1. Utilitarian vs. Deontological
LD & Philosophy across debate

2. The Trolley Problem
What is right/moral depends on the consequences which result from the action
CONSEQUENTIALIST MORAL REASONING
-locates morality in the result
-Bentham & JSM
2. Reasons from the intrinsic quality of the act itself
CATEGORICAL MORAL REASONING
-locates morality in certain absolutes
-Kant & Rawls
Trolley car, Fillipa Foot, runaway trolley car, realize cannot stop, panic see 5 on tracks, cannot contact no time to escape,switch tracks, only 1 man…choose? Better 1 die v 5?
Turn off option
ONLOOKER and the Fat Man, Why different? Active choice v noninvolvement? Same principle why dffrent…..
Medical emergency, MD brought 5 men injured in runaway trolley accident…1 severe,
Transplant surgeon

3. Utility Jeremy Bentham
All humans are governed by same impulses: maximize
pleasure/happiness, minimize pain/suffering
Government’s job is to maximize ‘utility’
Greatest good for the greatest number-society is the
sum of all individuals who comprise it
Cost benefit analysis - tobacco & cell phones
Can you put a price on life?
The Queen v. Dudley & Stephens,…the case for cannabalism, the moral side of murder (The Minuet,Capt, 1st mate, sailor, cabin boy-Richard Parker,7 orphan 1st voyage,2 cans preseved turnips on lifeboat, drinks seawater,appear dying, draw lots kill,”rescue 24th day as having breakfast”
Czech Tobacco-Phillip Morris study,costs of medical care,benefits-tax revenues for sales,not pay pensions, die early, housing costs…$1227 per person dies early savings, WHAT VALUE TO LOVED ONES?,
cell phone use-economic adv v 2000 die year accidents caused

4. Utility: Problems
1. Does this adequately respect the individual or minority rights?
2.Can we aggregate utility?
3. Can we measure pleasure? Are pleasures commensurable? Can qualitative distinctions be made?
lit, 1 person suffers immensely for benefit of group
2. How many add

5. Utility: JSM answers
Can calculus be enlarged or modified to include humanitarian concerns?
On Liberty, 1845
Utilitarianism, 1861
Individual rights are based on some utility, rights are privileged, a more paramount obligation to any others because it is in the long-term interest of human kind
Higher pleasures vs. lower pleasures
Shakespeare
The Jersey Shore
Simpsons
Hamlet solilq, fear factor, simpsons
Aim to maximize the collective welfare, how else make policy decisions? Community equals the sum of individuals who comprise it…place $ amount?
1930s study psych, how much nec to pay to pull 1 tooth,1 toe cut off, to kill cat by hand, eat worm (100,000), move to Kansas (300,000)

6. Strong Theories of Rights
Libertarianism: Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) argues among other things that a distribution of goods is just if brought about by free exchange among consenting adults and from a starting position, even if large inequalities subsequently emerge from the process
1. no paternalistic legislation
2. no morals legislation
3. no taxation to redistribute resources/$
Nozick created the thought experiment of the "utility monster" to show that average utilitarianism could lead to a situation where the needs of the vast majority were sacrificed for one individual.
Nozick suggested, again as a critique of utilitarianism, that the sacrosanctity of life made property rights non-negotiable, as an individual's personal liberty was taken to be more valuable than the state's policies of redistribution

7. Locke
Some rights cannot be overridden, natural right to life, liberty, and property, these rights are pre-political not given by laws. The social contract idea.
State of nature, free and equal beings with absolute liberty, rights are unalienable, they cannot be traded away.
Influence on American Revolution.
Ultimate property is own person, how much gov’t should we allow? Limited to allow protection of natural rights by the majority.
Implied consent of governed, by taking benefits of govt, what military conscription
What of market econ—civil war bought men to fill slot when drafted=fall disproportionately on poor, least advantaged
Baby M-motherhood for sale. Sterns want child, using Mr Sterns sperm, Mary Beth Whitehead agree to surrogacy….DEAL IS A DEAL v motherhood, buy child, commodification of child,
Should the contract be enforced? Lower crt-yes,NJ Sup-not but grants custody to father in best interest of child

