1. To Get The PowerPoint Notes
Go to
Left click on “ethics power point” to view or right click to save (recommended).
I tweak regularly so refresh the file weekly to insure that you have the latest version.
Print the slides covering the relevant material for the week as “handouts” (I recommend three to a page) and bring them to class to take additional notes on.

2. What Is Ethics?
Generally speaking, an ethic is a set of moral values or principles.
Some see ethics as primarily about one’s personal moral code while others see it as primarily about a social moral code.
Some people and societies base their ethics on religious beliefs.
Descriptive ethics is the historical, comparative, or psychological study of the various sets of values that people do in fact have.
Evaluative (prescriptive, normative) ethics is a critical enterprise concerning which sets of values people should have.
It asks which sets are better or worse and why.
It is part of a branch of philosophy called moral philosophy.
Metaethics is another part of moral philosophy; it studies the concepts, methods of justification, and ontological assumptions of the field of evaluative ethics (like the meaning of moral language).

3. Ethics As a Branch of Philosophy
Philosophy asks fundamental questions about key areas of the human situation.
Philosophers (and philosophies) may be either systematic or piecemeal.
Philosophy emphasizes rationality and the importance of giving reasons for beliefs (but this doesn’t mean abandoning or ignoring emotions and feelings).
Nowadays philosophical ethics is primarily prescriptive and normative, but metaethical issues are still discussed.

4. Ethics and Religion
Religion grounds ethics in things like scripture and divine revelation, whereas philosophy seeks to ground ethics in reason and experience.
Divine command theory bases right and wrong completely on the will of god(s).
In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates questions this view by asking “Are things just (good/right) because they are approved by god, or does god approve them because they are just?”
Others have objected that it prevents atheists from having a morality, or having a reason to be moral or to be concerned to do the morally right thing.

5. Ethical and Nonethical Evaluation
Descriptive judgments (“empirical”) attempt to state what is the case.
Evaluative judgments (“normative”) attempt to state what should be the case in terms of general beliefs about what is good or right (norms and standards).
Moral judgments are only one type of evaluative judgment; Others are legal, aesthetic, practical etc.
The nature of the linkage between descriptive and evaluative judgments in ethics remains controversial (Hume’s notorious “is-ought” problem).

6. Ethical Terms
Right and wrong usually apply to doings (action) and there is usually no in-between.
Good and bad usually apply to beings (things or states-of-affairs) and there are usually degrees between.
Ought and obligation imply urgency but morally permissible does not.
Other terms are just and unjust, virtuous and viscous.
Often the ethical theory we advocate influences the terms we use and their precise meanings.

7. Ethics As a Rational Enterprise
Philosophical ethics requires that we provide reasons (premises) to support our moral claims (conclusions.).
To logically support the conclusion, such reasons must be both true (or well-grounded) and relevant to the conclusion.
We should try to avoid fallacies such as the ad hominem.
Because ethical issues are generally a mix of factual, conceptual, and evaluative issues, we must be prepared to argue on multiple fronts: facts, meanings, and values.
Analogical arguments are common in ethics and must be closely analyzed to see if they are apt.
Remember that giving reasons to justify a conclusion is not the same as explaining why one believes it.

8. Ethical Theory
An ethical theory is a systematic exposition of a particular view about the nature and basis of the good and the right.
It provides (and attempts to justify) reasons and norms for judging acts to be right or wrong.
It provides ethical principles based on these norms that can be used to decide what to do in particular cases.

9. Ethical Reasoning
There is an interesting relationship between ethical theories, the ethical principles they crank out, and the ethical judgments we make in particular cases.
Sometimes our particular judgments are so strong that no principles or theories that contradict them can be accepted.
On the other hand, sometimes an ethical theory or principle can work to illuminate or guide us in the judgments we should make in particular cases.
Dilemma: should I let a reasonable theory guide my particular judgments or my particular judgments guide my choice of principles and theory?

10. Types of Ethical Theories
Consequentialist (teleological) ethics focus on actual or intended results.
Nonconsequentialist (deontological, duty-based) ethics focus on something other than results, such as the intent or the inherent nature of the act.
Virtue ethics focuses not on acts but on having good character traits.
Natural law ethics bases good, bad, right and wrong with the norms found in nature; What allows our human nature to flourish is good, what corrupts it is bad.

11. Why Take Ethics? To become a morally better person? (Plato).
To better appreciate specific moral problems.
To provide conceptual and critical tools to help us think better about in moral matters.
To help us form and critically analyze ethical arguments.
To increase our respect for opposing views.
To help us see the potential reasonableness in previously unconsidered viewpoints.
To satisfy our natural curiosity and test the limits of knowledge.

12. Challenging the Idea of a Universal, Objective Morality
Nihilism hold that there are no objective values of any kind.
Relativism holds that ethical values and beliefs are relative either to the individuals or the societies that hold them and thus there is no objective standard of right and wrong.
Egoism holds that right and wrong are based entirely on self-interest.

13. Descriptive Relativism
Descriptive relativism makes factual claims about what people believe to be right and wrong.
Personal descriptive relativism asserts that different people embrace different moral norms, values and beliefs.
Cultural descriptive relativism asserts that different groups of people embrace different moral norms, values and beliefs.
Most anthropologists accept both.

14. Prescriptive (Ethical) Relativism
Ethical relativism makes evaluative claims about what really is right or wrong, based on the denial of the existence of objective ethical norms and values.
Personal ethical relativism holds that ethical norms and standards are relative to the individuals who hold them.
Cultural ethical relativism holds that ethical norms and standards are relative to the groups that hold them.
Both are subjective views in the sense that both see morality as a function of the moral beliefs that people have, not of some objective reality beyond them (moral objectivism.)

