Transcript ats1371_2015_tutorial_week11_small

ATS1371
Life, Death, and Morality
Semester 1, 2015
Dr Ron Gallagher
[email protected]
Tutorial 12 (that’s all folks)
Virtue Ethics, Ethical Relativism
And the exam
GOOD FRIDAY NO TUTORIAL
DON'T FORGET Weekly Reading Quizzes
(x 10 @ 0.5% bonus each) Mondays 10am, weeks 2-11.
Note: The section you need to read for the quiz is the one indicated for the
week beginning the day the quiz is due. (Not the week just gone past.)
Assessment Summary
Within semester assessment: 60% Exam: 40%
Assessment Task
Short Answer Questions:
AT1.1:(5%), 400 words due Wed 18th March
AT1.2:(10%), 400 words due Wed 15th April
AT1.3:(15%), 600 words due Wed 6th May
AT2: Essay (30%), @1250 words due Wed 20th May
Weekly Reading Quizzes (x 10 @ 0.5% bonus each) Mondays
10am, weeks 2-11.
Examination (40%)
Question from Sample Exam (on Moodle)
Rights, utilitarianism, and trolleys
1. What is the idea of stringency for a right? Illustrate the idea
with two different rights that might be of different stringency.
2. What should a utilitarian think about rights? Do rights really
exist? Would it ever be justified, for a utilitarian, to respect
rights, even if that led to a worse outcome overall?
3. What is Thomson’s preferred account of why it is
permissible to pull the lever in TROLLEY? Does the account
succeed?
4. Utilitarians seem to be committed to some surprising
conclusions about the morality of killing. Illustrate one or two of
these conclusions, and try to explain why the utilitarian has
such a surprising view.
Question from Sample Exam (on Moodle)
Self-defence
5. Describe Michael Otsuka’s position with respect to using violence
in self-defence against innocent persons. Explain his reasons for his
view.
6. “Killing an innocent threat in self-defence is wrong, but
excusable”. Explain this claim, and discuss its plausibility.
7. What is the Hobbesian rationale for a liberty-right to engage in
self-defence? What will the Hobbesian likely think about harming
innocent threats in self-defence?
Speciesism, animals, and equality
8. What is Singer’s “principle of equality”? How would our behaviour
towards animals have to change if we were to adopt this principle?
Why?
9. Does the principle of equality give a good explanation of what is
wrong with racism? Why/why not?
10. For Singer, the morality of taking an animal’s life depends in part
on whether the animal is a person. Explain why this makes a
difference.
Question from Sample Exam (on Moodle)
Abortion
11. “Conventional liberal views on abortion are untenable.
Either we must accept that infanticide is no worse than
abortion, or we must adopt a very conservative anti-abortion
view.” Discuss why a philosopher might think this is true.
12. “Judith Thomson’s violinist case shows only that women
have a right to remove a fetus from their bodies. Therefore her
argument is not a successful defence of abortion.” — Discuss
both of the following: (i) Why might someone say this? (ii) Is
this view correct?
13. Discuss the idea that abortion is wrong because of the
potential properties possessed by the fetus (such as the
potential for personhood, or autonomy, or some other morally
significant property). Does this idea provide a good reason to
think that abortion is morally wrong?
Question from Sample Exam (on Moodle)
Cultural relativism and moral methodology
14. How would you characterise the difference between virtue
ethics and the approaches we have been looking at in most of
the unit?
15. Is there a conflict between the virtue of being a good
parent and the principle of equality? Explain your answer.
16. What is cultural relativism? If cultural relativism is true,
does it have any implications for how we should treat people
from other cultures? In particular, should we be tolerant of
people from other cultures?
17. “If moral relativism is true, then people who appear to
disagree with one another about morals are actually talking
past one another”. Explain this claim. Is this a good objection
to moral relativism?
Cultural relativism and moral methodology
14. How would you characterise the difference between virtue
ethics and the approaches we have been looking at in most of
the unit?
15. Is there a conflict between the virtue of being a good
parent and the principle of equality? Explain your answer.
3 Key Features
Consequentialism and rights-based theories
share these features:
 1. That morality requires impartiality (in the
POE sense)
 2. They either focus on what kind of action
is in question or the effects of the action in
particular circumstances (e.g., killing,
giving to charity, etc.).
 3. These theories will tend to explain
virtues--good character traits--partly in
terms of good actions/good effects.
