A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners (4/7)

okay last week we looked at virtue ethics mainly from an Aristotelian point of view although as a matter of fact virtue ethics is undergoing something of a revival at the moment so there's have been a lot of thought about it particularly in the last decade or so so it's very far from a dead theory it's it's a very living very vibrant theory and but if you remember we considered man's proper function and purpose in life which is this is your revision session to lead a good life and what is a good life yes that that's certainly part of it acting according to what you know is right exercising reason or exercising the virtues virtues of both intellect and character that's right and exercising the well it's no good exercising them and exercising them badly you've got to do them well as well okay and having done this and if you're lucky in other ways if your family isn't wiped out or anything ghastly happens what will you achieve eudaimonia which is often translated as happiness but if you remember we saw that that was a very bad translation because apart from anything else eudaimonia is the characteristic of a full life not just of you at a time so it's not obviously a state of mind at all which is how we think of happiness okay we decided what we didn't decide that she but we looked at the question of whether virtue is necessary for happiness and I mean good idea min for example whom I'm assuming you would agree with me is not a virtuous person and could he have achieved eudaimonia okay lots lots of people are saying no but of course actually he did die with a certain amount of wealth and his fame around him and da-da-da-da-da so some people may think that he's a counterexample to Aristotle ooh no you really don't think so okay good well he was vilified Orson - bye-bye much of the world I mean you might think that that would be a bit of a downer maybe you didn't care exactly but certainly Aristotle wouldn't think he had achieved eudaimonia okay we looked at the metaphysics and the epistemology of virtue ethics and of course you all room what the difference between epistemology and metaphysics is can anyone tell me what we're talking about when we talk about the metaphysics of the true ethics beyond physics yes very good okay she did Greek something that can't be sort of challenged or major this just you just know know that that's actually not the case because metaphysics is to do with truth rather than knowledge so it would be what iris and what is virtue ethics a realist theory does it does it see moral values as as real as part of the fabric of the world if you like so does it see that there's a truth or falsehood about whether an action was right or wrong do you remember we discussed that and we also looked at if that was so how would we know whether it was right or wrong because of course an action could be right and wrong in it of an in itself and yet our not know that it is so how do we know that it's right or wrong if it is and then finally we looked at the charge that virtue ethics lacks a decision procedure what do I mean by that can anyone tell me it lacks a disease what so a bit more than that but yes one way of looking at it because rules make life easy don't it if it's if if a moral theory says don't lie then you know that all the class of sorry all the tokens of the type is a lie are wrong and that makes it nice and easy well Aristotle's theory doesn't quite say that does it what to see say says are no rules for a start so what is the characteristic a right action it's the action that would be performed by a virtuous person that looks as if it leaves us without a decision procedure doesn't it but what what did I put to you as possibly what the decision procedure would be ask virtuous first right at least ask someone for whom you feel respect somebody who's virtuous is thought by you as at least as good as your own if not better yeah you are someone you respect okay good that's a little run-through last week's stuff to get you thinking okay this week we're turning to nun cognitivism and non-cognitive ism is a type of moral theory again it's a type of moral theory although it's traceable to the views of David Hume there are many modern-day non cognitive ists and David Hume certainly wouldn't have called his theory a non cognitivist theory although actually it's non cognitive escs it's not to do with cognition as you'll see in a minute or it displaces cognition from the center of the theory okay we're going to be looking at all these things I'll let you read those yourself okay if you haven't quite read them don't worry we will be going through them okay human ethics is the view that the right action is that towards which a true judge would feel approbation and the wrong action is that towards which a true judge would feel disapprobation and does this remind you of anything does it remind you of anything it reminds you of iris or why a true judge might be a virtuous person okay so you may think that human Siri sound like sounds like Aristotle's theory because if feeling approbation is the same as knowing what's right and true judges are identical to virtuous persons then then it looks pretty identical doesn't it it also looks pretty useless just just looked at on the surface like that bit like Aristotle's did last week and but actually feeling approbation as you'll see is rather different from knowing what is right and true judges are not the same as virtuous people we well we can talk later about whether you think they are okay there are many modern forms of human ethics they're grouped under the title none' cognitivism but here are a few more titles all of these are non cognitivist theories of ethics and if you want to look them up and see what's different about them there's a reference to the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy which is a fantastic resource for anyone who's interested in philosophy it's completely free and really very good okay well Hughes Efex was built on his philosophy of mind which is actually quite a good start because if ethics is centrally to do with action and action is centrally to do with what do you remember what's the difference between my tripping over a carpet and my pretending to trip over a carpet intention and what is it that a behavior has to have if it's going to be morally evaluable no not necessarily good intentions we discuss that next week when we discuss whom but it's got to be an action hasn't it it's got to be intentional under some description or other and so immediately mental states are involved aren't they so that a theory of ethics should come from a theory of mind is not at all odd you would expect a theory of ethics to have some sort of theory of mind attached to it somewhere okay but it was built on his philosophy of mind and in his particular his account of the nature of mental states he and in particular - he called reason and passion but we might think of his desire and belief and there's reason why we might not think of it as that but but that get gives you a good grip on it as you'll see human was arguably the first philosopher of mind who's arguably indeed the first psychologist he was the first person to study the mind systematically and to ask things like well how do we classify mental states what is it that makes a mental state a mental state of this type rather than that type or that type run this type so he was engaged in classification which as you know is is something that scientists do and arguably he was the first psychologist but let's let's have a closer look at reason and passion well okay to understand tooms you at all then mind properly we need to get started we need to understand all these things okay so let's start with the difference between reason and passion okay first we've got to understand the idea the difference between ideas and impressions and Hume believed that all mental states fell into one or other of these categories either they're an idea or they're an impression and ideas are cognitive states they represent the world they admit truth or falsehood and they enter into rational relations actually I'm just real sorry I'm going to go back because I've gone into passion and reason whereas I meant to stick with ideas impressions okay here are ideas and impressions I don't want you to think of elephants okay you're not thinking of elephants are you okay actually you are all of you thinking of elephants and but what you'll notice is that there isn't an elephant in this room is there no okay no there's not even a hidden elephant I promise you okay now what you're doing is you're exercising your concept of elephant okay and I want