15. Morality Contrasted With Science
Science seems to be universally valid, admits of progress and follows agreed-upon objective methods of inquiry.
Ethics seems not to be universally valid, admits of no clear progress and lacks agreed-upon objective methods of inquiry.

16. Common Reasons for Ethical Relativism
It is implied by the existence of moral diversity.
It explains moral uncertainty, the great difficulty we have in knowing what is the morally right thing to believe or do.
It is implied by situational differences between individuals and between groups; It allows these situational differences to “morally matter.”
It promotes tolerance.

17. Objectivist Responses
Moral diversity:
It may not be as widespread and deep as imagined; much apparent moral diversity may be due to differing factual beliefs.
Mere diversity of belief does not prove relativism.
Moral uncertainty:
If anything, moral uncertainty supports moral skepticism, not moral relativism.
The uncertainty and seeming lack of progress compared with science may simply indicate that ethics is harder, not that it is non-objective.
Perhaps moral progress is less apparent because it is different than scientific progress and harder to detect.
Situational differences:
Moral objectivism needn’t entail with moral absolutism (“strong objectivism”).
While recognizing objective core principles, moral objectivism can still be situationally sensitive (“weak objectivism”).

18. Problems With Ethical Relativism
Cultural ethical relativism:
It is hard to define and identify a culture
It seems strange to think that morality itself changes with changes in “polling percentages”.
Personal ethical relativism:
it doesn’t seem to conform to how we actually react to situations of moral uncertainty.
It seems strange to think that an individual can make something right for her just by believing that it is right.
Both:
Neither necessarily encourage tolerance
Both encourage a kind of “moral laziness.”

19. Problems for the Moral Objectivist
What exactly is the objective alternative to ethical relativism?
How do we defend moral realism,the view that there is a moral reality whose existence and nature are independent of those who know it?
Is the objective good defined by this moral reality one or many, and how do we come to know it?

20. G. E. Moore on Goodness
If it is a real property, how do we sense, observe or know it, and is it one or many?
G. E. Moore’s objectivist view:
Goodness is a specific quality that attaches to people or acts.
However, because it is simple and unobservable by sense perception it cannot be analyzed in terms of parts or defined in terms of the natural properties employed by science.
Thus, although real, it is a nonnatural property of things whose presence we somehow intuit with a special moral sense.
Others have held that moral properties like goodness are relational or supervenient properties.

21. Mary Midgley on “Moral Isolationism”
Moral diversity leads some to hold that we can never understand any culture except our own well enough to make judgments about it.
Midgley criticizes M.I. On the following grounds:
It isn’t forced on us.
It isn’t a respectful attitude (respect requires understanding.).
It falsely implies that other cultures can’t criticize us.
The isolating barrier of blocks praise as well as blame.
If we can’t judge other cultures, we can’t judge our own.
M.I. Leads to a general ban on moral reasoning (=immoralism.).
If there were an isolating barrier, our own culture could never have been formed.

22. The Alan/Edna Debate
Factual (and conceptual) question: are people basically self-centered or selfish?
Factual question: what are the implications or consequences of such self-centered or selfish behavior?
Evaluative question: is such behavior a good or bad thing?

23. Psychological Egoism
This is a factual (descriptive) theory that holds that people are naturally self-interested.
Self-interested may be understood as narrow and short-range (“selfish”) or as broader and longer-term.
Under the latter, we need to take the interests of others into account, but our concern for others need not be genuine, only apparent.
It seems false to claim that people always act in their own best interests, but perhaps they always do what they think is in their own best interests.
Thomas Hobbes ( ) was a psychological egoist and a moral contractarian.

24. Is Psychological Egoism True?
Believing in the jury system versus serving on a jury.
Abraham Lincoln and the piglets.
Is self-interestedness innate or learned?
Is there a gender difference re self-interestedness?
Theories about motivation, while apparently empirical, are difficult, if not impossible to prove.
Mother Theresa cases: if we are to argue for P.E., It isn’t enough to argue that she got satisfaction out of doing what she did; We have to show that her aim was the obtaining of the satisfaction.
Paradoxically, we may have a better chance of obtaining happiness if we do not aim primarily at happiness.

25. Ethical Egoism
This is a normative (prescriptive) theory about how we ought to behave.
Individual ethical egoism is the view that I (the speaker) ought to look out only for my own best interests and have no concern for others unless it impacts me (no advice for others).
Universal ethical egoism is the view that everyone should look out only for their own best interests; The interests of others should concern them only when it affects them.

26. Is Ethical Egoism True? Does it follow from psychological egoism?
Is IEE even a morality?
Is UEE even consistent?
Is EE justified by laissez faire capitalism?
Does EE conform with common sense?

27. Falk’s Moral Point of View
The egoist stresses prudence as the essence of morality.
But a moral education is not the same thing as a prudential education since.
Morality requires occasionally seeing beyond ourselves and our own interests.
Morality requires occasionally seeing things from others’ points of view.
Morality requires occasionally being impartial.
Morality requires occasionally restricting self-interest.

28. Why Be Moral? The most common reason seems to be fear of reprisal.
Plato’s story about the ring of Gyges raise two questions:
Do we value morality or just the appearance of morality?
Why not be a free rider?
One response is that being moral is to one’s own positive advantage, either internally (e.G., Plato: being moral leads to a healthy soul which is essential for true happiness) or externally (e.G.,Ben Franklin’s adages in poor Richard’s almanac).
An eastern perspective: morality is connected with honor and nobility, which are essential to the good life.

29. Have You Considered A Philosophy Major or Minor?
Open up new universes of thought!
Meet interesting and exciting people!
Form your own “weltanschauung”!
Be the hit of the party with witty philosophical repartee!
Learn Plato’s real name!
Become rich and famous! (Well, maybe not, but did I mention new universes?)
Not for the intellectually squeamish or lazy!
See your nearest philosophy department for details - why not TODAY?

