1. 2/23
Ethics

2. Agenda Introduce guiding knowledge questions Discuss article
Scope and Applications of Ethics – Ethics as an area of knowledge
End Goal – Be able to discuss what the AOK of ethics is all about

3. Guiding Knowledge Questions
How can we tell if an issue is a moral one? (Language/ethics)
Within the relativist position, if you are sincere, is it impossible for you to be mistaken?
What can be said for or against rooting moral judgements in emotions, biologically or otherwise?
Do you agree that all sin comes from ignorance and reason is our only salvation?
If not, how could a community survive unless human intelligence becomes the virtue that maintains social order?

4. Philosophers and Ethicists Answer the Question: Is It OK to Punch Nazis?
Discuss your annotations with your partner
Focus on the questions and reactions

5. Ethics – Scope and Application
TOK Knowledge Framework – Each AOK has different scopes and applications
Limits of the territory
How it stands apart from other areas
Territory: Ethics and Morality
”Land of the Right and the Good” vs. the multiple forms of wrongdoing.

6. Who does the ethical thinking and how can it help us?
We will look at different scholars and knowledge questions
What is the nature of good?
What is the right way to live?
How can we know?
We will start forming our own answers
How can I justify my actions?
Why be moral at all?
What is the moral issue, if any, in this or that situation, and what the right thing to do?

7. The Big Piece – Defining Your Own Morality
What is the morally right thing to do?
Do you usually do the morally right thing?
How do your moral judgments match up to others?
How broad is your range of moral principles?

8. Question 1
You pass someone in the street who is in severe need and you are able to help that at little cost to yourself. Are you morally obliged to do so?
A- Strongly Obliged
B- Weakly Obliged
C- Not Obliged

9. Morally Obliged Morally Obliged
In order to behave morally, you MUST do that thing
Strong and Weak Obligation?
The previous questions distinguishes between strong and weak obligation
What do you think of this distinction of degrees of morality where thinks are not strictly right or wrong?

10. Less Abstract Example (NY, 1964)
Kitty Genovese
Walking Home at Night
Residential Street in Queens
Attacked and killed
Full View of witnesses safe in their apartment
Could have called the police…
What would I have done?
What was my obligation, if any?
What should I have done?
What circumstances should affect my action?
What circumstances do affect my action?

11. Circumstances What if it involves a family member?
Now we are getting into a different area/response from others.
Grandma/Boat
Brother/Crime

12. Family Member
The introduction of a family member changes the picture for many people
It prompts NEW questions
Does our responsibility extend to everyone or only to those closest to us?
How does your perspective change if the family member is the victim or the accused?
How important is family loyalty?

13. Next Week Language and Ethics
Claim: Many of the disagreements in moral disputes hang on the misunderstanding of terms and concepts

14. Quote 1
“In law, a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics, he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.” Immanuel Kant
How important are a person’s thoughts?
Are intentions just as important as actions? Less important?

15. Agenda 2/27 Collect homework Talk about laws and ethics
Connect the WOK language to the AOK ethics
End Goal – Start drawing connections between the WOK and the AOK

16. Quote 2 “Ethics are more important than laws.” Wynton Marsalis
Agree or disagree?
What are the implications of your answer
Connection to current events?

17. Language and Ethics
Claim: Many of the disagreements in moral disputes hang on the misunderstanding of terms and concepts
Do you agree or disagree with this claim?
Include SPECIFIC evidence.

18. Ethics Vocabulary Consequences Sins of omission Sins of commission
Virtue
Values
Promise
Rights
Justice
Duty
Obligations
Good
Bad
Right
Wrong
Should
Ought
Principles
Rules

19. Ethics Vocab These are essentially contested concepts
They resist strict definition
Sometimes you may have to “agree to disagree” because there is no end of controversy about their meanings

20. Before we go on – a little more help identifying moral issues
Knowledge Question – How do we know if an issue is a moral one?
“Spies Like Alexa” – NPR, January 25th, 2017
First – Identify the moral issue(s)
Take notes on both sides of the issue

21. Agenda 2/28
The language surrounding moral dilemmas – connections to vocabulary
Discuss moral issues in “Spies Like Alexa”
Limitations of language and ethics
End goal - how reliable is language when gaining knowledge in ethics

22. Language Moral Dilemmas The struggle:
There are two competing good or bad choices
The struggle:
You need to delve into what makes something good – or better than another good – in a particular situation
Language can only do so much

23. Identify Moral Issues What was the main moral issue?
Did other moral issues surface?

24. Both Sides Review your notes and ANNOTATE them
Focus – which side had a stronger case on the moral issue?
Skill – being able to organize notes from lectures that have not been organized for you

25. Your side Where do you stand on the moral issue?
How does it connect to other current events?
Why is it important in our society?
Why is it important to your life or community?
What are the implications of this moral issue?

