Moral Doctrines and Moral Theories

1
Moral Doctrines and Moral Theories

• Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life
• Chapter 4

2
The Experience Machine, Nozick

• What matters to us, apart from having pleasant
  conscious experiences?
• First, we want to actually do certain things.
• Second, we want to be a certain kind of people.

3
The Experience Machine, Nozick

• Third, we do not want to be limited to a man-made
  reality.

4
The Judeo-Christian Tradition

• Genesis Creation and Fall
• Exodus The 10 Commandments and other moral
  prescriptions for Israel
• Psalms Happiness in knowing and following God

5
The Judeo-Christian Tradition

• The Sermon on the Mount Human fulfillment
  through an inner moral and spiritual
  transformation

6
Morality is Based on Gods Commands, Mortimer

• The Divine Command Theory of Ethics Gods will
  determines what is right and what is wrong.
• The ethical person is both merciful and just.

7
Why Morality Does Not Depend on Religion, Arthur

• The Nature of Morality
• The Nature of Religion
• What is the connection between morality and
  religion?

8
Why Morality Does Not Depend on Religion

• Religion might motivate moral behavior.
• Perhaps God provides us with moral knowledge.
• Arthurs rejection of these 2 claims

9
Why Morality Does Not Depend on Religion

• The Euthyphro Dilemma

10
Of Benevolence, Hume

• Hume believes that all knowledge is based on
  experience.
• Morality is grounded in our human sentiments.
• Benevolence is the key moral sentiment.

11
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Le Guine

• Le Guines description of the happiness of the
  many in Omelas
• Le Guines description of the misery of the one
  child

12
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

• Why do some people walk away from Omelas?
• What implications does this have for the
  credibility of utilitarianism?

13
Utilitarianism, Mill

• Mills Principle of Utility
• Mills Definition of Happiness
• There is a difference between the higher and
  lower pleasures.
• How do we discover which pleasures are better?

14
A Critique of Utilitarianism, Williams

• Utilitarianism sometimes might require us to do
  the wrong thing.
• The case of George
• The case of Jim and Pedro

15
A Critique of Utilitarianism

• Integrity and the value of our deeply held
  projects pose problems for utilitarianism.

16
Good Will, Duty, and the Categorical Imperative,
Kant

• Kant believes that only a good will is
  unconditionally good.
• The person of good will does her duty for dutys
  sake.

17
Kant contd.

• Kants analysis of the moral worth of actions
  impulse, reason, and duty.
• Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives
• The Categorical Imperative act only on that
  maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will
  that it should become a universal law.

18
The Holocaust and Moral Philosophy, Sommers

• Introduction religion, morality, and the
  Holocaust
• Doing wrong vs. wrongdoing
• The rationalist approach to morality, e.g. Kant

19
The Holocaust and Moral Philosophy

• The sentimentalist approach to morality, e.g.
  Hume
• Moral philosophy should prohibit cruelty to
  sentient non-persons.

20
A Critique of Kantianism, Taylor

• The problem with many moral philosophers is their
  lack of appreciation for the pain and sorrow that
  exist in the world.
• Such moralists focus on solving abstract
  philosophical problems.

21
A Critique of Kantianism

• Kant failed to realize that there may be no true
  morality.
• Kants theory is divorced from concrete human
  nature and experience.
• We must find moral answers that work.