30. Utilitarianism: The Basic Idea
We all should strive to produce the most happiness we can while reducing unhappiness to a minimum (the utilitarian principle.).
Ethical issues should be decided by comparing the benefits and costs to all of each available alternative and doing that which has (or appears to have) the greatest net benefit.
Everyone’s happiness and unhappiness (benefits and costs) counts the same; We mustn’t play favorites..

31. Characteristics of Classical Utilitarianism
Consequentialist
Hedonistic
Democratic
Progressive and reformist
Empirical
Optimistic

32. Two Versions of the Utilitarian Principle
The morally better or best act is that which produces the greatest net utility (e.G., Happiness, pleasure, preference satisfaction, benefits over cost).
Do that which produces the greatest good (utility) for the greatest number.

33. Jeremy Bentham ( )
The same principle applies to both personal and social morality: maximize group happiness or pleasure and minimize group unhappiness or pain.
Bentham makes no distinction between “higher” and “lower” pleasures;He insists that, if the quantity of pleasure produced is the same, “pushpin is as good as poetry”.

34. Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Good
Classical utilitarians viewed happiness or pleasure as the only thing good or desirable for its own sake.
They viewed all other goods (e.G. Money, health) as simply means to happiness or pleasure.

35. Bentham’s Purely Quantitative “Hedonic Calculus”
First we factor in the net happiness or pleasure produced by a contemplated action; This is the total pleasure produced minus the total pain produced.
Next, we factor in the intensity of pleasure or pain produced in each individual.
Then we consider the duration of the pleasure or pain produced in each individual.
Then we add a factor representing the fruitfulness of the pleasure or pain produced in each individual (which is a measure of the tendency of that pleasure or pain to produce or set the stage for future pleasures or future absences of pain.).
Finally, we add a probability figure to the entire calculation that indicates how likely are our predictions of the future consequences of each alternative action.

36. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): Quality Over Quantity
Mill believed that some pleasures (notably, the pleasures of the mind) are qualitatively superior to other pleasures (such as the pleasures of the body.).
He writes, “better a Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”
Mill claims that the empirical test for quality is the preference of the equally experienced.

37. Evaluating the Theory Isn’t it too complex to use?
Isn’t it contrary to our common moral beliefs?
It assumes that the happiness of strangers is as important as the happiness of family and friends.
It implies that the end (general happiness) always justifies the means (e.G., Executing the innocent).
It seems unjust that the interests of some can be sacrificed for the interests of the many.

38. Act Versus Rule Utilitarianism
Act: consider the consequences of this particular act and do that act which has the best results.
Rule: consider the consequences of a certain practice and then do that act which falls under the practice that would have the best results if generally followed.

39. Mill’s “Proof” That Pleasure Is Desirable for Its Own Sake
Just as the proof that something is visible or audible is that it is seen or heard, so the proof that something is desirable is that it is desired.
Everyone desires pleasure for its own sake, so pleasure is desirable for its own sake.
Problem: “audible” means “can be heard” but “desirable” means “should be desired”.

40. Contemporary Versions
Preference utilitarianism: do that act (or follow that rule) that satisfies the preferences of the greatest number.
Cost-benefit analysis: do that act (or follow that rule) that leads to the greatest benefit over cost ratio.

41. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and His Three Big Questions
What can we know? (Understanding is limited by the forms of the mind)
What is real? (Reality is the intersection of “inner” mental forms “shaping” sensations that come from “outside”)
What should we do? Read on…

42. What Gives an Act “Moral Worth”?
The intent to do the right thing for the right reason (because it is right) is what gives an act moral worth (“duty for duty's sake”).
Kant says that this motive (the good will) is the one thing in the world that is good for its own sake.
It is not the consequences that matter since.
These aren’t always under our control and.
It gives humans only use value, not inherent value.

43. Two Kinds of Oughts
Hypothetical commands express duties that are based on individual goals, so these oughts are conditional.
But moral commands express duties that are categorical; They are based on our common personhood as rational, autonomous beings so these oughts are unconditional.

44. What Is My Moral Duty?
All moral duties flow from a single duty that is purely formal and lacks content, the categorical imperative.
Kant gives two main forms which he regards as equivalent:
Act only on that maxim which you can rationally will as a universal law.
Always treat humanity (self and others) as ends-in-themselves, never merely as mere means.

45. Evaluating: The Appealing Aspects of Kant’s Theory
It stresses fairness and consistency.
The emphasis on respect for all persons contrasts favorably with utilitarianism.
For Kant, morality is both clearly real and strictly binding.

46. Problems With the Categorical Imperative
Which maxim do we use?
I can universally will things that aren’t moral duties.
Some things that I can’t universally will aren’t morally wrong.
Isn’t Kant just a rule utilitarian in disguise?
When is coercion or deception present?

47. Other Potential Problems
The theory is too strict, too absolutist.
It gives us no help in resolving conflicts of duty.
Stressing moral equality and impartiality ignores morally relevant differences of gender, race, age, and talents between persons and groups.
Rationality may not be the same for all.
Too male-oriented; Kant ignores feelings.

48. Perfect and Imperfect Duties
For Kant, a perfect duty is absolute; It is owed by all to all at all times (like the duty not to murder.)
An imperfect duty is one that is only owed by some to some on some occasions (like the duty to be charitable.)

49. Ethical Naturalism: Good As a Function of the Way Things Are.
Natural law theory: the moral law is based on human nature.
Natural rights theory: human rights are claims whose recognition by others is essential to our natural functioning as human beings.
Virtue ethics: ethics is about developing and retaining good habits and character traits that allow us to function well as human beings.

50. Virtue Ethics The morally good person is the virtuous person.
A virtue is a good inner trait or habit.
The emphasis is on “what should I be?” Not “what should I do?”

51. Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics
Contrast with Plato’s nonnaturalism.
Virtue as human excellence (arete).
Intellectual and moral virtue.
Moral virtue as a golden mean between extremes.

