Ethics

ethics is a branch of theory about human conduct (one of many branches) it's the branch that focuses on morality other branches try and describe conduct, ethics is a philosophical approach, it's normative - focusing on what the conduct "should" be. it's analytic, giving it a reasoned approach, why should the conduct be this?

ethics is a discipline area, with three divisions: 1 - meta ethics - background issues - concepts of morality, "what does good or bad mean?" "is morality culturally relative?" 2 - normative ethics - moral theory. providing a systematic account of what is appropriate three sub branches: - consequentialism - the right actions the one with the best consequences - deontologism - actions based on best rules - virtue ethics - one that provides the best character 3 - applied ethics - what should you do in practical situations. you're applying theories for guidance for specific moral problems

the most successful moral theories try and give a complete justification of intuitive moral approaches. often they provide a decision procedure, how to work out what the right thing to do is? if you use a particular theory though, you're buying in to all the central asumptions of that theory.

moral theories include a "theory of a good", and a "theory of a right"

theory of good what is valuable, what do we want to come about in life?

theory of right how should we act? what is right or wrong

Consequentialism

Consequentialism is the most recent of the three theories The right action in any situation, is the one that produces the most overall good

We should always act to maximse the good

It's a "forward looking" theory, it thinks the morally relevent bits of any situation are in the future, the consequences In consequentialism, no actions are "inherently wrong". No actions are wrong in of themselves. This could lead to problems, in that you might find things are now morally right, when intuitively they seem wrong

Other theories are "backward looking", they look back to predetermined rules

consequentialism brings together theory of good, and theory and right, what is "right" is what brings about what is "good"

we want to maximise these good consequentilism

within the theory we need to describe and asess consequences generally they say there's only one ultimate "good" we're trying to maximise: happiness, welfare, etc

Utilitarianism

utilitarianism is the most famous - uses pleasure and pain as the values for good actions that maximise pain/minimse suffering

came from jermey benthem, james mill, john stuart mill

utility means "pleasure and freedom from pain"

there are different types of utility:

Hedonistic - focus on pleasure and pain Ones that focus on pleasure/satisfaction

The next stage is working out the "greatest happiness" - the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" What is the greatest happiness? Is it the greatest number of happy people? Or one person really happy?

how do you work out the right act? a utilitarian calculation

One of the problems is consequences are uncertain. Utilitarianism trys to get around this by ignoring the most trivial aspects. It's often easier to guess what will cause suffering, and so minimising that. To utilitarianism, suffering is more important than happiness, it's more severe than pleasure is good.

Calculating the consequences of consequences starts to come into account too! If the pleasure is money, what's the money getting spent on? Will that provide pleasure or suffering?

Suffering, radically interferes with an individuals ability to experience pleasure. So doesn't matter how much seperate pleaure you provide someone, if they're suffering they won't benefit.

What about actions that provide no significant suffering/pleasure, but seem intuitively wrong? If a moral theory doesn't answer our intuitive sense of right and wrong, it fails.

So how do you work out consequences? - just the local sonsequences? (not the wider ripples) - or just "rules of thumb" - accepting that sometimes consequences will overrule ideas of justice

Appeal of utilitarianism

It's got common sense appeal. Generally, most people think it's intuitive, it's simple. It gives just one explanation for what's right or wrong "HAPPINESS"

People already give value to happiness and freedom from pain.

It's supposed to be democratic. No preferences count more than another persons preferences.

Is it though? Are some pleasures greater than other pleasures? (Are books > drinking?)

It will give you a way of subjecting commonly held beliefs, to work out if they're truly ethical/moral. It's a simple approach that can cut through the middle of ethiical debates.

BERNARD WILLIAMS [] - READ SOME OF HIS

Issues with utilitarianism

Seperateness of persons

Rawls - felt consequentialism ignored the seperatenss of persons

It's a point of us being individuals. It's unlikely to console you if you're the one suffering, to find out other people are happy.

Utilitarianism doesn't say anything about the distribution of suffering, and might compel you to do something "absolutely terrible" for the public good.

How do utilitarianists respond to this? - "bite the bullet" - accept the contraindication seems wild, but highlight that in extreme situations, you can do what you like as long as ultimately it reduces suffering - "ingenious sums" - adjusting the utilitarian calculation to make it fit the intuition you want

"ingenious sums" is the basis between "act" and "rule" utilitarianism

Rule utilitarianism, is talking about how overall rules generated from utilitarian principles would affect overall consequences

Act utilitarianism, is looking at each act individually

People like rule utilitarianism, as it's simpler still, more predictible.

The rules can always be revised!

Rule utilitarianism collapses in individual situations. What's really the difference between act and rule? A super specific rule in rule utilitarianism, is basically just act utiliaterian

Utilitarian Strategies

Utilitarianism may require us to endorse repellant course of action.

Utilitarians cannot adequately account for the "value" of pleasures or suffering. Just because you enjoy something, should we give value to it? Utilitarians only talk about the quantity of pleasure or suffering.

Robert Nozick - came up with "pleasure machine" strategy - imagine a pleasure machine in an artificial envirmont, with a life free from pain? - according to utilitarianism this might be the right thing to do? - but others might say "the experience" of something isn't the same as "the thing" itself. Should we give a different value to the thing than to the experience?

Moral Integrity

Utilitarianism doesn't respect things we've already commited to in our own sense of "moral integrity". It doesn't account for ties to family/loved ones

Unless you say that ties to loved ones gives greater happiness than you originally thought