Aristotle's Theory in Introduction to Ethical Theory | PHIL 22, Study notes of Introduction to Philosophy

Download Aristotle's Theory in Introduction to Ethical Theory | PHIL 22 and more Study notes Introduction to Philosophy in PDF only on Docsity! Aristotle 1.Perfectionism -Human good is doing or excelling at things worth doing -The promotion of human excellence. 2. Aristotle’s three lives 1. Life dedicated to pleasure (hedonism) -Physical pleasures and amusements of all sorts are desirable in themselves, and therefore have some claim to be our ultimate end. -But pleasure cannot be our ultimate target because what count as pleasure must be judged by some standard other than pleasure itself. 2. The life of Political Activity -Exercises justice and need to promote the common good. -Second best because it is a life devoid of philosophical understanding and activity -This life is unleisurely -They are needed when something has gone wrong, or threatens to do so. 3. The Life of philosophy -The activity of someone who has already achieved theoretical wisdom -The happiest life is lived by someone who has the resources needed for living life devoted to the exercise of that understanding. -The life of Virtue: too incomplete “for it seems possible for someone to posses virtue but be asleep or inactive throughout his life, and moreover, to suffer the worst evils and misfortunes” -The Moneymaker’s life: Aristotle doesn’t count this as a life because he sees it as merely the means to other lives. 3. Eudaimonia -To be eudaimon is to be living in a way that is well favored by a god. -Happiness or flourishing 4. The Human Function 1 1. Life of nutrition and growth is not our function because living is shared with plants 2. Life of sense perception is not our function because this life is shared with animals 3. Life of reason thus this must be our function because it is a life of action that has reason. -In order to live a full and satisfying life, Aristotle believes humans need to exercise all their capacities. Our good must entail the use of reason to some degree. 5. What is Happiness (Eudaimonia)? -Happiness lies in virtuous activities. 6. Highest virtue -It is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake. Epicurus 1.Hedonism -Psychological hedonism: that we are in fact motivated exclusively by pleasure and pain -Evaluative hedonism: the thought that pleasure and the absence of pain is what we ought to pursue 2. The Life of Blessedness -Some desires are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are necessary and others merely natural; and of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the repose of the body, and other for very life. -Avoid pain and pleasure 3. Fear of Death -He fears death not because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is painful in anticipation -So long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. We have a fear of non- existence. 4. Freedom from pain -When we do not feel pain, we no longer need pleasure 2 -No world composed merely of physical facts can possibly be a world to which ethical propositions apply 3. The Value of satisfying demands -Any desire is imperative to the extent of its amount; it makes itself valid by the fact that it exists at all 4. Another argument for demand satisfied -Take any demand, however slight, which any creature weak, may make. Ought it not, for its own sake, to be satisfied? 5. The Absolutely Ideal System -A world in which every demand was gratified as soon as made -It would need not only space but a time of n-dimensions to include all the acts and experiences incompatible with one another here below, which would go in conjunction- spending money, yet growing rich, gaining no end of experience, yet keeping our youthful freshness of heart and the like. Frankfurt 1.Mistaken Wants -“The philosophy of liberalism is distinctively preoccupied with defining and defending the ideal of a society that maximizes the freedom of its members to do what they want. One argument is that permitting people to do as they please enhances the likelihood that they will get what they want, so that ensuring their freedom facilitates their success in the pursuit of happiness” -Two observations 1. To be sure, the connection between doing what we please and getting what we want is not very reliable 2. But what is perhaps even more problematic is the is the connection between getting what we want and actually being happy 2. Desires as problems -Some philosophers maintain that, just in virtue of having a desire, a person necessarily has a reason for trying to satisfy it. The reason may not be a very strong one; there may be much better reasons to perform another action instead. Nevertheless, it counts for something 5 -The mere fact that a person has a desire does not give him a reason. What it gives him is a problem. He has a problem of whether to identify with the desire and thus validate it as eligible for satisfaction, or whether to dissociate himself from it, treat is as categorically unacceptable, and try to suppress it or rid himself of it entirely. 3. First- and Second-Order Desires 1. First-order desires are desires that can potentially move us to action (e.g., the desire to be vegetarian) 2. Second-order desires are desires that some, but maybe not others, of our first-order desires be effective (e.g., a desire to be moved, when considering what to eat, only by my desire to be a vegetarian) -Say that over time I developed a deep affection for animals and so decided that such affection implies that they be treated in certain ways inconsistent with using them as a source of protein. Thus I came to want to be a vegetarian. -We are reflective creatures, that is, we can reflect on the motives we have for action and form desires about which motives we want to be ours -For instance, although I consider being a vegetarian extremely important I find that I have these nagging desires to eat meat. And we might think that in those calm, cool, and collected moments (to use Smith’s construction), when I think back on those occasions in which I succumbed to the meat-eating desire, I may feel that I really had no reason