52. Philippa Foote’s Virtue Ethics
In some ways she agrees with Aristotle.
Virtues are corrective traits that are usually beneficial to both self and community.
Virtues help us do what is difficult.
But in other ways she challenges Aristotle.
Not all virtues benefit both self and others (charity, for instance, seems to mostly benefit others).
Not all beneficial traits seem to be virtues.
Virtue’s are things we choose to develop, not just character traits we already possess, thus virtue may lie more in the intent (e.G., To be industrious) rather than simply in the pattern of actions themselves.

53. Evaluating Virtue Ethics
Does virtue lie in the intent to act or in the habit to act?
Are all beneficial traits virtues? (If not, which ones are?)
Are any virtues universal, or are they all relative to specific societies, times, genders, etc.?
Is virtue ethics really distinct from “act ethics”?

54. Natural Law Theory
There are prescriptive as well as descriptive laws of nature, and they are not identical.
These laws are based on human nature and are thus universal.
These laws are accessible to unaided human reason.
These laws transcend human laws and customs.

55. Examples of the Natural Law in Literature and History
Sophocles’ Antigone.
The Nuremberg war-crime trials.
Martin Luther king and the civil-rights movement.

56. History of the Natural Law
The tradition originates in Aristotle ( B.C.).
It passed through the stoics into Christianity.
It was a major feature of the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas ( ).

57. Aristotle’s Basic Ideas
Natural beings have a built-in principle of order directing them to their goal, the mature final form (the “good at which all things aim”).
Species tendencies, capacities and traits determine good and happy individuals.
Since humans are by nature rational animals, the good and happy humans are those who have developed the rational capacity to think and act well.

58. St. Thomas Aquinas
The natural law is the expression of divine law as known through reason and conscience unaided by faith or revelation.
The purpose and order in nature comes from the mind of a creator god.
What enhances our species nature is good; What frustrates it is bad.

59. Evaluating Natural Law Theory
The emphasis on the objectivity of morality is appealing as is the emphasis on human flourishing.
But…
Can humans really read nature?
Can we really derive an “ought” from an “is”?
Does the apparent telos in nature really entail a planner (Darwin)?

60. Natural Rights Theory Human rights are based on natural functioning.
Examples: stoics,roman law, Voltaire, Jefferson, Geneva convention, U.N. Declaration of human rights.
Natural rights are said to flow from the natural law which is accessible to human reason.

61. Evaluating Natural Rights Theory
What is the scope of natural rights?
Are these positive welfare rights or negative noninterference rights?
What does in fact further (or frustrate) human nature?
What is the actual basis of human rights (reason, god, language, democracy, justice?)

62. What Is “Death”? Whole brain death.
Persistent vegetative state (PVS): Unconscious but awake (brain stem functions normally).
Coma (brain stem functions poorly.
The question of euthanasia (“good death”) apples only to the living.

63. Important Distinctions in the Euthanasia Debate
The active/passive distinction:
Active is doing something to cause death
Passive is “allowing to die”
The ordinary/extraordinary means distinction
Ordinary means have a reasonable hope of benefiting the patient
Extraordinary means are excessively burdensome
The voluntary/nonvoluntary distinction:
Voluntary is with the patient’s free, rational, informed consent
Nonvoluntary is where someone else decides.
Legal guardianships and advance directives

64. Morality and the Law Should everything immoral be illegal?
Should everything morally permissible be legally permissible?

65. Euthanasia and the Law
The law currently allows mentally and legally competent people to refuse even life-saving treatment for themselves.
Passive euthanasia is now a common practice.
No state currently allows active euthanasia.
Landmark Cases: Quinlan (1975) and Cruzan (1990).
The 2000 Dutch and 2001 Belgian laws (p. 135)

66. Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS)
Suicide statistics (p. 136).
PAS can be seen as a combination of euthanasia and suicide; It resembles active euthanasia in that the doctor acts to bring about the death but the causation of the doctor is indirect.
Dr. Death: The case of Jack Kevorkian
The American Medical Association opposes assisted suicide but several appeals courts have upheld the practice on privacy grounds.
The Oregon Death with Dignity Act (1994 & 1997): primary reason cited for wanting to kill themselves was not pain or financial problems but autonomy and personal control.

67. Pain Medication that Causes Death
This looks like active euthanasia but needs to be distinguished.
One way is by the principle of double effect.
This principle relies on the idea that there is a moral difference between intending to kill someone and intending to relieve pain.
In practice, it may be difficult to know what is going on (mixed, hidden motives.)

68. The Moral Importance of Voluntariness (Consent)
For consequentialists it only matters to the extent it affects human happiness.
For nonconsequentialists autonomy overrides results so it is very important if the consent is autonomous.
There are longstanding theoretical problems involving self, autonomy and free will that cloud issues of consent.

69. How Morally Important Is the Active/passive Distinction?
Consequentialist: If death is the best outcome the means shouldn’t matter (in fact, active might be better.).
Nonconsequentialist: Respect for autonomy may be limited by a significant moral difference between killing a letting die.

70. How Useful Is the Ordinary/Extraordinary Means Distinction?
If it is taken to mean “common versus uncommon” it isn’t morally useful.
The issue of patient benefit/burden is evaluative and morally relevant, but.
How do we measure and compare benefits and burdens?
Should family and social cost/benefit issues be considered as well?

71. Infant Euthanasia: Baby Doe Cases
Downs Syndrome
Anencephaly
Two different moral issues:
Who best decides?
What are the proper reasons to provide or deny care?

72. J. Gay Williams: The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia
Support is based on unthinking sympathy.
So-called passive euthanasia isn’t euthanasia at all since there is no intent to kill.
Euthanasia is contrary to nature and thus inherently wrong.
Euthanasia is contrary to self-interest.
Euthanasia has bad practical effects (like the “slippery slope”.).

