`NARRATIVE REPORT

Theories of Morality

● Ethical or Moral Subjectivism

Is the meta-ethical view which claims that:
➢ Ethical sentences express propositions.
➢ Some such propositions are true.
➢ The truth or falsity of such propositions is dependent on the (actual or
hypothetical) attitudes of people.
- Moral statements are made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of the
observers, and any ethical sentence just implies an attitude, opinion, personal
preference or feeling held by someone.

● Cultural Relativism

Right and wrong is determined by the particular set of principles or rules the
relevant culture just happens to hold at the time.

- Is the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood
based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of
another.
- Basically, not judging a culture to our own standards of what is right or wrong,
strange or normal. Instead, we should try to understand cultural practices of other
groups in its own cultural context.
- The concept of cultural relativism was established as an analytic tool by German-
American anthropologist Franz Boas t inhe early 20th century

● Ethical Egoism

Right and wrong is determined by what is in your self-interest. Or, it is immoral to

act contrary to your self-interest.

- The idea that each person pursue his/her own self-interest exclusively
- Ethical egoism is a normative ( a theory about how we ought to be)
- It argues we have no duty except to do what is best for ourselves
- The principle of self- interest
- Ethical egoism does say that you should avoid actions that help others
- It could be by helping others you help yourself
 - “Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours”
- Arguments of the theory
1. Each of us is intimately familiar with our own individual wants and needs. We
can pursue these, but know very little about the interests of others and thus to act
on their behalf may produce more harm than good.

2. Looking out for “others” is an offensive intrusion into other people’s privacy. It is
essentially a policy of “minding other people’s business.

3. To concern ourselves with others’ good is to degrade them and rob them of their
dignity. It says they cannot care for self and lead to them becoming less self-
reliant and dependent.

4. Ayn Rand- one’s individual life is of ultimate value and thus ethical egoism takes
seriously this reality.

● Divine Command Theory

Is something right (or wrong) because the gods command it, or do the gods
command it because it is right?

- a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is

equivalent to whether it is commanded by God.
- claim that morality is ultimately based on the commands or character of God, and that
the morally right action is the one that God commands or requires.

● Virtue Ethics

❖ A normative ethics emphasizes character, or virtues, rather than rules and

consequences.
❖ According to Aristotle to become a virtuous person, a person must act in line with the
golden mean which is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and
the other of deficiency.
❖ The golden mean state that one must be average or the right to conduct , a virtues
person must know the possible effect of his action.

● Feminist Ethics

Right and wrong is to be found in women's' responses to the relationship of

caring.

is an approach to ethics that builds on the belief that traditionally ethical theorizing has
undervalued and or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is largely male-
dominated, and it therefore chooses to reimagine ethics through a holistic feminist
approach to transform it.

Alison Jaggar faults traditional western ethics for failing women in four related ways

❖ shows little concern for women's as opposed to men's interests and rights.
❖ dismisses as morally uninteresting the problems that arise in private world it
suggests that, on the average, women are not as morally developed as men.
❖ it over values culturally masculine traits and undervalues culturally feminine
traits
❖ it favors culturally masculine ways of moral reasoning and impartiality over
culturally feminine ways of moral reasoning

● UTILITARIANISM

Right and wrong is focused on outcomes determined by the overall goodness (utility) of
the consequences of action (consequentialism)

- Holds the most ethical choice: one that produces the greatest good for the greatest
number

- The only moral framework that can justify military force/war

- Most common approach to moral reasoning used in business (it accounts for costs
and benefits)

- Future can’t be predicted: it’s difficult to know w/ certainty whether the consequences of
the action will be good or bad & has trouble accounting for values such as justice &
individual rights

- Example: assume a hospital has four people whose lives depend upon receiving organ
transplants: a heart, lungs, a kidney, and a liver. If a healthy person wanders into the
hospital, his organs could be harvested to save four lives at the expense of one life.
This would arguably produce the greatest good for the greatest number. But few
would consider it an acceptable course of action, let alone the most ethical one

● Kantian Theory

Right and wrong is determined by rationality, giving universal duties.