you now to look at this glass okay you're now you you're experiencing a percept a perception an impression if you like of this glass okay but if you all close your eyes you can no longer see the glass you might be able to hear it etc but you can no longer see it so you're not receiving a visual impression of the glass but you could still exercise your concert to the gods could you imagine this glass being yellow okay so now you're you're splitting apart your your concept of this glass and transparency and you're putting together your concept of this glass and is yellow do you see what I mean so the fact that human beings can entertain concepts or ideas what Hume calls ideas it's a very important thing because without the ability to think about things that weren't that aren't perceptually present we couldn't form goals we couldn't form plans by which to achieve goals it's so ability to conceptualize the world and to think about things that aren't perceptually present is very important and that's the difference between an idea and impression so an impression there's going to be something perceptually presents to you an idea it needn't be perceptually present your and to entertaining your concept of that thing okay ideas a cognitive States they represent the world they admit truth and falsehood and they enter into rational relations beliefs are the most obvious example of ideas so let's think of it I don't believe let's think of a brief the cat's on the mat okay so you all believe the cat is on the mat notice your belief represents the world as being a certain way doesn't it okay it represents the world as such that there is a cat and that cat is on the mat so there is a cat there is a mat and the cat is on the mat so a belief is a representational state and it admits truth and falsehood so if the world is the way your belief represents it as being your belief is true and if the world isn't the way your belief representative as being then your belief is false and it enters into rational relations in the sense that if the cat's on the mat and the cat's been fed this is a bad idea awesome sorry ugly you don't know my cat my ex cat but let me think of another one okay if P then Q P therefore Q do you see there's a set of rational relations here you can take two beliefs and from them and together they entail a third belief so if you believe if the cats on the mat and if the cat's on the mat then it's wanting supper then what do we know the cat's want supper exactly so two beliefs together entail a third or all beliefs can be inconsistent with each other they can't all be true together so the cat can't both be on the mat and not on the mat for example and and if you believe that well that's funny I thought the cat was on the mat and now I look and where's the cap gone you've got an inconsistency you've got evidence for falsehood can't be the case that both of these beliefs are true therefore if you believe if you seem to believe them both you've got to drop one of those beliefs so beliefs essentially by virtue of their contents they're representational content they enter into rational relations so every belief is embedded in a logical space of other beliefs okay so if any belief you I mean just think about it for yourself any belief you have now will be justified by certain other beliefs and it will itself justify other beliefs do you see what I mean so that's what it is for a belief to be embedded in logical space and it's what it is for it to be to enter into rational relations lots of different types of rational relations but we've we've talked about few okay so Humes calls ideas reason because in Burton in virtue of their representational content they are embedded in this web of rational relations with each other any questions about that before we move on well that's actually and we're not really talking about beliefs in God well actually well why not we can say go that belief is actually better expressed in the way I'm talking as God exists so you represent the web so if you believe that God exists you represent the world as including in it God okay if you don't believe God exists and you represent the worlds as being empty of God your belief will be true if God exists and false otherwise and if God exists and God is omniscient then God knows what you're going to have for breakfast tomorrow so from your belief God exists and God is omniscient you can derive the claim God knows what I'm going to have God knows what I'm going to have breakfast I didn't see that one coming that I rather liked it when it came do you see what I mean okay so the reason I rather objected to belief in God is people if you say you're a believer meaning that you believe in God that's a rather different thing from saying that actually everyone in this room is a believer in the sense that everyone in this room is rational and has beliefs so belief in God tends to be a belief apart from others in in that way impressions on the other hand estates like sensations desires emotions there's something that it feels like to experience such a state so there's something it's like to see an elephant for example there's something is like to be tickled there's something it's like to be about to sneeze etc and now these are not representational States are they your your feeling that you're about to sneeze doesn't represent the world in any way at all does it and your and we've got to be a bit careful here because lots of people think of desires as rather belief like if you want a glass of water you think of you should think of yourself rather as wanting to make the belief there is a glass of water or I can drink a glass of water or something like that true okay you want to make that belief true you have a pro attitude towards the belief there is a glass of water in front of me or I have water I can drink all or something along those lines but duty there's something it's like to want a glass of water okay but your desire for a glass of water isn't true or false is it there would be a grammatical error if you said my desire for a glass of water is true whereas my belief there's a glass of water in front of me admits of truth or falsehood but you can't say my desire for a glass of water is true because either it exists or it doesn't exist but it isn't true or false in the way that okay you're all looking puzzle now okay so let's I have a belief as a class in front of me and so do you okay you believe that I believe there's a glass of water in front of me so you've got a second-order belief but I've got a first door to believe now I've got okay the glass my belief is either true or false isn't it we all think it's true but if any of you about to wake up any minute and find that you've got to go to that lecture again this afternoon you will discover that it wasn't true you just thought it was true but you see how that straw Falls now if I want that so there isn't usually if I want there to be a glass of water in front of me it's because there isn't a glass of water in front of me it's because I don't believe there is a glass of water in front of me but say I now want a glass of water that want that desire isn't true or false is it it's not the sort of thing that can be true or false a desire do you see okay yes I can see you getting us a bit so it's not true sorry say again there's a definite distinction because a belief if you think I can't say it of that chair that is loud can i if I said that chair is loud I'd be you I'd be demonstrating the fact that either I didn't understand what I meant about the chair or about loudness because chairs are just not the sort of thing that can be loud are they are you with me this would be what what grunt grammar people in grammar call a selection mistake in the same way I can say over belief that it's true but I can't say of a desire that it's true you with me I might say desire is fulfilled but I can't say it's true so if I want a glass of water and then I get one my my desire for a glass of water has been fulfilled but it's still not true because desires are not the sort of thing that can be true can you say the fact that you you have a desire for a glass of water is true ah yes so I might not be true but the fact that you have earned it's not the fact it's it's that no that's very good actually it's quite useful um Maryann wants a glass of water or wants a glass of water remind me of your name Chris believes Maryann wants a glass of water that admits of truth or false oh it doesn't it it's the content of your belief do you see what I mean but my wanting a glass of water is not the sort of thing that's true or false your belief that I want a glass of water could be true or false my belief that I want a glass of water can be true or false but my wanting a glass of water can't be true or false you with me I can see you're with me now good there's nothing I like better than see understanding on people's faces that's lovely okay and so they're not representational a desire is a pro attitude towards making a belief true so pro attitude towards having a glass of water in front of me or having a drink of water or something like that and pro attitudes you even will had them you have Pro attitudes or Creed cream cakes you wish it had stopped raining you know you got Pro attitude to the Sun coming out haha and and so on so forth we all know what Britons sometimes your pro attitudes are really quite strong aren't they you really want a cream cake or a cigarette or whatever and other times they're they're fairly you will go to church because your mum wants you to but you know so you have a pro attitude to going to church but it's not a particularly strong one you you drop it like a flash if you're if your mum dropped it to okay so they're not representing representational they're neither true nor false and they don't enter into rational relations and they can't properly therefore be called reason or unreasonable so whereas a belief can be called reasonable or unreasonable to the extent that it's justified by other beliefs a desire can't be you either have a desire or you don't and whether it's reasonable or not is is just neither here nor there let me explain this to you insert way let's let's say you have a child who doesn't want to go to university and you really want them to go to university okay it's your ambition that they should go to the university but it isn't their ambition and how are you going to try and persuade them okay now you want to reason them into a desire don't you okay and I've just said that desires can't be reasonable or unreasonable so how do you go about reasoning somebody into a desire okay so you're in this situation how would you try and persuade your your child let's make her a girl how would you try and spread your daughter to go to university find these nice things or after university or some money okay so what what is that what everyone would do yes okay Maura I mean there might be different lures but it all be like that okay what are you trying to do here nope nope that's not what you're doing no you don't want it to need to go to university that that would be sad no that's not it in me cash that out a little bit to a desire here good okay what you've got to find in order to argue someone into a desire is to find a desire they already have and then show them that they can't satisfy that desire unless they form a design now if let's say that you've really hit on something that she really does want what does she wants to earn lots of money okay she really does want to earn lots of money and you've just told her that as a necessary condition of going to university I have to tell you this isn't true I just like to point that out at interpret yes okay this is fine then okay where were we okay so she's got a desire to earn lots of money and you're telling her it's a necessary condition of earning lots of money that you go to university I've she poor thing believes you she could do one of two things what might she do so she comes to believe that going to university is a necessary condition of earning lots of money which belief well that wouldn't be changing a belief it would be changing her desire wouldn't it she could come to think oh well if it really is the case and dad tells me so it must be and we all know that that's what children think all the time must be the case it's true because my dad told me that and therefore I must want that you know goodness I must go to university I want to go to university she'll start to want to go to university or um will it be her belief she changes what might she do she might just lose her desire to make a lot of money she might think oh well if that's true yeah I'd rather go on and be a philosopher instead a little something like that although it is actually necessary to go to university for that do you see what I mean if you in order to we think about arguing people into desires but what we do is we provide them with a belief that desiring one thing or achieving one thing is a necessary condition for achieving something we know they already want and we hope thereby to cause them not reason to cause them to want this other thing but we might come a cropper if they decide actually to drop the first desire rather than adopts the one you want them to adopt do you see what I mean you actually if somebody really does not want some there's nothing you can do to argue them into wanting it because wanting isn't it isn't a rational process you either want something all you do if she doesn't want to go to university she really doesn't want to go to university then nothing you can say is going to persuade her because it's a desire is not that sort of thing you with me okay so Hume says it's not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my little finger okay do you see what he means if that's really what ru prefers then there's nothing irrational about it because desiring isn't either rational or irrational it's non rational are you with me so irrationality is a failure in the house of Reason so you can't be irrational unless you're rational and if desires can't be rational they can't be irrational either desires are non rational okay they fall in between right okay so now do we understand the difference between reason and passion any questions to be asked about that so reasons are representational states they represent the world and being as being a certain way they admit of both truth and falsehood and they're embedded in a logical space of reasons logical because they're rational relations that pull them together okay so physical space is constructed of physical relations like on top of in between next to and so on a logical space is constructed of rational relations like entails is consistent follows from etc okay and passions or desires as I've been calling rather I mean there are lots of philosophers who would be a bit fed up with me calling passion desire but but it I think it makes it easier to understand desires are not embedded in reasons they're neither rational nor irrational they don't truth or falsehood and they're not representational so two totally different types of mental state so this this is remember this is Hume classifying mental states in two types so beliefs are one type of mental state and desires are another type of mental state reasons or one type of mental state passions are a different type of mental state and human okay we need to know how this fits into Humes claims about morality well human Eve's that there are only two types of reasoning as demonstrative reasoning and probabilistic reasoning so when we're engaging in reasoning when we're trying to derive some beliefs from other beliefs these are the two types of reasoning that we engage in these to exhaust the types of reasoning available so demonstrative reasoning for informs of the relations between various ideas so okay well I've given you the answer here but can squares be circle circular I should say how do we know this yes okay which we entertain our concept of Square and by that I mean we all know we all know remember a cognitive state what it is for something or what it would be for something to be square okay and then we entertain our concept of circle and our knowledge of what it would be for something to be circular and entertaining those two pieces of knowledge we see that actually these two things are contradictory you cannot have something that is both square and circular okay you we know this don't we we only have to look a look at our concepts to know that and also yes and then I'm sure of these two I'm going to go over those two right um anyway I hope you see what I mean about demonstrative reasoning if you get if you see that this belief in this belief can't both be true without this belief being true that's demonstrative reasoning deductive reasoning okay and probabilistic reasoning and takes us from one experience to something an expectation if you like about future experience so it's it informs us about causes and effects so if in your experience doing a has always been followed by the advent of B then doing a we will expect it once again to be followed by B they happen to be okay so you're you're either thinking probabilistically or inductively so you're you're going from your past experience to make predictions about your future experience or your looking at the relations the deductive relations between your ideas okay so only two types of reasoning but in the absence of a desire for something anything neither of these types of reasoning is going to prompt any sort of action at all isn't is it so so if I engage in deductive reasoning I think okay ah goodness I want a cup of coffee the best way of getting a cup of coffee from here well is to wait for an hour and then go into the common room okay or I could nip down to the shop just down the road and get one but that would be leaving you to dah dah dah okay I what I do want a cup of coffee but I also want to give the rest of this lecture etc and so my reasoning about how I would get a cup of coffee isn't going to move me anywhere unless that want for a cup of coffee becomes so strong I'm prepared to just leave you lot here and go off and get one and in exactly the same way I can reason as much as I like about cause and effect saying doing this will will achieve that but until I want that the reasoning isn't take me anywhere is it and what Hume is saying is that reason is non motivating we we only act if we have a desire for some end and he claims that reason is the slave of the passions it's the passions that move us around the world all reason does is tell us how to achieve our how to fulfill our desires how to get what we want so reason is the slave of the passions because all reason does is inform us how to achieve our ends with me you agree you all agree d good ok that means I'm going to enjoy next week right on the humans account of reason and passion and they play different roles in our psychology so not only our beliefs and desires reasons and passions distinguished in the ways we've already looked at they also have different functions in our psychology they play different roles in the production of our behavior so whereas reason well if you think of desire as lighting the blue touch paper those viewer old enough to know about blue touch papers that's what desire does and belief is the guidance mechanism it guides the missiles which is where the analogy with fireworks falls down they're suppose okay so reason informs us of matters of fact and relations between ideas but passion is what motivates us we don't do anything until we have a desire I'm sorry what's your name Peter has just given me another counterexample but here's one okay some people say well when I gave up smoking it's not that I wanted to give up smoking my goodness I wanted to carry on smoking I really liked smoking but my reason told me to give it up okay do you see how that's structurally exactly the same counter example as Peters so what Peter is saying is is that it was his reason that caused him to send the money electronically if I asked users no you wouldn't have the same sense of duty would you you want to be healthy that's I mean that's you know you deserve BLC that's why okay Erica it's absolutely right what what she's suggesting is it's not reason that tells you to give up smoking it's your desire for something that's inconsistent with smoking that your reason tells you is inconsistent with continuing smoking which is you desire health so you desire that cigarette or that cream cake or you know choose your own personal desire but you also desire health fitness slimness whatever so you've got to desires and reason is is telling you well you can't have both you've got to make this all this decision if you do this you won't achieve this if you do this you won't achieve that and then you've got a second-order desire which one do I want most out of health and smoking does that answer your question yeah yeah and it's exactly the same here so so Hume would claim that this isn't a counterexample what he does do though is he distinguishes between the calm passions and the violent passions and so desires for things such as life health etc are calm whereas desires for things like cream cake and smoking are violent and I think we can see his difference can't we you know you don't you don't you think of yourself as wanting health it doesn't come into your mind as a desire you have whereas the desire for a cream cake or a chocolate biscuit or whatever really presents itself to you as a desire doesn't it but but we might says Hume mistake the calm passions for reason because because they're calm they're it's less obvious that there's something it's like to have them and so you may not notice them and just think of yourself as reasoning there's there's more obviously something it's like to have them smoking as an example I mean most young people nowadays are bound to know that smoking is not good yeah it doesn't stop wanting a cigarette I mean if you're a smoker and I get the impression that that you can know okay knowledge is the cognitive state so you you there's no doubt whatsoever that you believe smoking is bad for you but it doesn't stop you wanting a cigarette and that that's the characteristic of a violent passion but of course you want health as well so here you've got two desires coming into conflict but there's nothing your reason can do to adjudicate there because it depends how strong your desires are as to which one is going to get acted on housing that count desires are always asking good for you and violent a bad for you not necessarily going going can you think of one that isn't and the common passions that they tend to be things that are part of the structure of life finally hungry cream cakes could be quite good for me that's true yeah yep no that's absolutely fine I mean it's just the desire i I'm not going to answer this question because actually you can answer these questions yourselves if you've understood the difference between calm and violent passion if you see what I mean when I see what human means when he says calm passions can be mistaken for reason whereas violent passions can't be then you can work out yourself whether of a given passion but I mean the desire for life could become extremely violent I should imagine under certain circumstances the desire for life could it could become absolutely overtaking if you've got a car coming towards you fast the desire for life is a slightly subjective distinction it's a totally subjective distinction because it's it's a distinction between how states of desire seem to a subject I mean there's nothing wrong there are objective facts about subjective states of affair don't don't think all subjective you know will dismiss that it's nothing but subjective you are a subject and you have states that are that only you as the subject of these states are sorry they are only accessible to you there's nothing wrong with that okay objective is good but there are objective facts about subjective states of affairs okay so Hume thinks it's easy to mistake calm passions reasons because it's Piron seing them isn't so obviously experiencing a qualitative state having an experience of some kind okay but what's all this got to do with morality that's what mean is so so far we've been doing philosophy of mind we've been looking at reasons and passions we're looking at how their mental state is classified as a reason or as a passion and we've seen that it's going to have lots of different properties which will put it in one category or another and it's going to play a different role in the production of behavior which also puts it in a different category or other okay but what's all this got to do with ethics which is what we're here for after all okay well morality is essentially active isn't it moral beliefs motivate us essentially it's of the essence of a moral belief to motivate us so do you think that you can believe that doing a is wrong without thereby believing that you shouldn't do a now I'm not saying without thereby believe by thereby not doing a okay all of us have had the experience of doing something we believe we shouldn't have done or not doing something we believe we should have done but then your belief that you shouldn't have done it's going to be manifested in guilt isn't it so to believe that doing a is wrong is to be motive motivated not to do a isn't it it's to have a reason not to do a isn't that right okay it's to want not to do a even if you don't actually act on that one so motivation action is absolutely central to morality if your ethics doesn't engage with your behavior what are we all going to think so you tell me you believe lines wrong but I catch you lying every five minutes what what am I going to think when you say say one thing and do another what do I believe well yes I believe you'll not trust me they bid but and I've got them if I was going to say actually but you always believe what people do don't they not what they say it's what they do that matters and that's because morality essentially engages with your action and if it doesn't engage with