Transcript What is Ethics?

Applied Ethics:
An Introduction
Applied Ethics
 Lecturer: Mr. Tang Chak Kin
 Email: [email protected]
 Website: applied-ethics.weebly.com
Applied Ethics
 You have to attend 12 lectures and 4
tutorials in a semester:
 One lecture every week
 One tutorial every 2 weeks
Applied Ethics
 The course requirements as well as
the topics covered can be found in the
Course Outline.
 A wealth of useful resources can be
found on the course website:
applied-ethics.weebly.com
Applied Ethics
 Assessment:
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Group presentation
Written assignment
Examination
20%
30%
50%
In this lecture…
 Fact and value
 Moral reasoning
 Fallacies
Fact and value
 Ethics is the philosophical study of
morality, a rational examination of
people’s moral beliefs and behavior.
 Applied ethics is a discipline of
philosophy that attempts to apply
ethical theories and concepts to reallife situations.
Fact and value
 In ancient Greece, the subject matter
of ethics was eudaimonia (flouishing)
or ‘the good life.’
 In modern times, the subject matter of
ethics is moral judgment, i.e.
questions about what is right and
what is wrong in human actions and
practices.
Fact and value
 The scientific method is seldom used
in the study of ethics.
 Unlike the study of science, there is no
such thing as a unified method or
approach in ethics that can be used to
examine moral judgments across
different situations.
Fact and value
 Moral judgment is much less certain
than the laws of physics. Rightness
and wrongness cannot be observed
and measured like energy or mass.
Fact and value
 Susan believes that light travels faster
than sound, while Dave believes that
sound travels faster than light.
 Anyone who has good scientific
knowledge will agree that Susan’s
belief is true whereas Dave’s belief is
not true.
Fact and value
 If your friend has committed a crime
(e.g. stealing from a supermarket),
should you report to the police?
 Different people may have different
opinions. They may not agree on what
is the right thing to do in a situation
like this.
Fact and value
 Some people believe that science deals
with fact, whereas ethics deals with
value.
 According to this view, moral
judgments are value judgments, and
all value judgments are subjective.
Fact and value
 Moral judgments – judgments about
what is right, what is good, what is
acceptable, and so on – are essentially
value judgments.
 As such, there are no objective
answers to moral questions. Or so
they claim.
Fact and value
 A factual statement such as ‘Water
boils at 100°c’ can be examined
scientifically and objectively to see
whether it is true or not.
Fact and value
 The same cannot be said of evaluative
statements (such as ‘Homosexuality is
evil’) and prescriptive statements
(such as ‘You ought to be kind to old
people’).
Fact and value
 Facts, according to this view, are
objective and out there in the world to
be discovered and studied by the
sciences.
 Values, in contrast, are believed to be
merely subjective expressions of
personal feeling or attitude.
Fact and value
 Is it acceptable for two adult siblings
(brothers and sisters) to have
consensual sex with each other if they
use contraception and no one is
harmed?
Fact and value
 A survey found that about 80% of
college students answered “No” to the
question, but most of them were
unable to provide justifications for
their opinion.
Fact and value
 This example suggests that our moral
judgments are often based on how we
feel about an issue rather than good
reasoning.
Fact and value
 But if moral judgments really are a
matter of personal preference, there is
no point investigating them or arguing
about them.
 Why do we study ethics if there are no
objective answers to moral questions?
Fact and value
 Is it true that all moral judgments are
merely subjective expressions of
personal feeling or attitude?
 Are facts and values completely
separated from each other? Are there
right and wrong answers to moral
questions?
Fact and value
 We are now going to watch a TED talk
which, hopefully, would shed light on
these questions.
Fact and value
Sam Harris: “Can science answer moral questions?”
Fact and value
 A judgment is ‘subjective’ if it is based
on the feeling, attitude or opinion of a
person (the subject).
 A judgment is ‘objective’ if it is based
on some characteristics or properties
of what is being judged (the object).
Fact and value
 In ethics, when we try to determine
whether an action is right or wrong,
there must be certain characteristics
of the action and the situation (as well
as other reasons or considerations)
that make it right or wrong.
