1. PHILOSOPHY 102 (STOLZE)
Notes on Dale Jamieson, Ethics and the Environment, chapter 2

2. Chapter Two: Human Morality
The Nature and Functions of Morality
Three Challenges to Morality
What Can These Challenges Teach Us?

3. The Nature and Functions of Morality
Jamieson’s definition of morality = “a behavioral system, with an attendant psychology, that has evolved among social animals for the purposes of regulating their interactions” (pp. 26-7).
Hobbesian solution to the problem of a “war of all against all.”
Morality, then, is a “pattern of behavior” that enables social cooperation and reciprocation among individuals.

4. Three Challenges to Morality
Amoralism
Theism
Relativism

5. Amoralism
An amoralist = someone who thinks that “there is no such thing as right or wrong” and so “chooses to opt out of morality altogether” (p. 31).
Thought experiment: Dirk the Amoralist (pp. 32-3)

6. Theism
A theist thinks that “morality comes only from God” and is not, as Jamieson claims, a “human construction” (p. 33).
Two reasons why someone might worry that “without God, everything is permitted” (p. 34):
(1) Without god, morality would have no content.
(2) Without God, we would not be motivated to act morally.

7. Relativism
A relativist = someone who “denies the possibility of moral claims transcending the moral system of the speaker’s own society” (p. 39).
Theoretical and practical objections to relativism
Strengths of relativism

8. What Challenges to Morality Can Teach Us
Morality is ubiquitous and difficult to escape.
Morality does not need the support of God.
Morality is not culture-bound.