your action then you may be paying lip service to it but it isn't your moral beliefs okay so morality in action go together like that okay I think I've said that okay so to believe lying is wrong is to believe we shouldn't lie that belief we shouldn't lies intrinsically motivating you can't have that belief without being motivated and this move from is to all the shouldn't there is is the Oort indicates a move from fact to value Oh and values are essentially motivating and I'm not saying that there are no facts about values which is something you might have said but we can we don't have to address that here and so if beliefs are causally inert okay and what Hume takes itself to have shown is that beliefs are not implicated in the production of your action or at least they're not noted they're not implicated as motivators of your action so you can have all these beliefs and not be motivated at all okay so beliefs are causally inert then moral judgments lying is wrong etc can't express beliefs okay so what what's he mean - okay consider the statement lying is wrong now that looks like an expression of belief doesn't it if you say lying is wrong then it I would usually understand you as expressing a belief a belief about the world in particular a belief about a certain type of action so what you're doing is you're picking out a certain class of actions the class of lying's and you're saying these actions are wrong okay so it looks as if you're there's a representation of the world isn't that there's a representation of the worlds as containing the actions of a certain type you call them lying's and you're attributing a property to these actions you're saying these actions are all wrong okay but if keeping promises is right again you're picking out a certain type of action and you're saying of actions of that type that they're right again you're attributing a property to a thing so what we surely have a straightforward subject predicate sentence here just as you're saying off the cat that it's on the mat you're saying of a lie that it's wrong so just as being on the matters of property of the cat so being wrong as a property of lying isn't it I mean surely saying lying is wrong it's a brief and what's more and it could be true or false I mean lying is wrong we probably would all say that that's true at least as a general claim we may want to start quarreling we've seen at the edges and so on so forth but on the whole you've all brought your children up haven't you to believe that lying is wrong is true so how can this not be a belief it's a representational state it admits of truth and falsehood and it's embedded in a logical web of other beliefs what why do you think lying is wrong can you explain to me is it is it just do you have no reason for thinking that lines wrong ground to a halt yep if everyone lied communication would be impossible yep okay so the perfectly good reason so if you believe that then you will believe lying is wrong so it's embedded in a logical space as well surely lying is wrong it's got all the characteristics of a belief doesn't it you you could do and but it's still got the characteristics of a belief hasn't it yeah no it still looks like a belief and that's what Hume is pointing out we all think that that when we express sorry things like lying is wrong we are expressing beliefs but there's a big problem if beliefs are not motivating then that can't be a moral statement it can't be a moral judgement so lying is wrong says you may look like a belief it may seem to admit of truth or falsehood it may appear to be embedded in a web of reasons but as it motivates us and essentially motivates us it must be a desire did you see what I mean when we look or item this is where I think passion would have been a better word we look at a lying and we think basically yuck okay or boo we feel disapprobation when we think about lying that's the core of our moral sensibility if you like it's not that you see that an action has a property it's rather that the action strikes you in a certain way and that subjective feeling you have of disliking the action is the core of what morality is about so some of called Humes theory and error theory because it claims that our belief that moral judgments are beliefs is simply false it is an error morality is not to do with cognition it's not to do with reason it's to do with passionates to do with our feelings it's to do with the way things in the world strike us not we're not just looking at an action saying it's got the property of being wrong we're looking at an action and it's causing in us a feeling and that what makes us think it's wrong knots it's got a mind independent property of wrongness the thing that's missing seems to be the statement is that we shouldn't do what is wrong I mean lying is wrong in that sense it's just a statement that the corollary of that is you feel somehow you shouldn't do what is wrong well that that was being used by me to show why the apparent belief lying is wrong is intrinsically motivated but you can't believe lying is wrong can you without believing you shouldn't lie you could believe that lie is perfectly acceptable presume no no but we're not talking about that if you believe lying is wrong you will believe you shouldn't lie that's what makes a lot the the apparent belief lying is wrong intrinsically motivating but if it is intrinsically motivating says Hume it isn't a belief at all it's it's a passion see what I mean so so very interesting here because who's really under undermining our sort of knee-jerk thoughts about morality in quite a big way so he thinks that if we think the statement lying is wrong is a description of the world an objective if you like description of the world and then we're wrongly projecting our own feelings onto the world actually when we see in an action is wrong it's because it strikes us in our feelings and passions in a certain way it's not because the action has a property that would exist independently of us now if we accept human account of mind and the resulting account of moral judgment then we've got a problem if we also liked Aristotle and I know that a lot of you liked Aristotle last week so now you've got a problem and according to Aristotle when we act morally when we act not only for reasons but for the right reason and if Hume is right reason doesn't come into it does it it's how we feel it's it's our passions so according to you it's not our reason that prompts us to act immorally it's our passion ok well let's let's talk about this room while so do you agree with whom that moral motivation requires a passion or are you more with Aristotle in that morality requires passion to be overcome by reason what do you think right Eric is Aristotle you're Hume okay well let's have a let's have a quick a Hume okay Eris awful okay we were almost evenly divided but as possibly Aristotle's got it okay well tell me tell me why you're with whom Peter well I think because okay and why do you think passion is important do you think Humes right about why passion is important case yeah it was Humes argument rather than mine yeah yeah thank you right okay anyone else want to support humor why with human this huge seems to be so verse read about it though we confuse is with alts and that we therefore we say the way well is yours you're actually saying this is the way the world ought to be and that we confuse therefore we have a passion to make it yours yes more reason to make enemies yes that's right I mean human gives an example of a sapling that rises up to to over top its parents tree thereby killing it so we see exactly the same relations don't we reason tells us it's exactly the same relation as the relation of matricide or bachelor sign but we don't feel any sense of disapprobation when we see it happening with the saplings whereas we do feel disapprobation when we see it with human beings the child killing the parent so he thinks that it's not the relations in the world it's not the properties in the world that are important it's our responses to these properties that's important it's how we feel about them how they strike us emotionally in a way so this is additionally doesn't mean he doesn't say don't agree you need reason yes your answers I interpret your motivations for these motivations which there is some passion solution you're absolutely right and when he says reason is the slave of the passions he's not actually suggesting that reason isn't involved in the in the production of action it is but it is the guidance mechanism not the lighting of the blue touch paper that that's the difference so both of them both reason and passion are involved in any action at all if it's an intentional