Chapter 3: How Can I Know What is Right?

1. Chapter 3: How Can I Know What is Right?

2. Introduction • Ethical skeptics – doubt whether there is such a thing as moral truth • Ethical relativists – deny that there are any universally valid moral principles • Ethical absolutists – claim there are moral absolutes • Teleological ethical theories – consequences determine the rightness of an action • Deontological ethical theories– advocate doing what is good regardless of the consequences

3. Kant and the Categorical Imperative • Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) • Published The Critique of Pure Reason, which revolutionized western philosophy

4. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of MoralsImmanuel Kant • Good will is the only thing that can be conceived as good without qualification • Action of duty has moral worth not in the purpose to be attained, but by the principle of volition irrespective of desire • Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law

5. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of MoralsImmanuel Kant • The Categorical Imperative • “I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”

6. Utilitarianism • Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) proposed the ethical theory of utilitarianism • Utilitariansim – teleological theory that what makes an action right are its consequences • John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)- “The greatest happiness for the greatest number” • Hedonism – the highest good is pleasure

7. What Utilitarianism IsJohn Stuart Mill • Actions are right in proportion to their promotion of happiness and wrong as they tend to produce pain • The ultimate sanction of utility is subjective– the conscientious feeling of the mind • Evidence that something is desirable is that people desire it

8. Revaluation of Values • Some relate associate morality with religion • Ethical nihilism – idea that there is no answer to what is right • Ethical emotivism – claim that moral judgments express the appraiser’s attitudes of approval or disapproval • Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) believed that religion and human reason had failed to answer what is right

9. Beyond Good and EvilFriedrich Nietzsche • Criticizes past attempts to understand morality • Criticizes morality as defined by classes in the social system

10. On the Genealogy of MoralityFriedrich Nietzsche • “Good” was not originally “unegoistic actions”, but distinction of the noble class as opposed to those who are common, vulgar, or “bad” • Slave revolt in morality • Inversion of the aristocratic value equation by the Jews • Ressentiment – recover losses through imaginary revenge • The good is those who are powerless, sick, poor, etc. • ?????????????????????????

11. The Ethic of Care • Carol Gilligan proposed that there is a distinction between male and female concepts of morality • While men emphasize reciprocity in relationships, women emphasize response, such as care, love, and trust, etc.

12. CaringNel Noddings • Natural and ethical caring • “I must” and “I want” • Obligation • Moral imperative • Dependent upon relationship • Right and Wrong • Problem of Justification • Women and Morality: Virtue

13. Moral Relativism • Is there a balance between a moral relativism that holds all human actions as equal in moral worth and a moral universalism or absolutism that holds to one set of moral values? • David Wong attempts to find this middle ground

14. RelativismDavid Wong • Meta-Ethical Relativism – the doctrine of relativity of moral truth and justifiability • Normative Relativism – one should never pass judgment on others with different values or try to conform them to one’s own • Wong proposes a middle ground of • not holding to one single morality without denying that some moralities might be false or inadequate • Allowing to pass judgment on significantly different values