ETH2050

Ethical Traditions and Contemporary Life

Reading Questions

I. “Ethics and Ethical Reasoning (Sound Ethical Reasoning)”

a) Generally speaking, what is ethics and what does it aim to accomplish?

b) How do normative and evaluative claims differ from descriptive claims? What does
it mean to make a normative judgment, and how does this differ from stating a
preference or belief?
c) How does normative ethics differ from metaethics?
d) What are the features of good moral argument and reasoning? Why do we need to
develop our skills of moral reasoning?
e) What distinguishes moral justification from rationalization and explanation?

II. James Rachels, “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”

a) What, according to Rachels, is the Cultural Differences Argument? Why does he

claim that the argument is unsound? Does this mean the conclusion is false?
b) What are the implications of cultural relativism, on Rachels’s account? Do you agree
that these implications are untenable? Why / why not?
c) How does Rachels address the appearance of divergent and disparate values across
different cultures?
d) Though he believes cultural relativism is philosophically suspect, Rachels thinks we
can learn at least two lessons from CR. What are these lessons?

III. John Stuart Mill, selections from Utilitarianism

a) What is Mill’s basic thesis? What is utilitarianism, according to Mill?

b) What does Mill mean when he says that it is “better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a
fool satisfied?
c) What are some of the critiques of utilitarianism to which Mill is responding? Does
he provide adequate answers to these challenges?
d) What is Mill’s response to the problem of evil, i.e., his answer for why there is evil
and suffering in the world? If happiness is everyone’s end, why aren’t there a greater
number of happy people in the world? Why, according to Mill, do people fail to do
what is right?
e) Mill writes: “In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of
the ethics of utility. ‘To do as you would be done by,’ and ‘to love your neighbor as
yourself,’ constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.” Do you agree with
 this claim? Why or why not?

IV. James Rachels, “The Utilitarian Approach” and “The Debate Over Utilitarianism”

a) Rachels suggests that in its historical context, utilitarianism was revolutionary. How so?
b) What is the principle of utility, or greatest happiness principle?
c) What are the three propositions of utilitarianism, on Rachels’s account?
d) Rachels identifies three broad critiques of utilitarian / consequential morality. What are
these critiques? Are they persuasive? How might a utilitarian reply to these critiques,
and are these responses compelling?

V. Immanuel Kant, selections from The Foundations of a Metaphysics of Morals

a) What does Kant claim is the only thing “good without qualification”? What does it mean
to assert that something is an unqualified good?
b) Why does Kant reject “happiness” as an end-in-itself for a reasoning being?
c) For Kant, only actions that are done from duty have moral worth. What does it mean to
say that an action is “done from duty”? What are the implications of this claim for human
inclination, emotion, and sentiments such as sympathy or love?
d) Kant distinguishes between prudential considerations and moral reasons. What is the
difference.
e) What does Kant mean by the phrase “categorical imperative,” and what are the first two
formulations that he offers of the categorical imperative. How do these moral principles
differ from the principle of utility?

VI. Onora O’Neill, “A Simplified Account of Kant’s Ethics”

a. What does it mean, on O’Neill’s account, to treat someone as a mere means? What are
two general methods by which we reduce others to mere means?
b. O’Neill distinguishes between the prohibition against reducing persons to mere means
(on the one hand) and the prescription to treat others as ends in themselves (on the other).
What is at stake in this distinction? How does it relate to considerations of justice and
beneficence?
c. O’neill argues that utilitarianism permits us to instrumentalize others, and thus permits
(and even requires) the violation of the categorical imperative in its second formulation.
Do you agree with this assessment, and if so does this pose a problem for utilitarianism?
d. As presented by O’Neill, is Kant’s concern for beneficence and the happiness of others
morally insufficient? Why / why not?
VII. Aristotle, selections from Nicomachean Ethics.

a. Both Aristotle and Mill propose teleological theories of goodness—that is, goodness is
defined by reference to some end or aim. Aristotle suggests that the supreme and final
good / end for human beings is happiness (eudaimonia, better translated as “flourishing”).
What does eudaimonia entail for human beings on A’s account? How does this differ
from Mill’s conception of happiness?
b. Aristotle devotes attention to both luck and the emotions, and his treatment diverges
greatly from Kant’s. In what ways, according to Aristotle, are virtue and human
flourishing contingent on circumstance? Further, how do the emotions play into
Aristotle’s conception of virtue?
c. According to Aristotle, we become just by performing just acts, brave by performing
brave acts, etc.. What does he mean by this? Does this imply a vicious, even fatal
circularity? Why / why not?
d. Aristotle makes an important caveat with regard to achieving the mean, viz. that our
principal concern should be that excess or deficiency that is further from the mean. What
are the implications of this for our moral training?
e. What three conditions must be met, on A’s account, to consider an act virtuous?
f. Aristotle claims that “scientific exactitude” is impossible in ethics. Do you agree? Why /
why not?

IX. USSC, Roe v. Wade

a. According to the majority opinion, what has been the dominant attitude towards abortion
in Western history? How did 19th and 20th c. the legal prohibitions in the US diverge
from this dominant approach?
b. What, according to the description in the majority opinion, was the primary interest for
states to intervene in the practice of abortion? How does this differ from the focus of
most abortion debates today? What role does medical advancement play in the court’s
reflections on the case?
c. What are the permissions and proscriptions that the court applies to each of the
trimesters? Accordingly, when does the state have a legitimate interest in nascent life?
d. What is the 14th Amendment, and how does the court see its relevance to the case?
e. In your view, does the court sidestep the moral questions? Is it required to do so? Why /
why not? How do you envision the relationship between legal and moral reasoning?

X. JJT, “A Defense of Abortion”

a) What is the purpose of the violinist analogy for Thomson? In what ways does she
think it is relevant to the abortion debate? In what ways might the analogy seem to
fail?
b) What are Thomson’s views on the supposed right to life? What, in her view, does
the right to life entitle one to? What sorts of duties or obligations does she think that
the right to life places on others (i.e., what does my right to life mean for you)?
What does Henry Fonda’s cool hand have to do with anything?
 c) Thomson stresses the difference between a Good Samaritan Standard and a
Standard of Minimally Decency. What implications does she draw from this
distinction? Do you agree?
d) In your opinion, does the biological union or relationship of pregnancy generate
special obligations on the part of the woman? Are these obligations altered by the
way in which the pregnancy arises (e.g., rape versus consensual sex)?
e) Thomson discusses the difference between killing and letting die. In your view, is
the difference between the two morally significant?
f) Overall, what is Thomson’s strategy in this essay? How does she attempt to argue
for the permissibility of some abortions? What does she hope to show by granting
the premise? Do you agree with her conclusions?

XI. Stanley Hauerwas, “Abortion: Why the Arguments Fail”

a) Why, according to SH, do the arguments fail? Whose arguments are failing? What does
SH recommend in the face of this failure?
b) What are the features of a pluralistic democracy? What does SH mean when he calls
liberal democracy a "politics foreign." To whom is it foreign, and why?
c) What type of moral reasoning does SH defend? What are the implications of this for his
argument against abortion? Can his reasoning appeal to liberal democratic ideals? Why
or why not.
d) Hauerwas explains: "The ideal of liberalism is thus to make government neutral on the
very subjects that matter most to people, precisely because they matter most (217)."
What is the significance of this claim for his argument.
e) What are the features of the unique Christian vision that SH affirms? How, on these
terms, should Christians approach something like Roe v. Wade?