1. PHIL/POLS/INTP264 Ethics and International Affairs
Lecture 1: Intro/Utilitarianism
7 July 2008

2. Some Moral Theories Utilitarianism (Rachels article)
Kantian Ethics (O’Neill article)
The Wrongness of Killing (Norman article)
Why do we need moral theories?
Justify and/or morally appraise actions
Enable moral debate

3. Utilitarianism (Rachels)
The morally right action is the one (out of all possible actions) that is judged to have the best overall consequences
* All other actions are morally wrong/inferior
Best consequences = maximise happiness
* Happiness = (net pleasure/pain, or preference satisfaction)
No one’s happiness is to count more than anyone else’s in determination of overall happiness

4. Utilitarianism Objections:
1. To hedonism: Is happiness all that matters? (deceived businessman/ experience machine e.g.)

5. Nozick’s Experience Machine (1974)

6. Utilitarianism Objections: 2. To consequences:
Justice (lonesome stranger e.g.)
Rights (peeping tom e.g.)
Backward looking considerations (promises)

7. Utilitarianism Responses:
Examples unrealistic (but real life examples readily available)
Rule utilitarianism
So much the worse for our ordinary moral intuitions

8. Utilitarianism (Rachels)
Utilitarianism is right to warn against taking moral common sense at face value, but still some objections to the theory seem to have a rational basis; e.g., moral desert.

9. Next Time Kantian Ethics Reading: Onora O’Neill
A Simplified Account of Kant’s Ethics
In the course reader

10. PHIL/POLS/INTP264 Ethics and International Affairs
Lecture 2: Kantian Ethics
10 July 2008

11. Kantian Ethics (O’Neill)
1. Different formulations of fundamental moral principle (Categorical Imperative)
O’Neill focuses on Formula of the End in Itself:
One should always treat humanity, whether in others or in oneself, always as an end, and never merely as a means
3. How are we to understand what it means to treat someone as an end, not a means?...

12. Kantian Ethics (O’Neill)
Acts are based on maxims
A maxim is a subjective principle of action, a policy for how someone intends to act in certain circumstances
e.g., ‘I should get to class on time’, ‘I should keep my promises’, etc.
Examining one’s maxims will tell whether one’s actions are morally permissible or not, according to Kant

13. Kantian Ethics (O’Neill)
4. An act is morally impermissible (wrong) if it uses another in a way to which they could not, in principle, consent. Examples:
a. deceit (lying, false promise, etc.)
b. coercion

14. Kantian Ethics (O’Neill)
Justice vs. Beneficence:
1. There are two types of moral duty, according to Kant, duties of justice and duties of beneficence.
a. Duties of justice require one not to treat others as mere means, but as ends in themselves (as discussed)
b. Duties of beneficence require one to sometimes act to further the ends of others

15. Kantian Ethics (O’Neill)
Scope & precision of Kantian Ethics vs. Utilitarianism:
Kantian ethics lacks scope of utilitarianism, but it is more precise in guiding individuals’ conduct in the areas of life that it does apply.

16. Kantian Ethics (O’Neill)
a. Scope example: Kantian ethics doesn’t apply, ordinarily, to the question whether it is right to brush one’s teeth; utilitarianism does apply, in principle.
Precision example: In cases where a potential act involves, for e.g., intentionally killing an innocent person, Kantian ethics offers absolute answer: it is always wrong.
- Whereas Utilitarianism may or may not permit such killing, depending on the consequences for overall happiness

17. Some Moral Dilemmas The Tram Dilemma The Surgeon’s Dilemma
The Jungle Dilemma
What would a Utilitarian and a Kantian do?
What would be morally right to do?

18. The Tram Dilemma
An out of control tram will soon kill 5 people who are stuck on the track.
You can flick a switch to divert the tram to another track where only one person is stuck.
Should you flip the switch?
Should you kill one person to save five?
SWITCH

19. The Surgeon’s Dilemma You are a surgeon with six patients.
Five of them need major organ transplants.
The sixth, an ideal donor for all the relevant organs, is in hospital for a minor operation.
Should you kill one person to save five?

