Transcript Moral Doctrines and Moral Theories

Moral Doctrines
and Moral
Theories
Vice and Virtue in Everyday
Life
Chapter 4
The Experience
Machine, Nozick
► What
matters to us, apart from having
pleasant conscious experiences?
► First, we want to actually do certain
things.
► Second, we want to be a certain kind
of people.
The Experience
Machine, Nozick
► Third,
we do not want to be limited to
a man-made reality.
The Judeo-Christian
Tradition
► Genesis:
Creation and Fall
► Exodus: The 10 Commandments and
other moral prescriptions for Israel
► Psalms: Happiness in knowing and
following God
The Judeo-Christian
Tradition
► The
Sermon on the Mount: Human
fulfillment through an inner moral and
spiritual transformation
Morality is Based on
God’s Commands,
Mortimer
► The
Divine Command Theory of Ethics:
God’s will determines what is right and
what is wrong.
► The ethical person is both merciful and
just.
Why Morality Does
Not Depend on
Religion, Arthur
► The
Nature of Morality
► The Nature of Religion
► What is the connection between
morality and religion?
Why Morality Does
Not Depend on
Religion
► Religion
might motivate moral
behavior.
► Perhaps God provides us with moral
knowledge.
► Arthur’s rejection of these 2 claims
Why Morality Does
Not Depend on
Religion
► The
Euthyphro Dilemma
Of Benevolence, Hume
► Hume
believes that all knowledge is
based on experience.
► Morality is grounded in our human
sentiments.
► Benevolence is the key moral
sentiment.
The Ones Who Walk
Away from Omelas,
Le Guine
► Le
Guine’s description of the happiness
of the many in Omelas
► Le Guine’s description of the misery of
the one child
The Ones Who Walk
Away from Omelas
► Why
do some people walk away from
Omelas?
► What implications does this have for
the credibility of utilitarianism?
Utilitarianism, Mill
► Mill’s
Principle of Utility
► Mill’s Definition of Happiness
► There is a difference between the
higher and lower pleasures.
► How do we discover which pleasures
are better?
A Critique of
Utilitarianism,
Williams
► Utilitarianism
sometimes might require
us to do the wrong thing.
► The case of George
► The case of Jim and Pedro
A Critique of
Utilitarianism
► Integrity
and the value of our deeply
held projects pose problems for
utilitarianism.
Good Will, Duty, and
the Categorical
Imperative, Kant
► Kant
believes that only a good will
is unconditionally good.
► The person of good will does her
duty for duty’s sake.
Kant cont’d.
► Kant’s
analysis of the moral worth of
actions: impulse, reason, and duty.
► Hypothetical and Categorical
Imperatives
► The Categorical Imperative: act only
on that maxim whereby thou canst at
the same time will that it should
become a universal law.
The Holocaust and
Moral Philosophy,
Sommers
► Introduction:
religion, morality, and
the Holocaust
► Doing wrong vs. wrongdoing
► The rationalist approach to morality,
e.g. Kant
The Holocaust and
Moral Philosophy
► The
sentimentalist approach to
morality, e.g. Hume
► Moral philosophy should prohibit
cruelty to sentient non-persons.
A Critique of
Kantianism, Taylor
► The
problem with many moral
philosophers is their lack of
appreciation for the pain and sorrow
that exist in the world.
► Such moralists focus on solving
abstract philosophical problems.
A Critique of Kantianism
► Kant
failed to realize that there may
be no true morality.
► Kant’s theory is divorced from
concrete human nature and
experience.
► We must find moral answers that
work.