Transcript Ethics for the Anthropocene

Ethics for the Anthropocene?
Jonas, Elliott, Utilitarianism
How Ethical Reasoning Works
The elements of a methodology
• Intuitions: our initial and then refined/defended
moral feelings. Why intuitionism won’t work—but
is relevant.
• Principles: a brief statement of criteria of choice..
• Concepts/theoretical structure: that which
supports the principles and refines/rejects the
intuitions.
• Feasibility: can it work?
• 1-4 and the need for independence.
Ethics and science: methodological
similarities/evolution
• Observations.
• The theory of evolution: explaining the
observations.
• The constructs that support the theory.
• How can evolution work? Reference to
the fundamental laws of physics. Sunlight,
DNA, etc. etc, and the entropy law.
How do we judge and
narrative(s) and components?
•
•
•
•
Goals of a narrative are emergent from it.
Authority. 10 commandments.
Responsiveness. UN/human rights.
Functional: Reproduction of genes;
reproduction of memes.
• Western emancipation narrative—
successful? So far? Ever?
How is the moral community to
be bounded? Or is it?
• Suffering
• Being a member of our group. Race,
gender, education, part of the story….
• Being an adversary: War. Enemy/enemy.
• Extension
• Holding a right.
• The great chain of being?
• Is the Universe the community?
Ethics (Jonas)
The Imperative of
Responsibility
Is Western Ethics Obsolete?
The Altered Nature of Human
Action
Core Ethics of the Judeo-Christian
Tradition
• The ten commandments: 1) Love God; 2)
Graven images forbidden; 3) Do not take the
name of the Lord in vain; 4) Remember the
Sabbath; 5) Honor your father and your mother;
6) Do not kill; 7) Do not commit adultery; 8) Do
not steal; 9) Do not bear false witness; 10) Do
not covet.
• The two commandments: 1) Love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all
your might; and 2) love your neighbor as
yourself.
The Lord’s Prayer
The Perspective of Antiquity
• The Human Impact is Small and
Insignificant Seen in the Context of the
Natural World
• The city was the place where humans
dwelt and it circumscribed the limits of the
moral community
Previous Ethics (mainstream)
• Relationship to the natural world is
ethically neutral.
• All ethics is human to human.
• Where we live and who we are is not the
object of techne.
• Proximity in time and space is assumed.
• No special knowledge is required.
New Dimensions of Responsibility
• The vulnerability of Nature.
• New knowledge requirements: complex
and long term.
• The new (in my view arrogant) question of
whether nature herself has moral standing.
Technology
• The rise of the technological imperative—the
human self becomes subordinate to this
imperative. The human is the OBJECT of the
technology: extension of life; behavior control;
and genetics.
• The universal city.
• The imperative of responsibility for the
continuation of humanity.
• Representative governance and the appeal to
interests.
The ethical vacuum
• The need to restore the sacred
• New powers needed
• And they must be scaled to the problems.
Is Western Ethics Wrong?
Elliott?
Does EFW Fill the Bill?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Natural Selection and Morals (14-18)
The Environmental Principle (18-9)
Character of Western Ethics (24-26)
Assumptions of Western Ethics (26-7)
Equality (28-30)
Implications of moving from infinite and
finite Worlds. (32-3)
Justification
• Rationalism: universal; empirical (38-51)
• Perils of duty to assist: over reaching
obligations, consequences.
• Western ethics self-destructive. (60-1)
• The naturalistic fallacy as a fallacy (71-2)
• The shortcomings of personal ethics.
Cannot apply under conditions of scarcity;
irrelevant to institutions; disaster. (81-92)
Further Problems with Western
Ethical Narrative.
• Human rights:
• Exogenous rescue
• Justice as a property of the Universe….
Types of Ethical Theories
Elliott’s Oversights
• Types: 1) Deontological—Kantian—rights;
2) Apodictic 10 commandments; 3)
Consequentalist-Bentham, JS Mill; 4)
Communitarian—Aristotle, Michael
Sandel.
Is Pleasure the Measure?
Can Utilitarianism Serve as a
Foundation for Environmental
Policy?
John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873)
www.island-of-freedom.com/MILL.HTM
The need for one principle
The Principle of Utility
“Actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness, wrong as
they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness.”
What is happiness?
“By happiness is intended pleasure,
and the absence of pain; by
unhappiness, pain, and the privation
of pleasure.”
How much happiness
Greatest happiness for the greatest
number.
Happiness for whom?
For all, presumably.
Comparing Happiness
The comparison of utilities
Cardinal
Www.challengeBP.com
The comparison of utilities
Ordinal
Soft
http://www.tiemaster.com/
Hard
Which Happiness?
Higher/ lower pleasures
http://www.greekciv.pdx.edu/phil
osophy/socrates/ander.htm
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/SWIN
E/
Rembrandt, Aristotle
Contemplating a Bust of Homer
(1653)
Renoir, The Boating Party (1880-1)
Proving Utilitarianism
José Carlo González
www.photo.net
Motivations for Utilitarianism
Keeping One Principle
• 1. The boss is always right.
• 2. The boss is sometimes wrong.
• 3. When I doubt see rule #1.
Justice: justice as satisfaction
http://www.theelectricchair.com/rituals.htm
Weighing Happiness
All count equally.
Utilitarian Schools
• Classical (Bentham and Mill)
• Free-market (Pacific Res. Inst, Fraser Inst,
Coase)
• Corrected-market (Neo-Cl econ)
• Bureaucratic (Pinchot/US Can. For. Services)
• Universal (Singer)
• Cost/benefit analysis.(Kaldor-Hicks rule)
Paradoxes/Problems with
Utilitarianism
• Why only humans?
• One principle? Greatest happiness,
greatest number, longest time?
• Proof?
• Pro-natalist?
• Requires too little(econ )too much-Jesus?
• Mechanical—fixed rule?
• The paradox of the future? Discounting?