Fact and value
 When we make moral judgments, we
cannot rely on our feelings alone. Why?
Because our feelings may be
irrational – they may be nothing but
the products of prejudice, selfishness,
or cultural (or social) conditioning.
Fact and value
 What is the right thing to do, in any
circumstance, should be determined
by sound ethical reasoning.
 As all of us have the capacity of moral
reasoning, it is often possible to
resolve disagreement by appealing to
moral common ground.
Moral reasoning
 Although it is sometimes hard to know
when we have got it right in ethics, it
is often very easy to know when we (or
others) have made a mistake. There
are clear cases of people ruining their
lives, or doing morally horrific things.
Moral reasoning
 Good moral thinking is disciplined
thinking. There are many ways that
we can go wrong in our moral
judgments, and failure to make the
right moral choice can have
disastrous consequences for ourselves
and others.
Moral reasoning
 To think clearly and reason well about
moral issues, we have to:
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look for relevant facts and evidence
analyze ideas, concepts and arguments
compare and contrast different
viewpoints
Moral reasoning
 Philosophers often disagree among
themselves over various ethical issues.
 You should try to understand why
different philosophers hold different
views on these issues.
Moral reasoning
 The main purpose of studying ethics is
to learn how to think critically and
develop skills of reasoning and
argumentation.
 It is usually not possible to approach
ethical issues based on common sense
alone. It is necessary to develop
critical thinking skills.
Moral reasoning
 Neither the education system nor the
mass media (popular culture)
emphasizes the importance of
thinking.
 As a result, few students have
developed skills of critical thinking, i.e.
the ability to make good judgments
based on fact and reason.
Moral reasoning
 To develop the skills of critical
thinking, you have to:
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consider issues from various
perspectives
examine relevant facts and arguments
support your own views with reasoned
arguments
Moral reasoning
 Philosophy in general and ethics in
particular often deal with questions
and issues that do not have model
answers.
 Although there are usually no model
answers to controversial moral issues,
some viewpoints and arguments are
clearly better than others.
Moral reasoning
 There are good arguments as well as
bad ones; and much of the skill of
moral reasoning consists in
discerning the difference.
 Good arguments are relevant, valid,
and well supported by evidence (facts,
observations, statistics and examples).
Moral reasoning
 A relevant argument addresses exactly
the question that has been asked.
 A valid argument is a logical argument.
Constructing a valid argument
requires good reasoning.
Moral reasoning
 Arguments can be seen as vehicles for
‘rational persuasion.’
 Being capable of giving good
arguments and seeing flaws in poor
arguments is central to critical
thinking and moral reasoning.
Moral reasoning
 It is useful to keep in mind that
assessment of your performance will
largely be based on the quality of the
arguments you make in your
presentation, written assignment and
the examination.
Moral reasoning
 An argument consists of one or more
‘premises’ (reasons, facts or other
evidence) and a ‘conclusion.’
 Premises are statements that support
a conclusion. They are supposed to
provide the reason, evidence or
justification for a conclusion.
Moral reasoning
 Reasoning is the act of drawing (or
deriving) a conclusion from a premise
or a set of premises.
 An argument is fallacious if the
premise or premises do not support
the conclusion. A ‘fallacy’ is an error
in reasoning.
Moral reasoning
 When we evaluate arguments, we
should consider the following
questions:
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Is the evidence relevant?
Are the facts correct?
Is the reasoning logical and valid?
Are there any counterarguments?
Moral reasoning
 An argument, as mentioned earlier, is
made up of premises (facts and
reasons) and a conclusion. Here is an
example:
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All children love pets. [premise 1]
Julie is a child. [premise 2]
Julie loves pets. [conclusion]
Moral reasoning
 A ‘deductive argument’ is valid if the
conclusion follows necessarily from
the premises:
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All lizards are reptiles.
All reptiles are animals.
Therefore, all lizards are animals.
Moral reasoning
 Consider the following:
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All children are afraid of the dark.
Dorothy is afraid of the dark.
Therefore, Dorothy is a child.
