Transcript Morality and Social Policy

Morality and
Social Policy
Vice and Virtue in Everyday
Life
Chapter 7
Famine, Affluence,
and Morality, Singer
► (1)
Suffering and death from a lack of
food, shelter, and medical care are
bad.
► (2) If we can prevent something bad
from happening without sacrificing
something of comparable moral worth,
we ought to do it.
Singer
► (3)
We can prevent such suffering and
death by giving to famine relief.
► (C) We ought to give to famine relief.
Singer
► Proximity
and distance don’t matter.
► Does the argument have an absurd
consequence?
► The argument calls for a change in our
moral categories.
World Hunger and
Moral Obligation: The
Case Against Singer,
Arthur
► Arthur calls into question Singer’s
“greater moral evil rule”.
► Rights and desert also carry moral
weight.
Arthur
►A
moral code that is rational to
support must be practical.
For God’s Sake,
Please Stop the Aid!,
Shikwati
► Aid
is ineffective, and in fact harmful.
► Aid encourages poverty, dependence,
and indebtedness.
Shikwati
► African
farmers and small businesses
suffer, because they lose the market
for their products.
► Aid must have accountability, because
of corruption.
An Almost Absolute
Value in History,
Noonan
► The
most fundamental question in the
abortion debate is, “How do you
determine the humanity of a being?”
► Noonan’s criterion: if you are
conceived by human parents, then you
are human.
Noonan
► Viability
is a faulty criterion.
► The claim that humanity depends on
formation by experience fails to justify
abortion.
► An appeal to the sentiments of adults
is also faulty.
► The criterion of social visibility also
fails.
On the Moral and
Legal Status of
Abortion, Warren
► There
is a fallacy in the standard antiabortion argument.
► The term “human” has a genetic sense
and a moral sense.
Warren
► Genetic
humanity is not sufficient for
moral humanity.
► Traits that are central to moral
personhood: consciousness,
reasoning, self-motivated activity,
capacity to communicate, and the
presence of a self-concept.
Warren
►A
being that satisfies none of these
traits is not a person.
► The rights of actual persons always
outweigh the rights of potential
persons.
► Infanticide
A Defense of
Abortion, Thomson
► Abortion
may still be permissible, even
granting that a fetus is a person at
conception, with the right to life.
► Imagine the case of the famous
unconscious violinist.
Thomson
► My
having a right to life does not
entail that others must do whatever it
takes to sustain my life.
► The case of the people-seeds
► The Good Samaritan and the Minimally
Decent Samaritan
► In
Why Abortion is
Immoral, Marquis
order to resolve the abortion
controversy, we need a theoretical
account of the wrongness of killing.
► It is wrong to kill adult human beings
because it deprives them of a future of
value.
Marquis
► Marquis
offers 4 points in support of
this account of the wrongness of
killing.
► Fetuses have a future of value, a
future like ours.
► Given this, abortion is usually
seriously morally wrong.
► Is contraception also wrong?
On Duties to Animals, Kant
► Direct
vs. Indirect Duties
► We have no direct duties to animals,
they exist merely as means to an end
– man.
► We have indirect duties to animals,
because this inclines us to also treat
other human beings well.
A Moral Defense of
Vegetarianism, Rachels
► Rachels
rejects Kant’s views regarding the
ethics of cruelty to animals.
► Cruelty to animals is wrong because of its
direct effects on the animals.
► There is an incredible amount of animal
suffering caused by how we raise and
slaughter animals.
► This treatment is standard practice; it is not
out of the ordinary.
► We should not participate in such an
immoral social practice.
Down on the Factory Farm,
Singer
► The
ideal farm life of animals is almost
completely mythical.
► Singer gives a detailed description of
the suffering and maltreatment of
animals in factory farms.
► The reasons for these practices do not
justify them.
The Case for Affirmative Action,
Barbara Bergman
► Do
the good effects of affirmative action
outweigh the bad?
► The presence of hostility in the workplace
► Affirmative action and the laziness objection
► Quantitative study on the feelings of
African-Americans
► Affirmative action and the production of
anger objection
What’s Wrong with Affirmative
Action?, Shelby Steele
► Affirmative
action appears to be reformist,
corrective, even redemptive.
► Good intentions don’t outweigh negative
effects.
 Racial development not equivalent to racial
representation
 Demoralization and self-doubt
 Exploitation of victimization
 Fosters an illusion