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Ethics take home sheet PHIL 2101 JGL Fall 2014

Please review for the exam. Anything on this sheet or the links therein are fair game.

Singers Main Moral Argument

o "If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby
sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we ought, morally, to
do it
o Regarding distance objection:
"It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a
neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never
know, ten thousand miles away
o Regarding pragmatics
"The principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the
only person who could possibly do anything and cases in which I am just
one among millions in the same position"
Consequentialism
o Consequentialism = whether an act is morally right depends only
on consequences (as opposed to the circumstances or the intrinsic nature of the
act or anything that happens before the act).
Utilitarianism
o An action is morally right iff it maximizes the utility of all those affected by said
action.
Utility a kind of quantification of happiness or wellbeing
Preference
o Preferences matter and can be weighed against each other. My preference for
the taste of meat should not outweigh an animals (assumed) preference to live.
Negative and Positive Rights
o Rights are entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to be in certain
states; or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in
certain states.
o They come in two flavors; Negative and Positive
Negative rights are rights from interference so I have a right to life,
liberty, my property etc.
Positive rights are entitlements to something or to do something
theyre given out by a society. E.g., Voting when youre 18. They can be
taken away (e.g., by committing a felony).
o Where do rights come from:
Nature that is by our natural state or natural functions.
Society theyre agreements that we make in our society, or that are
handed out to people in other societies.

Contractualism
o The idea that morality, rights, and entitlement comes from a kind of contract
that we make as a society and as a group of people. For instance, someone
might say Javier, youre not being consistent. You eat meat, but you would
never eat your roommates dog. What gives? I would say Well, I dont eat my
roommates dog because pets have been contracted in to our society as a
protected group i.e., Ill be punished if I eat someones pet.
Dessert

Consider some ordinary desert claims:

Hans deserves praise in virtue of his efforts.

Because of her outstanding scholarly contributions, Nkechi deserves promotion to full

professor.

Financial compensation is what the innocent victims of September 11 deserve.

These desert claims have several things in common: each involves a deserving subject (Hans,
Nkechi, innocent victims), a deserved object (praise, promotion, compensation) and a desert
basis (effort, contribution, innocent suffering). This suggests that desert itself is a three-place
relation that holds among a subject, an object, and a basis.
So what is it?

o
Trolley case
o The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics. The general form of the
problem is this: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks.
Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The
trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the
train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a
different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side
track. You have two options: (1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people
on the main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track
where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?
What would a utilitarian say? A contractualist?
Beyonce case
o Say we each give $1 to listen to Beyonces music. So she ends up with
$1,000,000. We werent forced to give her the money, she never coerced us, or
tricked us. We each freely gave that money to her. So in what sense should she
be obligated to give that money away? She is entitled to it as she came out the
money in an acceptable and authorized manner she didnt steal it, and she got

it through voluntary exchange. To force her to give away her money would be
equivalent to stealing from her!
Entitlement
o The example above helps illustrate the idea of entitlement. That we are entitled
to do what we please with the products of our labor, or any items we gain
through voluntary exchange or authorized transactions.
Drowning case
o Singer doesnt agree with entitlement ethics. Singer will argue that we have
more foundational moral obligations, such as the obligation to help a child who
is drowning where helping that child wont cause us any significant harm or loss.
o Adding consistency to the mix, we should strive to act consistently in similar
situations. That is, we should help children who are in danger of dying from
easily treatable conditions around the globe, independent of issues of distance.
These foundational obligations trump, according to Singer, any claims of
entitlement.
Naturalistic fallacy make sure you avoid this one:
o Roughly speaking (there are a number of versions that differ in levels of strength
etc.) its the idea that an appeal to nature or a given actions naturalness is no
justification for its being a moral action. So for example:
A cheated on B.
B feels angry at A.
Its natural for B to feel angry at A.
Therefore, theres nothing (morally) wrong with feeling angry.
o The problem is that youre implying, without spelling-out, a connection between
what is natural and what is morally right. You need to make that argument
first (and good luck to you on that) before you can use it to justify the inference.
o Important: Before you consider that it is an easy argument to make, remember
that lots of the things we would call natural are far from it going to the
movies with your friends is a natural thing to do when youre a teenager. But,
movies have only been around for 100 years! How could something thats only
be around for four generations be connected with the natural order? etc.
Relativism
o The big bad horse. Dont do this you guys. Its not that it is an indefensible
position (see David Velleman at NYU), but its a very difficult position to defend
and takes a lot of metaphysical and ethical gymnastics to do so.
o The idea is that every society/group/person has a different view of whats
morally right or morally wrong. So there is no universal or objective idea of
whats right or wrong that could be applied to everyone. For instance abortion is
not considered to be a serious moral dilemma in Japan, but in El Salvador it is a
really big deal insofar as it is seen (generally) as a moral wrong. From a relativist

point of view, you cant make heads-or-tails of this; both Japan and El Salvador
are right in a way. But this means that we can never really criticize anyones
moral practice, so if a group likes to molest and kill infants, and thats what they
think is right then were in no position to tell them otherwise.
o Secondly, this view denies the idea of moral progress. Arguably, in the USA,
things have gotten better in the last 160 years from a moral perspective: (1) We
cant treat millions of people as property, (2) women are free to vote and
participate in public life, etc. But if youre a relativist, then you cant say that
were better now (morally) than we were before America in 1860 was just as
morally right as America today.
o There are a few other reasons to be cautious about any position that evinces a
strain of relativism, but I would strongly caution you against adopting such a
position without really thinking through the consequences.