● Rights-based Theories

We are to act in accordance with a set of moral rights, which we possess simply
by being human.

● CONTRACTARIANISM
The principles of right and wrong (justice) are those which everyone in society would
agree upon in forming a social contact.

- refers to both the theory in political philosophy on the legitimacy of political authority,
and the ethical theory concerning the origin, or legitimate content, of moral norms.

- suggests that people are primarily self-interested, and that a rational assessment of
the best strategy for attaining the maximization of their self-interest will lead them to
act morally and to consent to governmental authority.

Social contract:

- the idea that the people give up some rights to a government and/or other authority in
order to receive, or jointly preserve, social order. Social contract theory provides the
rationale behind the historically important notion that legitimate state authority
must be derived from the consent of the governed, where the form and content of
this consent derives from the idea of contract or mutual agreement.

THEORISTS OF MORALITY

JEREMY BENTHAM

“Utilitarianism”

- ACTIONS ARE RIGHT IF THEY ARE USEFUL FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE
MANY

- Asks the question “what is a person supposed to do with his life,” then answers
that question with “He needs to act in such a way that he produces the most
positive consequences possible.”

- The good consequences must be measured up to the bad consequences, and if

the good outweigh the bad, then the person should pursue that action.

- Hedonic Calculus (7 elements)

7 HEDONIC CALCULUS

A. Intensity

- Pleasure's strength
B. Duration

- how long pleasure would last

C. Certainty

-how likely or unlikely that the pleasure would occur

D. Propinquity

-how soon the pleasure might occur

E. Fecundity

- the chance the pleasure would result in further actions

F. Purity

- the probabilty that these further actions would be pleasures and not pains

G. Extent

-the total amount of pleasure can be achieved

JOHN STUART MILLS

- MILL FOCUSES ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE ACTION

- Suggests that the utilitarian moral agent, when attempting to rank the utility of
different actions, should refer to the general experiences of the person.

- Mill’s moral theory is considered a consequentialist in that it judges the

rightness and wrongness of actions based on their consequences.

- When making a moral judgment on an action, utilitarianism thus takes into

account not just the quantity, but also the quality of the pleasures resulting
from it.

- John Stuart Mill defines happiness to be both intellectual and sensual pleasure.
He argues that we have a sense of dignity that makes us prefer intellectual
pleasures to sensual ones.

- Mill delineates how to differentiate between higher- and lower-quality pleasures:

A pleasure is of higher quality if people would choose it over a different
pleasure even if it is accompanied by discomfort, and if they would not trade it
 for a greater amount of the other pleasure. Moreover, Mill contends, it is an
"unquestionable fact" that, given equal access to all kinds of pleasures,
people will prefer those that appeal to their "higher" faculties. A person will not
choose to become an animal, an educated person will not choose to become
ignorant, and so on.

-For example, if one is faced with the choice of playing games all day for a week
and studying school lessons for at least 3 hrs a day for a week, one must ask
oneself which course of action to fulfill one’s higher faculties more? One
should ask how many people can benefit from it, as well as the kind of
happiness can it bring to these people. When carefully examining the case,
one realizes that studying, while seemingly “painful” relative to one’s desire
for immediate gratification, bears more happiness in the long run. Although
playing games brings pleasure to more people in immediate manner, one can
ask if it is long lasting? What happens after one week of camaraderie in
online gaming? Does winning gives pleasure that brings authentic human
fulfillment or pleasure transitory and empty at the end of the day?

If Bentham’s version of utilitarianism focuses on the potential amount or quantity

of happiness that an action can potentially produce for it to be considered right,
Mill’s ethics makes a sharp and nuanced division higher and lower forms of
pleasure in terms of quality.