Virtue ethics challenges these assumptions
Possessing a Virtue/Vice?
Question: Suppose two women go shopping. Both have
some money leftover due to certain items being on special.
Because of this they both end up giving the leftover money
to a homeless man. Do they both display the virtue of
generosity?
Possessing Virtue: To have a virtue is to have a…
1. Stable traits of character or mind,
• Generous people vs generous acts
2. Typically involving dispositions to think, feel, and act in
certain ways in certain circumstances,
• If one dislikes being generous, or
• If one doesn’t think the generosity of an action counts in favor of
doing it, or
• If one wouldn’t regularly choose to act generously when there is
occasion to do so (and no good reason to refrain),
• Then….
Person Evaluation vs Act Evaluation
–
Virtues are the primary basis for judging the overall moral
goodness or worth of persons (as opposed to actions).
16. What is cultural relativism? If cultural relativism is true, does it
have any implications for how we should treat people from other
cultures? In particular, should we be tolerant of people from other
cultures?
Cultural relativism holds that ethical values vary from society to
society and that the basis for moral judgements lies in these
social cultural views.
Individual relativism holds that ethical values are the expression
of the moral outlook of the individual.
A cultural relativist can hold that tolerance is good only insofar as
tolerance is already a virtue in a given society. There is no reason
for intolerant societies to change.
WHAT IS RELATIVE TRUTH?
KEY TEST FOR RELATIVISM:
The truth value of the sentence can change, relative
to
the context in which it is uttered.
AN ARGUMENT FOR CULTURAL
RELATIVISM
(P) Different cultures have different moral beliefs
and moral practices.
Therefore
(CR) All value judgements, all statements of right
and wrong, are true or false relative to one’s
culture.
RESPONSES TO THE ARGUMENT
(1)
1. Cultural practice does not necessarily
determine moral fact. For example, many of us
think that some cultures were morally misguided.
2. Even if cultural practices determine some
moral facts, there is still the possibility that some
moral truths are absolute.
17. “If moral relativism is true, then people who appear to
disagree with one another about morals are actually talking past
one another”. Explain this claim. Is this a good objection to moral
relativism?
An individual relativist has no reason to listen to the different
views and arguments of others, for there is no reason to think
such views are objectively superior.
Problem for individual relativism
Individual relativism suggests morality is relative to my
perspective as an individual. But what if I am inwardly conflicted
on a moral question? Either I’m doing something wrong—which
is hard to reconcile with individual relativism—or individual
relativism cannot tell me what I ought to believe
MORAL DISAGREEMENT
Suppose I am arguing with someone from another
culture about the morality of drinking alcohol.
ME: Drinking alcohol is not immoral.
STRANGER: You are wrong! Drinking alcohol is
highly immoral.
How does this dispute translate into culturally
relative language?
MORAL DISAGREEMENT
ME: “Drinking alcohol is not immoral in my culture”.
STRANGER: “You are wrong! Drinking alcohol is highly
immoral in my culture”.
This makes what the Stranger is saying look silly. We are not
disagreeing at all. Compare:
“There are legal pubs in Melbourne”.
“You are wrong! There are no legal pubs in Tehran”.
The difference between individual and cultural relativism: both
views hold there is not objective right and wrong .
Cultural relativism holds that ethical values vary from society to
society and that the basis for moral judgements lies in these social
cultural views.
Individual relativism holds that ethical values are the expression of
the moral outlook of the individual.
Problems for cultural Relativism
With which group should my views coincide? My extended family,
state, culture etc? Different groups to which I belong can morally
disagree.
If society changes its views, why should this change morality? If
52 percent support a war but later only 48 percent do, why should
this change the war’s claim to justice?
Problem for both cultural and individual relativism
Both seem to imply that relativism is more tolerant than
objectivism, but in neither case is this true. A cultural relativist can
hold that tolerance is good only insofar as tolerance is already a
virtue in a given society. There is no reason for intolerant societies
to change. Similarly, an individual relativist has no reason to listen
to the different views and arguments of others, for there is no
reason to think such views are objectively superior.
Problem for individual relativism
Individual relativism suggests morality is relative to my perspective
as an individual. But what if I am inwardly conflicted on a moral
question? Either I’m doing something wrong—which is hard to
reconcile with individual relativism—or individual relativism cannot
tell me what I ought to believe