A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners (2/7)

hi there everyone I see that quite a few of you who possibly all of you have come back which is fantastic okay let's get on straight away with the second session okay if you remember last week we considered these four things so we asked where the rules are essential to moral reasoning and if you remember we did that by looking at a moral dilemma and we looked at two moral theories can you remember what they were called I actually we looked at many more moral theories but Viterbi moral rules in particular it's those two moral theories that I'm thinking of particularism and generalism well done good so the particular ists believe good that there are no unbreakable rules that you've got to look at each particular situation good and the generalist believes the opposite that there are moral rules good okay and then we looked at when the moral beliefs are true or false and if you remember we didn't look at the idea that they weren't true or false that they're neither true or false which is moral skepticism but I gave you all the reference to follow that up if you were interested but we did look at the fact that moral rules are made true or false by something rather different to statements like the earth is round or the cat is tabby do you remember and we looked at whether moral beliefs are true or false absolutely or only in relation to something and we looked at three different types of moral absolutism can you remember what they were three different types of moral absolutism oh she's good at this year absolutely you're right higher-order absolutism lower order absolutism and token absolutism that's right higher order absolutism can anyone give me an example of a higher order rule that some might think would be a moral absolute you're doing very well so don't worry if you can but can you can you think gon good that's right that we should promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number rather than the greatest good but yes you're absolutely right can anyone give me an example of a lower order moral rule some people might believe is always and everywhere true for everyone we should always drink gin and tonic at 3:00 in the afternoon I I think you should have said to actually be there yes okay fine and what's a token absolutist no that's another good try but not quite what what does the token absolutist believe this is this is actually quite a sophisticated one so don't worry if you can't remember this one in certain circumstances you must not tell that lie even if you believe we should not tell lies but in some circumstances yes it would be okay to tell them I don't so close but not quite their vote very close the idea to tell that lie that's right absolutely exactly much less complicated than your first answer the idea is that more the only moral absolutes are token moral statements so telling that lie would be right when the Nazis are at the door are saying are there any Jews here you look at that situation you see yes in this situation telling that lie would be the right thing to do and what's more if if that's true it's true absolutely okay well done very good okay so and we wondered we looked at four different theories about what moral facts might be if you remember that I'm going to ask you to remember those because we looked at them very briefly and we're going to be looking at them and some depth in the weeks to follow so good well done that's well remembered for last week let's look at what we're going to look at today okay we're going to do all these things I'll let you read those because you can read as well as I can okay so let's move on and start doing it okay for a person to be legally and/or morally responsible for his behavior he's got satisfied two conditions the first one is that the behaviors got to be freely chosen and the second one is that he's got to know the difference between right and wrong okay and we're going to start today by looking at each of these conditions in that order so let's start with looking at the condition that you've got to be acting freely before your you can be morally or even legally responsible for your behavior okay we usually think of ourselves as having freely chosen our behavior when the behavior was intentional now the the idea of an intentional behavior is actually a bit of a complicated one but you expected that didn't you okay so what is it stacked intentionally okay we act intentionally when we want something we have a desire of some kind and we believe that we're going to achieve whatever that thing is by performing this particular action so what thinking now about various things I could do right at this minute I could leap off the stage in go and shake Erika's hand or I could leaf up the leaf off the stage and go to the back and run run away or something like that why would I do that action why would I perform that action intentionally well there's got to be something I want a desire of mine to escape you all perhaps you're all asking me too many questions I'm off and I believe that by running away I'm going to achieve that ends I meant to escape you all okay so there two two elements to an intentional action a desire and a belief and the belief is about the behavior namely that performing that behavior will achieve that end okay not none of this should be new to you because you actually in understanding the word intention you understand all that but but you don't usually see it laid out explicitly in the way I'm laying it out okay so we perform an action intending to achieve an and something that we desire so one who trips over carpet isn't acting intentionally okay something has happens to him but one who pretends to trip over carpet is acting intentionally because pretense if you think of the concept of pretence you can't pretend to do something except intentionally can you there must be a reason why you're prepared pretending to do it there must be something you want and something that you believe you will get by pretending to do whatever it is that you pretend so and actually let me just ask I mean can you think of any intentions with which somebody might trip over a carpet so they wanted to show that the carpets unsafe yes okay they might have complained about it before but nobody's acted so they're they're trying to show that it's unsafe yep they might be trying to make people laugh yep absolutely they might they might have wanted decided they wanted to sue somebody yes absolutely okay good so um imagine that Tom in reaching for his pen knocks over his mum's mug so I reach out for my pen and knock over this glass something similar and I would defend myself by saying I didn't do it intentionally and soz Tom going to say that but that makes it sound as if there are actions things that we choose to do that are not intentional somehow and this is complication that we solve in this way okay his action was intentional but only under a certain description under the description he was trying to get the pen okay that's what he was doing wasn't he he was trying to get the pen he wanted to get the pen and he believed that by reaching out in that way he would get the pen and the very action that was the reaching out to get the pen was also the action that caused the spilling of mums coffee the knocking over of mums mug but it wasn't intentional under that description do you see the difference so any action any token action so if you if you just take this as a token action it's going to be describable in all sorts of different ways so each one of these lines that I've drawn here could have a description attached to it so this is Mary Ann writing on a flipchart it's an action of Mary Ann's it's at ten minutes past two do you see what I mean each different description is a description of one in the same action and it needs only be intentional under one of those descriptions for it to be an intentional action and therefore for me to be responsible for it having chosen balloon so in what scenario anybody well he believed that by reaching out he would pick up hair well I believe that that was a reasonable thing to do believe that it was going to have other