Ethics and politics

okay nice to see you all again so if you had a good week today we're going to leave logic and argument behind or are we not actually because you can't you can't get away from logic and argument in philosophy I'm going to talk about ethics and politics so you might Robin it won't sound quite as foreign to you today perhaps okay I'm going to talk about three ethical theories I mean obviously I'm I've chosen three because I could have thoughts battle or number of things but these three are probably the three most popular theories firstly Aristotle and his want to become virtue ethics now then I'm going to talk about Kent and then I'm going to talk about utilitarianism and I'll compare and entrust them to each other but I hope by the end of today or at least have a feel for some of the key issues of each of these theories okay so we're going to start with Aristotle now tell me actually before I go on to us on what what is it that we're trying to answer them in ethics when we're trying to do at niché's what do you think the question is that we're concerned with that's not a question I mean yes we considered right or wrong but what is the question to which right okay one question might be is it right to do whatever to my to kill whatever that might be requested good but that's right there are two sorts of ethical question you call you my own sorry my good question oh there are got it okay the first answer was the question we're looking to answer is that instead it's right or wrong and the second answer was the principles behind what are the principles behind decisions okay and between the two of you you've come up with absolutely the distinction that I want to come up with thank you very much the distinction between first-order epics and second-order ethnics now first-order ethics looks at the world it looks at certain action types lying killing cloning whatever and it says it's an action of this type morally acceptable okay that's a first-order question because it pertains to the world if you like then there are second order model questions which ask what is it that makes an action right or wrong do you see that we've got one back if you like so just in the same way if I talk about first-order beliefs I'm talking about beliefs about the world so my belief that chairs balloon is a first-order belief but if I then think it's my belief that that chairs blue group that's a second because it's a belief about to belief got it so and you can have second order desires as well does someone want to give me a a first order is that lots of first order design or I I wanta I want a queen cater a lot something to eat salt or whatever and the second order desire it's a bit more difficult desire so I realized very nearly yeah absolutely you might think okay I want a cream cake but I want to be slim both of those first order desires but then you might think I want to be the sort of person who wants a salad rather than a cream cake or I want to be the sort of person that who wants my health more than I want to cigarette or something like that so you should be noticing instantly that the philosophy works in the second order so is that belief true is it is a very philosophical question or what does what is truth what constitutes truth what constitutes rightness so okay we can say whether cloning smite or killings right or keeping promises is right but as a philosopher what we're interested in is what is it for something to be right what is it for an action to be right what is it for an action to be wrong okay we step back a bit so what we're interested in today is not so much first-order ethics but second-order ethics or meta ethics it's sometimes called we're interested not so much in judgments about particular types of action we're interested in judgments about that sort of judgment what it is that makes something right now very importantly you can only test your second order ethical theories against your first order ethical plans so if an ethical theory says well what it is for an action to do right is this it would be perfectly reasonable to say well there's one problem with that and it comes out but and the problem is that it comes out of saying that it's fine to kill people now that's a because it clashes with the first order ethics you think there's probably something wrong with your second order ethics do you see what I mean you you test the two against each other as in everything theory and practice interact with each other so to link this to last week when we were when I was doing logic I said through quite a few times you are all rational animals you all make logical decisions logical judgments the whole time because whenever you decide when an argument is good and bad you're making a logical decision and the difference between us is that I know what I'm doing when I do that's where as you do it just prevents things from intuition not what an addition does is identify what you do when you reason and then formulate a theory on that but of course if that theory came out telling you to do something that you think is blindingly obviously wrong all of you do then there's something wrong with the ethical theory so theory and practice interact you trust you trust your true intuitions about ethical theory against your ordinary everyday ethical judgments we're going to be doing a bit of that today so I'll draw your attention to the fact that we're doing it when we do it so you'll see what I mean when I talk about me what I'm saying now we're going to talk first about Aristotle and our some like giving you his dates there since that the right action is the action that would be chosen by a virtuous person now you feel like saying not very useful not a good decision-making theory this one because I now got to know who's a virtuous person and and ask them and make sure I understand and solve but anyway that's what our sample says the right action is that the action that would be chosen by a virtuous person and what is a virtuous person well here we are a virtuous person knows three things or at least has three characteristics the first is he or she knows which is the right action in a situation now this is quite important feature of Aristotelian ism Aristotle believes that morality has nothing to do with rules rules like keep promises don't tell knives etc and let me give you an example of that okay I want you to imagine the situation okay your mum comes back from a hairdresser or your wife will be husband or your daughter or about whoever you like comes back from the hairdresser and says what do you think and you think yuck okay you've got a problem you want what's your problem truth is it's a problem it's a word colleges you might hurt the person okay that's one element what but that's only one side because that's not a problem you might have to lie you're not going to have tonight you've got a choice you wait what if you think yup you can't be wrong about what do you think at least and that your mom has asked you what do you think so okay you've got a problem here there are two rules aren't there be kinds be honest and it looks as if in this situation you've got a conflict you can't be both kind and honest right so what do you do okay well Aristotle says this is a classic example of a moral dilemma you cannot use rules here because the rules run out the thing about rules is that their general claims don't lie don't kill that have to be applied in particular situations and give me that in various particular situations they're going to come into conflict aren't they and so and this is how you're thinking my goodness if I tell her that what the truth she's going to think I'm really cruel if I tell her a lie I'm gonna think I'm really awful and what do you do so you've got to make a choice between these two does it change your mind if I say your mum's been depressed for six months this is the first time you've seen her smile does that push you in one direction okay you thought that before I say I thought you behind it would be coming okay well okay I I'm going to embarrass something now because what you'll do if you're not a proper moral agent in this situation is make yourself a set of rules you're going to say oh goodness I can't bear this sort of moral dilemma you know I really I don't want to be cruel and I don't want to be dishonest either what am I going to do I'll just have to say it look in this eye to eye value truth more than I value being kind so whenever this situation arises whenever either to die member of this time I'm going to be honest now we all know people like that don't we some of you may be people like that okay and there are other people who hit that situation and they say oh I hate this sort of dilemma I'm going to make myself a little rule and the rule is whenever I hit a situation of this kind I'm going to be kind I think kindness Trump's on the steep and I'm going to be kind perhaps you okay but you see that if you make that sort of we all know that sort of person to don't we Aristotle says that you shouldn't be a person of either of those kinds because what you should do is maintain the value of both truth and honesty and make a decision in this particular situation that doesn't necessarily have any ramification whatsoever for any other situation so you don't make a rule that says I value truth Milman honesty I'm a must be more than truth you say in this situation given the particularity of the whole situation I'm going to go for kindness given that my mom has been depressed for so long etc but in another situation pretty much the same you'd say I'm going to go to prepare honesty and the point according please you don't make yourself rules you just do whatever seems to you in that situation to be the right thing to do does my butt look big in this you know what do you think this dress or did you like the stew i mades night'll I mean we're constantly seeking the opinions of others some on things and and therefore putting them potentially into that situation of moral dilemmas and anyway the fact is this you can generalize the example I'm using the example I'm using is fairly trivial but any moral dilemma is exactly this situation you've got two values two general rules which in a particular situation come into conflict and you can't obey both of course you get a wriggle on cheers I'm going to be cruel to be kind you're going to say or something like that sort of course it's not really a lie it's only a white lie okay where did you go so trying to do try that before you gave their answer yeah I'm sure you did because one of the things about being a virtuous person is that you've got to be a wise person says Aristotle he thinks that all the virtues come together and the thing about a wise and virtuous person is that they do know what to do in a situation unfortunately not in a way that they can give you a okay all they can do is is well they can't do anything so they'd like to be modest as well of course but if you think they're virtuous you should watch them see what they do try to learn intuitively act as they would act ask yourself how would they act in this situation that sort of thing so he knows what the right action is even though knowing what the right action is is so very difficult and there aren't any rules that you can give to anyone that are going to help them the second thing about a virtuous person is that he performs the right action well we all know about this don't we you know you know what the right thing is to do but do you do ah you know they went again you gave in for tempted temptation okay you need to be malicious or or something that that could be just a moment of weakness or whatever and clearly knowing what the right action is is not a sufficient reason for being not sufficient in addition of being virtuous you've actually got to do the right action as well and Aristotle says that the thing about a virtuous person is that and this is actually very important here you can be born benevolent okay you're you're sort of naturally benevolent person but that doesn't mean it mean that you're going to acquire the virtue of benevolence comparison here is you could be born strong with the potential to be a real athlete or something like that but if you sit around eating crisps and watching television all day this disposition is going to Sapir isn't it so you were born with the potential to be strong but you're not strong or the potential to be athletic but you're not athletic similarly you might be born with the potential to be virtuous to be benevolent say but not be benevolent and the difference is that you actually have to exercise benevolence you have to do it so if you're born strong you actually have to exercise you have to practice you have to train if you do all those things you will become strong properly strong similarly and it doesn't matter whether you've been born benevolent so you occasionally do kind things just because it's your nature to Aristotle you've actually got to do it because it is the right thing to do and you've got to practice you've got to get the habit of telling the truth we all know don't we that the first fly is quite difficult but the second ones are pretty easier than the third one the fourth one and the fifth one you know you can get the habit of being dishonest you can get the habit of not fulfilling your intentions of going swimming this afternoon I'm a person and reminder to me you've got to try and get the good habits to have it's the other way around so you've not only got to know what the right action is you've actually got to act on that knowledge and what's more make it a habit of acting on that knowledge okay and finally you've got to form the right action for the right reason okay now each of us is the guardian of our own morality if you like of our own values imagine the situation again with your mum okay here's the situation she said what do you think and you've made it you think yuck and you make a lightning decision I'm going to be kind here now you can justify that can't you it's you know it's very easy to say oh I was just being kind also just files for speedometer but we all know that sometimes when we were honest actually what we did was given to a moment fight have we ever done that don't need to admit so I'm going to ask you to put your hands up so you can you can claim to be being honest but actually you're giving into a moment struggle despite and similarly you can claim to be being kind but actually you've just failed in moral courage is that also common situation so it's no good just knowing what the right action is and performing the right action you've got to perform the right action for the right reason okay so one's intention is is very important to Aristotle and if throughout a lifetime you do these things I mean obviously you get better as you get older and and so on and if they're out of life time you do these things you will be kaanum at the virtuous person and at that point you could be looked to as someone that the newest actions to emulate someone's decisions to emulate somebody whose advice to ask and so on so for example when the government gets together a group of the greater the goods to form an advisory committee or something like that what the government is doing is actually acting in a very astute alien sense they're saying look all you lot you're you're wise and virtuous so let's put you together and ask your advice on these issues let's see what you would do or what you would tell us to do and that's what we're doing is consulting people who have a reputation who have proven themselves in some sphere of life to to have active virtuously okay that's Aristotle then no it doesn't presuppose either I'll deal with that one first because it's very easy doesn't sapristi close that there is a right action as a matter of fact in the situation I gave you with your mum either of those actions could be right and it would be perfectly reasonable for you to make either of those decisions if you were sincerely making them on your best judgment so the fact is there can be many different right answers but that doesn't mean there isn't an wrong one do you see what I mean I mean there are lots of different right answers in the situation doesn't mean there isn't a wrong one and on the first one I don't think it's an air of complexity because if I have a moral dilemma if I have a problem that I think is a moral one and I'll go and ask lots of different people but I'm not going to ask any one I think is either stupid or wicked more likely to give me biased advice or something like that the people I'll choose will be people I think can give me something safe and of course I'm not going to choose just one I'm going to choose several and I don't see why that shouldn't be described as looking for a virtuous person to help me out of this situation of course the decision is eventually mine but I think but I think you're getting it the wrong way around because it seems to me that when I have a moral dilemma what I usually mean by that is I don't know what the right action is in this situation or I can give arguments for several different actions and it might be that any one of them would be right and that's why I would seek the opinion of somebody else whom I respected would you wouldn't consult anyone else well you know that that's a personal anecdote what a duffer would say is that what you should do is you might not consult them but you might say what would so-and-so do a situation what would sensation anyway you didn't have to agree with that it's nothing but this is his theory I mean I do agree with a table here I would certainly I wouldn't make a serious moral decisions where I wasn't sure the pros and cons myself without asking some other people then of course I've weigh the pros and cons for myself because eventually that this must be yours Lassiter you know you you can't get away from weighing the pros and cons but you can either do it without advice or you can take advice from people whom you respect and admire okay any other questions that I recently what's the trivial question what do you think in my head Oh God ticket yeah that's trivial well I mean I I would suggest that you argue with her first and maybe support her all or not supportive depending on how the argument went but I would also say that you should have I ask someone else and the key question is why are you going to vote for X and you are someone else why are you going to vote for white I mean then I use the trivial question there's an example but as I said it applies in every case of moral dilemma and then should we allow Cyprus for example the the use of a cow egg to incubate a human nucleus producing something that's 99% - and 1% bovine and we should we do that is that morally acceptable well you know I could just weigh the pros and cons by myself or I could ask just one friend but I think what I would do we start of people I would set up a permission to look into it get not sleep on this commission whoever who have a reputation for being wise and I've asked them to discuss it and then weigh the pros and cons on the basis of this so the question it doesn't matter how trivial or important the question is it brings out the same process which is that you consult as many virtuous people as possible and then weigh up the situation for yourself sorry sorry no our something wouldn't think that was the case what if you don't become virtuous until you've been performing the right action for the right reason on many occasions in the past and we can all get it wrong occasionally but we all know that there are some people who get it wrong a lot you know they either never know what the right now you think you know you think the mother needs a car crash waiting to happen this to do this one or they know what the right action is but never perform it you know they're weak or malevolence or something or they do perform the right action so I mean for example if I'm an honest if I'm a dishonest person my best bet is to tell the truth isn't it most of the time and what a dishonest person does is merely hold themselves ready to be dishonest when it's going to benefit them they I mean actually it's important if I want to be dishonest to get you to trust me but if what I'm doing is telling the truth I know that telling the truth is the right thing to do I'm I'm often telling the truth but the reason I'm doing it is to get you to trust me so I can then send you that nice timeshare that I've you know sadly just sprang a leak the other day or whatever then then I'm doing it for the wrong reasons so it's not in a situation that you that someone is virtuous if their virtuous set ourselves may have been virtuous over a long period the nice thing is you can't really leave virtually or quite old and the wheel wheels qualified we we've I've made it by now or where no no we can all make mistakes you know no nobody's denying that that you can make mistakes but but the thing is and undulate this is not a foolproof procedure because you know you can get the greater that I mean marry Warnock came out recently and said she made the wrong decision on special schools I mean she's a prime example of the sort of person with government consults when it comes to wanting a virtuous person well she's come out and said she believed she was wrong on something you know that that's entirely consistent with being a virtuous person but if someone did it too often then you'd stop consulting them with you we've spend too long on ourselves so just one quick question well it makes them more virtuous yes certainly it suggests something yep okay so that's an estoppel so you've got one ethical theory now one account of what it is what the right action is the right action is one that's performed by a virtuous person or chosen by a virtuous person not very action guiding but a good theory I think okay here's another one Kant believes it's an action is right only it's the person performing it thus so out of reverence separately law or as he would also put it out of a sense of duty but in duty here you've got to be quite careful we have a tendency to think of duty as something dry and horrible whereas Kant doesn't think of it like that let me leave back a sec no just cats talks about in the groundwork for the metaphysics of morals which is on reading list he talked about the only way you can tell whether someone's virtuous or not is if in a situation of moral dilemma they're prepared to act out a duty rather than inclination okay so we always have many motives for doing all that almost everything we do there are several different motives there are reasons for doing it reasons for not doing it and some reasons are better than others and if we act on the right reasons so Kant is very similar to our subtle in this he thinks it's intention that's important it's acting out of reverence for the law out of duty so let's say I'm coming from one into Brasenose Lane and you're coming from the other what's your nick Allison's coming from the other the beggar who sits there with her young child is winter wrapped up at least is asking for money and Allison gives her pounds and I give her found so he exactly the right action and Allison gave her pounds because she thought it was the right thing to do I gave her a pound because I wanted Allison to think I'm a kind of person okay have we both acted morally or have I acted morally and Allison's acted in self interest or did I get that the wrong way I mean who thinks that I have acted just as morally as Allison okay why sorry what's your name Georgia Georgia is saying that Allison did it as well because she wanted to make himself feel good is that right you think everything is done okay can you're in good company here human David Hume the Scottish philosopher would say the same thing that everything is performed out of self-interest but you do absolutely nothing out of altruism Katz thinks that is absolutely wrong he thinks that if you do something out of inclination then it's not that he by inclination he means for self-interest at any level then it's not a moral action and he actually thinks that most of the actions we do and and people think they're mold are in fact not small because they are done from this idea of wanting to appear goods or you know you give something to charity and it gives you a nice warm glow and you know it's that's a nice thing well if you do it for that reason then it's not a moral action says Kant it's only a moral action if you perform it because you think it's the right thing to do and the real test is it is there's an action that you really really want not to perform and yet your duty tells you you should perform it so you believe it's the right thing to do it's not going to do the right thing rather than what you want to do you are acting morally in that particular instance whereas if you give in to your inclination you're not acting morally so cats would disagree with you on the belief that every action is self-interested he thinks most actions are self-interested but not all of them there are the occasional acts which it's performed out of reverence for the law what can't they wouldn't care about that well I very very few philosophers who care about that and not because they're not religious but sorry I see with you because you're saying it's a sense that religion gives you a an inclination towards performing the right thing okay this is what counts would say if this will remind you of something I said last week in fact it's exactly and saying something I said last week okay doing a is right I should do a okay and you remember I said the Kant would say that that is entailed by that you don't need in here anything like I want to do the right thing now in effect Georgia this is this is what you're saying that there must always be a desire of that kind in between this premise and this conclusion and cats would say well known because actually if you think you need to add in that you want to do the right thing you're implying that there might be an indication on what you didn't want to do the right thing and if that's true you don't have the concept of right at all you don't understand what right is if on an occasion you might not want to do it you see so you do the very important thing here is that this without the wants here is what counts would call a categorical imperative the imperative I should do a is not contingent upon your having this desire without doing the right thing because this desire doesn't make any sense because if you know what it is to do you couldn't not want to do right doesn't mean that you will always do right because we do quite often do things that we don't want to do but the fact that we believed we were wrong will be manifested in shame and guilt so you if you really know what's doing right and doing wrong it is you cannot want to do rot wrong that's what Kant says so okay so there's a very long tradition stemming from human that says you can't do any action without a self-interest behind it now it's that so and if an estoppel is right so the ancients believed that actually it has to be reason not desire that strong propelling the most moral actions it would mean that actually none of our actions is more wouldn't it because not one of them is altruistic so can't keep sorry humans come up with another account of morality that's consistent with no actions being altruistic anyway so that's cancer and then i prefer doing it out of reverence for the law so what is this moral law okay well this actually counts give six different accounts of the categorical imperative of which this is one and I'll give you this one because I like this one best but there are six others but they're supposed to be equivalent so it shouldn't really matter that I'm giving you one rather than six act in such a way that you treat humanity whether in your own person or the person of another always at the same time as an end and never solely as a means so what's your name Dorothy lend me your pen for seven thank you now I use Dorothy as a means to my ends then didn't I I wanted to tell you something to show you something I asked her to give my pension give me her pen she gave it to me so she was a means to my end of giving you an example is that right but I also at the same time used her as an end in herself because she couldn't send no she could have sent I'm sorry I'm using it oh it's the only pen I've got oh why should I lend you my pen or what you know she had the choice it's not true is it really in this Hitman's but you can see what I mean I mean we're always using each other which means when they say pass the salt would you carry my suitcase you know will you do this for me etc but it's what's important is that we always treat others as ends in themselves as well in other words we allow them to make their own choices if I trick you into carrying my suitcase then I'm not treating you as an end in yourself because I'm not giving you the choice am I so what Kant says is that you've always got to treat humanity as an end in themselves because the thing about humans and he allows that there may be other rational animals but but that's just stuff that humans think about humans is they're rational they make choices and they make them freely but all our choices are free but some of them are and the fact we can make free choices upon is what makes us moral animals okay it's that that makes a small and notice it's not just that other people we've got to treat as themselves it's also ourselves you're every bit as wicked if you treat yourself as nothing more than the means to somebody else's end because that's conflicting with your integrity as an autonomous being as somebody with freewill so that's the moral law notice incidentally that Kant is also pretty lousy as a decision-maker okay what's the right action oh it well it's the one that the law says we should perform what's the law it's the one that says we should always treat under the Sens allows it's still rule isn't it please treat others as any sucks every time you say as you treat them as a means you're also treating them as an end so it doesn't mean I'm it's up there's no curation to it it's just so simultaneously you can't make up for having treated someone as a means by them treating them as an end you were wrong to treat them as a means in the first place okay so that's caps for the roller can through the young philosophers here okay the next one we're going to look at is utilitarianism now utilitarianism is quite different from either Aristotle or pans because utilitarianism tells us that the right action is the action that produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number now this is a consequentialist not a doctrine based on intention or will so whereas cants believes that the only thing that's good in itself is the will the choices the intentions on which you act the utilitarian thinks it's the content since of your action that matter so I think this is about nature of an action for a minute and here's an act okay whatever that act is it might be me scratching my nose because I've told what you know I know okay I told David that if Mike isn't at the back today filming me I'll let him know by scratching my nose okay and so I'm scratching my nose and in effect the scratching of the nose is a lie isn't it who's Mike is there so this act would be a structuring of the nose but of course it's also a lie well then it wouldn't be alive but it would be a stretching of the name Kevin actually know that that's quite important because some this is all media no I'll never find this again if you think you think of it didn't mean I'm an object I'm an object with many properties there are many many descriptions that pick out to me uniquely aren't there so she's the only person in this room who's on the stage she's the person who's director of studies in philosophy at only DC's she's the person who's wearing a turquoise jumper there's several other people here but I'm the one on the stage wearing the turquoise jumper etcetera do you see these are all uniquely identifying descriptions of me so there are lots of different ways of getting to me and the same thing is true of an action ok here's the class of no scratching this one is a lie okay because this is the one where I'm looking at David in the thing to tell them that Mike's not in room this one isn't this is just a nose stretching okay and this one is a I'm very bored with this sort of move and so on do you see soon it can be a token thing that is also a lie but when any token actions so here's a session action it's an action a scratch from the news the fact that it's action means that it must have an intention mustn't it okay so if I come in trip over the mat and you all laugh I might think to myself oh that's interesting I like make them laugh I'll do it again next week so when I come in next week when I trip over that again now the first one was unintentional isn't it the second one is intentional so in order for it to be an action something it's got to be something you've chosen to do there's any action you haven't chosen to do it's not a matter for which you're morally responsible okay there can be mansoor to rather than murder you might be culpable guilty of manslaughter in that you really shouldn't have been cleaning your gun as it pointed at David and so on so there's more or less guilt attached to manslaughter but in order for it to murder there has to be an intention there so you've got intention you've got an action and you've got the consequences of an action okay they're always going to be consequences of the action so now David knows that Mike isn't there he's going to guttin and ask where my kids or something like that so that there's a consequence so it reacts has an intention and a consequence and Canton Aristotle thinks that the moral evaluation of an action carried goes on here whereas utilitarianism thinks that an active anomaly evaluates it's fear okay so it's not the intentions with which we act that make the act wrong it's the consequences of that fact so if I want to take my dear old aunt out for tea and as I take her out we cross the road and she's squash bad bus the action I have performed has been wrong even though my intention was a good one I'm going to feel guilty you know other people are going to to worry about me and so what what counts are making actually wrong is its consequences and you can see what a huge advantage of this is that if we're looking at courts of law it's pretty well only consequences that we can look at isn't it I have no way of getting to your intentions other than through your actions including your linguistic actions and you might tell me that your intention was this that or the other so in a court of law it's nearly always the consequences that matter more than the intention and of course I may want to get the attention do you think that somebody could always intend well but as a matter of everything they do is wrong so they intend to do the right thing but they never actually succeed I mean wouldn't you be getting a bit suspicious so you know this is the third on I've taken money you know I mean what's going on here so we look at we look at the consequences in order to determine the intentions you know I'd say oh we get oh my goodness behind assignments make her happy etc you're not going to believe me I'm so in a court of law it sends me the consequence it's not me there's not a nice thing about utilitarianism and that is it gives us a bit of a decision procedure doesn't it so I mean a little having skills searching around for virtuous people and Kant has us searching our own intuitions for what the moral law tells us nothing on this occasion but you to attend is an inductee of that inductive moral theory it tells us that whatever action will produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the right action so it looks as if it's much easier to work out to what you should and shouldn't do but do you think that's maybe misleading oh you all do then I mean okay let me just give you one example dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was that the right thing to do or not well if you're a utilitarian you think it was the right thing if dropping the bomb produced the greatest happiness of the greatest number and that it wasn't the right thing if dropping the bomb didn't produce the greatest happiness the greatest number now what's the truth of the matter did dropping that bomb produce the greatest happen spirits number or not I mean actually we can give arguments come but there is a fact of the matter but the chances of our ever knowing that fact a virtually nil aren't they so utilitarianism might seem to give us a very easy for suitable procedure but actually it doesn't and there are all sorts of other problems as well I mean do we let's say that David's is such a happy cheery person you know if he smiles all the time it's very easy to make David happy whereas Allison is a miserable old and I can think well okay I can produce much more happiness in this class by concentrating on David because he's very easy to make happy and I can just ignore Alice and because she's you know nothing I can do is gonna make her happy now I might talk about average happiness or total happiness what is happiness anyway so actually utilitarianism is not as easy as it looks - thank you the fact we can't know doesn't mean there isn't a fact of the matter so for example are there three consecutive sentence in the decimal expansion of Pi or excuse me I'm just looking for something here something I can't find yes the intentional doesn't matter happy well no no I mean ending a war doesn't make people happy actually and of course the alleviation of unhappiness produces happiness as well and but sorry going back to your question um you can't say that because we'll never know what the fact was therefore they're more sons of facts I mean the decimal expansion of pi is an implements expansion if there are no three consecutive settings in the decimal expansion of Pi then we will never know this ever and we can know that in principle it doesn't be Newton to factor no matter what's there a tree here 20,000 years ago right here I mean there is a factor that matter isn't that will we ever know it yes but but that's a different problem because the fact is it was a long time ago and we there problem there is a factor the matter now as to whether that produce more happiness or not but the fact that the future we can't know about happiness is actually very interesting isn't it because it does mean that when you actually act you don't know what the consequences of your action will be you can make a good good guess perhaps but you can never be certain what the consequences of your action will be so utilitarianism makes a very important distinction between the morality of an agent and the morality of an action and where is the morality of the action always depends on the consequences the morality of an agent depends upon the fact that they act with the intention of producing the best consequences okay yes so if I go and plant a bomb in an in a supermarket or something like that and it's actually quite a small bomb and as it goes off it it's you could probably see where I'm going somewhere but I can't it stops a major disaster from happening it causes something else so my small bomb actually results in a lot more people being left alive than would otherwise have been left alive the consequence and what I've done have been good but what I did was bad I mean my I was bad for doing what I did even though the consequences have been good so for utilitarianism you've got to make a distinction to the moral worth of the agent and the moral worth of the action that they performed problems for you to the Terrorism and one of the utilitarianism is that it says that the action that produces great suffering is the greatest number is the right action but there seem to be some very clear counter examples to this for example genocide it looks as if utilitarianism for justified genocide if you have situation where the two of you down here or the three of you down here are a different race from us or a different something-or-other from us and we don't like them do we but they're not very many of them orbit so let's just okay now that's produced the greatest happiness of greatest number because you know they're not many of you to be happy to see your happiness doesn't really count and we all wanted them dead so that's produced the greatest happiness of grace none that it hasn't it that looks a bit worrying to say the least now it might be the some of us feel pretty outraged that these people have been shot so soon for of your linear think that was really awful so we can actually put your unhappiness with their unhappiness but can we ever be sure that the unhappiness of those who are against genocide will outweigh the happiness of those who are for it can we be sure no in the Pacific part in which case if you go for utilitarianism it rather looks as if you're opening yourself to the possibility of genocide and that's because to the utilitarian a human rights the right to life for example is only a right on the understanding that your right to life isn't conflicting with the greatest happiness of greatest number you will have a right to life because on the whole it produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number to treat people as if they right to life but if suddenly your right to life comes into conflict to the greatest happiness of the greatest number then your right to life lapses okay I have a duty to kill you if killing you will produce the greatest happiness and greatest number so they seem to be counter examples to utilitarianism on the other hand it's so incredibly useful I mean we're it we're actually using it in the National Health Service qualities so quality adjusted life years quality of life years when when a surgeon or a doctor is considering some sort of intervention and he can only afford to do one of these perhaps around the other you you decide by looking at the quality of the insert a number of life years that would be produced by this intervention so for you it would be ten and for you it would be five and then you look at the quality of those years that you're producing so you would have five actually pretty nearly over years whereas I can give you five really good ones of course I have a very difficult for myself but you see that you can look at qualities to give you some way a measure of which intervention you should do and that's based very very firmly on intimate areas well do you remember the Sailor to the captain had to shut off their oxygen in the engine room utilitarianism did seem to justify shutting off the oxygen in the engine room and it might justify more but of course talents could also perhaps justify a war and so in our assembly if the war seems to be the only thing that's treating others as ends in themselves or all the thing that virtuous people would suggest it's not just utilitarianism that can justify will and everyone can do that but what's utilitarianism to do just by genocide and it's not obviously other theories can do laughs so if you want to justify genocide into the saram ISM is probably your theory it makes it sound as if I've got a down on you to Sarah's was absolutely not the case and I think that there are many ways of interpreting this in particular I think that you might want to say that into the terrorism is a descriptive theory okay what was I saying right a descriptive theory is to say that when you do do the right action it will work out that that was the action that produced a great sadness gross number not that's what you should do it's actually there's something wrong with saying it's prescriptive I mean I intend to go home tonight after I've been swimming of course and have a glass of wine now I could actually go and work in your house for a bit or something like that which would presumably make more people happy than me having my glass of wine home should I be doing that I mean truly I actually if what I'm supposed to do is producing the greatest happiness of greatest number all the time I'm going to get very tired so you might think it's not a prescriptive theory at all but a descriptive one so I've given you that there bad news headlines about utilitarianism but I promise you that there are ways of understanding this that make it much less simple than than I've given the impression all and in turn any take into account the major of our own but it's amazement all take and because well if I'm concerned for your happiness I think that I've got to exercise an empathy is only a method of determining what others are feeling I mean if I put myself in your position that I'm using empathy but I'm using empathy to determine what's going to make you happy or I'm imagining you know who's going to be affected by my action how will they be affected by it or our thinking what is it in this situation to treat challenging yourself what would you choose if you if I was able to ask you again I've got to use everything but the fact is if all they're acting on I mean think back to what Aristotle said about you can be naturally benevolent and I mean children if one child in the nursery starts screaming the others are going to come out in sympathy very quick and if you cry in front of the child the child gets very distressed I mean children are naturally empathetic but their boy they're not naturally moral I mean in order to become moral if they've got to learn what the right action is they've got to learn that they've got to do the right action and and they've got to do it you're giving a psychological theory of morality and I'm interested in the philosophical theory of morality so in the same way I can say we can be interested in language what is language what is meaning how do we manage to communicate with each other that's a philosophical interest or we can say how does language develop in a child that's a psychological theory and I'm teaching philosophy yeah okay Margaret did you have a prescriptive theory tells you what you want to do such a prescription of your actually not just a disc it's just that utilitarianism if it's a prescriptive picnic theory it says you should produce great supplements the greatest number it's a descriptive theory when you have done the right action it will be the case that it does produce the greatest happiness for its number whatever your intention was in doing it okay including if you intend it to do wrong okay I'm going to move on to politics now because otherwise we're not going to get politics done okay so that's ethical theory and it's to go back to the developmental thing of course empathy is important and I think of empathy is actually I call it charity the principle of charity I think there's very good reason to think that when we're trying to find world where constrains in all our thinking by something called the Battle of the uniformity of nature in other words if we're not on the sandwich whether 80 causes V we've got to see that see if we can get name without a V because if we can that shows that a doesn't cause B so we're assuming nature's uniform but in the case of understanding each other we've got to use the principle of charity which is a form of empathy where if you say something that strikes me as mad so you say P and I say woo you know it's obviously not feed now I could just dismiss you as stupid but actually if you're right I'll be losing my opportunity to learn something so the principle of charity tells you to always assume that the other person's error is less likely than your bad interpretation okay so if you've seemed to be saying something mad it's probably because I haven't understood you and I need to ask you why are you saying that what if I dismiss you as mad then then Luna there's something wrong with me because you're a worthy collaborator in pursuit of truth you're another rational animal I'm doing wrong by dismissing you stupid okay moving on to politics I'm going to talk about just one political issue because it's quite nice and central these you distributive justice how do we distribute the goods of society in such a way as it's done as to do it just Harry so in this country we have another an England tax regime we also have a benefit we redistribute wealth in various ways and we presumably do this because we think that this is the just most just way of distributing things like education the boat freedom speech etc we try and equalize it but we don't go for equality there you go for redistribution of the sort that we do and I'm going to be talking about two philosophers John Rawls and Robert nosing talk about rules or at least if it is I don't know Ross wrote a very influential justice it's very big it's very boring I don't recommend it but it is it has some very interesting stuff in it and what all sets out to do is to choose the principles of justice for a society he says what what is it that what are the principles on which goods should be distributed in such a way as to make it as just as possible and the real hallmark of falses originality was something called the original position which is his way of choosing the principles of justice this is how he did it the original position is we're people of a certain kind are put in a pattern position and asked to decide on the rules by which justice should be by which good should be distributed the people are like this they're rational they're self-interested okay so they're not stupid they they care about themselves but they also you know they're quite happy to be kind to other people they're also risk averse they don't really want to put themselves into into a difficult position they don't want to take risks and the original position that there is sort of a position Eccleston is behind the veil of ignorance now the veil of ignorance means that you don't know anything about yourself so you don't know whether you're male or female you don't know whether you're old or young you don't know whether you're rich or poor black or white intelligent or stupid ill or fit okay you know nothing about yourself you could be any of these things there is knowledge you have is the thing theory of good causes what if in theory of good is it tells you things like human beings need wolves they need comfort they need amount of property over which they have autonomy humans get States for nine months so you have a basic physiological psychological political economic facts about human beings but you don't know anything about you and now you've got to decide what the principles of justice should be and what mauls thinks is that because you're behind the veil of ignorance you're forced to be fair okay you don't know whether you're well all sick so you're not going to make the setup such that people who are sick they're going to be discriminated against because that might be you you don't know whether you're rich or poor so you're not going to give the rich everything to leave the poor with nothing seem like 84 you're not going to be you don't whether you're black or white so you're not going to set up systems so that black people are discriminated against or white people are discriminated against because you don't know who you are did so with female deferred you see the movie because you don't know who you are your self-interest is not going to work for any particular type of person your self-interest is going to work on behalf of anyone or rather everyone if you like goodbye do and more things that the two principles of justice that he believes will come out of this process are these two everyone's entitled to maximum limit it compatible with equal liberty for all okay so actually we say little parrot and he is a consequentialist but whereas the utilitarian will put happiness as the sunburn and the thing we all want he puts liberty there to Liberty that's the most important thing and you could say we want equality things should be distributed equally but if you do that you're not taking this counter the fact that we're not given an equal distribution to start with are we you know if I'm ill I possibly need more Goods than you need because you're fit so he says that inequalities are permitted but only when they make the worse off better off okay so those are the two principles of justice so to evaluate rules you've got to think okay what do we think of the original position in the first place and what do we think of the principles of justice that come out of it I mean we might think we might dismiss the original position it's not a good idea or we might dismiss the principles of justice come out and I'll say just a little something on the original position one important thing you've got to work out is just which information goes where behind the veil of ignorance or in this in theory of good let's see that you believe that women are very emotional okay and that therefore they shouldn't be allowed to fly planes now do you want women are very emotional into the thin theory of good because this is a fact about part of human race and just as you put in its women about babies because it would be very important that was it in the film theory wouldn't it do you put women are emotional in there or do you put that in the behind the veil of ignorance so your decision about where you put various bits of information it's actually going to serve garbage in garbage out in effect isn't it so somebody in South Africa might have put all sorts of things about black people into the thin theory of goods that we would think probably belong in the behind the veil of ignorance people 200 years ago would have put a lot of facts about women into the same theory of good that we think ought to be behind the veil of ignorance so so surely is the whole thing just question Becky that we're going to put in to the veil of ignorance all the things in all our prejudices are going to be exercised simply in the division of where we put things that's one thing there's none sanely problem we might think that's okay inequalities are permitted when they make the worse off better off well okay let's say that I've got something I can do that in this room you're the worse off sorry I'm doing really badly to them afraid you're the worse off we're the best off and I can do something that's gonna make us a lot better off if you happen really do something unfortunately it's not going to shift them by so much as a hate me okay now this is ruled out we can't do that because this is an inequality that isn't making the worse off better off on the other hand I could do it if I make them just half a penny better off we can up us by just a tiny little bit so there seems to be something of a politics of envy that could work in here quite worryingly because it might prevent changes that would make an awful lot of people better off but would be prevented just because it doesn't make the worse off better off so that's all I'm going to say about the walls but that that's a very quick romp through the distributive justice according to the theory of justice and the original position is the key thing in that point and of that it's the original position and the thin theory of good for incompetence and now finally I'm going to go on to Nozik Lucic holds a low-key in' john locke english philosopher property theory and what that says in the fact is is that you own the labour of your own body and everything with which you mix that labour now that's actually this theory of property is its underpins the American Constitution it also underpins much of our law I mean for example there was a time when you were allowed to and close all the lands that you and your family could power between sunrise and sunset and one thing that's welfare about this is that you if you were very strong and you had a family of lusty sons if we get up there and flower lots of lands then you would be close a lot of that lands between sunrise and sunset but you can also work it you know with all these sons and what's why you'd eat it to where is it if you and your little old mother were tilling now but you know you can get much done but on the other hand you wouldn't need that much either with you so that about the idea between you you can own what you mix your labor with big problems though and somebody pointed out that if I empty a wineglass into the sea have I lost my wine or gave me to the sea if I'm telling the land so I also get to earn the mineral rights under the land or just the topsoil so there are big theories another big theory not specified and service news but you've got to leave as good and as much behind for people who come after you and the top of this is it can zip back if there are ten apples then you take one you take your own you take one you take one but when it gets the tenth I can't take it because I'm not leaving as good and as much behind but if I can't take it neither from the ninth person or the eighth person or the same person or the sick personal and it looks as if another property can't be owned at all if you think with a sick man so there are problems with the Lockean property theory which underpins and theory but one of the big things that he claims is that taxation is forced labor and his argument for this he talks about Wilt Chamberlain who was a basketball player now wilt is a wonderful basketball player he's absolutely fantastic and you all have a certain number of holdings okay you've got a bit of money let's say we've all got equal amount of money and since Wilt we thought that everyone including Wilkes has the same amount of money but wilt has this talent okay but he says I'm only going to exercise this talent if you pay me and we all say that's all right we'll pay you will give you next 25 cents for playing basketball what wilt does play basketball he ends up richer than the rest of us now no success that's fair you all chose to give him the extra time for 25 cents he chose to exercise his talents he didn't have to work like that and his unequal wealth is owned by him if you now take 25 percent of that away in taxation you're in effect you're forcing him to work for 25 percent of the time to the hour and a half yeah should I be left with that 25 percent we could then I mean we can have private medicine private education toll roads and so on why should the states take that money away and spend it on things that I don't know any children why should I spend money on education I don't drive why should I spend money on rougher earth on roads so the conflicts between inequality the only wave says nosing of avoiding that link is do I have to interfere with wilts ability to choose whether or not to exercise his talents we've got to make him exercises service for no extra money or you've got to stop you from choosing to spend your money freely okay you can't spend it all on wheels either way there's a conflict between liberty and equality and that says no zip is is the key problem for all liberal theories of distributive justice what do you think of that as a theory rubbish why but note it could save it there's nothing uneven about mr. taxation if we're starting from that sorry about private mutes look sorry I didn't try to beat them them if we've all started with equality okay I don't have children and I don't have a car but I do like swimming page I would like to spend my money on decent leisure facilities you know the National Trust things like that you had a car you would what you would be prepared to pay to have toll roads but I'm so private room but any of you who might get sick which is probably all of us would want to pay for private insurance to make sure that we have hospitals available when we did it so it's not that there wouldn't be hospitals well that's but that's exactly this point it is point is that as we don't start out equal and you want to encourage everyone to use their talents if your city enough to make it to stop them from using their talents by taxing them then you're going to lose they're not going to use those talents I mean in some ways you can see that this happens in taxation is set too high the the people with talents are going to leave the country and not payments only it's quite it's crucial isn't it and set the Taxation level so that you don't lose the people who because there is this conflict so it's not that he's saying they shouldn't be any taxation but he's saying that if unit taxation is forced labor and therefore you don't want too much of it well I mean one thing you might say is that if you tax people it's sorry if you don't tax people at all there are some people are going to fall out of the net then you might say there has to be a safety net for sometime knows it wouldn't even accept that he thinks that very importantly charity must be supported in a big way so it must be voluntary giving becomes very important to the society where there is very little taxation very low taxation and I'm sure that well in school I mean there are there always to be currently giving very much yeah but look tenderly yes he has because Wilt Chamberlain Lou wanted to go and be a milkman let's say he he did not want to play basketball he's playing boss woman's you're prepared to pay he doesn't like playing basketball okay well that's that stop they've got five minutes for questions that's let's have some questions out on ethics and politics that's his point yeah it is point is that in order to get equality you've got to interfere with liberty and in order to get liberty you cannot assume equality will follow because it won't there's a a key conflict quality bother like truth and kindness Georgia the way that those points may be nice to see that very ya know distributive justice is about the goods in society so it includes things like the boat education roads hospitals everything but of course given the way our societies are as a matter of fact set up because it's money that the peaceful these things so it does tend to come down yes well well shall I also that one just quickly yourself forget it otherwise one contradiction important animal is it's worthless he does think that you have to have property to be autonomous to it for him autonomy is the key value they have been seized which is the key value but if you need property in order to make choices as if on his theory you could be left without any property at all because there's no very distributive mechanism in the society then surely that can't be right there's got to be something like that so surely ought to be some basically distributive mechanism to at least ensure that everybody has some property however much is needed to be autonomous if being autonomous is the most important thing possibly but he's a libertarian he's not just okay oh yes I mean how many philosophers of people one would hope that their physical positions have rotted rather more thought-out than those of non philosophers but but on phrase it isn't necessarily stone but yeah a philosopher with a political position Roger Scruton for example is a rather famous philosopher the rather famous political petitioner and there are lots of us philosophers who were political skeptic well I mean I think it's alright in practice as well because it is what we do in practice I mean Aristotle would think that somebody could somebody who's virtuous would be virtuous about everything although he would admit that they possess it yes but I mean one thing you would want to do if you were a wise and virtuous person is to the problem as objectively as possible I mean you would try not to let these and also you might say I'm sorry this is this is something on which I don't want to advise you because I know that it I'm going to be biased and I know that it's wrong to be bast therefore this is not so to be consulted and I think that's perfectly consistent with being purchase two more very good one here actually all the theories if we've looked at here absolutist theories yeah

Channel: Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

Views: 9,699

Rating: 4.878788 out of 5

Keywords: philosophy, marianne talbot, ethical philosophy, political philosophy

Id: vEh7UUVSraw

Length: 91min 4sec (5464 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2013