Ethics- Scope

• What is the area of knowledge about?

• What practical problems can be solved through applying this knowledge?

• What makes this area of knowledge important?

• What are the current open questions in this area?

• Are there ethical considerations that limit the scope of inquiry?

The Basis of Ethics: Religion

The Ten Commandments

Other CommandmentsIf a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do.(Exodus 21:7)

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. (Leviticus 25:44)

But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to regard as unclean. (Leviticus 11:10)

Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27)

Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.(Leviticus 19:19)

Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. (Leviticus 18:22)

The Basis of Ethics: Society

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-82)

The Basis of Ethics: Society

‘People everywhere at least in some circumstances and with certain other folks in mind, think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness that one should reciprocate favours, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality.’

- Steven Pinker

The Basis of Ethics: Evolution

Reason v Emotion

Motives v Consequences

Objective v Subjective

‘I can’t believe that the only thing wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don’t like it.’

- Bertrand Russell

Objective v Subjective

‘‘tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.’

- David Hume

Aristotle: The Good Life

Aristotle (384–322 BCE)

Kant: The Categorical Imperative

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

The Categorical Imperative- Problems

Bentham: Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

Utilitarianism- Problems

Kant v Bentham

Ivan’s Challenge

‘“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found the edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me and tell me the truth.”

“No, I wouldn’t consent”, said Alyosha softly”’

- Fyodor Dostoevsky- The Brothers Karamazov

Human Rights

Applied Ethics

‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.’

- Edmund Burke

WOKs

Memory Sense Perception Language Reason Emotion Intuition Imagination Faith

Knowledge Questions

Linking Questions