Ethics

What's the deal here?
The end game of all philosophical discussion around ethics or morality (the terms seem to have very little distinction and are used by some philosophers interchangeably) is to find a moral framework that gives a definitive '  right  ' and ' wrong ' way of acting, ''whether you then actually follow it is up to you... ''

We will be looking at three attempts at making such a framework and then finally at the importance of ethical language itself. Overall, we are interested in three levels of ethical discussion, Meta-ethics, Normative Ethics and Applied Ethics.

Also, rather usefully, Routledge has collected all their powerpoints and handouts for the topic in one place: http://www.routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138793934/ethics.php

1.1.1 Utilitarianism

 * What is meant by 'pleasure', including Mill's higher and lower pleasures
 * How this might be calculated (Bentham's calculus)
 * forms of utilitarianism: Act, Rule and Preference

Issues

 * Individual liberty/rights
 * problems with calculation
 * The possible values of certain motives (does it matter if you meant to do good?) and the character of the person doing the action
 * The possible moral status of our relations with others (is it important to value our family/friends more/less?)

1.1.2 Kantian deontological ethics

 * The categorical and hypothetical imperatives
 * First and Second formulations of the categorical imperatives

Issues

 * The feeling (intuition) that consequences are of moral value
 * Problems with the application of the principal
 * The possible values of certain motives (e.g. the desire to do good) and commitments (those we have to family and friends)
 * Clashing/competing duties

1.1.3 Aristotle's Virtue Ethics

 * 'The good': pleasure; the function argument and eudaemonia
 * The role of education and/habituation in developing a moral character
 * voluntary and involuntary actions and moral responsibility
 * Doctrine of the mean and Aristotle's account of vices and virtues.

Issues

 * can it actually give clear guidance about how to act?
 * clashing/competing virtues
 * the possibility of circularity involved in defining virtuous acts and virtuous people in terms of each other

We need to be able to apply these issues:

 * 1) Crime and Punishment
 * 2) War
 * 3) Simulated Killing
 * 4) The Treatment of Animals
 * 5) Deception and the telling of lies

1.2.1 Cognitivism

 * Moral realism: ethical language makes claims about mind-independent reality that are true
 * 1) Ethical naturalism (e.g. utilitarianism)
 * 2) Ethical non-naturalism (e.g. intuitionism)
 * Error Theory: ethical language makes claims about mind-independent reality that are false (e.g. Makie's argument from queerness).

1.2.2 Non-Cognitivism

 * Emotivism
 * Perscriptivism

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