20. Jungle Dilemma You are trekking alone in the Amazon.
You discover an evil army officer and his troops rounding up villagers.
Unless you kill one, the troops will kill six.
Should you kill one person to save five?

21. Jungle Dilemma Cont. What if there are 2 villagers?
Can you ever kill one innocent person to save many?

22. Next Time Why killing is wrong Reading: Richard Norman
The Wrongness of Killing
In the course reader

23. PHIL/POLS/INTP264 Ethics and International Affairs
Lecture 3: The Wrongness of Killing
11 July 2008

24. The Wrongness of Killing
Utilitarianism: Life is valuable because living things are sentient (or capable of feeling pleasure/pain, happiness). But, persons can be sacrificed for the greater good (i.e., a greater amount of happiness).
Kantianism: Life is valuable because humans are rational. Persons cannot be sacrificed for any ‘greater good’. “Respect for persons”

25. “Right to Life” (Norman)
Are there any basic rights?
According to Norman, no; all rights are essentially social.
He claims that such questions cannot be answered simply by appealing to the notion of rights. There must be some morally relevant consideration that is prior to that of rights.

26. “Sanctity of Life” (Norman)
1. Religious connotations problematic
2. Even on secular conception of reverence or awe or respect to life, the notion is too broad.
a. does it include all life?
b. Human life? (why?; speciesism)
c. Animal life above a certain threshold? Again, why there?

27. “Sanctity of Life” (Norman)
3. If the criterion is one of rationality or some other cognitive criterion, then what about those animals who possess it (or those humans that don’t?)
4. Potentiality: problematic

28. Utilitarian Objections to Killing (Norman)
1. It normally causes pain and suffering to the person killed and their loved ones
a. In line with certain of our intuitions, i.e., with regard to euthanasia and anencephaly
b. But what about those cases where killing doesn’t cause pain and the person is a normally functioning adult hermit?
Deprives them of future happiness

29. Raskolnikov’s Dilemma
"On the one hand, we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, wicked, and decrepit old hag, who is of no use to anybody and who actually does harm to everybody, a creature who does not know herself what she is living for and who will be dead soon, anyway. . . On the other hand, we have. . . Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives could be saved, dozens of families could be rescued from a life of poverty, from decay and ruin, from vice and hospitals for venereal diseases - and all with her money. Kill her, take her money, and with its help devote yourself to the service of humanity and the good of all. Well, don't you think that one little crime could be expiated and wiped out by thousands of good deeds?“
Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

30. Respect for Autonomy (Norman)
1. Similar to Kantian Ethics
a. but, just how autonomous does one need to be to be worthy of respect?
b. Again, what about borderline cases, infants and severely retarded persons; and higher animals?

31. Respect for Life (Norman)
Maybe what’s significant about taking life is that it involves fundamental disrespect for life* as a whole
* Where life means: the continuing process of experience and development
To make sense of this, the concept of potentiality must be reintroduced at some level; early deaths, Norman claims, are especially tragic (but infants are borderline?)
Is this a problem for non-philosophers?

32. Marginal Cases
Important to recognize marginal cases as indeed marginal (i.e., abortion)
Doesn’t follow that because there are hard cases, everything is subjective or relative. (is duck-billed platypus a mammal or not?)
In practical sphere, as opposed to theoretical, much more pressure to have definite answer

33. The Doctrine of Double Effect
The doctrine of double effect claims that:
Sometimes it is morally permissible to knowingly but unintentionally cause harm as a side effect of intending to do some good act (presumably with good consequences).
And, this is the case even when that side-effect harm should not (morally speaking) have been intentionally caused to bring about those same good consequences.
E.g. Dropping 1080 on national parks
E.g. Dropping nukes on Japan