action anyway but it's passion plays the role of motivating and as moral judgments are essentially motivating they must be passion rather than reason that's that's the idea ah well let's come onto this now because there's a big problem for Hume and that is that it seems to commit us to believing that lying is wrong means little more than I don't like lying or when I say lying I feel disapprobation do you see what I mean lying strikes me as horrible therefore lying is wrong well that seems to be highly subjective you inner inner sense of subjective which is disapproving and because on the whole we don't want our moral beliefs to be subjective or what we think of as our moral beliefs to be subjective and so if humans right that there's nothing more - lying is wrong than that we don't like lying then surely there's something wrong here with his theory of morality well that's because we actually okay so there's there's a question so if that's what his claim is this is a problem for him or it would be a problem if that's what he's claiming so is this indeed what he's claiming and to see that it isn't we've got to look at his positive view of morality so far we've looked at his negative view of morality what he thinks morality isn't now let's look at what he thinks morality is he secures a sort of objectivity for moral judgments by requiring that before an expression of approval or disapproval or approbation or disapprobation as he puts it can be deemed moral it must be made by a certain type of person okay use so it's not that every person who looks at something and says well that's wicked is thereby making a moral judgement or should be understood as making a moral judgment the only person whose approval or disapproval is properly moral according to Hume is a true judge and that's where the true judge comes in do you remember we looked at whether this was like Aristotle's virtuous person okay a true judge is a person who's adopted a stable and general perspective on an issue okay so we need to know what a stable and general perspective is so how do we become true judges how do we adopt this stable and general perspective on an issue or if we're parents how do we encourage our children to adopt a stable and general perspective on an issue and thereby become the sort of people who moral beliefs or beliefs are truly moral passions are truly moral I should say to become true judges we've got to move from what Hume calls pre moral deliverances of sympathy to truly moral attitudes okay so we've got a distinction between pre moral deliverances of sympathy to truly moral attitudes okay when we experience or when we empathize with others when when there's a knee-jerk immediate feeling of empathy the Hume calls that a pre moral expression of sympathy if a child cries because her friend is crying for example she's experienced in such so you all know what it's like if one child in the nursery starts crying the next thing you know they're all going to be crying and that suggests that there's a natural sympathy between people if I were to hit somebody very hard you'd all sort of they'd all be an immediate sort of moving back on sympathy on all your parts and because actually we're extremely good aren't we at empathizing with other people on the whole we we do feel each other's pain normal human beings do feel each other's pain in all sorts of ways and it takes quite a lot to knock that out of someone to become a true judge we need more than the ability to empathize we do need the ability to emphasize that that's essential but we need a great deal knowledge about the nature of the world and about the causal relations that obtain in the world and about the things like the good for human beings etc so I mean we all sympathize when we take a child to have its and have its vaccinations or something and it cries and when we feel for it don't we but we still do it we still take it in there and make it have its injections we still take it to school when it doesn't want to go to school we don't allow our empathy to get in a way of what we see to be right about what we're doing so acquiring this knowledge is a natural process we learn that if we eat a lot of ice cream we'll get sick so when our child starts screaming because it you've said no to its having an ice cream but it's already had to so perhaps you're at fault already maybe it's just had one but you don't give it another because you know it's going to get fat you know it's going to get high cholesterol you know it's going to get this you get it's going to get that etc etc and we learned that if we hurt our friends we're going to lose them we learned that things are not always as they seem we know that appearance and reality can come apart and so on and in learning all these things we learn the better to apply our empathy don't we we learn when it's reasonable to sympathy to sympathize and when it's not or when we should act on our feelings of empathy and when it isn't right to act on our feelings of empathy I keep saying reasonable but I've got to be a bit careful here and because you see what we're trying to do is is merge our or not merge but but educate our feelings of sympathy educate our feelings of empathy another thing we learn is that we're just one person amongst many so something that strikes me immediately is wrong may actually not be wrong it may be from everyone else's perspective it's not wrong so the fact that it strikes me immediately with a sense of disapprobation you know he's taken my doll so I start screaming that this is wrong and not fair and da da da da but actually you learn that you're one amongst many others and that teaches you that actually maybe it's not right that you're feeling disapprobation is evidence of injustice example in this case we also learned that we can be wrong so we become true judges only one we've extended our natural ability to sympathize so we acquire the desire to consider every action from the perspective of all of those who are going to be affected by it okay not not just ourselves not just those who are close to us we think of everyone who's going to be affected by the action so anyone who doesn't think like that anyone who considers only themselves or only that the immediate people is someone who hasn't yet learned how to adopt a moral perspective on the world and we also need to wait to decide whether we approve or disapprove until we've considered it from every perspective and until we've our viewers stabilized because you all know what it's like I mean let's take as an example the giving of votes to prisoners well when you first read that I bet most of us had quite a strong intuition one way or another did we and and being sensible people we've all been reading the leaders of our newspapers and we've always listening to the radio and we've listened to John Humphrys and everyone else and if you're like me you're still I haven't achieved a stable perspective on this yet I I'm almost everything I read I changed my mind because it seems to me that there are good arguments on each side so I don't claim as yet to be in a addition to make a moral judgment about whether or not prisoners should have the votes are you with me so what I'm trying to do is is put myself in a position where I can claim to have a moral perspective it's when my sympathies are have reached a stable and general perspective when I've taken in everything that I think I can take in and my sympathies have stabilized on one side or the other you with me do you ever feel that position I mean I think in a case I could come to I mean I had my own view of it but it would be a pragmatic decision III think that yes exactly it wouldn't be a moral decision I I think that's exactly so I think until what what Hume would say or non-cognitive would say would be until you've reached the point where you feel that you've reached a disabled and general perspective you have to hold back from making that moral judgment you're not yet in a position to make the moral judgement you see this I mean you're in a position to say well there's this and then there's this and if this then I say no and if this then I say yes and do dah dah dah but you're not actually yet in the position to make a moral judgment you might be forced to make a decision and actually I think many of the decisions that are made and the government is forced to make decisions all the time isn't it on a pragmatic basis and probably often usually always perhaps before it's in a position where it can make a moral judgment and and any actually thinking person is going to see that and see how difficult it is to get into that position because we all know if we're intellectually honest that it's actually very