8. Deontologists: the Other Side
Immanuel Kant: man is not merely a means
Critique of Pure Reason-rejects utilitarianism, all men of equal dignity, all rational and capable of acting as rational beings, capable of reason.
Yes, we experience pleasure and pain, but we are the sovereign masters of our rational capacity, is what separates us from animals.
Freedom is not getting what we want, don’t act as a slave to appetites, rather, freedom is the opposite of necessity. Freedom is to act autonomously.
Do not treat others instrumentally, they are ENDS not MEANS. Respect others’ dignity, do not use for own well being
An act is moral/just/good not based on consequences, but the intention, the quality of the will. MOTIVE key.

9. Kant Moral worth of an action depends on motive
Shopkeeper example – charging customers
Cheating example
Act autonomously (on rationality) or heteronomously (action based on desires), REASON determines my actions
So, what formula should we use, what principles organize society?

10. Kant Categorical Imperative
1.Formula of Universal Law- act only on that maxim whereby you at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Lying Wrong. Murder wrong.
2.Formula of Humanity as an end-man is an end in himself with absolute dignity and value. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the persons of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time, as an ends.
1. Ex false promise…say pay knowing will not

11. Kant – A Lesson in Lying
A murderer comes to you door looking for your friend who is currently hiding in your closet.
Lying is categorically wrong…do you answer truthfully?
Kant, even here is wrong because if we start carving out exceptions we just become utilitarians
Nazi example – larger moral issue
The “misleading” answer…not technically know if moved…are there “white lies”

12. How design a just government?
Modern Justice theorists: Rawls, Dworkin, Sandel
More we, less me?
If just laws arise from a certain type of social contract, how is this seen in the real world? What is the moral force of this hypothetical contract?
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
A critic of utilitarianism- each person has an inviolability that is not subject to social bargaining
Principles of social justice are derived from this hypothetical social contract
But how do we fairly design a just system if we all come to the table with special interests?

13. Rawls Behind the Veil of Ignorance
Arrive at the rights we want to be respected, a framework of rights and duties, imagine we gather together without knowledge of any particular facts about ourselves
A thought experiment! Sometimes there may be inequalities, how deal with them?
The Difference Principle
The difference principle permits inequalities in the distribution of goods only if those inequalities benefit the worst-off members of society

14. Rawls
Rawls believes that this principle would be a rational choice for the representatives in the original position because
each member of society has an equal claim on their society’s goods. Natural attributes should not effect this claim, so the basic right of any individual, before further considerations are taken into account, must be to an equal share in material wealth. What, then, could justify unequal distribution? Rawls argues that inequality is acceptable only if it is to the advantage of those who are worst-off.

15. Rawls Objections to the Difference Principle 1. what about incentives?
2. what about effort?
3. what about self-ownership?

16. Alternative views…
The Communitarian school: Michael Sandel, Amitai Etzioni
Website at Harvard, Justice, book and class
Communitarian based notion of the good society
What can I do for others?
Other ethics do not allow for cooperative decision making
Are there rights of groups, separate from rights of individuals as an aggregate?

17. Alternate views… Ronald Dworkin, prof. Yale, now NYU
Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977
His theory of law as integrity in which judges interpret the law in terms of consistent and communal moral principles, especially justice and fairness, is amongst the most influential contemporary theories about the nature of law.
He advocates a ‘moral reading’ of the US
Constitution and an interpretivist approach to
law and morality.

18. Alternate views…
Amitai Etzioni, George Washington Univ, Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies
He was the editor of The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, the organization's quarterly journal, from In 1991, the press began referring to Etzioni as the 'guru' of the movement.
Why treat others in the
Community different?
International affairs…

19. The other direction… Ayn Rand, author, Objectivism
Rand argued for rational egoism (self interest), as the guiding moral principle. The individual should exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.
She referred to egoism as the “Virtue of Selfishness”. She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness. Rejects all faith and religion.
Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights (including property rights), and she considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on the protection of those rights.[98] She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism.
Rand believed rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited government