University of Kansas, Spring 2003
Philosophy 161: Introduction to Ethics, Honors
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu
Class notes: introduction
The following notes correspond
roughly to what we cover, including at least a portion of what I put on the
board or the screen, in class. In places they may be more or less comprehensive than what we
actually cover in class, and should not be taken as a substitute for your own
observations and records of what goes on in class.
The following outline is designed to
be, and is in some Web browsers, collapsible: by clicking on the heading for a
section, you can collapse that section or, if it’s already collapsed, make it
expanded again. If you want to print some but not all of this outline, collapse
the parts you don’t want to print (so that just their top-level headings
remain), and then click here to print this frame.
-
introduction to the subject
matter of the course
- areas of philosophy (You do
not need to memorize this section—it’s just to help you get
oriented.)
- moral philosophy, or ethics: the study of right and wrong, or of
how we ought to live, or of what people’s duties and obligations are
- metaphysics: the study of
things such as what exists, what it is for one event to cause another, etc.
- epistemology: the study
of knowledge, when a belief may be regarded as knowledge and not
just conjecture or opinion, etc.
- philosophy of language:
the study of what makes words have meanings, how words refer to
things in the world (if they do), etc.
- philosophy of mind: the
study of what mental states are, how they differ, how they represent
the world (if they do), etc.
- philosophy of science:
the study of what makes something a science, how scientific theories are
confirmed, etc.
- philosophy of religion:
the study of God, whether God exists, faith, etc.
- logic: the study of
correct reasoning
- others (aesthetics, political philosophy, etc.)
- areas of moral philosophy, or
ethics (from S. S.)
- applied ethics: the
branch of ethics devoted to the study of specific ethical issues,
such as whether cloning is all right or whether we are morally
obliged to treat animals better than we do. Sometimes this branch of
ethics is associated
with the idea of “case studies.”
- normative ethics: the branch of ethics devoted (mostly) to the
development of moral theories: theories that specify, in brief and
general terms, what actions, policies, institutions, etc., are morally
acceptable
- meta-ethics: the branch
of ethics devoted to explaining what we are doing when we make moral
judgments or engage in moral debates. Meta-ethicists try to give
accounts of such things as the meaning of moral terms and the
grounds of moral judgments.
- introduction to the
mechanics of the course
- A third of the course will be spent on each of the three branches of
ethics (in reverse order from above).
- Class meetings will mostly be a mixture of lecture and
discussion, with occasionally some other activities as well.
- The purpose of discussions is not to air our opinions.
That will inevitably happen, but hopefully only as a byproduct of (1)
trying to understand the material under discussion and (2) exploring the
considerations that might support or undermine positions under
discussion. These are the real purposes of discussions.
- Requirements: two papers, two tests, a final exam, class
participation, and attendance (which I take to include punctuality).
- The syllabus and other course documents are online,
accessible via links from my home page: people.ku.edu/~be75. Among
the documents available are my lecture notes, the underlined portions of
which I’ll put on the board in class when I lecture.
- EMP, preface (pp. ix–x)
- There are some fields, such as physics, in which there
is a large body of material that competent theorists or practitioners all agree is
right. Of course, physicists have some disagreements among one
another—there is still stuff to be figured out that different
physicists have conflicting opinions about—just as historians do not
all agree on exactly what happened in certain times and places in the
past, and just as
economists do not all agree on what the best account of economic
activity is. But in all of these fields, there is a lot of fairly
uncontroversial material.
- Philosophy is not like this; in philosophy there is
very little that is uncontroversial. So in this course we will be
exploring many conflicting views. None of them will be presented as the
“truth”; rather, for the most part, we’ll seek to understand the
reasons for and against them. Ultimately, you must try to decide for
yourself what views have the strongest reasons in support of them; my
job will be to help you to identify and weigh those reasons.
- group exploration of EMP, chapter 1: “What Is
Morality?” (adapted from work by R. M.)
- Groups of four persons each are formed. We’ll call
these initial groups the base groups.
- The members of each base group get acquainted, and
each person in each base group takes one of the following parts of
chapter 1, so that each group has coverage of the whole chapter, with no
overlap among individual members.
- sections 1.1 and 1.2
- section 1.3
- section 1.4
- sections 1.5 and 1.6
- The base groups split up, and study groups are formed.
Each study group is constituted by individuals from different base
groups, all responsible for the same part of chapter 1.
- Each study group begins by taking some time to read
the material. Then, the members of the study groups collectively answer,
in discussion, the questions
below that correspond to their part of the chapter:
- sections 1.1 and 1.2: introduction and the case of
Baby Theresa
- What does Rachels mean by the notion of “the
‘minimum conception’ of morality” (p. 1)?
- What was wrong with Baby Theresa?
- What ethical controversy regarding her arose?
- What argument in support of the proposal to
transplant her organs does Rachels describe?
- What arguments against the proposal does
Rachels describe?
- What does Rachels seem to think of these
arguments?
- What do you think of Rachels’s assessment of
these arguments and of the case as a whole?
- Are there any things that Rachels says that
are puzzling (either in terms of content or in terms of
motivation)? Can you solve these puzzles?
- section 1.3: the case of Jodie and Mary
- What was wrong with Jodie and Mary?
- What ethical controversy regarding them arose?
- What argument in support of the operation does Rachels describe?
- What argument against the operation does Rachels describe?
- What does Rachels seem to think of these arguments?
- What do you think of Rachels’s assessment of these arguments
and of the case as a whole?
- Are there any things that Rachels says that are puzzling
(either in terms of content or in terms of motivation)? Can you
solve these puzzles?
- section 1.4: the case of Tracy Latimer
- What happened to Tracy Latimer?
- What arguments against her father’s action does Rachels describe?
- What does Rachels seem to think of these arguments?
- What do you think of Rachels’s assessment of these arguments
and of the case as a whole?
- Are there any things that Rachels says that are puzzling
(either in terms of content or in terms of motivation)? Can you
solve these puzzles?
- sections 1.5 and 1.6: reason, impartiality, and
morality
- What are Rachels’s two reasons for claiming
that mere feelings are not a good moral guide?
- What does Rachels mean by having reasons
for one’s moral views?
- What does Rachels say is involved in reasoning
well about morality?
- What does Rachels say is involved in being
impartial?
- What does Rachels think the “minimum
conception of morality” is?
- What guidance in making moral decisions does the
minimum conception of morality provide? What questions does it leave unanswered?
- The base groups re-form and each member of each
group describes his or her findings to the other members of his or
her group.
- EMP, chapter 1: “What Is Morality?”
- section 1.1: “The Problem of Definition”
- the idea of the minimum conception of morality:
what just about everyone agrees on, as far as morality is concerned,
despite whatever disagreements people may have about morality
- the point of considering some specific cases: to
identify some features of this “minimum conception of morality”
- section 1.2: “First Example: Baby
Theresa”
- transplantation or not?
- An argument is a set of statements, one of
which is understood to be the conclusion, and the others of which
are understood to be premises, with the premises being offered as
supporting, or providing reasons for, the conclusion.
- for transplantation: benefits (to other babies)
- against transplantation: it’s “using” the
baby. (But does it matter if she is “used,” if her autonomy is
not violated?)
- against transplantation: wrongness of killing.
(But is killing always wrong? And might it be claimed that the baby
is already dead?)
- section 1.3: “Second Example:
Jodie and Mary”
- surgery or not?
- for surgery: save as many as possible
- against surgery: sanctity of human life
- section 1.4: “Third Example:
Tracy Latimer”
- killing justified or not?
- in defense: quality of life
- against: wrongness of discriminating against the handicapped. (But
is it really discrimination, or a reasonable distinction?)
- against: slippery slope (unverifiable predictions?)
- section 1.5: “Reason and Impartiality”
- The three cases illuminate a couple of things
about moral reasoning—a couple of views that seem to be common to all
of the positions and arguments considered above.
- First, moral judgments must be backed by good
reasons (in contrast to, say, judgments of taste). Good reasons can
be separated from bad ones by being careful about the facts of a
case, but this is not sufficient: people can agree on all the facts
but still reach different moral judgments.
- Second, moral judgments must be impartial—that
is, they must count everyone’s interests equally. This component
may be seen as following from the first, since seem to be no good
reasons for not being impartial in one’s moral judgments.
- section 1.6: “The Minimum Conception of Morality”
- These “lessons” from the three cases furnish
the ingredients for a basic characterization of morality: Morality is the effort to guide one’s conduct
by reason while giving equal weight to the interests of each
individual who will be affected by one’s conduct (p. 14).
- Note: this is not a definition, but Rachels’s
view of what any reasonable theory of morality must say. Most
theories of morality do say this; but there is a lot of disagreement
in regard to what reasons are good ones and in regard to what
impartiality really amounts to.
- As a result, this minimum conception of morality
ends up providing very little guidance in making moral judgments. To
see this, note that just about everyone on both sides of the
controversies discussed in this chapter would agree with it (i.e.,
would agree that moral judgments must be based on reason, and must
be impartial). Rachels, of course, realizes this; he isn’t touting
the “minimum conception of morality” as the answer to all our
moral questions. Rather, his point (indeed the point of the whole
chapter) is to see whether there is some core of morality, common to
partisans on opposite sides of various issues. He finds that there
is such a core; but that since it is common to folks with such
disparate views, it can’t be expected to settle much.
- true or false?
- When Rachels gives his account of the “minimum conception of
morality,” he acknowledges that he‘s saying something pretty
controversial, like most things in philosophy.
- People who endorse Rachels’s account of the “minimum conception of
morality” will typically agree on what should be done in cases such as
those discussed in this chapter.
- People who endorse Rachels’s account of the “minimum conception of
morality” may well disagree on what it means to guide one’s conduct by
reason, or to give equal weight to everyone’s interests.
- Rachels could have used non-medical examples, indeed a whole different
set of examples, to come up with his “minimum conception of morality.”
- acknowledgements:
- R. M. = Russell Marcus
- S. S. = Sigrún Svavarsdóttir