difficult to get into that situation aren't you in danger of using this as an excuse for never making a decision well as a philosopher I'm inclined to say making decisions is dangerous if you but I think that one shouldn't make a decision unless one has reason to make that decision unless one is forced to and quite often one is forced to and in life one is certainly forced to I mean if you're facing a moral dilemma if your mum's saying you know what what do you think you've got about ten seconds to make up your mind between being kinds of being honest I would argue actually even though you're not forced into making a decision on where the prisoners have vote or not it really is quite important to come to some sort of a decision on the matter so but do you think it's important to come to a decision because for pragmatic reasons a decision has to be made there's no doubt whatsoever about that make a decision you can never influence what happens in in government for instance yeah everybody says I don't know I I completely agree and there are very good pragmatic reasons for making a decision even though you haven't made a decision if you see what I mean I mean that's the situation isn't it you you say you've made a decision even though actually you can see both sides and I mean sometimes we do that to a fault don't we we say we've made a decision when actually we're quite actually quite a long way from making a decision and well maybe you don't ever do that I have been known to be very definite about a position that about three minutes later I think actually to extend that did you consider that true judges actually exist either for a particular case or or someone who is a true he's got my gold stuff or is it is it hypothetical but it's a state which you could imagine but maybe you never tale well we and we can ask exactly the same question might Aristotle can't we are are there any people who are virtuous yep I mean maybe this is just an ideal state what we're saying is that an action is right if it would have been performed by a virtuous person if there are any virtuous people an action is right if it would have been approved of by a true judge if there are any true judges maybe all of us are maybe this is like the situation in mathematics when we say we always tend to infinity we never actually get there maybe we tend to true judge them without getting there nope no not that I know of only I mean again universals rather in what way well rather than recognizing many different cultures different knowledge knowledge will be different and just not absolute and we went over that if you remember in the second week or was it the first week when we looked at absolute and relative knowledge sorry absolute and relative truth and you could I mean if moral truth is relative then a true judge would make judgments on that basis and if knowledge is if sorry if moral truth is absolute then a true judge would make but we're not going to judge that we're not going to prejudge that issue but you might want to go back and have a look at absolute and relative truth that we did week one any other questions on that let's move on a bit because we're okay so if we allow bias to cloud our judgment or we Netta neglect to consider somebody our attitudes of approval and disapproval are not going to qualify as moral attitudes and we all know I mean sometimes when we look at these campaigns to get pee doze off the streets and things like that we might think that this is the indication of a pseudo moral attitude and I'm sorry that offends anyone but do you see why I'm saying that might be a pseudo moral lassitude a lot of these knee-jerk campaigns it's very difficult to resist the thought that they haven't been thought out that they haven't been looked at from different angles they haven't been looked at objectively we might say if we were just in bar conversations and what was with appealing to here is just we can see why the outrage is caused we can see where the disapprobation is coming from but we can also see that it's perhaps misdirected or all that it's not being used properly that it's being misused and it's that sort of thing we're looking at here and so if a man we do succeed in adopting a stable in general perspective and there are modern humans and Simon Blackburn for example I of whom you may have heard some of you he calls himself a quasi realist and he thinks that non cognitivism can actually earn the right to think of moral judgements as true or false even though they're not when they're judgements made from the stable and general perspective so going back to to where humors so when we say of an action that it's right Hume says that we're not saying that that action has a property of being right and it would be right whether anyone was there or not we're if we say that we're projecting our own feelings onto this thing okay and what Simon Blackburn and other non quasi realize realist is saying is that actually if you've educated your your feelings of approbation disapprobation properly so you've become a true judge then actually when you look at an action and say that it's right you've earned the right to call your judgment true or false even though it's still the application of a passion not a not it's a desire not a belief if you like you've still earned the right I can see you're not too happy about that and to be honest I'm not either but many people are and Simon Blackburn written a fantastic book called ruling passions it's not like his other books it's not a popular book it's it's a book for professionals but if you can bear it it's a very good book to read ruling passions it's called so even though moral judgements are expressions of passion not reasons the passions they express are so informed by reason that they almost attain the status of beliefs and the passion is still central because if it wasn't these judgments wouldn't be motivating and if they weren't motivating they wouldn't be moral at all because we've seen that if in order to be moral a judgment has to be motivating so if moral judgments express passions then right and wrong can't be properties that actions have independently of the way we feel about them but this doesn't mean that human isn't a realist ok we're getting on to the metaphysics now and we've got a very short time we were getting on to the metaphysics of non cognitive ism the metaphysics of morality according to Hume he believes that moral properties are so-called secondary properties and secondary properties are like color for example as opposed to shape shape the shape of an object is a primary quality of an object it's color is a secondary property let's see what we mean by that if you're asked what redness is I should have brought these in and actually asked you without in fact let's okay what's redness now you've had a quick look and now you're not going to be able to bring it out from your intuition because you're trying to remember what I wrote but well what do you think redness is redness forget about secondary qualities for a minute just tell me what you think redness is gone it's it's a it's a surface which reflects light at a specific wavelength okay you you think that it's a surface that reflects light at 650 nanometers just fill in a bit of detail though I'm very proud of myself about that know you're secure meaning in a metaphorical sense here I I'm actually asking what redness means rather than what it yes does in China it means Bridal whereas here it means danger perhaps yeah that's not what I mean but so one okay so you think it's it's a subjective experience that the sort of experience you have when back there's nothing red in here yes they are when we look at what's your name when we look at ins thingamabob we we have a certain experience and we call that experience red that's what you're saying okay good anyone have any other idea okay well let's see what's wrong with both of those okay here's the three I had so this is yours okay and it's you're saying that redness is an entirely subjective States because actually when when I look at ins color I might be seeing what you see when you look at my cardigan don't you think okay you think that so - you redness is a totally subjective experience well okay it's it's an experience and it's one that's private in principle to each of us okay whereas you think that that redness is the appearance sorry the wavelengths of light emitted by objects all all the surface of an object that emits light at a certain wavelength okay unless you see you don't have the job ready yeah no okay let's I've only got ten minutes so I'm going to cut across both of you let's see what's wrong with the first answer implies that red refers to an experience