26. Limitations of language and defining ethics
Constant problems of vagueness, ambiguity, and reference are always a factor in ethics
Killing means taking a life – but when exactly is a life being taken?
Death by exposure – leaving them as you found them?
Gaslight – husband drives wife to suicide
Brakes stop working in your car…
Head of State – you order 10,000 troops into battle
Removing life support?

27. Language Clear examples that relates to term Limiting-case examples
Prime Examples
Clear examples that relates to term
Far Fetched Examples
Limiting-case examples
Often produce arguments and dissention
Prime Examples – usually more agreed upon and less debatable

28. Example of prime v limiting-case
Stealing
Taking something from someone by force

29. Stealing Underpaying workers Charging for repairs that are never made
Mugging a woman for her jewelry
Running away with your best friend’s wife
Copying answers from someone else’s test
Keeping your friend waiting
Holding up a bank
Taking your mom’s money without asking
Stealing a car from the street
Sneaking books from the library
Hiding goods from customers

30. Vagueness
These aspects of vagueness and ambiguity characterize the way in which any living language in constructed
Vagueness can be found in many AOKs
The only way to create complete clarity (especially in ethics) would be to create an artificial language
In reality, if it often the language we live with that creates these problems and which scholars have tried to overcome as much as possible

31. Quote 1 “One word of truth can outweigh the whole world”
Russian Proverb
Cited in Nobel Prize speech of Aleksandra Solzhenitsyn 1970
What could this proverb mean as a definition of art and morality?

32. Time to work on homework
Annotated Notes
One paragraph explanation of your side in Alexa debate

33. Agenda 3/2 Collect homework (Annotated Notes/Moral Position)
Quote to get started
Moral Relativism – The Arguments for and against
End Goal – Decide where you stand on moral relativism

34. Quote 1
“These are my principles and if you don’t like them – I have others.” –Groucho Marx
What does this quote mean?
Is this quote an accurate reflection of yourself? Someone you know? Society? - Use specific examples!

35. Moral Relativism Moral Relativism
Our values are determined by the society we grow up in
There are no universal values
Individual/culture is the source and criterion of moral judgements
Examples: Driving rules, pork, monogamy/polygamy

36. Moral Relativism Arguments
FOR Moral Relativism
AGAINST Moral Relativism
Diversity Argument
Lack of Foundations Argument
Tolerance?
Culture Acceptance
Value Justification

37. The Diversity Argument
No objective moral values?
According to anthropologists, there have been cultures that have permitted:
Keeping slaves
Female genital mutilation
Killing adulterers
Burning widows
Cannibalism
Killing unproductive members of society
Slaughter by torture of prisoners
The variety of moral practices!!!
This suggests that there are NO objective moral values

38. Diversity Argument
The diversity of these practices has been enough to convince some people of the truth of moral relativism
Morality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder

39. Is it a matter of morality or convention?
You should not burn your country’s flag
You should not go to work naked.
You should not persecute minority groups.
A woman should not have more than one husband.
You should not torture the innocent.
You should not have sex with an animal.
You should not use dead people as dog food.
You should not execute adulterers.
You should not execute murderers.
You should not eat meat.

40. Question 1
To what extent do you think you can predict someone’s moral beliefs from a knowledge of their cultural background?
Implication – Stereotyping?

41. Lack of Foundations Argument
Moral values are ungrounded – lacking in foundations
There does not seem to be an independent “moral reality” against which we can test our values to see if they are true or false
THUS – are values are a result of the way we have been brought up and conditioned by society

42. Lack of Foundations
In other AOKS, we can settle disputes by appealing to reason or perception
Does not work in ethics
No Perception – we cannot see values like we see shapes, colors, and sizes
No Reason – there is no logical way to go from an “is” statement t an “ought”

43. Wait – Ought v Is? Some people in the world are starving. (IS)
I have more food that I need. (Is)
Therefore, I ought to give some of my food to the starving. (ought)
Appeals to emotion, yes.
The reason does not add up.

44. Ought V. Is
Scottish Philosopher David Hume ( )
“Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.”
Most people worry more about their own problems than world problems

45. Back to Lack of Foundations
If there was a sound grounding in values, ought and is statements would be closely related AND true.
Valid and True (Think deductive reasoning!)

46. Quote
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle
Are your moral values based on your emotions?
Do you teach morals? Can you? Should you?
Who should be responsible for teaching/modeling morality?

47. Current Events Meets Ethics
Look at main points from ethics and connect to current events
Look at the implication of tolerance when it comes to arguments FOR moral relativism
End Goal – Be able to connect current events to the material