Key issues / class outlines

 

Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, ch.1-2


“Justice by Nature”

Hedonism

Social Contract

Social Sentiments

Method in establishing moral philosophy

Consequentialism and “The proof is in the pudding.”

The groundlessness of Kantian deontology or, rather, its grounding in in consequentialism.


Pleasure / Hedonism

Consequentialism

The Creed of Utilitarianism: “... 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, pain, and the privation of pleasure.”


Higher and Lower Pleasures


Habituation in Utilitarianism


Human dignity



=====================


Kant, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM), Section Three

“Transition from a Metaphysics of Morals to a Critique of Pure Practical Reason”





----------------------


Kant, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM), Section Two


A priori


a posteriori


Synthetic


Analytic


Analytic a priori


Analytic a posteriori?


Synthetic a posteriori


Synthetic a priori?


proving moral laws (Jesus)


will


Objective

Subjective

Necessary

Contingent


Imperatives


CI

A Synthetic A Priori Practical Proposition


How does it limit human freedom?


Autonomy

Heteronomy


Kingdom of Ends




------------------------



Kant, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM) Preface


The moral value of an action likes in the intention of the agent, not in the outcome.


A priori vs a posteriori


Practical Anthropology vs Metaphysics of Morals


Section One: Transition from the Ordinary Rational Knowledge of Morality to the Philosophical


The Good Will


Not good because of its effects but good in itself.


The purpose of reason in Aristotle and in Kant


Duty


Three propositions of morality:

  1. 1.Moral worth depends on an action being done as duty.

  2. 2.Moral worth depends on the maxim under which it is done.

  3. 3.Duty is the necessity of an action done out of respect for the [moral] law.


The Good Will is the pre-eminent good.


Forms of the one Categorical Imperative:


402: I should never act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.


421: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.


421: Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.


429: Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.

-----------------------------------------------------


Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Books 7 & 10


  1. 1.What is incontinence? A weakness.


  1. 2.The Practical Syllogism

       Syllogism

       Terms of the syllogism

       Logic and the practical syllogism in explaining human psychology of wants and desires in relation to moral responsibility


  1. 3.States of Character in reference to moral virtues and vices


  1. 4.Clarifications:

        Intemperance and incontinence: which is stronger and which is better? Why?

        Let’s recall Aristotle on agency and responsibility in moral matters


  1. 5.Pleasure and Happiness play important roles in this and are central to human life.  Let’s define each and contract Aristotle’s view with Hedonism.


  1. 6.How does Aristotle reason that there are good and bad pleasures?

    Can there be good and bad happiness?


  1. 7.Is pleasure an activity?

    Why, according to Aristotle, do we desire pleasure?


  1. 8.What is happiness? Is it a state or an activity?


  1. 9.What are the two levels of happiness for Aristotle?

    What distinguishes the two?


  1. 10.How are Virtue Ethics and Eudaimonistic Ethics the same thing for Aristotle?


  1. 11.What are elitism, meritocracy, socialism, and democracy?



--------------------------


Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book 1


1. Setting the context


         Scientific Method and the Subject Matter of a Science


         Aristotelian Division of the Sciences


         The opening question of Plato’s dialogue MENO.



2. The Good

         The end or goal to be achieved and all the intermediate goods on the

         way there.

         In practical human affairs: the highest science is Political Science

         which seeks the good

         For a city state or today we would say, for a nation.

- the inexactness of this science

- young people as students of ethics


  1. 3.Looking for principles: we start with ENDOXA or commonly held

         beliefs and subject them to critical consideration

         (Is happiness pleasure? honor? wealth? study?)

         Going to Up to first principles from common beliefs


4. Defining the good:

         End of action, complete, choiceworthy, self-sufficient

         The Function argument: an activity expressing virtue (excellence)

                  the human function: reason

         The human good is an activity of excellence employing reason for

         action

         This is all inexact - Why?


  1. 5.Clearly virtue (excellence in reasoning) is needed but do we need

         good fortune / luck too?


  1. 6.A dialectical exercise:

         Is it correct to call someone happy only when he is dead?

The real meaning of the exercise


  1. 7.Human psychology is the foundation for the discussion of Ethics

         divisions of the human psyche (soul): rational and non rational

         Rational: virtues of thought; Non Rational: virtues of character

         subdivision of the non-rational into

                  (i) what does not listen to reason, and

                  (ii) what is able to listen to reason.