1. Ethics: An Overview Normative Ethics – Ethical Theory: General Principles that determine what is right or wrong – Applied Ethics: Study of specific ethical issues Metaethics: Questions about the nature of ethics

2. Metaethics: Moral Antirealism Antirealism about X: X doesn't exist. Moral Antirealism: There is no objective morality. Challenges come from three sources - Existentialism - Empiricism - Social Sciences

3. Existentialism: Jean Paul Sartre No moral formula can resolve a moral dilemma. Young man and the French military example Freedom trumps reason

4. Existentialism: Friedrich Nietzsche Master Morality versus Slave Morality Will to Power Darwinian roots?

5. Empiricism Hume Fact/Value Distinction: one cannot get a “should” from an “is.” G.E. Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy – The “open question” argument The Logical Positivists: synthetic statements that are not scientifically testable are gibberish. – Emotivism: moral claims are just expressions of emotion.

6. Cultural(Moral) Relativism There is no objective morality because morality varies from culture to culture. Ruth Benedict: “Good” = “Normal” – The Kwakiutl – Homosexuality Cultural relativism is often taught as an alternative to cultural colonialism and ethnocentrism.

7. Response to Relativism 1. Questions about what really is right or wrong are not within the domain of social science. - Can we really identify “good” with “normal?” 2. James Rachels: Relativism has three implausible implications One can’t judge another culture’s moral practice. One can't judge one’s own culture’s moral practices. Moral progress is impossible. 3. Cultural Relativism is helpful in that it helps combat ethnocentrism, but does one need to go so far to do this?

8. Why be Moral?  If you had a ring that made you invisible, what would you do?

9. Why be moral?  Plato’s Republic: (A dialog between Socrates and Glaucon)  Three kinds of good  Good in itself  Good because of consequences  Both good in itself and for consequences  Glaucon: Justice on the street 1. It’s good to do injustice 2. It’s bad to have injustice done to you 3. The bad of having injustice done to you is greater than the good of doing injustice, so.. 4. We agree to do neither 5. But still, it’s better to be able to do injustice without having it done to you. – He wants to know what justice is, and what value it has just in itself

10. Socrates' Response  Justice is arrived at by process of elimination from the four main Greek values (wisdom, courage, self-control, justice):  Virtues of the parts of the city, and soul (see board). What’s left over? Justice. Justice is each part functioning properly  Justice is the same thing as health, both of the city, and of the soul.

11. Egoism  Egoism  Psychological Egoism: all human acts are ultimately selfish  Moral Egoism: all human acts should be selfish  Hobbes’ Leviathan  Everyone is selfish, and morality is just a contract we make with a tyrant to keep order, so that life is not “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

12. Hedonism  Psychological versus moral  We should seek pleasure and avoid pain.  Epicurus: held most of the ancient Greek virtues, saw them as prudential.

13. Utilitarianism (a form of Consequentialism) 1. We should act so that the most people receive the most pleasure. 2. Bentham versus Mill - quality versus quantity of pleasure 3. Objections to utilitarianism - motivation? - Sam example: act versus rule utilitarianism

14. Deontological Ethics  Immanuel Kant  Duty Oriented  Categorical imperative: Two versions: 1. Act only according to principles that you could want everyone to follow. 2. Treat others always as ends, and never as means only.

15. Intuitionism: W.D. Ross Accepts that ethics can't be known through science Insists that there are knowable moral truths through intuition Prima Facie duties: 1. Non-maleficence 2. Promote greater good 3. Reparation 4. Fidelity 5. Gratitude