consequences well let's let me just see if I answer the question in the next one so we might hold Tom responsible for carelessness if for example it should have been obvious to him that in reaching out like that he would have knocked over his mum's mug so he'd say I didn't mean to do that and his mum would say oh for goodness sake you know you you must you must have seen that you were going to do that so he's responsible for carelessness but he still didn't intentionally knock over his so it was an intentional action of his that resulted in the mugs being knocked over so it was intentional he hadn't intentionally reaching out it because it was his intentional action he is responsible for knocking over the mug but he may have knocked it over intentionally and then the question is was he careless or not could he have foreseen if he had thought about his action so okay he didn't act with the intention of cheating that end so actions are intentional only under or only relative to to use the vocabulary we were using last week certain descriptions and we're morally and legally responsible for the action only under the description in which we acted intentionally so someone's guilty of manslaughter if an intentional an action of theirs caused the death of someone but they didn't intend the action to have that consequence do you see how in law you've got to have intended someone's death in order to be guilty of murder if you didn't intend their death you can be guilty only of manslaughter or there's other things like cult negligence well no because a lot of the things that we do are unconscious so so for example I often don't realize when I'm lifting up this glass to have a drink but so there is an unconscious desire to have a have a drink and an unconscious intention but of course actually nevertheless the intention was there this is something I do so often so regularly that I don't need to be conscious of it in order to do it but if you said to me why are you picking up the glass I would be able to answer that question so it may be below the level of consciousness but it can be brought to consciousness fairly easily we we usually know why reacts and not always actually which is interesting one sorry there are lots of questions now I'm going to take one and then go on because otherwise I would it make a difference if you argue that you're genetically programmed towards something like the Eternity program of violence how would that influence your intention okay so so if I had the MA oh one gene I think it is I'm not sure which seems to correlate with extreme violence could I use that in a court of law to say yes I did it but I didn't do it intentionally that that would be the argument there and you say could you ask that well of course that's a very big question isn't it because we would usually say that somebody who can be clinically shown to be a kleptomaniac shouldn't be done for stealing well if somebody has this gene and it does correlate I suppose lots of questions would be asked about how well it correlated etc etc but but yes your cursor shows that you've understood what's going on here and it's intentional only if you are acting on the intention to achieve some end some desire of yours okay so there are behaviors that are not intentional under any description such as tripping over a carpet and there are actions that are intentional under some description pretending to trip over the carpet and only the latter are believed by us to be freely chosen okay and so all the behaviors that are intentional under some description they're all going to be describable yes in many different ways actually that's the point I made earlier so here's a token action here are lots of different descriptions of this action it's intentional under this description let's say but but not under any of the others so that's the the act that's the description under which it was intentional okay but some people deny that even are freely chose to even are intentional actions of freely chosen okay some people believe that all our behaviors are causally determined by the laws of nature the situation in which we find ourselves and our upbringing so I think probably most people in this room remember the early 70s but in the early 70s it became very fashionable to say that everything was conditions didn't it that when you did things you did it not because you chose them chose them freely but because you had been conditioned to do them well what they were talking about there was our upbringing and your mention of genetic determinism the idea that somebody with a specific gene might be given to extreme violence not because he intended to cause any damage but simply because he was genetically programmed I think it was the word you use to cause that damage and of course actually it's always there's always going to be a trigger so the laws of nature are such and such so it says that anyone with this gene is going to engage in extreme violence well that doesn't mean he's going to engage in extreme violence all the time it means probably that he's easily triggered so whereas something that somebody else would shrug off he goes ballistic punches somebody and so and so forth so a combination of his genetic nature if you like the situation in which he's found himself and in this case I'm not sure his upbringing would necessarily have anything to do with it but but can you see a combination of these things if all these things determine us to do things the question is are we free to make any choices at all do we ever really choose to act at all now anyone who believes that we don't choose to act or I'm sorry let me rephrase that anyone who believes that we are causally determined that all our behavior is causally determined it's called a determinist and they come in two varieties that are the hard ones and the soft ones so hard determinists believe that all our behaviors are causally determined okay that none of them is free nothing we ever do do we freely choose to do and the idea that we have free will to a hard determinist is simply an illusion so free will and determinism are incompatible logically incompatible think the determinists and therefore as each one of our behaviors is causally determined none of them is free not nothing we do it was freely chosen by us that's that's a hard determinist but a softer determinist believes that even if all our behaviors are causally determined it's still the case that they can be freely chosen so where is the hard determinist thinks that determinism is inconsistent with free will the soft determinist believes that determinism is consistent with free will so some of our behaviors are both causally determined and freely chosen by us so for example a philosopher called Donald Davidson would say that the things that cause us to act are our own beliefs and our own desires and if that's what causes us to act then you know surely we've got as much free will as we could possibly want he says that's a compatibilist and they're called compatibilist as well as soft determinists for the rather obviously that they believe free will and determinism are compatible okay libertarians on the other hand believe some of our actions are freely chosen and that these actions are not causally determined okay so they go along with the hard determinist in thinking that free will and causal determinism they're incompatible but they believe that it's not the case that all our behaviors are determined are you with me so just to summarize that nobody believes all our behaviors are freely chosen because we all recognize that when we trip over a carpet we didn't choose to do that okay that was a causally determined behavior we can all set that but we like to think that some of our behaviors are freely chosen the hard determinist thinks we're wrong because all our behaviors are causally determined and that's inconsistent with being free so none of our behaviors are free the compat alistun patton list or soft determinist believes that some of our behaviors are freely chosen but that all our behaviors are causally determined and the libertarian believes that some of our behaviors really are freely chosen that not everything