leads to happiness; slavery can be deemed morally good if it results in greater happiness.
      • Counterargument: If we accept that happiness is the only good, Bentham is correct that human rights have no intrinsic value.

Mill’s Utilitarianism Mill’s qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism

  • The Utility Principle
    • Mill agreed with Bentham that happiness is the fundamental principle at the root of all morality and defended utilitarianism as a way of making moral decisions.
      • “Utility, or the Greatest Happiness principle, holds that actions are right in 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; by unhappiness is intended pain, and the privation of pleasure.” Mill, Utilitarianism
  • Mill’s Qualitative Hedonistic Calculus – Higher and Lower Pleasures
    • Mill defended utilitarianism by introducing a distinction between higher and lower pleasures.
    • “It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.” Mill, Utilitarianism
    • Bentham saw all pleasures as equal.
    • Mill argued that human beings would prefer the pleasures of the mind (higher pleasures) over pleasures of the body (lower pleasures).
    • “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.” Mill, Utilitarianism
    • J.J.C. Smart: to be happy, we must not only fulfil our first-order desires but also our second-order desires.
    • Only those who have experienced and can appreciate both types of pleasure are in a position to say which is better; they are ‘competent judges’.
    • Mill argued that higher pleasures are more pleasant than lower ones when you take into account the duration of the pleasure.
      • For example, you will remember reading a good book for longer than you will remember the nice cake you ate last summer.
    • The fact that competent judges do prefer higher pleasures (most of the time) shows that this is what we should all pursue
      • “I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.” Mill, On Liberty
    • In trying to make Bentham’s version of utilitarianism more sophisticated, Mill has created a problem for his own version; Once Mill introduces the notion of quality into the discussion, some of this simplicity disappears.
    • Only someone who has experienced and can appreciate both types of pleasure is in a position to say which is better - they are ‘competent judges’
      • Sometimes, even those who are competent judges may choose to pursue lower pleasures, not because they are better but due to weakness of will, laziness, easy access to the lower pleasures, lack of time or other factors.
  • Mill’s Rule Utilitarianism
    • Mill’s version of utilitarianism is categorized as rule utilitarianism (in contrast to Bentham’s act utilitarianism).
    • Rule utilitarians claim that following a set of ethical rules will generally provide a good outcome and raise overall happiness.
    • Mill objected to Bentham’s utilitarianism as it led to the endorsement of horrific acts, e.g. the sadistic guards.
    • Mill identified two sets of moral principles: the primary principle is the principle of utility, and the secondary principles are moral rules to follow.
    • Two levels of rule utilitarianism:
      1. Strong rule utilitarianism claims that we must follow a rule no matter what the consequences of breaking it may be in a particular situation.
      2. Weak rule utilitarianism allows that there may be exceptions to the rule and sometimes the rule needs to be broken to maximise happiness.
        • A passionate advocate for personal liberty, he argued that the only reason governments and other individuals should interfere in your life is to prevent you from causing harm to others to others – this is his harm principle.
    • The dilemma of ‘lying’ can be seen as a clash of secondary principles (rules): there is a rule that says that lying is wrong, and there is another rule to prevent harm to others. When these secondary principles clash, we should appeal to the primary principle – the principle of utility.
    • “We must remember that only in these cases of conflict between secondary principles is it requisite that first principles should be appealed to.” Mill, Utilitarianism
  • Criticism: the simplicity of Bentham’s theory leads to a morally inferior theory which incorrectly sees all pleasures as equal and, therefore, leads to the wrong moral decisions. Mill’s theory overcomes this flaw in Bentham’s utility calculus.
  • Criticism: In trying to make Bentham’s version of utilitarianism more sophisticated, Mill has created a problem for his own version. Mill’s utilitarianism loses the simplicity of Bentham’s.
  • Criticism: Mill came from a wealthy family and was exposed to those things he would go on to identify as higher pleasures, e.g. novels, poetry, opera, ballet, etc.

Mill’s Proof of Utilitarianism

  • In chapter 4 of ‘Utilitarianism’, Mill defends the claim that happiness is the only good.
    • “Questions about ends are, in other words, questions what things are desirable. The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end. What ought to be required of this doctrine—what conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should fulfil—to make good its claim to be believed?” Mill, Utilitarianism
    1. The only proof that an object is visible is that it can be seen, likewise audible and heard.
    2. Similarly, the only proof that something is desirable is that people actually do desire it.
    3. Each person desired their own happiness.
    4. Therefore, each person’s happiness is desirable.
    5. The general happiness is desirable.
    6. Each person’s happiness is a good to that person.
    7. The general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all people.
    8. Happiness is one of the ends of conduct.
    9. Happiness is one of the criteria for morality.
    10. Other elements (e.g. virtue, health, money) can be ends of conduct too but they are not universally held.
    11. However, these other elements start as a means to gaining happiness for the person and, by association with pleasure/happiness become ends in themselves.
    12. Through association, these other elements become part of what happiness is for that person. Only in this way do they become ends in themselves.
    13. Because these elements were initially sought as means of happiness, then happiness should be seen as the sole end of our conduct.
    14. Happiness is the sole good.
      *Note: Mill’s proof is not set out as a formal argument.

Objections to Mill’s Proof

  • Criticism: The fallacy of equivocation (stage 1)
    • G.E. Moore: Mill’s argument commits the fallacy of equivocation confusing two meanings of a word.
    • Desirable has two meanings:
      • ‘Able to be desired’ in a factual sense.
      • ‘Ought to be desired’ in a moral sense.
  • Criticism: The is-ought gap (stage 1)
    • David Hume: You cannot argue for morality based on actual behaviour or experience.
    • Moving from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought’ involves a logical error.
  • Criticism: The naturalistic fallacy (stage 1)
    • G.E. Moore: The word ‘good’ is indefinable, and any attempt to equate ‘good’ with a property in the natural world is a mistake.
  • Criticism: Fallacy of composition (stage 2)
    • This fallacy infers that because some part has a property, the whole of which it is a part also has that property.

Nozick’s Pleasure/Experience Machine

  • Nozick claims pleasure is not the only good.
  • Claim is pleasure is not the only good. As the majority choose not to plug in despite the promise of a ‘lifetime of bliss’. Nozick suggests that this is because people want things other than pleasure.
    1. That people value states of affairs in the world, not just the experience of pleasure.
    2. That people want specific actions, activities, and objects themselves, not just the experience of pleasure that results from them.
    3. That pleasure is not a specific sensation.
      Note: Has led to the conclusion that we should focus on satisfying people’s preferences rather than maximising their pleasure (see preference utilitarianism).
  • Some philosophers have pointed out a flaw in Nozick’s experiment and subsequent conclusion; he assumes that our judgements about the experience machine are based on a rational comparison of lots of pleasure plugged into the machine with average pleasure in real life.
  • Status quo bias: people are likely to reject change in favour of what they are accustomed to, even if the new option would be better than what we already have.

Non-Hedonistic Utilitarianism

  • States that we should maximize ‘utility’ but is not just pleasure.
    Preference Utilitarianism: is defined as the following
  • an action should be judged by the extent to which it conforms to the preferences of all those affected by the action and its consequences.
  • Has the advantage that you don’t have try to work out consequences of the action, ask the individuals involved what their preference is and prioritize that.
    Mani