 Is this a valid deductive argument?
Why or why not?
Moral reasoning
 Inductive reasoning is an act of
drawing a general conclusion from
particular facts or observations. The
following is an inductive argument:
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My cat is lazy.
My friends’ cats are lazy too.
Therefore, all cats are lazy.
Moral reasoning
 “I have read 100 comic books. They
are all very interesting. Joe just gave
me a new comics. I haven’t read it, but
I know it must be very interesting.”
 Is the above a valid argument? Why or
why not?
Moral reasoning
 Here, the argument can be broken
down into 2 parts: [1] The 100 comic
books I have read are interesting;
therefore, all comic books are
interesting (inductive reasoning); and
[2] If all comic books are interesting,
the one that Joe gave me must be
interesting (deductive reasoning).
Moral reasoning
 Part [1] of the argument (inductive) is
invalid because the premise about
particulars (“I have read 100
interesting comic books.”) does not
necessarily support the general
conclusion (“All comic books are
interesting.”)
 Part [2] is a valid deductive argument.
Moral reasoning
 An inference from a number of
particular facts or observations to
general conclusion is called
‘generalization.’
 Generalizing from a limited set of
facts or observations, however, is not
always reliable. This is called ‘the
problem of induction’ or ‘the problem
of the black swan.’
Moral reasoning
 For centuries, people of the West
thought that all swans were white (a
general conclusion that was believed
to be true).
 The 17th century discovery of black
swans in Australia showed that the
statement ‘All swans are white’ was
mistaken.
Fallacies
 An error in reasoning can give rise to
an invalid argument. This is called a
‘fallacy.’
 Because there are hundreds of
fallacies, we will focus on just three of
them; namely, ‘false analogy’, ‘the
straw man’ and ‘the slippery slope’.
Fallacies
 Two things may have superficial
similarities, but they are not exactly
the same.
 ‘False analogy’ is the mistake of
overlooking the dissimilarities
between things.
Fallacies
 For example, although both apples
and oranges are sweet juicy fruit, they
are different in many other aspects.
Hence the saying ‘comparing apples to
oranges’.
Fallacies
 You may think that a person is lazy
simply because you have seen that the
person’s brother is lazy.
 This is likely to be a case of ‘false
analogy’ because having the same
biological parents may have little or
nothing to do with the character trait
of ‘laziness.’
Fallacies
 The straw man fallacy is an error in
reasoning that we commit when we
attribute a poorly reasoned argument
to someone who never actually made
that argument.
Fallacies
 Here is an example:
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“The Buddha thinks that desire is the
root cause of suffering. The best way to
extinguish one’s desire is to commit
suicide. Therefore, the Buddha
encourages people to commit suicide.”
Fallacies
 When someone criticizes Buddhism
for encouraging people to commit
suicide, they are attacking a straw
man because the Buddha never says
anything to that effect. The Buddha
does not think that committing suicide
is the best or only way to extinguish
desire.
Fallacies
 Slippery slope arguments are often
put forward to criticize certain social
innovations on the grounds that
allowing them will lead to terrible
results in the long run.
Fallacies
 It usually involves a prediction that
serious, avoidable harm will result if
some new policy or practice is
allowed.
 Once the Pandora’s box is open, there
is no way of preventing the dreadful
consequences.
Fallacies
 A slippery slope argument typically
states that a relatively small first step
leads to a chain of related events and
eventually will result in a disaster of
some sort.
 It usually involves making a claim that
A leads to B, B leads to C, and so on.
And it only gets worse and worse.
Fallacies
 Here is an example:
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“Legalizing soccer gambling will cause
more people to get addicted to
gambling. As the number of
pathological gamblers increases, there
will be more crime and other social
problems, and society will eventually
break down.”
Fallacies
 Whether a ‘slippery slope argument’ is
sound or not depends to a large extent
on the availability of evidence.
 If there is insufficient evidence or
justification, then it can be regarded
as a ‘fallacy’.
Fallacies
 Is the claim that legalizing soccer
gambling leads to social breakdown a
sound argument? Why or why not?