is causally determined so here are the options and have a have a quick look at that and see where they all fit okay I did just say all that a minute ago so where do you stand on this so let's let's discuss this for a few minutes because this is a big question isn't it okay so who's who's a hard determinist come on who's the hard-nosed ones monkss yes a hard determinist is one who believes that all our behaviors are causally determined and that that means that none of our behaviors are free okay who's a hard determinist anyone no okay or at least nobody's prepared to admit to being a hard determinist we might come back to that in a minute okay who's a libertarian somebody who believes that it's not the case that all our behaviors are causally determined so some of them are free okay quite a few libertarians Oh quite a few libertarians okay and who is a compatibilist or a soft determinists this is someone who believes that all our behaviors are causally determined but that's consistent or compatible with some of them being free okay right it's quite a few okay usually there are more people who want to be a compatibilist than this and it's always tempting I think to be a soft determinist or a compatibilist and the reason is that that enables us to be scientifically respectable because we can admit that everything is causally two-toed actually not no scientist believes everything cool is causally determined these days but so we we've got to loosen that up a bit but but let me leave that in there just for the sake of argument of the moment so we can we can be scientific realists we think by being a compatible and we can also maintain our belief in free will well you know what's not to like these are two things we both want to do let's do them and unfortunately anyone who came to my critical reasoning course last year will know that wanting it to be the case that P is a lousy reason for believing that it is the case that okay we might want to be compatible ist's but actually it's really quite difficult because the reason that libertarians and hard determinists aren't compatible lists is because they believe that actually it's logically inconsistent compatibilism because how can an action a token action one and the same action be both causally determined and free that's that's the question okay so if we don't have free will then the question of whether we're morally responsible for any of our actions becomes a very big question and lots of people the the question about the extreme violent person who's genetically determined to be extremely violent lots of people think these days that genetic determinism is true well if it is true then are any of us morally responsible for our behaviors if if we can't do anything other than what we actually do and in what sense are we morally responsible for our behavior surely it's just not very useful to to end up with situation which says no one's more irresponsible because society relies on on rules of some sort which we may have to control ourselves and it's sort of these the rotor is saying well no response for manual absolutely this is why this is why this is such a big question because we absolutely can't run as a society can we without at least the law of the land I mean if there are no moral facts which is one of the things we considered last week there are we know there to be legal facts and we absolutely need these laws and therefore we need some concept of legal responsibility and I suggest we need some concept of moral responsibility too but the question becomes if this is true is what is that concept how are - we motivate the concept of legal and moral responsibility if we accept determinism so that's the question one just one more person then I'm available is interesting you saying that no scientists believe fujita-san because I would say in a way I wasn't hard determined to tell this but it's not useful to be one because something something I don't know but I would have thought scientifically that was more likely well the reason I mean people think there are not deterministic laws one one reason would be quantum mechanics which suggests that there are things that are undetermined but of course actually you wouldn't want to motivate free will by the idea of things happening at random either would you because are intentional behavior doesn't appear to be something that's undetermined I mean we do when we act we choose to act for reasons that our reasons seem to cause us to act so there are causes for our actions but they don't appear to be deterministic causes in the way that physical causes seem to be at least more to the deterministic end of the spectrum genetics where there is randomness and basically the smell and works tend to blow as I said I was only going to take that one question I think we'll have to leave that on one side there might be some room left at the end for questions we'll have to come back and look at this but you can see can't you what a huge question this is freewill is absolutely central to our notion of morality to our notion of moral responsibility and indeed legal responsibility and if it's correct that we don't have free will somehow we've got to motivate the idea of moral responsibility but without free will and that's quite a big question and obviously there's a whole industry of people doing this I mean this keeps philosophers in jobs for life so this is we like big questions ok let's let's move on and so that was the first condition for being morally responsible that we act freely that we choose our actions I mean one of the reasons we don't think of dogs and cats for example as morally responsible is we don't think of them as choosing their actions they they think to be causally determined let's say but the other one is the idea that we're only morally and legally responsible if we can distinguish between right and wrong so if you think back to your Genesis where Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil okay and then they became like God's understanding good and evil until that point they couldn't do anything wrong alright could they because they didn't have any concept of the distinction between right and wrong and actually this is where Genesis is interestingly contradictory here isn't it can anyone see the contradiction immediately because because there was a wrong action wasn't those the very eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil yeah okay but but if you think of that sort of thing what until you can you do something knowing that you're doing the wrong thing the thought goes you're not morally responsible for it which is why young children are not morally responsible for their actions young ones as they grow up they become morally responsible because they start to learn the difference between right and wrong okay so we're morally culpable for an action only if we choose to perform it knowing that we're doing something wrong okay so we do wrong in knowingly actually Socrates claimed that we never do wrong knowingly because if if we do something that's against a rule we do it because at the moment we don't believe in that rule so and let's put this in a non moral context for a moment I don't want to eat cream cakes because I'm getting fat and therefore I you know I want to lose weight so I don't want to eat cream cakes so how come I'm eating this cream cake right now answer I at the moment that I reach for the cream cake I didn't want to be on the data I wanted the cream cake more than I wanted to be slim so I never know I never act against my best my beliefs about what the best action is and in the same way when you do something you don't do it believing it to be wrong at the moment you do it so Socrates you believe it to be right we never act knowingly to do the wrong thing but but let's put Socrates on one side usually we think we need to know that an action is wrong in order to be morally responsible so we don't start life as moral agents and because we don't start life with the ability to distinguish right and wrong in order to become morally responsible we've actually got to acquire an understanding of when an action is right and when an action is wrong and that's why children are not usually deemed responsible under the law until in this country it's 12 sorry it used to be 12 it's now 10 I think do you remember when the those two young boys recently I've forgotten their names but well Thompson inventables yes but just recently there was a another case wasn't that when again the boys were 10 and there was a big thing about whether they could be tried at all for this act because were they of an age of legal respond bility or not they were right on on the borderline of it and that's what's going on there okay you might think that this is a requirement too far can we really claim to have moral knowledge at all okay do you remember last week we were thinking about whether or not there are moral facts and of course the question of whether we can know that there are moral facts is a completely different question there might be moral facts but we can't know what there are or there might not be moral facts at all okay so this is a difference between metaphysics and epistemology and anyone who's done philosophy before will I'm sure have come across this distinction it's a very important distinction when you're talking about metaphysics I think I might have done this yes okay moral epistemology is concerned with how we justify beliefs about right and wrong and whether they count as knowledge so what can we know about right and wrong how can we justify claims to this knowledge and so on and moral metaphysics is concerned with the nature of moral values and whether they exist at all so to take again to take it out of a moral context and there's the world that we picture okay and there's our pictures of that world you with me so there's the chair about which I have a belief and here I don't think it's in my head actually but let's let's say it is here is the belief about that chair so we've got to distinguish between those two things and putting it in that sort of way the worlds that we picture is metaphysics and our picture of the world is epistemology our beliefs our knowledge of that world doesn't quite work that way because of course there's the metaphysics of knowledge when we're asking about the nature of beliefs and whether beliefs exist do you see what I mean then we're doing metaphysics of beliefs so it's not the case that if it's immediately to do with belief it's to do with epistemology because we might be doing the metaphysics of epistemology if you like just to confuse everything okay here's a little quiz for you okay I'm going to let you have a minute or two to sort those don't yell out just do it in your head and then we'll do them together okay I think that's enough time okay which is an epistemological question and which is a metaphysical one how do we know that whether an action is right or wrong histology or metaphysics well done it's epistemology that's right what justifies us in believing that lying is wrong hand up if you think it's epistemology okay hand up you think it's metaphysics oh dear justification what's that I'm looking at number two I'm sorry I didn't hear what you said it is mala ji yeah that's right so just look back at the definitions very quickly epistemology is concerned with how we justify beliefs and whether they counts as knowledge whether our beliefs counts as knowledge okay what about number three our moral judgments right or wrong actually true or false I should have put there okay metaphysics hands up okay epistemology oops it's the metaphysics ones have it on that one that's metaphysics can we ever be certain about the truth of a moral claim epistemology okay metaphysics okay it's a pistol Knology that one okay if moral values really exist what is their nature metaphysics or a metaphysics good okay I think you all got that one how can we be sure that it is always and everywhere wrong to kill how can we be sure is that epistemology or metaphysics epistemology hands up good well done and do moral values really exist metaphysics good well done okay like last week as we got to the end of it you were beginning to get it right even if you started off getting it a bit wrong don't worry about it because it's going to come up throughout the lectures and every time it does I'll point to the fact that this is either metaphysics or epistemology and if one of us gets confused including me I'll then try and sort out the confusion but but you need to be aware of that distinction can we ever be certain about the truth of a moral claim that one's epistemology and the what gives it away is the word certain because certainty is to do with knowledge rather than to do with truth I mean we got to be a bit careful though because of course knowledge involves truth but knowledge goes further than truth doesn't it there's got to be something else there one more question everyone's doing science this topology is very important could be versed about what's usually one like this on to my personal questions when do you use you these will call us if don't go there it's too hard this is anything happened ethics no because method both metaphysics and epistemology are difficult and if we were going to shy away from difficult questions we could all pack up and go home now I'm shocked to hear the scientists but they're not trained in metaphysics yes quite actually I'm just writing a lecture at the moment on on metaphysics for scientists which I'm having the most terrible trouble writing because well nevermind you don't need to know that but I am having most terrible trouble writing it it's very interesting okay so think back to last week in our discussion discussion of particularism and generalism - which one do you think does the idea of moral knowledge come more easily it's a difficult question this one and and if you have trouble with it that's perfectly reasonable generalism i think you're right why because knowledge implies knowledge and something that exists and if you're in particular is then you're saying that they didn't go have these rules absolute moral facts you can do you would still have moral facts but then they're going to be token facts not not not rules but I think you're right to mention rules the fact is actually if there are moral rules and if they're lower order rules like don't lie keep promises etc moral knowledge comes very easily doesn't it all you have to do is see that an action has a certain property the property of being a lie or the property of keeping a promise or something like that and you see at the same time that it's the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do so moral knowledge comes very easily if you subscribe to lower order absolutism but actually it doesn't quite work like that because we don't always know what falls under a rule I mean what for example we looked at the dilemma we could see which rules applied there be kind and be honest but we couldn't see which one we ought to act on could we not at all obvious which one we ought to act on so they come into conflict and if we consider the higher-order rules produce the greatest happiness the greatest number well Jerome right did I mention Hiroshima I'm not sure but dropping the bomb on Hiroshima there is a fact of the matter of whether that led to the greatest happiness or didn't lead to the greatest happiness of the greatest number there can be a lot of disagreement about which was the fact in that case wasn't it so actually having rules doesn't always lead to an easier form of moral knowledge and of course with the other thing is that particular Asst might not know in advance whether an action is going to be right or wrong because they need to know the whole situation for example but given a tacit and token action we sometimes actually we often feel certain we know what's right or wrong so when I the reason I use the example of the Nazis the Jews is because I am absolutely sure that everybody in this room is going to have the strong intuition that in that situation the right thing to do is to tell a lie okay and there are loads of examples that I'm going to bring up because I know exactly which intuitions they're going to stimulate from you because once I give you the situation and let's think about your friends again who comes