BooninOddieNonDeductiveArguments
Ethical Theories and MetaEthics
Mill Utilitarianism
Moral Philosophy Quiz 1
Introduction to Moral Philosophy
Overview
Understand the foundation and basics of Moral Philosophy, a subject of morality within philosophy, through this module. This introductory module focuses on the definition of moral philosophy, certain moral principles, argumentation, and begins to look into one ethical theory, utilitarianism.
Overview of Ethics
"Ethics" can mean any of the following:
• Your personal moral views
“Doing that would go against my ethics.”
• Professional codes of conduct
https://www.ama-assn.org/about-us/code-medical-ethics
• The study of morality
• Applied issues, such as in medicine and the life sciences.
Types of Ethics Questions and Respones
Questions we can ask in ethics:
• Metaethical questions are about the nature of moral properties, moral knowledge, and moral language. For example, metaethicists ask whether morality is an objective feature of the world or whether we’re making it all up.
• Normative ethical questions are about how we systematize individual moral judgments like “lying is wrong” or “helping people is good.” Is there a single, grand unifying theory of morality from which all these judgments can be derived?
• Applied ethical questions are about specific issues: is lying always wrong? Is abortion morally permissible? Is euthanasia morally permissible?
How to respond:
1. Getting the empirical information right
• Using the biological sciences: Can patients diagnosed with persistent vegetative state ever recover consciousness; Can induced pluripotent stem cells be used in exactly the same way as embryonic stem cells?
• Using the social sciences: How highly do cancer patients rate their quality of life? Do terminally ill people feel pressure to die?
2. Getting the moral principles right
• Making judgments about real or imagined cases
• Formulating principles to explain those judgments
• Aligning those principles with our other moral beliefs and making adjustments as necessary
Utilitarianism
Mill's Version of Utilitarianism
Good
• Welfarism: All and only well-being is intrinsically good.
• Hedonism: Well-being is presence of pleasure/absence of pain.
• Qualitative Hedonism: Higher-level pleasures have lexical priority over lower-level pleasures.
Right
•Maximizing Act Consequentialism: An action is right if and only if it maximizes intrinsic goodness.
Module Quiz
(See Attached Quiz)