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CONSIDER:
Scenario: The Runaway Trolley (pg. 21)
You are a driver of a trolley which has lost
control and is going 60 mph down the track.
You see 5 workers ahead, but you can’t stop. If
you continue down the track, you will kill all 5
workers (no ands, ifs, or buts about it). You
notice a side track ahead as well, and if you turn
the trolley on to the track you will save the 5
workers, but there is also one worker on that
track who you will also kill.
What do you do? Why?
CONSIDER AN
ALTERNATIVE
The trolley is still hurtling towards the five
workers on the track. This time, you are an
on-looker watching from a bridge. You
happen to be standing next to a heavy set
man who you know that if you were to push
him onto the tracks, he would knock the
trolley off of the track, and you would save
the five workers. The man would die.
What do you do?
CONSIDER:
#1: You’re a doctor and six men show up
in the ER (horrible trolley accident). One
is critical and five are severe. You could
work all day and save the one or work all
day and save the five. Who do you save?
Why?
#2: You’re a doctor and five men are
need of transplants, but you have no
organs. You remember that there is a
healthy patient in the room next door.
Do you go in and take all of his organs
and save the five men?
Why or why not?
THE PRINCIPLES
WHICH GUIDE YOU
You have begun to explore the principles which guide your actions:
right and wrong.
We can define these principles as morality or ethics: the philosophy
for deciding right and wrong.
In another context, we could define it as “just” decision making or
justice.
If we are going to explore social, political, and economic institutions
and systems, we need to be able to measure them. We will measure
the success of these institutions by determining if they are just.
JUSTICE
HOW DO WE MEASURE WHAT IS JUST?
WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG?
ASSESSMENTS
Two page essay:
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You must apply the concepts we are discussing in the
Justice Unit to another unit: Education, Media, or
Healthcare (unless we have discussed otherwise).
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You must decide if the current system is just or not just
using one of the principles discussed in this unit as well
as the details discussed in that unit.
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Follow the guidelines for writing that are on the website.
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50 points
MORAL REASONING
1) Consequentialist: locates morality in the consequence of an
action.
“Morality of an action totally depends on the consequences it
brings about; the right thing to do is whatever will produce the best
state of affairs.”
2) Categorical: locates morality in certain duties and rights
(reasons of the intrinsic value of the act itself).
-
- “Certain duties and rights should command our respect, for reasons
independent of the social consequence.”
There are numerous philosophers which have tackled these two
lines of reasoning, and we will explore these philosophical thoughts
(briefly) to try to determine the moral reasoning that best defines
Justice.
JUSTICE: THREE
COMPONENTS
How should society be organized? (class, laws, economic
systems)
What should our laws be?
• At the heart of these questions is justice. What is
justice?
• There are three components or ideas that must be
considered:
1) Maximizing Welfare
2) Respecting Freedom
3) Promoting Virtue (certain characteristics/values that a
society needs to cultivate in order to be a good or the
best society)
CONSIDER: PRICE
GOUGING
Hurricane Charley hits Florida. There is over a billion dollars
worth of damage; homes are destroyed; and basic utilities aren’t
functioning.
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Prices begin to increase:
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- Hotel rents increase from $40/night to $160/night.
- Bottles of water
- Bags of ice
- Generators ($250 to $2000)
- Roofers
Is there anything wrong with price gouging?
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Should there be a law to restrict price gouging?
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Is this just following basic principles of supply and demand?
ARGUMENTS
The unfettered Market Place:
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Free Markets maximize freedom or choice and economic freedom.
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While some may feel that it is unfair, to leave the Markets unregulated
is in the best economic interest of the population (promotes for the
General Welfare).
Regulate Price Gouging:
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Not in the best welfare because of the burden those prices place upon
people who have been placed in extraordinary circumstances of no
fault of their own.
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No burden to the rich, but a major burden to the middle and lower
economic brackets.
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Hurricane is a forced circumstance. This is not a voluntary exchange,
and therefore, these aren’t free markets.
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Is this situational greed? Is this a virtuous act? A society that takes
advantage of people in times of crisis for financial gain is not virtuous.
A good society should then discourage greed.
VIRTUE
Who has the right to determine if greed is a vice? Is it not
dangerous to impose such judgments about virtue through
law?
A philosophical question: Should society seek to promote
the virtue of its citizens through law? Or should law be
neutral toward competing conceptions of virtue so that
citizens can be free to choose for themselves the best way to
live?
TRADITIONAL
(CLASSICAL) V. LIBERAL
Determining a just society usually starts with either promoting virtue or
freedom, and therefore, the systems we design must consider these
characteristics.
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Often, the traditional (classical) view of society believes in the
promotion of virtue.
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With the outset of democracy and liberal beliefs, there is a greater
push for choice and freedom.
To ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we
prize- income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities,
offices and honors. A just society distributes these things in the right
way…but what are people due?
- Welfare, freedom, and virtue?
UTILITARIANISM
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), an English moral philosopher founded
the doctrine of utilitarianism.
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The highest principle of morality is to maximize happiness, the
overall balance of pleasure and pain.
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Citizens and legislators should ask: If we add up all the benefits of
a policy and subtract all the costs, will it produce more happiness
that the alternative? (34)
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People may believe in certain absolute rights and duties; but they
would have no basis for defending these duties or rights unless
they believed that respecting them would maximize human
happiness.
Objections?
OBJECTIONS: RIGHTS
Individual Rights: In the name of meeting the sum of satisfaction, we
trample individual people and rights.
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Example: Throwing Christians to lions- Do the Christians’ rights mean
anything in the comparison of the ecstasy of the crowd of on-lookers?
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Example: Torture for information?
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Example: City of Happiness
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Omelas is a city of happiness and civic celebration, a place without
kings or slaves, without advertisements or a stock exchange, a place
without an atomic bomb. But there is one catch. In basement under
one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, there is a room. It has
one locked door, and no window. And in this room sits a child who is
feeble-minded, malnourished, and neglected. “They all know it is there,
all the people of Omelas…They all know that is has to be there…They
all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the
tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children….even the
abundance of their harvest depend wholly on this child’s abominable
misery…If the child were brought out into the sunlight of the vile place, if
it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing,
indeed, but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and
beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those
are the terms.”
OBJECTIONS: COMMON
CURRENCY OF VALUE
Utilitarianism is based on a measurement, but there is not a
common measurement/currency to determine utility. There is
no standard scale of value.
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Since there is no common scale, how can it be a common
principle?
LIBERTARIANISM
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Favor unfettered markets and oppose government regulations, not
in the name of economic efficiency, but in the name of human
freedom.
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The right to do whatever we want with the things we own, provided
we respect other people’s rights to do the same.
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Self-ownership
Call for minimal state:
1) No paternalism: the right of the individual to decide what risks to
assume (no seatbelt laws or motorcycle helmet laws).
2) No Morals Legislation: oppose using the coercive force of law to
promote notions of virtue or to express the moral convictions of
the majority.
3) No redistribution of income and wealth: no one’s wealth should
be redistributed by the government, but should be left up to the
individual.
FREE MARKET PHILOSOPHY:
ROBERT NOVICK
“Only a minimal state, limited to enforcing contracts and
protecting people against force, theft, and fraud, is justified.
Any more extensive state violates persons’ rights not to be
forced to do certain things, and is unjustified.” (62)
Taxation:
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The moral stakes go beyond money- It is not about the
money, but about the lack of freedom.
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Taxation of earnings from labor is par with forced labor.
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Thoughts?
IMMANUEL KANT(REALLY TOUGH STUFF)
If you believe in universal rights, you probably are not a utilitarian.
Kant argues that rights depend on the idea that we are rational beings,
worthy of dignity and respect. Morality is about respecting persons
as ends in themselves (endeavor to further the ends of others).
Kant rejects utilitarianism because it leaves rights vulnerable. Just
because something gives people pleasure doesn’t make it right. Just
because the majority, however big, favors a certain law, however
intensely, does not make the law just.
KANT: ORIGINS OF MORALITY
Kant believes that we can reason our way to the moral “law.” He
believes that this stems from our capacity to reason which stems
from our capacity for freedom.
1) When we seek pleasure, we are not acting freely, but are slaves
to desires and appetites.
2) To act freely, according to Kant, is to act autonomously which is
to act according “to a law that I give myself.”
3) It is the opposite of acting heteronomously (a word invented by
Kant)- to act according to determinations given outside of me.
1) Example: If I fall from the Empire State Building, my movement
towards the earth is not of my own, but my motion is governed by
the law of gravity. If I were to land on somebody and kill them, I
wouldn’t be held morally responsible because I was not acting
freely.
4) To act freely than is not to choose the best means to a given end,
but it is to choose an end itself, for its own sake.
KANT: MORALITY
The moral worth of an action consists not in the
consequences which come from it, but the intention from
which the act is done.
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Example: an inexperienced shopper, a kid, goes into a
grocery to buy a loaf of bread. The grocer could
overcharge the child for the bread and the child would not
know. But the shopkeeper knows that if word got out, it
would hurt sales so he is honest and sells the bread at the
proper price. Kant would say that this act is immoral.
Why?
Why:
Because the shopkeeper’s intention behind his action was for
the wrong reason (selfish), the action was itself immoral. The
law that governed him was immoral.
Universal laws or maxims should govern us, but we are free to
decide these universal maxims. “Act only on that maxim
whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law.”
“Our legislators should frame his/her laws in such a way that
they could have been produced by the united will of the whole
nation.” – This is the test of the rightfulness of every public
law.
JOHN RAWLS: THEORY OF
JUSTICE (1971)
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Consider: suppose that when we gather to choose the principles that
govern us, we don’t know where we will wind up in society. Imagine
that we choose behind a “veil of ignorance” that temporarily prevents
us from knowing anything about who in particular we are. We don’t
know our class, or gender, race or ethnicity, our political opinions or
religious convictions. Nor do we know our advantages or
disadvantages- whether we are healthy or frail, highly educated or a
high school dropout, born to a supportive family or broken one. If no
one knew any of these things, we would choose, in effect, from an
“original position of equality.” Since no one would have a superior
bargaining position, the principles we would agree to would be just.
(You may end up being Bill Gates, but you may end up being a guy
sleeping in the street.
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“A hypothetical agreement in an original position of equality.” – this is
what should guide our social contract or constitution.
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If I am negotiating with someone who has greater knowledge than I
do, the contract is not just, but if we are identically situated and come
from a place of equality, then we have a just and moral contract.
RAWLS ON JUSTICE
Two principles:
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First- [It should] Provides equal basic liberties for all
citizens such as freedom of speech and religion.
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[Assumes that people would not take risks from an original
position of equality]
Second- Concern for the economic and social wellbeing of
all.
Not knowing where we will enter society after the contract
is created would force us to consider “the difference
principle”- only those social and economic inequalities are
permitted that work to the benefit of the least advantaged
members of society.
ARISTOTLE
Central to Aristotle’s political philosophy are two major ideas:
1) Justice is teleological. Defining rights requires us to figure out
the telos (the purpose, end, or essential nature) of the social
practice in question.
2) Justice is honorific. To reason about the telos of a practice- or
argue about it- is, at least in part, to reason or argue about the
virtues it should honor and reward.
Justice means giving people what they deserve, giving each
person his or her due.
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Justice discriminates according to merit.
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Who should get the best flutes? The flute players
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In order to determine the just distribution of a good, we have to
inquire into the telos of purpose of the good being distributed
through teleological reasoning.
For Aristotle, the primary purpose of law is to cultivate the habits
that lead to good character (“the good life”).
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If we don’t live in a political community, we are primarily beasts
or animals.
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Once in a body politic, we are then human.
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To be the best humans (and live the richest lives), we must
determine what will bring about the best community and
political body. Which virtues will define us?
COMMUNITY AND
JUSTICE
Alasdair MacIntyre- After Virtue
How is it possible to acknowledge the moral weight of community while
still giving scope to human freedom?
“I can only answer the question ‘what am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior
question ‘of what story or stories do I myself a part?’”
Teleology and unpredictability can coexist. There does not need to be
one universal principle or virtue that all humans should live by, but one
defined by each individual community.
“We all approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social
identity. I am someone’s son or daughter, cousin or uncle; I am a citizen
of this or that city, of this or that guild or profession; I belong to this clan,
this tribe, this nation. Hence what is good for me has to be the good for
one who inhabits these roles. As such, I inherit from the past my family,
my city, my tribe, my nation, a variety of debts, inheritances, rightful
expectations and obligations. These constitute the given of my life, my
moral starting point. This is in part what gives my own life its moral
particularity.”
ARE WE OBLIGATED TO
OUR COMMUNITY (TO
ONE ANOTHER)?
Liberal justice would argue “no.”
Liberal justice requires that we respect people’s rights, not that we
advance their good. Whether we concern ourselves with other people
depends on whether, and with whom, we have agreed to do so (consent is
required for obligation).
So…the average citizen has no special obligation to his/her fellow citizens
beyond not acting unjust.
Example: Suppose to children our drowning, and you have time to save
only one. One child is your child, and the other is the child of a stranger?
Is it wrong to choose your child over the other?
There is than an assumed special responsibility to the welfare of your
own child.
Can we then assume that we have obligations to some over others based
off of some “obligation of solidarity?”
This then comes back to the idea that we have duties and obligations to
others in our communities.
MANDEL’S FINAL
THOUGHTS
Three approaches to justice:
1) maximize utility or welfare
2) respect the freedom of choice
3) cultivating virtue and reasoning about the common good.
Mandel would argue that:
“To achieve a just society, we have to reason together about the
meaning of the good life, and create a public culture hospitable to the
disagreements that inevitably arise.”
“A politics of moral engagement is not only a more inspiring ideal than
a politics of avoidance. It is also a more promising basis for a just
society.”