MID TERM EXAM

Monday, October 23, 2017 2:03 PM

Hedonism
- Theory of the good life (Monistic Theory vs. Pluralistic Theory)
- In order to live the good life, you should pursue long term happiness
- Enjoyment is the key to a good life. Maximize pleasure, minimize pain.
- Actions are right if they tend to promote your own happiness
- You make your own choice about what makes you happy
- John Stuart Mill - the only way we can find out if something is desirable is by experience. Certain things are more desirable than others.
- Greatest happiness is found in elevated pursuits - intellectual pleasures.
- Life doesnt need to be moral in order to be good.
- There might be other intrinsic values that affect decision making.

Democratic Hedonism
- All happiness is equal, there is no higher pleasures

The experience Machine

- You go into a lab and tell scientist about your perfect life. Then they put you in coma and plug you into a simulation. You will never wake up but also you'll never know you are actually not living real life.
- If hedonism is true, then everyone should plug themselves into the experience machine, but most people wouldnt do it, proving that there are things that humans value more than their own pleasure.

Desire theory
- If you have two desires at the same time, you get to prioritize the desire you want.
- The best life is one that fulfills a person's greatest desires.
- The only thing that is intrinsically good is getting what you want.

Natural Law Theory

- Theory that recognizes law and morality as deeply connected.
- Humans laws are defined by morality, and not by an authority figure like a government.
- We are guided by our human nature to figure out what the laws are.
- Actions that work against living good life is considered immoral.
- Laws have a purpose to provide justice.
- ( Morality is based on universal, unchanging principles and that God commands or approves something because it is prior to the command. )
1. God is the creator of morality
2. Morality is unchanging
3. Universal and applies to all humans at all times
4. Humans can access natural law through the use of reason
5. Manmade laws are authoritative only if they are just and consistent with the principle of natural law

Consequentialism
- The morally right action is the one that produces the best overall consequences.
- An action is right wrong depending on their results.
- The more good consequences an action produces, the more right the action is.
- Act consequentialism: a particular action is morally good only if it produces more overall good than any other alternative action.
- Rule consequentialism: whether acts are good or bad depends on moral rules; moral rules are chosen on the basis of their consequences.
- It is hard to predict the future consequences of an action.
- People dont agree on what should be used to calculate good consequences.
- Choosing different time periods may produce different consequences.

Straight Utilitarianism (Mill)

- People should maximize human well-being.
- The morally right choice is the one that produces the most happiness and the least unhappiness for the largest number of people.
- A good act is the one that increases pleasure in the world and decreases pain.
- Pleasure and happiness are intrinsically valuable.
- Measuring and comparing happiness among different people is impossible.

Moral Community
- A community whose members have moral worth, that is, whose members just by their membership, automatically deserve the respect and protection of the community- because of who you are, without any
consideration of what use they may be off to the community.
- For utilitarians: those who can feel pain, happiness, etc.
- For Kant: those who have rational autonomy

Moral Agent vs. Moral patient

- Moral agent: those who carry moral significance.
- Moral Patient: lack moral authority.

Principle of Humanity
- Kant
- One must treat others as an end, and never as a means; always treat members of the moral community with the respect and dignity that they deserve.

The categorical imperative

- Always act as if by our action the act would become a universal law.
- Only those acts that can work out as a universal or moral law are rational.

Kantianism
- If I wish to be a good person, I should treat other like I want to be treated.
- Masochist: people who enjoy having done to them what many people dont enjoy.
- Fanatic: "everybody should want what I want"

Universal Law
- If an action cannot be universalized, then we must reject it as immoral

Supererogation
- an act is supererogatory if it is good but not morally required to be done.

Common Sense Morality

- We are required to balance our interests against the interests of others.

Lex Talionis
- Law of retaliation: the principle that a person who has injured another person is to be penalized to a similar degree, or in softer interpretations, the victim receives the [estimated] value of the injury in

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 - Law of retaliation: the principle that a person who has injured another person is to be penalized to a similar degree, or in softer interpretations, the victim receives the [estimated] value of the injury in
compensation.
- An eye for an eye.

Intrinsic vs. Instrumental value

- Intrinsic: the value that something has in itself
- Instrumental value: that value that something has because it helps us to get or achieve some other thing.

Libertarianism
- Libertarianism is the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.
- If there is no good reason to forbid something (a good reason being that it violates the rights of others), it should be allowed.
- Force should be reserved for prohibiting or punishing those who themselves use force, such as murderers, robbers, rapists, kidnappers, and defrauders (who practice a kind of theft).

"Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than fool satisfied"

In this quote, he argues that no reasonable person would ever want to be a dog or a pig just for the sake of being more comfortable. Yes, being human can sometimes cause stress that animals or fools don't have
to deal with. But Mill totally can't imagine someone wanting to give up their human brain just for the comfort of animal life.

Divine Command Theory

- is the view that morality is somehow dependent upon God, and that moral obligation consists in obedience to Gods commands.
- Is there a god?
- Who knows what the commands of God are?
- Who interprets the commands?

- if a person's emotions or desires cause them to do something, then that action cannot give them moral worth.
- a person is good or bad depending on the motivation of their actions and not on the goodness of the consequences of those actions.

Justification and excuse

- Justification: giving reasonable reason for what was done (or not). It shows the act to be beneficial to society in some way.
- Excuse: It accepts the act may have harmed society in some way, but seeks to show that the person is not really to blame.

Slippery Slope
- If we allow A to happen, the Z will eventually happen too, therefore A should not happen.

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