home and says what'd you think of my hair and you think yuck okay what if this is the first time you've seen me smile for six months okay I've been really miserable for six months this is the first time you've seen me smile are you going to be honest about not liking my hair or is that going to tip you towards being kind so do you see by by fitting in just a little more of the backgrounds a little more of the situation I can shift your intuitions this way and that way because actually you have very strong particular intuitions about what's right and what's wrong so so actually moral knowledge is a big thing do we have it at all and if we do have it what is it is it a matter of applying a rule and if so is it lowered rules or higher-order rules and if it isn't a matter of applying a rule is it a matter of a sort of moral sense a moral intuition that we just somehow know just in the same way we can see blue can we see that an action is right or wrong although seeing wouldn't be a sense perception in this case if you see what I mean the question moral knowledge is another very big one here it's in different justifications we might have we might say as I've just suggested that we have a moral sense so Kant believed that we could see right and wrong for example we might say that we know inductively which behaviors are likely to be or you could put a bracket around those right and wrong so the inter herb utilitarianism 's utilitarians our inductive astable eve that it's by seeing that an action doesn't produce happiness over time that you form the rule that this is wrong this type of action is wrong or you might say and we're going to look at this in a bit more depth in a minute that we have a tacit agreement in other words we know because we know from the agreements we have which actions are right or wrong so you'll be tending towards a cultural account of morality there but the question is whether we have moral knowledge and how we have moral knowledge are two huge questions that I'm going to leave you to ponder so that's three questions you've got at the moment you've got do we have free will or you can include in that it's determinism true in any form and now these two I'm going to leave you with those and remember that we're going to be coming back to these questions throughout the four weeks that we're looking at the different moral theories so this is not your last chance to think about this this is just introducing you to the background okay the moral law and the law of the land differ when it comes to knowledge okay big question about possession of moral knowledge but the law of the land necessarily is made explicit you you cannot have well in fact there's something very badly wrong there are places where the laws are not written down you can fall foul of the law without realizing you are but we tend to think of those societies as something wrong with them because we believe that law of the land should be made public and the ignorance of it isn't a defense because it's made public in such a way that you can't really defend yourself by saying that you didn't know such and such as a law I didn't know I couldn't park here guv okay is that the moral law differs from the law of the land is absolutely clear I hope can you think of an action that's immoral but not illegal what hundreds would you like to give me one infidelity yes absolutely that that's maybe immoral but it's certainly not illegal okay tell your mum she looks great when you don't think she does that's not illegal but arguably it's immoral etc they're lots of actions that are immoral but not illegal what about an action that's illegal but not immoral this is a slightly more difficult because the very fact that it's illegal might make you think that doing it makes it immoral but if we put that complication on one side for a minute can you think of an action that's illegal but not immoral so certain medical interventions near death that's interesting okay and helping someone to die assisting someone to commit suicide that that's certainly illegal in this country but is it immoral very big question no but but it is in this country okay did you have one parking only double yellow line there's there's nothing intrinsically immoral about that is there I'm sure oh is it oh yeah if there is anything immoral about it it's only that it's against the law I assume it could be very okay yes yes it's certainly parking dangerously is probably immoral okay we sometimes think laws are unjust but how can a law be unjust how can it be that a law ought to be made or that a law ought to be scrapped if there isn't some idea of what that's over and above the idea of the law of the land itself do you see what I mean if the law if there's nothing more than the law of the land then no law of the land could be unjust could it you must be using an idea of unjust here or not fair or something like that that that's something in addition to the law of the land so the moral law and in using the moral law here I'm not necessarily talking about rules I'm talking about the way it has seems to have all thority over us when we see that something's right we see that we ought to do it the moral law and the law of the land are two quite different things and if they're quite different things it becomes very interesting to ask well what's the relation between them how how is the moral law related to the law of land and vice versa okay John Locke I think you've probably all heard of John Locke famous English philosopher he actually had a hand in writing the American Constitution so if I were teaching loads of Americans here they would be very interested to hear that on his book two treatises of government their constitution rests okay he believes that the law of the land must be firmly based on the moral law that if it wasn't there was something wrong okay there's his argument for that is that he believed in the state of nature okay and the state of nature is the state we were in before we became a nation state or a society so presumably there was a time when we all just lived as sort of loose tribes or loose families or that sort of thing there was no law there was no state that could call us to order and a lot of philosophers often appeal to the state of nature and thinking about moral and political philosophy because of course you want to know what came along with the state and what was already there before and Locke believed that in the state of nature and so before there were any laws of the land the moral law already existed he called it the law of nature but actually by the law of nature he meant God's law so and and he claimed it as preserve as much as possible so even in the state of nature we were required to preserve as much as possible so to go wanton ly chopping down trees wouldn't have been would have been a violation of God's law of the law of nature and to go chopping down people would be more of a violation of God's law he believed that the idea of a law without a sanction is incoherent if you've got a law there's got to be some sort of downside of breaking it otherwise what what makes it a law at all and so he also believed that in the state of nature each of us held the executive power of the law of nature the right to punish violations of it so if I'm in my cave and Erica is beside me and I'm looking after her and and you come along and beat her up you know I've got the right to beat you up in return because if she's my property here or if she's dependent on me and you violate that then then I have the executive power of the law of nature and I have the right to self-defense and to defend my property and okay I want you to think about this let's imagine now that we're in the state of nature and this is what the situation is so there is a law of nature there is a moral law that says that we can't go around destroying things and we each have the executive power of the law of nature we can also all wield this sanction if we see a violation of the law of nature okay do you like this or not you don't like it okay sorry what did you say is it unconscious very much God or is there for taxing not computable no because if you violate God's law if