to eat it; I simply gave into a passion. In those cases Frankfurt would say that I acted against my will. 4. The Four characteristics of love 1. To love something is to value it as an end 2. Disinterested (selfless concern) 3. Non-substitutability- cannot be replaced 4. Non-voluntary- cannot chose to fall in love Moore 1. The Argument for the independent value of beauty -Imagine the most beautiful world and the ugliest; it is irrational to hold that it is better that the beautiful world exist, than the one which is ugly 6 -Such mere existence of what is beautiful has value, so small as to be negligible, in comparison with that which attaches to the consciousness of beauty 2. The List of Objective goods Nozick 1. The Experience machine -We want to do certain things and not just have the experience of doing them -We want to be a certain way, to be a certain person -The machine limits us to a man-made reality, to a world no deeper or more important than that which people can construct; there is no actual contact with any deeper reality Parfit 1. Preference Hedonism -Satisfaction of preferences (e.g., Freud preferred not to take pain killer towards the end of his life because he preferred to think clearly though in torment, his life went better if it went as he preferred.) -It would be better if I believe that I am not being deceived 2. The Unrestricted theory -The unrestricted theory consists of all desires, yours and everyone else’s (e.g., wish for stranger to be better, stranger gets better but you don’t know, the unrestricted theory would say your life is better even though you don’t know the change) 3. The Success Theory -Appeals to all of our preferences about our own lives -It would be worse if I believed that I am not being deceived because I didn’t succeed in having people not deceive me. 4. The thoughts on Desire Satisfaction 1. On the one hand, we can say that for desire fulfillment is required the relevant change in the world 2. On the other hand, we can say that for desire fulfillment is required the relevant change in the mind. 5. The objective list theory -Some things are better or worse (e.g., mathematician counting grass: counting grass made him happy but is 7 -Since Nozick posits pre-institutional rights, his worry is that any form of government potentially violates those preexisting rights -An ultra-minimal state maintains a monopoly over all use of force except that necessary in immediate self-defense, and so it excludes private …retaliation for wrong and exaction of compensation; but it provides protection and enforcement services only to those who purchase its protection and enforcement policies -If we are endorsing an ultra-minimal state in the name of avoiding the violation of rights (by avoiding redistribution principle, say) then it may be complained that we are being inconsistent by endorsing a state in which some people’s rights go unprotected. That is, how can we support the ultra- minimal state in the name of the non-violation of rights? 4. Nozick’s Account of Distributive Justice Queen Merchan t Serf Queen Merchan t Serf 30 30 30 88 1 1 -Nozick’s analysis of which of the two societies displays a just distribution would not take as important the end state but only the history of how it came about. On his account, it would turn out that society B displays the just distribution. For example, if the distribution of society A was achieved by taking goods from some citizens in form of taxes, say, (without their consent) and distributing them to others, Nozick would judge the distribution in society A unjust. That is, nonconsensual redistribution based on, for instance, concerns of social welfare is unjust. 5. The Non-violation of Rights as a Goal -Nozick would pick the course of action that violates the least amount of rights -We do not hold the nonviolation of our rights as our sole greatest good (e.g., if there is some desirable society we would choose to inhabit even though in it some rights of ours sometimes are violated, rather than move to a desert island where we could survive alone. 10 -Utilitarianism doesn’t take rights and their nonviolation into account 6. Side Constraints -Rights are side constraints because they limit the means we can use -Side constraints upon action reflect the underlying Kantian principle that individuals are ends not merely means; they may not be sacrificed or used for the achieving of other ends without their consent 7. The Rationality of Side Constraints -Side constraints express the inviolability of other persons 8. Inviolability -Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end 9. The Analogy to the Greatest Good -Why not hold that some persons have to bear some costs that benefit other persons more, for the sake of the overall social good? (e.g., we go to the dentist to avoid worse suffering later on). Kant 1. The first formulation of the Categorical Imperative -1. Identity the maxim -2. Universalize the maxim -3. Law of Nature -4. Examine and adjust the social world 2. The Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative -If there is to be a categorical imperative for the human will, it must be one that forms an objective principle of the will form the conception of that which is necessarily an end for everyone because it is an end in itself. -Rational nature exists as an end in itself 11 -Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only. 3. The Supposed Right to Lie -To tell the truth is a duty, but it is a duty only toward one who had a right to the truth -Definition of a lie as merely an intentional untruthful declaration to another person does not require the additional condition that it must harm another. Sidgwick 1.The Reach of Utilitarianism -We have to consider whom the “all” are, whose happiness is to be taken into account. Are we to extend our concern to all the beings capable to please and pain whose feelings are affected by our conduct? -It seems arbitrary and unreasonable to exclude from the end, as so conceived, any pleasure of any sentient being. 