that's essentially private but notice I we've all taught children the meaning of the word red haven't we we all what do we do we point to lots of red things and and we hope that the red things are different you know we don't point to colors every time that would that would be a bad idea we point to lots of red things and we say that's red that's red that's right now if redness were the private experience of the child how would we ever know whether the child had the word right because what we then say is is well hang on we then say is that's red we say pointing to a blue thing and hoping the child's going to say no of course it's not mummy and then we point to a red thing and we say is that red and we wait for the child to say yes in other words we hope we're waiting for the child to pick up the truth conditions of the sentence it's red and so it recognizes it's true when it's true and it recognizes its false when it's false well how can we do that when we can't see what it's experiencing we have no idea what the child's experiencing no we would know it was colorblind because then it wouldn't make the distinctions between colors that we do and that's actually what what the what we're going on when that child is saying of the color that we see as red that it's red will sets right and when it's saying of a color that we experience of not red that it's not red will sets right again do you see what I mean so it can't be the entirely private experience what we're hoping what we're relying on is that there is an experience there that's that's true we absolutely need that but what the experience is actually drops out of the picture it cannot because otherwise we can't know whether the child's got its right of it right or not so redness isn't the essentially private experience although it seems clear that an essentially private experience is needed for someone to acquire the concept to read now let's see why you're wrong sir okay okay I'm sorry good just going on here so if redness were entirely private experience we couldn't tell whether we're talking about the same color at all could we if it's only true that it's red when it's that color the color that I see and you can't see what how I'm seeing it we wouldn't know we were talking about the same color and we couldn't teach the meaning of the word red to anyone and as we can do both these things this is not the right account of redness now let's see why you're on so Chris thank you you told me that earlier I'm sorry I forgot okay the second answer implies that we're a cosmic ray to change the wavelengths of light associated with redness without changing our experiences so overnight something happens to this world so that all these chairs no longer reflect light at whatever blue is should look that up shinzo so they appear red to us but they're still reflecting light sorry they still appear blue to us but they're still reflecting light at what they get this wrong let's start again they still appear blue to us but they're no longer reflecting light at the wavelength they're reflecting it today ie the one that we is normally associated with blue would we say that the chairs were the same color or not I mean this actually occurs if you view certain things I'm saying I don't care whether it's a further reason we're philosophers here say you would say that that is measurably blue because you could do the calculation okay let me ask you again the chair appears the same but it reflects light differently has it's changed color or not in other words does the idea of same color go with the way the chair appears to us or the way it reflects light no I don't think it does what would the scientists say if suddenly blue chairs started reflecting light differently they wouldn't say they changed the color they'd say the wavelength of light associated with blueness has changed I'm sure they would we don't have time to carry on about this but you think about that and I I think we would color would always go with our experiences but notice you've you've absolutely you've got to have the objective property in the object as well the true account of color is the third one redness is the appearance that certain objects have when seen by normal people under normal circumstances so because red things well we would almost certainly think the explanation of why normal people under normal circumstances see Peter's collar sorry Ian's color in the way we see it is because it's reflecting light at 650 nanometers that's the explanation of why it appears that way to normal people under normal circumstances so redness is something that emerges from the interaction between our visual systems and objects that reflect light in a certain way this other property emerges but you have to have our visual system and the objects and light being reflected in a certain way but once you have those two things you've got a secondary quality you've got a quality that isn't objectively in the object quite independently of us but it's also not entirely subjective nothing to do with the world out there it's actually to do with the interaction between our subjective experiences and the world as it is in itself and when you get something that emerges out of the interaction between those two things you've got a secondary quality and the unhuman answer hang on I've now lost my way I'm going to give up on this okay so Humes thirties that morality is a property that emerges out of the interaction between normal human sympathy or empathy and the way the world is and put the two together and you get morality so morality rightness and wrongness are secondary properties a bit like colors they're not primary qualities they're not in the actions quite independently of our feelings about the actions but nor are they just tirely in us independently of the way the world is morality brings both into the picture rather satisfying I think that one yeah well yeah but what comes it's surgery alone surgery we may agree blue and you're saying is an interaction with what else and there as well perhaps socially do can make it our best interests to continue to see that even if something else changes the reality changes yes I may see some I'm sorry we're going but I'm not going to go back to absolute and relative do I'm very happy to answer question of that but go back and have a look at what we said in the first week because I think it's quite important you look at that and then we'll look at it again it might be I mean if you look at the idea that color is not a subjective property it's a it's as objective as we can get in other words it's into subjective redness emerges from normal that the way things appear to normal human beings under normal circumstances so if you're not a normal human being you're color blind or something then then you don't count in the determination of whether something's red or not and if the circumstances are normal if I've put red foil or something over a lightbulb then again our beliefs about what's red or not just don't count but if you've got normal people in normal circumstances then they will classify the world in the same way as each other they'll put red things in one pile green things and other power blue things in another pile and it's that sameness that that means they're seeing the same color even if most unlikely but even if actually we all see a different thing we all have a different experience when we look at the red pile it's we'll never know if that happens and therefore it doesn't matter it just falls out Vic and Stein says it's it's it's a it's not as something but it's not a nothing either the experience so Hume is a realist though he differs from Aristotle who believed I think that moral properties exist in the world quite independently of us for whom they don't exist in the world independently of us but that doesn't make them entirely subjective so this is again your way of testing whether you've understood what's been going on this week this is the reading for next week and and there's more there than you could possibly do and as usual you don't have to any of it if you haven't got the time and that's it oh okay Oh what what was the vote 400 yes okay can we take the vote again okay who who's for Aaron who's for Aristotle hands up okay and who's for Hume okay we've slit slightly shifted it was slightly for our Asafa before it's slightly for whom now okay next week I hope you're all going to be four cans

Channel: University of Oxford

Views: 9,521

Rating: 4.8378377 out of 5

Keywords: Marianne Talbot, Hume, passions, Scottish Enlightenment ethics, philosophy Beginner's Guide, Oxford

Id: z9H-ain-k9A

Length: 87min 42sec (5262 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2012