73. James Rachels on the Active/Passive Distinction
If PE is justified on humanitarian grounds then why not also AE, especially when its quicker?
The distinction allows medical decisions to be made on irrelevant grounds (e.g., Downs Syndrome cases.).
Killing is not inherently worse than letting die (the Smith/Jones case).
Cessation of treatment can be just as much “the intentional termination of human life” as AE.
It is not always wrong to cause death.

74. Abortion: A Volatile Issue
A life and death issue
An issue about the meaning of life itself
A gender issue
A happiness issue
An autonomy issue
A fetal research issue
For many, a religious issue

75. Stages of Fetal Development
Zygote
Day 1: fertilization
Day 2-3: passage through fallopian tube
Day 7-10: embedding in uterine wall
Blastocyst
Week 2-8: organs and structures develop
Week 6-8: brain waves detectable
Fetus
Week 12-16: quickening
Week 20-28: viability
Week 40: birth

76. U.S. Abortion Statistics (Alan Guttmacher Institute)
Overall U.S. rate in 2000: 21/1000 (from 24/1000 in 1994)
Rate for women in 2000: 15/1000 (from 24/1000 in 1994)
Abortion rates for women who make less than twice the federal poverty line ($34,000 for a family of 4) rose 25% between 1994 and 2000
67% of abortions in 2000 were performed on never-married women, 17% on married women, 16% on previously married women, 90% on women in metropolitan areas.
Blacks (14% of women 15-44) account for 32% and Hispanics (13% of women 15-44) account for 20% of abortions in 2000 (but note that pregnancy rates are historically higher among minority women)

77. Abortion Methods Morning-after pill RU486 (mifepristone)
Uterine (vacuum) aspiration
Dilation and curretage
Saline
Prostaglandin drugs
Hysterotomy
Dilation and extraction (D&X)

78. Roe v. Wade
Women’s Constitutional privacy rights must be balanced with states’ interests in protecting potential human life.
The fetus is not a legal person.
No state may prohibit abortion prior to viability (3rd trimester).
Laws regarding the medical safety of abortions are allowable from the 2nd trimester on.
After viability states may prohibit except when the life or health of the woman is at stake.

79. Post Roe v. Wade Restrictions on Medicaid funding
Timing and procedure requirements
Waiting periods
Risk notification
Bans on the use of public facilities and public employees
Restrictions cannot place an “undue burden” on the right to privacy

80. Arguments That Don’t Depend on the Fetal-Personhood Issue
Utilitarian consequentialist reasoning makes it sometimes permissible sometimes not; the moral status of the fetus isn’t a factor.
Judith Jarvis Thomson’s rights argument says that the right to life of the fetus does not obligate a pregnant woman to sustain its life (the “violinist analogy”)

81. Arguments that Do Depend on the Fetal-Personhood Issue
Method I: For the various stages of fetal development ask what is present, when it is present and why it is morally significant to possessing a right to life.
Method II: Comparing what we say about fetuses to what we say about beings other than fetuses and asking “Why do people generally have rights?”

82. Some Examples of Method I
Conception: A unique full genetic code is present but there is no structure or differentiation yet and no individual.
Detectable brain waves: The brain is the locus of consciousness and the cessation of brain activity is the criteria for death but brain activity develops gradually and early stages aren’t much different than the brains of animals.

83. More Examples of Method I
Quickening: Indicates self-initiated movement but plants and animals do this too.
Viability: Indicates sufficient completeness and the capacity for independent, separate existence but
It’s a floating norm
The viable fetus is still dependent on others
Moral status shouldn’t be a function of independence
birth would be a better choice if separateness and independence is what matters.

84. Method II: What Is It to Be a Person and Have a Right to Life?
Species Membership
Being a member of the human species is what counts.
Being a member of a human-like species is what counts.
Individual Capacities Views:
Having the potentiality to develop human or human-like characteristics is what counts.
Having the actuality of possessing human or human-like characteristics is what counts.
As potential gradually develops the moral status of the being also grows (=the evolving value view: potential counts, but not as much as actuality).

85. Marquis: Why Abortion is Immoral
Marquis assumes that the moral permissibility of abortion rests on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end.
Both sides have difficulties coming up with an acceptable moral principle (free of difficulties and counter-examples) that will tie their “facts” with their conclusions about the morality of abortion.
The standoff can be broken by asking “Why is it wrong to kill us?”
What makes it wrong is not its effect on the murderer nor its effect on the victim’s friends and relatives but its effect on the victim, the loss of the value of his or her future.

86. Marquis II.: Defending the Thesis
The fact that the theory covers nonhumans as well as humans is a plus.
The theory does not entail that active euthanasia is wrong.
The theory straightforwardly entails that it is prima facie seriously wrong to kill children and infants.
Because the relevant category is “having a valuable future like ours” and not “personhood”, the theory is not committed to the invalid inference that, since it is wrong to kill persons, it is wrong to kill potential persons also.
The structure of this argument against abortion parallels nicely the structure of the common argument against the wanton infliction of suffering on animals.
Note that the argument establishes prima facie wrongness, not wrongness in all circumstances.
It does not entail that contraception is also prima facie wrong.

87. Sexual Trends: Good or Bad?
Early sexual activity
Sexual explicitness in ads, movies and the general culture
Pornography
Homosexuality and gay rights
Sex education

88. Factual Issues The effects of celibacy The effects of promiscuity
The effects of homosexual activity
The connection between sexual practices and sexually transmitted diseases

89. What’s The Issue?
Consequentialists frame the issue in terms of sexual behavior that is good or bad, better or worse.
Nonconsequentialists frame the issue in terms of sexual behavior that is enhancing or using, fair or unfair, right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable.
Natural law theorists frame the issue in terms of sexual behavior that is natural or unnatural, proper or perverted.