2. The Comparison Problem -If it is difficult to compare the pleasures and pains of other en accurately with our own, a comparison of either with the pleasures and pains of brutes is still more obscure. So it is hard to reach overall utilitarianism to all sentient beings. -Even if we limit our attention to human beings, the extent of the subjects of happiness is not yet quite determinate. 3. The Problem of Maximization -If we take Utilitarianism to prescribe happiness on the whole, it would follow that, if the additional population enjoy on the whole positive happiness, we ought to weigh to the amount of happiness gained by the extra number against the amount lost by the remainder. -Population ought to be increase, is not that at which average happiness is the greatest possible, but that at which the product formed by multiplying the number of persons living into the amount average happiness reaches its maximum. 4. The Esoteric Morality -Theories people can be judged by even if they don’t know about it. 12 4. In that situation I would do the right thing only if I kept my promise by doing A. -Thus the non-consequentialist can hold both that it is a better state of affairs in which more people keep their promises, and the right thing for me to do is something which brings it about that fewer promises are kept Rawls 1. The Separateness of Persons -The correct distribution is that which yields the maximum fulfillment. -But in itself no distribution of satisfaction is better than another except that the more equal distribution is to be preferred to break ties -Thus there is no reason in principle why the greater gains of some should not compensate for the lesser losses of others; or why the violation of the liberty of a few might not be made right by the greater good shared by many -The most natural way, of arriving at utilitarianism is to adopt for society as a whole the principle of rational choice for one man. -It is by the conception of the impartial spectator and the use of sympathetic identification in guiding our imagination that the principle for one man is applied to society -The impartial spectator is the perfectly rational individual who identifies with and experiences the desires of others as if these desires were his own. 2. The Purpose of the Contract -The guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement. -First choose a conception of justice then choose a constitution and a legislature to enact laws, and so on, all in accordance with the principles of justice initially agreed upon. 3. Procedural Justice -Perfect Procedural Justice (PIE): There is a standard for fair and just outcome. You can formulate a fair or just procedure. The person who cuts the 15 pie receives the last piece so he tries his best to cut even slices so he doesn’t get an unfair slice. -Imperfect Procedural Justice (Criminal Trial) There is a standard for fair or just outcome. But there is no procedure to guarantee the fair or just outcome. The criminal justice system has a standard but not everyone gets convicted justly -Pure Procedural Justice (Gambling): There is no standard but a procedure to produce fair outcomes. The procedure for determining the just result must actually be carried out. 4. The Original Position -In justice as fairness the original position of equality corresponds to the state of nature in the traditional theory of the social contract. It is understood as a purely hypothetical situation characterized so as to lead to a certain conception of justice. The original position is the appropriate initial status quo, and thus fundamental agreements reached in it are fair. 5. The Circumstances of Justice 1. The objective circumstances of Justice: -The objective circumstances of justice are those natural background conditions that “make human cooperation both possible and necessary (e.g., many individuals coexist together at the same time on a definite geographical territory. These individuals are roughly similar in physical and mental powers; or at any rate, their capacities are comparable in that no one among them can dominate the rest -There is a limiting condition of the moderate scarcity of resources 2. The Subjective Circumstances of Justice -On the other hand, the subjective circumstances of justice follow from the fact that people have differing, and sometimes conflicting, conceptions of the good, conflicting either as such or in the means required to realize them. Some people have similar needs and interests, which make cooperation possible; they still have their own plans in life. These plans, or conception of the good, lead them 16 to have different ends and purposes, and to make conflicting claims on the natural and social resources available. 6. The Fact of Pluralism -There is a plethora of comprehensive doctrines each recommending different and sometimes incompatible conceptions of the good. This is not just a temporary state of modern society. The diversity of doctrines (the fact of pluralism) is not mere historical condition that will soon pass away; it is a permanent feature of the public culture of modern democracies. -Comprehensive Doctrines: Rawls labels a doctrine “comprehensive” when it includes conceptions of what is of value in human life, ideals of personal virtue and character, and the like, that inform much of our nonpolitical conduct (in the limit, our life as a whole). 7. The Veil of Ignorance -The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance because this ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances 8. Conception of the Person 1. Person is instrumentally rational (finds most efficient means to given ends) 2. Disinterested (not interested in the interests of other people 3. Reasonable (reasonable person has a sense of justice, they seek and honor fair terms of justice) 9. The Primary Goods i. The basic human liberties: freedom from psychological oppression and physical assault, freedom of thought and liberty of conscience, etc.) ii. Income and wealth: are all-purpose means (having an exchange value) for achieving directly a wide range of ends, whatever they happen to be iii. The social bases of self-respect: are those aspects of basic institutions that are normally essential if citizens are to have a lively sense of their own worth as moral persons 17