- Moral Happiness has three principles

THREE PRINCIPLES

1. PLEASURE OR HAPPINESS IS THE ONLY THING THAT TRULY HAS INTRINSIC

VALUE

2. ACTIONS ARE RIGHT INSOFAR AS THEY PROMOTE HAPPINESS, WRONG

INSOFAR AS THEY PRODUCED UNHAPPINESS

3. EVERYONE’S HAPPINESS COUNTS EQUALLY

JOSEPH FLETCHER

“Situation Ethics”

- “All laws and rules and principles, and ideals and norms, are only contingent,
only valid if they happen to serve love”
 - Fletcher outlined his theory to 4 working principles and six fundamental
principles.

FOUR WORKING PRINCIPLES OF FLETCHER

PRAGMATISM RELATIVISM POSITIVISM PERSONALISM

6 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

● First proposition

Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely love: nothing else at all.

● Second proposition

The ruling norm of Christian decision is love: nothing else.

● Third proposition

Love and Justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else.

● Fourth proposition

Love wills the neighbour's good, whether we like him or not.

● Fifth proposition

Only the end justifies the means, nothing else. Actions only acquire moral status as a
means to an end; for Fletcher, the end must be the most loving result. When measuring
a situation, one must consider the desired end, the means available, the motive for
acting and the foreseeable consequences.

● Sixth proposition

Love's decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively.

Jurgen Habermas

“Discourse Ethics or Theory of Argumentation”

- DISCOURSE ETHICS

-.is devoted to rationality and its relation with communication. His

renowned work includes the notion of morality. Habermas' greatest
 contribution to the field of philosophy is his advancement in the
rationality theory.

- Argued that valid norms must publicly and discursively

- His theory suggested a kind of democracy where constitution and law is open to
public discussion and suggestions.

- 3 presuppositions of the discourse theory

The presupposition that everyone would agree to the universal validity of the
claim thematized

The presupposition that everyone capable of speech and action is entitled to

participate, and everyone is equally entitled to introduce new topics or
express attitudes needs or desires

The presupposition that no validity claim is exempt in principle from critical

evaluation in argumentation

- Participants are free from force or coercion

JOHN RAWLS

“A Theory of Justice” (1971)

o Define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social co-operation
o Principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interest would
accept initial position of equality

o Justice is fairness

Retribution justice

– seeking to balance an injustice by rectifying the situation and regaining the injustice that was
overturned

“Purpose of the state is not just the protection of justice, but promote equity and justice to the
marginalized.”

Welfare state

- the government supports provision to those who are in need

o We ought to free his philosophy from Liberal Democracy (Locke, Kent)

 o Promotes free- governance

o Doesn’t believe that society must depend on the defense of private property as right

Democratic socialism

- Giving importance to people in the society

- To treat the person not as a means but as an end of himself; each Individual in the
society must be treated equally before the law, subjected to due process, & must be
regarded equally (justice is FAIRNESS)

- -doesn’t subject to a free-steady of different wealth strata but dismisses those societies
where inequalities in wealth allow the person

- Rich people are to be granted a higher tax

Difference principle

- Inequalities in certain basic goods of society must benefit the worst-off in society to
minimize differences in wealth

Mitigated Egalitarianism

- To minimize only, not ready to wealth inequality in the society (support system for the
poor)

- Good society is one of the counteracts the natural inequalities that tend to distribute
wealth unfairly

- Common good is served justly especially to those who are economically low

Veil of Ignorance

- Supplement to ORIGINAL STATE

- Taken not in itself, but used as a means to procure a law that isn’t favored to any class

- State where one doesn’t recognize his status in society

Welfare Liberalism

- Basic doctrine

2 principles of justice:

1. Everyone is to be equally free (have same freedom is possible)

2. Everyone must enjoy equality in opportunity.

-people who make the greatest efforts and display the greatest ability do not deserve to receive
much—efforts and abilities are products of hereditary misalignment (the wealthy does not need
another coin, the poor needs more than just a coin)

- the rich has the moral & political obligation to help the poor

- equal distribution of wealth & resources is the foundation of a just society; if wealth were to be
distributed unequally, it has to benefit the poor