90. Consequentialist Considerations
Negatives: Physical and psychic harm, unwanted pregnancy, effects on family and others.
Positives: Pleasure, physical and psychological benefits.
The pain of one may be offset by the pleasures of others.
Since only consequences matter, there is no problem per se with extramarital sex, nonmarital sex or homosexuality.

91. Nonconsequentialist Considerations
Respect for persons
Reciprocity
Agreement (consent)
No coercion
No deceit

92. Naturalness Considerations
Since sex has the biological aim of procreation, what interferes with or frustrates this aim may be seen as morally objectionable.
“Natural” refers to common human (species) nature, not individual natures.
Sexual perversions aren’t abnormal in the factual sense of being rare but in the prescriptive sense of violating a moral norm of nature.
Is there a normal sex drive with a natural object?

93. What Is Pornography?
Neutral definition: Sexual material whose primary purpose is sexual stimulation.
Nonneutral definition: Degrading and demeaning portrayals of females as sexual objects to be used, exploited and manipulated by men.

94. The Legal Definition of Obscenity: The Miller Standard
Material is legally obscene if
It is “patently offensive to local community standards”
Appeals primarily to “prurient interests”
Taken as a whole it “lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value” (the LAPS test)
This is called the “Miller Standard” (Miller v. California, 1973)

95. Liberty Limiting Principles
The harm principle (Mill): Liberty may be limited to prevent harm to others
The social-harm principle: Liberty may be limited to prevent harm to society
The offense principle: Liberty may be limited to prevent others from being offended
Legal paternalism: Liberty may be limited to prevent one from harming oneself
Legal moralism: Liberty may be limited to minimize immoral conduct

96. Catharine MacKinnon: Feminism and Pornography
Pornography differs from erotica.
Pornography depicts with approval the degradation and subordination of women and violence against women while perpetuating sexist stereotypes of women.
Pornography “eroticizes hierarchy” and violates the civil rights of women.
Free speech is not an absolute right.

97. Richard Mohr: Prejudice and Homosexuality
There are more gays than most think and they are discriminated against.
The descriptive immorality of gays does not entail their prescriptive immorality.
Basing anti-gay laws on Biblical arguments involves a selective reading and violates church-state separation.
Homosexuality is not unnatural in any morally meaningful sense.
Homosexuality is not a matter of choice.
The social acceptance of gays would produce more benefits than harm.

98. Civil Rights Laws I 1868: 14th Amendment (equal protection)
1920: 19th Amendment (women’s vote)
1954: Brown v. Board of Education (reversed “separate but equal” schools.)
1963: Equal Pay Act
1964: Civil Rights Act, Title VI (no discrimination in employment or sex-segregation of jobs, established Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications)

99. Civil Rights Laws II
1978: Bakke v. U.C. Davis Medical School (no racial quotas in school admissions)
1979: Weber v. Kaiser Aluminum (allowed affirmative action as a means of remedying past discrimination)
1991: Congressional Civil Rights Act (no practices with discriminatory impact without business necessity, no quotas unless needed to correct past or present discrimination, sexual harassment in terms of rewards for favors or creating a hostile work environment is a form of discrimination.)
1995: Adarand v. Pena (government preference programs must undergo strict scrutiny to see if there is a “compelling government interest”)

100. Racism and Sexism
Race and sex become key identifying features to denigrate, hold inferior, and make false and harmful judgments.
Racism and sexism are associated with, but not the same as, prejudice (=judging positively or negatively on the basis of insufficient evidence.)

101. Why Are Racism and Sexism Wrong?
They are unjust, unfair and harmful.
They violate the Principle of Equality:
Treat equals equally and unequals unequally.
More precisely: It is unjust to treat people differently in ways that deny to some significant social benefits unless we can show that there is a real difference between them that is relevant to the differential treatment.

102. Challenges to the Principle
Group differences are average differences, so applying the principle based solely on group membership is unfair to individuals who differ from the group profiles.
Not every member of a discriminated group has suffered discrimination, and not every member of a discriminatory group is discriminatory.
The equality/inequality dilemma for women; the principle doesn’t go far enough.

103. Affirmative Action Programs
Secondary discrimination may remain even after primary discrimination is gone, so ceasing discrimination is not enough.
A.A programs:
Enlarging the pool
Preferences among the equally well-qualified
Preferences for the less well-qualified
Goals versus quotas

104. Consequentialist Considerations: Pro A.A.
A.A. breaks the cycle of poverty and lack of equal opportunity
A.A. provides positive role-models
Without A.A., no change is likely

105. Consequentialist Considerations: Con A.A.
A.A. doesn’t benefit the most disadvantaged
A.A. is useless without additional assistance
Lawsuits are more effective than A.A.
A.A. stigmatizes recipients
A.A. increases racial and gender tensions

106. Nonconsequentialist Considerations
Pro: A.A. is just compensation for past wrongs.
Con: Race and sex are irrelevant characteristics for treating groups or individuals differently, so A.A. itself violates the principle of equality and is thus a form of reverse discrimination.
Con: A.A. compensates groups without consideration of individual responsibility for past discrimination, but only those individuals actually harmed should be compensated and only those who actually wronged them should pay.

107. Lisa Newton
Since moral justice and equality are predicated on political justice and equality (equal treatment under the law), violating political justice to promote greater moral justice is a form of reverse discrimination.
A.A. also faces great practical difficulties
Who to compensate?
How much?
For how long?

108. Robert Fullinwider
A.A. is not about dividing up social benefits by race and gender or promoting equality, but about preventing discrimination and securing equality of opportunity.
Because discrimination is deep and hidden (secondary, institutional) and not shallow and open (primary), strong measures are needed (giant-land, curb-world examples.)
If A.A. is unfair to some whites, no A.A. would be more unfair to more nonwhites; hence, we must choose the lesser injustice for a time.