anyone is is entitled so if I come and attack you that's a violation of God's law you have the right to defend yourself against me we're not talking about the Christian God here necessarily maybe we are but but if you perceive my attacking you as a violation of the law of nature you have the right to defend yourself according to Locke yeah yeah well it's it's like we're discussing here yes I mean there are different people have different views about the state of nature well but I think you're we're actually talking about what you're asking about here because what I want to ask now is what what what do you think of this you don't like it lots of people said why not in what way in other words if I just tap her on the shoulder and she she annihilates me that that's wrong okay good yes I think that's probably right any other reasons for thinking it's wrong chopping down trees to create fields to grow food might be a reason that chopping down trees some people might be against chopping down the trees do this trees think they want the berries from the trees or so there's the in a conflict okay so there's no way to police conflicts or different beliefs about what the law of nature states okay did you have your hand up good yeah that would be another thing so if somebody goes and beats up this lady here whose name I've gotten Margaret and somebody goes and beats up where's it where's this a nice strong man here Donald John do okay somebody goes beats up John they might there's going to be a different response isn't there because it perhaps John is better able to defend himself the Margaret is I don't know you may be a jiu-jitsu champion for all I know but yep okay so there are lots of drawbacks sorry there's one more here so this turned on and well if anarchy is the definition of without Lord then yes indeed it is anarchy but of course there's nothing wrong with that because we tend to think of anarchy as wrong because it means that the dissolution of the rule of law but here there is no rule of law all there is is the law of nature or God's law so there is no state to impose the rule of law okay Locke believed that there would be serious inconvenience as he called them rather sweetly in the state of nature and you've got them actually all of them there's no impartial judgment so if I'm very hot-tempered and somebody comes and taps me on the knee and I actually review this hot-tempered wasn't it I tap you on the knee and you annihilate me okay there's no impartial judgment there's also no standard punishments as you said that punishment isn't necessarily consonant with the crime and also force wouldn't necessarily be on the side of the right if I can defend myself very well but I tend to be hot-tempered a violation of my property rights for example might be punished very differently from a Popham a violation of somebody else's property rights so all sorts of major inconveniences here and Locke proposed to solve this in this way he thinks it would be rational for us and actually it would wouldn't it I mean if we were in that situation and we started to get worried about this we probably would all want to come together and form a few agreements about what the law should be interpreted as and how it would be punished and who would punish it and so on and this is exactly what Locke thought he thought that we would transfer our individual executive power into the hands of the community and then accept majority opinion on who should rip wield this power so we all come together and we say okay I I won't take the law into my own hands as we think of it and the law will be in the hands of the law the executive but we would have to then elect an executive wouldn't we'd have to elect a government to wield the executive power of the law of nature so we this is a two-step process for Locke firstly we contract with each other and to accept majority rule and to relinquish our individual executive power so we no longer punish violations of the law of nature ourselves and secondly we consent to the executive as decided by the majority so we get together we say okay we're not going to take the law into our own hands but who's going to look after it who's going to be responsible for it and we elect those five there to wield our executive power and so next time you come and beat me up instead of beating you up back or getting John to do it for me I I go to this slot and I say oh look look what she's just done to me will you punish this and you've got your book of rules and you go down you see okay that that sort of violation this sort of punishment and you can see how our rule of law would be generated by that sort of process and ingeniously the two-step process generates the conditions of justified rebellion and this matters to Locke a great deal Locke went to Westminster School and he was there aged 14 when the only act of regicide in this country was committed within his hearing he certainly would have heard the baying of the crowds and so on when Charles the first the first wasn't it we'll have to get that right was executed and the question of when it was right to rebel against the government a properly elected government or in this case a king with a divine right it was a big question for him so this two-step process does that because he thinks that when the government fails to execute the law of nature when for example I'm sorry I've gotten your name too when Helen beats me up and I go and complain to you and you say we like Helen we don't like you therefore we're not going to do anything about it you're failing to execute the law of nature and I'm going to start thinking but hang on you know what why did I give up my executive power for that lot to do it they're not doing their job and that's the sort of thing that makes you want to take the law into your own hands doesn't it it's exactly the sort of thing that leads to the setting up of vigilantes etc or when the government goes further than the law of nature permits and says okay let's say they get a bit big for their boots they look as if they're going to get a bit big for their boots don't they and and they start telling us what to do here and what to do here and what time to go to bed and they start they become a nanny state perhaps at that point we might start thinking well hang on I don't like this I I wouldn't have agreed to this if I realize that's what I what we were getting into so under these two conditions thinks Locke and you're actually going to back off and and you're going to the government is going to lose your consent so the government loses the attitudinal consent of the people and according to Locke I've seen your quest I'll come back in a minute it should now resign okay so where when yes cynical laughter is it okay it should now resign and if it doesn't rebellion is justified okay so actually this is happening right now isn't it in a very big and very interesting way in Egypt and indeed it happened in Tunisia rather more smoothly but that's exactly what's happening the Egyptian government has lost the attitudinal consent of the body politic it should resign it's not going to and things are actually really getting very uncomfortable aren't they very very because rebellion lots of people do think rebellion is justified I mean one of the difficulties actually of Locke's theory is he thinks that it's only when the majority lose the attitudinal consent that there's the right to rebel and of course the question of when the majority does becomes an empirical question have we got sort of question numbers isn't it so but it's a very ingenious theory you've both got oh sorry I just need to say this we never return to the state of nature we only ever return to the body politic it never becomes the case that you take the executive power of the law of nature back into your own hands it's never the case that the individual has again the right to wields the executive power we return only to this body politic where we've got the agreements that will we're a community and then we need to decide on a new government okay question Lots arguments can surely only ever be true for a democracy if there is a dictatorship or or some of a different form