Transcript PHIL 1115 Introduction to Philosophy

Some announcements….
Web page is up.
ursulastange.com (click on my daughter’s face)
 Click on Courses
 Click on PHIL 1115

Check the blog and the lecture readings….
Waking Life
Written and directed by
Richard Linklater (2001)
Links online…..
Waking Life at IMDb
 Waking Life at Philosophical Films
 Waking Life at Wikipedia
 Waking Life: a transcript

Because I will be out of the country on
February 24th .....
Due date: March 3 (in class)

"What shall we do and how shall we live?
According to Plato and Tolstoy and other reliable
observers, this is our most important question!
We should not trust any philosophy that makes
this question appear foolish."
[Peter Singer, The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory, 94 Yale L. J. 1, 3 (1984)]
Do the ends justify the means?
Do the ends justify the means?
 Hiding some truth about your past helps
you get elected…and you do great things
for your country!
 Do the ends justify the means?
 Murdering my sister is the means to a
better inheritance…
 Do the ends justify the means?
Kant and the Inquiring Murderer…

Where is your friend…
I want to kill him.

What to say?

The truth….
18th Century upheavals…
David Hume

Perhaps we are
somehow hard-wired
to approve of things
that help not only
ourselves, but also
society…
Jeremy Bentham
 Reading Hume
made me feel as
though “scales
had fallen from
my eyes".
Jeremy Bentham
 Morality is
about making
the world as
happy as
possible
JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832)

“The greatest
good for the
greatest
number.”

“Hedonic
Calculus”
The Utilitarian Calculus
Bentham introduced criteria for
measuring pleasure and pain….
Intensity
 Duration
 Certainty (or uncertainty)
 Nearness (or farness)

JEREMY BENTHAM
•
•
“Nature has placed
mankind under the
governance of two
sovereign masters, pain
and pleasure.
It is for them alone to
point out what we ought
to do as well as to
determine what we shall
do. ”

"Utilitarians believe that the
sole factor in determining an
action’s morality is the balance
of social good vs. social evil.

Appeals to moral intuitions,
social traditions or God’s
wishes are not relevant."
Bentham’s principle of utility:

"the greatest
happiness of the
greatest number"

suggested the
“Hedonic Calculus” as
a standard for judging
laws and social
institutions

Bentham’s
mummy has a
wax head.

His real head….
J. S. Mill (1806-1873)

“Actions are right in
proportion as they tend to
promote happiness; wrong
as they tend to produce the
reverse of happiness.”
J. S. Mill (1806-1873)

Not merely the quantity
of pleasure, but the
quality of happiness had
to be calculated.

Some pleasures are better
than others…
J. S. Mill (1806-1873)

Better to be Aristotle dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied…Mill
But...what is happiness?
Bentham’s answer:

“Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of
equal value with the arts and sciences of music
and poetry.”
J. S. Mill’s correction:

He added the quality of pleasures to the
quantity
Utilitarian Beliefs:

Moral rules are merely rules of thumb

The point is to achieve the greatest good for
the greatest number

Utilitarianism is a Consequentialist Theory

Most controversial
ethicist writing today…
Animal rights
 Euthanasia
 Charity

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-colbert-report/interviews-a-z/#clip150465
Nietzsche

Like Aristotle,
Nietzsche saw the
concept of duty (slave
morality) as necessary
and fit for those who
could not achieve the
higher morality of
excellence.
Aristotle’s Virtue Theory:

The elite are to be
guided by their will to
excellence

The non-elite by their
sense of duty

Illustration from the
Nurnberg Chronicle 15thC.
EXISTENTIALISM…

argues that as we make moral choices, we
build our morality – even build universal
morality.
…but…

“…the individual is the primary concern of
existentialists, personal morality and ethics
supersede social morality and popular
ethics.”
Moral Theories
Moral Skepticism (Protagoras)
 Moral Absolutism (Plato)
 Virtue Theory (Aristotle)
 Divine Command Theory (Christianity)
 Deontology (Kant)
 Utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill)
 Ethics of Care (Carol Gilligan and Feminism)


Would it be worth the life of one innocent
child to free the world from, say, AIDS?

How does literature aid our moral thinking?

What would you do – and why?

Adapted from http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2007/03/ethics-in-ones-who-walk-awayfrom.html
Theories of morality: We should be good because…

it will make living together easier (Hobbes and Locke)

it will increase general well-being (Bentham and Mill)

it’s the right thing (Kant)

it makes us better people (Virtue Theory)

it supports our human relationships (Ethics of Care)
Theories of morality: How to resolve moral dilemmas?

Whose rights matter most?

Which rights trump others?

What about the lesser of two evils?

Do the ends justify the means?

…….
The Dream of Utilitarianism:
Bringing Scientific Certainty to Ethics

"What shall we do and how shall we live?
According to Plato and Tolstoy and other reliable
observers, this is our most important question!
We should not trust any philosophy that makes
this question appear foolish."
[Peter Singer, The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory, 94 Yale L. J. 1, 3 (1984)]
Mercy killing or murder?

12 year old Tracy Latimer,
killed by her father in 1993

Quadraplegic and severely
mentally disabled, she
functioned at the level of a
three-month old and was in
constant pain
Question.....

Is it appropriate to describe
a Nazi soldier who fought
zealously for Hitler as
‘courageous’?
Trust good character more
than promises.
2. Do not speak falsely.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods
3. Do good things.
before me.
4. Do not be hasty in making
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee
friends, but do not abandon
any graven image.
them once made.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of 5. Learn to obey before you
the Lord thy God in vain.
command.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to
6. When giving advice, do not
keep it holy.
recommend what is most
5. Honour thy father and thy
pleasing, but what is most
mother.
useful.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Make reason your supreme
commander.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Do not associate with people
8. Thou shalt not steal.
who do bad things.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness
9. Honor the gods.
against thy neighbour.
10. Have regard for your parents.
10. Thou shalt not covet.
The 10 Commandments of God…
and Solon…
1.
Bertrand Russell’s 10 commandments :
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the
evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition... endeavour to overcome it by argument and
not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary
authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do, the
opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every "opinion" now accepted was
once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you
value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the
later.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient when you try to
conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise,
for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
Attendance Question…