109. Moral Issues in Economics
Do people have a right to make and keep as much money as they can?
Does society owe everyone an equal chance at success?
Is profit the only work-incentive?
Is welfare a matter of charity or justice?
Should wealthy nations help poorer ones?

110. The Widening Gap
Currently, the gap between the rich and poor in the U.S. is the widest since record-keeping began in 1947.
In 2000 the bottom 5th had 4.5% of total family income while the top 5th had 45.4%
In New York the average person in the top 5th makes almost 13 times as much as the average person in the bottom 5th (California, 11X)
In 2001 women who worked full time earned 73% of what men who worked the same amount of timee made.
In 2000 the median annual earnings of full-time men workers was $37,399 to women’s $27,355.
In 2001, 43,662 men earned at least $1,000,000 but only 3,253 women did.
Women without children working at jobs with similar skills earn 98% of what men do.
In 2000, black men earned an average of $30,409, black women $25,117, Hispanic men $24,638, and Hispanic women $20,527.

111. Economic Values
Efficiency
Liberty
Justice

112. Distributive Justice Basic Question: Who gets what and why?
Process views say that whatever distribution emerges from a fair process (like capitalism?) is just.
End-state views say that a just distribution requires good reasons why some have more than others.

113. Proposed End-State Views
Egalitarianism (equality of wealth, income, satisfaction or welfare.)
Distribute by need, merit, talent, effort, contribution, moral-worth, or some combination of these.

114. Justice as Equal Opportunity
Equal opportunity may be defined as each having either no barriers or equal barriers.
Do children in America have an equal opportunity to achieve economic success?
How can initial starting points be equalized without seriously infringing on personal and family autonomy?
Harry Frankfurt: The whole emphasis on equality is misplaced and distracts us from what is really important, sufficiency.
John Schaar: Objects to the “natural aristocratic” meritocracy that underlies equal opportunity and thinks that stress on equal opportunity contributes to the gap between rich and poor and threatens the very notion of equality and democracy and human solidarity.

115. Four Political and Economic Views
Libertarianism
Capitalism
Socialism
Modern Liberalism

116. Libertarianism and Capitalism
Freedom as noninterference
Sole function of government is to protect negative, noninterference rights.
Free market economy
Process over end-state justice.
Capitalism
Capital owned by people and corporations
Free-enterprise system bases value on supply/demand
Values: liberty, limited government, profit maximization
Process justice (but sometimes associated with end-state meritocracy)

117. Socialism
Government and/or society as a whole should own and control capital.
Criticizes capitalism for unemployment, poverty, unpredictable business cycles, and conflicts between workers and capitalists.
Production should be geared to the needs of all not just to the enrichment of a few.
Justice overrides efficiency.
Socialist end-state principles of justice lean towards egalitarianism
Basic needs and positive rights outweigh negative noninterference needs and rights.

118. Modern Liberalism
The just society combines the economic efficiency of capitalism and the protection of noninterference rights of libertarianism with the socialist emphasis on justice and the promotion of basic needs and positive liberty.
To achieve this we may need welfare rights and a social safety net that will require redistributive taxation.

119. Rawls: Justice As Fairness
The principles of justice are those principles governing the distribution of social goods that rational self-interested people would pick in a fair bargaining situation characterized by the veil of ignorance (the original position.)
Rawls argues that we would pick two:
Each has an equal right to the same basic liberties (the equality principle)
Social and economic inequalities must benefit all and be attached to positions and offices open to all (the difference principle which justifies redistributive taxation.)

120. Nozick’s Libertarian Entitlement Theory of Justice
A person who acquires a holding by just original acquisition (without violating the natural rights of others) or just transfer (without force, fraud, or coercion), or just rectification is entitled to it.
If each person’s holdings are just then the entire distribution is just.
A distribution is just if it arises from another by legitimate means.
This is an historical rather than end-state or patterned view of justice.

121. Justice and the Minimal State
Patterned principles of justice require redistributive activities to maintain the pattern.
Such redistributive activities violate entitlement rights under the entitlement theory.
The just (minimal) state taxes only for the purpose of protecting entitlement rights from interference by others.
Any other state must involve governmental interference in entitlement rights.

122. The U.S. Criminal Justice System
In 2002 about 2 million people were in U.S. prisons or jails (5x larger than in 1980), giving the U.S. the world’s highest incarceration rate (5x England’s, 6x Canada’s, 7x Germany’s).
Annual cost of imprisonment: 40 billion and rising ($20,000-$70,000 per inmate).
72% of the U.S. federal prison population and 23% in state prisons are there for drug-related crimes.
The prison population is disproportionately minority; 25% of black males and 16% of Hispanic males but only 1.4% of white males are projected to enter the prison system at least once in their lives.
16% of the U.S. jail population suffers from some sort of mental illness.
Crime rates have been declining in the past decade but still more than 15,000 were murdered in the U.S. in 2001 (most by firearms, of which there are more than 200 million in circulation.)

123. Death Penalty Statistics
In 2001, 3726 people awaited execution in the U.S., 592 were in California and 450 were in Texas (67% of all executions occur in just five states).
From 1976 to August 1999, 560 people had been executed.
97 countries have the death penalty while 70 have either abolished it (including every European country) or use it only for exceptional wartime crimes.
Between 1973 and 1995, the national average of death penalty reversal was 68% (compared to an overturn rate in non-capital cases of 10%).
Nationwide since 1989, there have been over 100 reversals because of DNA testing.
In January, 2000 the governor of Illinois imposed a moratorium on executions; Maryland also has one.
As of August 2002, about 100 people who had committed crimes as juveniles were on death row in the U.S. (the only other countries that allow such executions are Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia).