of government and I can't see how well you look relies on but never justifies his belief that it's going to be much majority decision making what we could do of course having given up our executive power we could all decide to elect you as a dictator at you and your your progeny yes this is ad infinitum you know it would just be always you and your progeny and we could do that couldn't we I think Locke thinks that that would be such an obviously stupid move that he didn't even consider it and I'm sorry no that wasn't an insult I'm sure you and your progeny are very nice but the idea of giving up our exciting power so it would go into the hands of one person and his his children treated me to think about this because I would perhaps argue that Egypt is not a democracy in the way that we might see it as such well no it's not and the question is is that what they're trying to get but you're right you're absolutely right that Locke just assumes that that we'd go for majority rule Locke has given the conditions under which we would move on he's explained why we would move from the state of nature he's assumed that we'd accepts majority rule but what the important thing I wanted to get across is the idea that this is a two-step process and that the two steps allow for a theory of justified rebellion so what Locke has done in geniusly and I do recommend reading to treatise of government because it's very easy to read and very interesting he shows us it gives us an account of political obligation of why we should obey the law and an account of when we shouldn't obey the law of when we're justified in rebelling against the law so according to Locke our obligation to obey the law rests on the notion of consent together with our pre-existing obligation to obey the moral law which is an obligation to God and you might think this is actually rather a shaky resting place and the idea of consent is is a very difficult one and did you did any of you consent to obey the law are any of you naturalized citizens no okay so there's nobody in it are any of you American no okay so there's nobody in this room who has consented to obey the law in America in schools they do consent to pay the law every day they swear allegiance to the flag every morning yes that's a very good question that they're very young when they do it so of course you've then got another question they do consent but is it real consent if you ask them to consent at that sort of age and of course under those conditions where everyone's expected to do it and such it so are they really consenting I think most of us would probably say no if one of our ancestors coming out of the state of nature consented well why does that bind us I mean I don't take myself to be bound by something that my great great great great grandfather said and we might say well it's tacit consent of some kind I mean if we all went to the pub afterwards that's rather a lot of ass isn't it I'll take the executive to the pub coming to you five we'll go down to the pub they all buy me a drink and I say but thanks everyone I'm off now and they might think yes hang on she got five drinks there and then disappeared before buying hers by agreeing to a round system you totally can sense don't you two buying your own round I mean there are people who escape this I mean there was a time when women weren't expected to play this game and certainly if somebody's very young if you've got 16 year-old with you on the whole you don't expect them to to join in so there are exceptions this but on the whole you tacitly consent to something when you know that you're taking on an obligation by your action as well we've all if we've all been educated in England England's has paid for all Britain I should say Britain has paid for our education even if we went to independent school there was still an amount of money that was sitting there waiting for us and we used the National Health Service probably if we've ever been taken to hospital by ambulance or something like that does our gratitude to the state confer on us an obligation to obey the law do we somehow consents to the law at least tacitly by staying in the country and using its services no why not who said that you said that yeah it doesn't feel right the first is true nothing wrong with intuitions then you don't want them to be at the end of argument but but you need them to started okay you don't it's certainly true isn't it if somebody came and gave me a birthday present that I hadn't looked for I would be obliged to say thank you but it's not obvious I'd be obliged to do anything else well that would be this sort of argument yes what do we think about this have they to the Egyptian government yes absolutely that's right buying by interacting with the Egyptian government the international community has given its tacit consent perhaps but you might ask again well actually why were they living quietly because anyone who was noisy was cut them well I actually don't know anything about the Egyptian society so I'm just assuming this but I assume that I would live quietly if the alternative was being carted off to prison and beaten on the soles of my feet or something like that I would live very quietly I was just by voting and tacitly concerned yes that's a good one isn't it by voting are we not where we're actually actively engaging in the situation but actually here's an interesting question if I voted labor in the last government and I did say if I voted labour I'm not telling you what I voted if I voted in labor in the US government am i required to obey the laws of this government you think so do you okay a lot of people would say that by but does that mean that if I didn't vote at all in the last election that I'm thereby free to disobey the law because I I didn't tacitly consent but I opted not to vote because I didn't want to obey the law I mean is that is there any way that I could opt out of the obligation to obey the law it looks as if there isn't actually isn't there if even if I moved I'd be in under some law somewhere wouldn't I so so actually the fact I can't do anything to opt out suggests that maybe I'm not bound by the fact that I stay what else can I do anyway we don't need to go into this any more but what I'm doing is is sure this consents theory is really a very shaky foundation for the idea of the obligation to obey the law and of course there's also this pre-existing moral obligation and believes that in the state of nature we're already bound to obey God's law the law of nature the moral law well where does that come from actually it's the you know it's they're just a natural obligation to obey the moral law to do the right thing maybe there is but it it's not obvious that this is a brute fact is it so okay that's Locke's theory so and here's another question for you to ponder do you agree with Locke that the law of the land must rest on the moral law and if so you might like to ponder on where the moral law comes from in the first place and he thought it came from God if you don't accept that you need to find and you do accept that there was some sort of moral law you need to find some source of that moral law and in recent years though state of nature theory has been revolutionized by this chap here john rules and he argued that both moral and political obligation rests on a hypothetical agreement okay not on an actual agreement not known by whom etc and according to rules you're obliged to obey the laws that are imposed on you by a government and you're obliged to obey the moral laws of your society if and only if these laws are fair and that might trigger a question for you there but you don't well let's move on and a huge question for Rawls becomes when is the law fair moral law or the law of land rules answer is that a law is fair if that law would have been chosen by rational self-interested people people like us in the original position okay so let's have a closer look at this there are four aspects to Rawls's original position to his theory of justice as he calls it you can read his book it's it's quite easy to read it's very thick very repetitive but it but it is quite easy to read okay what's the