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Contemporary Moral Problems

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1 Contemporary Moral Problems
M-F12:00-1:00SAV 264 Instructor: Benjamin Hole Office Hours: everyday after class

2 Agenda Clicker Quiz Kant

3 Schedule Today Next week Pick up with the Kant
Pick up on objections to the universal law formulation Discuss Humanity and Kingdom of Ends formulations This discussion will likely bleed into next week Pick up with the Kant Let’s discuss Mappes before the Vatican and Corvino

4 Please set your Turning Technology Clicker to channel 41
Press “Ch”, then “41”, then “Ch”

5 Kant claims that the dictates of morality are:
always mere means to ends in themselves. hypothetical imperatives. categorical imperatives. heteronomous imperatives. rules of thumb. all of the above. none of the above.

6 Kant believed that humans have dignity or agency in virtue of:
their membership in the human species, homo sapiens. their being created in the image of God. their capacity for kindness. their rationality and autonomy. all of the above. none of the above.

7 Kant claims that the moral law is given to each person by:
society. one’s own will. god. the natural world. all of the above. none of the above.

8 Objections Kant’s Universal Law Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

9 Rigorism Problem: You have Nazi’s at your door asking, “Do you know where any Jews are?” Does Kant give us the right answer?

10 The rigorism objection.
Strongly Agree Agree Somewhat Agree Neutral Somewhat Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree

11 What’s the maxim? Is universalizability vacuous and conservative?
The Sneaky Maxim Maker Objection MacIntyre: “the Categorical Imperative imposes restrictions only on those insufficiently equipped with ingenuity” (A Short History of Ethics, 198). Is universalizability vacuous and conservative?

12 The Sneaky Maxim Maker Objection
Strongly Agree Agree Somewhat Agree Neutral Somewhat Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree

13 Mill’s Criticism “[Kant] fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical) impossibility in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct … All he shows is that the consequences of their universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to incur” (JS MILL, Utilitarianism). Is Kant guilty of covert consequentialism?

14 The Covert Consequentialism Objection
Strongly Agree Agree Somewhat Agree Neutral Somewhat Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree

15 The Humanity Formulation
Kant’s Categorical Imperative

16 Humanity Formulation “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.” Negative Aspect: “never as a mere means” Positive Aspect: “always as an ends”

17 Problems for the Principle of Humanity
The Basic Problem The notion of treating someone as an end is vague, and so the principle is difficult to apply. The principle fails to give us good advice about how to determine what people deserve.

18 The Moral Standing Objection
Is the scope of Kant’s account of personhood too small?

19 Humanity applies to all rational beings …

20 But not to non-rational beings …

21 The Moral Standing Objection
The principle cannot explain why those who lack rationality and autonomy are deserving of respect. If the principle of humanity is true, then animals have no rights. If animals have no rights, then it is morally acceptable to torture them. Therefore, if the principle of humanity is true, then it is morally acceptable to torture animals. It isn’t morally acceptable to torture animals! Therefore, the principle of humanity is false.

22 Summary& Kingdom of Ends Formulation
Kant’s Categorical Imperative

23 Big picture Formula of Universal Law Objections
“Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law of nature.” Rigorism Sneaky Maxim Maker / Vacuous Covert Consequentialism

24 Big picture Formula of Universal Law Question
“Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law of nature.” What are the rational will’s wider purposes?

25 Big picture Formula of Humanity Question
“Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.” How do you respect the ends of others?

26 Big picture The Kingdom of Ends Kant’s CI
“So act as if you, by your own maxims, were at all times a legislative member in the universal realm of ends.” Kingdom of ends “A systematic union of rational beings by common objective laws.” Self-Legislation We, as rational agents, legislate the law to which we are subject. Co-Legislation Our maxims must be consistent with “the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law.”

27 Social Contract State of Nature Individually rational to not cooperate
Collectively rational to cooperate

28 Social Contract We are rationally required to leave the state of nature and submit to a coercive authority in order to adjudicate between conflicts of individual interests.

29 Social Contract Rationality Autonomous or Heteronomous?

30 Kant’s Categorical Imperative
Strongly Agree Agree Somewhat Agree Neutral Somewhat Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree

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