124. Legality of Capital Punishment in the U.S.
1968 on: Public support for executions rises (why?).
1972: Supreme Court revokes death penalty as cruel and unusual as then administered.
1976: reinstates death penalty for convicted murderers if jury safeguards are in place (no “discretionless juries”).

125. Legal Punishment
The infliction of harm or suffering on those who break the law by authorized legal authorities for the crime committed in accordance with a set of legally established rules and procedures.
Includes imprisonment, fines, forced work, and corporal punishment.

126. Deterrence Theory
Legal punishment (LP) is only justified if it prevents or deters future crime (a consequentialist approach).
Problems and Considerations:
Crimes of passion may not be deterrable.
This won’t work if the benefits of crime are perceived to be greater than the risks.
If LP isn’t working in this way it should be stopped (no “punishment for punishment’s sake”.)
If something works better in this way than LP it should be used instead.
The best deterrence/prevention schemes may target the innocent.

127. Retributivism
Justice requires that those responsible for a crime pay for it by a punishment equivalent to the crime.
Egalitarian equivalency: eye-for-an-eye (lex talionis)
Proportional equivalency: The degree of the severity of the punishment (relative to other punishments) must match the degree of the severity of the crime (relative to other crimes.)

128. Retributivist Considerations
The theory responds to the two major problems of deterrence theory; only those responsible should be punished and only to the degree they are responsible.
But there are objections:
Punishing the criminal doesn’t undo the wrong done the victim
It seems to focus on and condone vengeance and revenge, but the primary purpose of a legal system should be ensuring social order.
The problem of responsibility.

129. The Problem of Responsibility
Responsibility of the punished for the crime is crucial for retributive theory and arguably important for deterrence theory.
The free-will/determinism problem; is anyone ever responsible?
Strict liability asks only if you did it, but shouldn’t duress, insanity, and mental competence (mens rea) also be considered?
The irresistible impulse test.
The McNaughton Rule: An agent is not legally responsible for his or her acts if either
They didn’t know that what they were doing at the time they were doing it or
They didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong at the time they were doing it

130. Does the Death Penalty Prevent or Deter Future Crime?
Intuition arguments
Statistical (comparison) arguments
Van den Haag’s “Uncertainty Argument”: Even if we are uncertain that CP deters we should still execute since it is better to risk the lives of guilty murderers than innocent future murder victims.

131. More Van den Haag on “The Ultimate Punishment”
Maldistribution of the death penalty is unjust but not a reason to abolish it
Miscarriages of justice in capital cases do not warrant abolishing the death penalty.
The Uncertainty of deterrence is not a reason to abolish the death penalty.
Execution no more encourages murder than imprisoning a burglar encourages burglary.
In spite of the physical similarity between execution and murder the the relevant moral difference is social; murder is unlawful but execution is not.

132. The Retributive Debate
Egalitarian: Only murder warrants CP
Proportionality: Is death is the only fitting punishment for certain crimes or is life in prison without parole another (better, harsher) alternative?

133. Common Objections to The Death Penalty
It has no prevention or deterrence benefits.
It is state-sanctioned killing or murder.
Most other Western nations have abolished it as uncivilized, brutalizing, degrading, barbarous, and dehumanizing.
It is playing God.
It violates the right-to-life.

134. How We Treat Animals Differently From Humans
As food
As clothing
As sport
As entertainment
As pets
As experimental research subjects

135. The Importance of Sentience
A sentient being has feelings; it can experience pleasure and pain.
Descartes: Animals aren’t sentient because they lack minds.
Kant: Animals aren’t rational, so cruelty to them is only bad if it harms humans.
Bentham: The suffering of animals is bad per se, so we must include the effects of our acts on sentient animals in our “hedonic calculus”

136. Some Questions
Can good ends to be achieved for humans or other animals overcome animal suffering?
Do different degrees of sentience produce different degrees of moral status?
Nature is cruel. Must we simply not cause additional suffering or are we obligated to relieve animal suffering regardless of the cause?

137. Animal Rights
“Its bad to harm animals” versus “Animals have a right not to be harmed”
A right is a strong, legitimate claim.
Rights may be contractual, positive or negative, legal or moral, absolute or conditional, actual or contingent.
Having duties to X need not imply that X has rights, but X having rights does imply that others have a corresponding duty to respect these rights.

138. What’s the Basis for Having a Right?
Being able to claim it?
Being a moral agent, a rational and social being aware of self and others?
Being a moral patient, a sentient but nonrational, nonsocial being lacking awareness of others and their rights?

139. Four Views on Animals
Joel Feinberg: Animal interests (=awareness+wanting) are the basis of animal rights.
Tom Regan: Animals have rights because they are the “subject of a life.”
Peter Singer: Animal interests give them rights equal to humans; failure to recognize this is “speciesism”.
Bonnie Steinbock: Differences in potential and abilities mean that animal interests don’t carry the same weight as human interests.

140. Endangered Species
WWF predicts that 1/5 of all species will be extinct within twenty years.
Historically, the rate of replacement has exceeded the loss rate producing greater diversity, but this is changing.
Why does it matter?
Harm to or violation of rights of humans
Harm to or violation of rights of individual animals
Harm to or violation of rights of species
Harm to or violation of rights of the entire ecosystem (deep ecology)

141. What Is a Species?
A collection of individuals (but since a collection can’t have interests or desires how can they have rights?)
A convenient classificatory concept that doesn’t really exist “out there” and thus can’t have rights (Darwin)
A living historical form of life expressed in organisms; to kill one is to shut down a unique story, so duties to species are like duties to causes or ideas rather than like duties to individuals (Holmes Rolston)

142. Three Positions on Animal Research
Never (or very seldom), because animals have equal moral status with humans (Singer: Only if we would replace with a human equivalent)
Always (or almost always), because animals have no moral status (Descartes and other anthropocentrists)
Sometimes (when the benefits to humans are important enough) because animals have only partial moral status, less than humans (Steinbock)