original position well it's this in the original position are people like us let's say that they're rational they're also self-interested if they have a choice they're going to go for a choice that's going to to pursue their own interests there on the old that I mean they are altruistic sometimes but but not always and also you've got to ask themselves why they're altruistic when they're altruistic the fact is they they are interested in their own well-being and their rational they're also behind the veil of perception the only thing they know the only account of good they have is the thin theory of good ok behind the veil of perception they don't know who they are what they are so they don't know whether they're male or female they don't know whether they're old or young they don't know whether they're intelligent or thick and they don't know whether they're rich or poor they don't know whether they're ill or healthy ok so they know nothing about themselves so they've got the sin theory of good okay now the thin theory of good tells them what's good for human beings in general actually we're assuming they're human beings they might be Martians there's no reason why they shouldn't be margins as long as they're rational self-interested in etcetera etc but they've the sin theory of God tells them things like it's women who have babies not men it tells them things like human beings need a reason about warmth so many calories a day this that and the other so they've got a very basic theory of psychology very basic theory of politics very basic theory of physiology they know what human beings need to flourish ok so they don't know what they need to flourish but they do know what human beings need to flourish and it's in this position the original position that we decide on the laws of justice ok we decide on what grounds society should be run so can anyone tell me why this is an interest thought experiment what why does rule set it up in this this really rather complicated way why does he put people behind the veil of perception why does he give them the thin theory of good and why is it that people who make choices about how society should be run from this position are such that their choices are deemed the right ones can anyone answer me that does you want them to be dispassionate can you cash that out a bit he doesn't want favoritism good yes absolutely would anyone like to expand on that a bit what what is okay I usually ban people from using the words objective and subjective till they done philosophy for at least 10 years but but yes what he wants people to do is to not choose the position of sorry the rules of Justice for themselves doesn't he so he doesn't want them to apply self-interest if I know more more it may be more than that as well but it is that he's actually also supporting enlightenment discourse which is in favor of certain people it cuts out emotional sight and women a downgrade and you know all sorts of things well but but the the point of doing that is so that the rules of justice are chosen from an objective point of view that they're not chosen from the point of view of so for example if I don't know I'm whether I'm male or female I'm not going to say there should be a curfew on women I can't see that there should be a curfew on women on the other hand my sin theory of good tells me nothing about men and women that makes me think that if I were a woman I'd be happy for there to be a curfew we're getting into much more detail now than the rules than you need to but can you see that if I don't know whether I'm a man or what I'm not going to choose any laws that are going to do women down all that are going to do men down because I might turn out to be the wrong one if you see what I mean if I don't know whether I'm rich or poor am I going to bet on being rich be a bit of a silly thing to do wouldn't it I need to think well hang on what if I'm poor so I want to arrange the laws of society in such a way that I don't come off very badly if I am poor so I want to do the best I want to do the best for myself whatever situation I'm in and doing the best for myself whatever situation I'm in means actually doing the best for everyone doesn't it if you're behind the veil of perception if all you've got is the thin theory of good does that satisfy what you he's too rational ah no well he does and watch you one of the big questions you've got to ask I mean there are all sorts of questions to ask rules about this one is the rationality the other is self-interest I mean actually people have a huge tendency to be altruistic why why is self-interest important I think that I think both those questions can be answered actually but another big question would be well what do we put behind the veil of perception and what do we put in the thin theory of good so for example in apartheid South Africa if you had suggested that the idea that blacks are stupid should go behind the veil of perception they'd say well why I mean this is just a fact isn't it and you think well hang on no not according to us it's not a fact so so actually how you decide what goes behind the veil of perception and what comes into the thin theory of good suggests that you're going to get out what you put in but that's actually not the point because we we don't have to actually put anything in just here we just we're just looking at the decision procedure this is actually real rather if you don't know that whether you're an alcoholic in Bond Square or whether you're a trust-fund kid in a large house etc then asking you to choose the principles of justice from behind the veil of perception when you've got only the thin theory of good looks like a good idea doesn't it and what Rawls would say is that this theory explains both moral and political obligation oh hang on I haven't explained why it does okay how does Rawls theory explain both moral and political obligation answer if you're living in a society and you see a law that you think you ask us okay why are you obliged to obey this law well if the law is such that you can see that you would have chosen it had you been in that situation then you are obliged to obey it do you see what I mean and actually you can put it even better than that if the government that you're being asked to obey is a generally just government then even if so this this government is such that you can see that if you had been in the in the original position you would have chosen it as being an acceptable government then even if this particular law is unjust maybe there's still nevertheless reason to obey it so we go from there being an actual agreement on which we're all going to say oh no there wasn't or nobody asked me guv to a hypothetical agreement where you're asked to say well would you have accepted this had you been asked in this original position and if your answer to that is yes okay you may have come out unfairly you would have said that because you might have been very poor it's turned out that you're very rich and you wish you hadn't said that but but you can see that you would have said it and that there were good reasons for saying it the is the source of your political obligation and for Rawls it's also the source of your moral obligation so if there's a moral command in your society your obligation to obey it is again because if you look at it and you think that you would have subscribed to it from the original position then that's the ground of your obligation to obey it not any actual consent but this hypothetical consent of had you been in this position you would have agreed okay so and notice that there's there's a pre-existing notion of fairness in here as well so just as Locke already had the pre-existing idea of moral obligation Rawls has got it in there as well it looks as if it's actually very difficult to get away from a pre-existing notion of moral obligation

Channel: University of Oxford

Views: 15,377

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Keywords: Marianne Talbot, ethics, philosophy, law, jurisprudence, reasoning, Beginner's Guide, Oxford

Id: BuMB1gf2NUw

Length: 78min 55sec (4735 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2012