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Definition
• End of action/final good: happiness
- habit and moderation
• Not all ends are goals (goals must have value and worth striving for)
o Goods, goals in nature as a whole
o Ends, goods in nature worth striving for – transition from “is” to “ought” (one of the most controversial theories of Aristotle) |
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| 1. Reason (given to us by nature, for a reason) – so we can discover natural law & conform our efforts according to natural law |
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| is nothing other than the rational creature’s participation in eternal law.” |
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from “is” to “ought” (description to prescription)
thoughts on reason:
- good for only two things: abstraction, determining matters of fact
- cannot discern right from wrong by reason alone, different from values |
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| • Feelings – passions, emotions, etc. motivate |
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| • General approach is opposite of empiricism – based on reason |
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| stands for moral principle (i.e. “if you want to get the job, do well on the interview,” etc. |
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| Categorical Imperative Will |
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| always act in such a way so that you can will the maxim of your act to become a universal law of nature |
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| Act so that you treat humanity as an end, not means only |
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| International League of the Rights of Animals |
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Definition
• Extreme view that all animals have equal claims on life
• Wrong: killing animals for fur or meat, using animals in research, euthanizing unwanted animals, pet owners who spay, neuter, or confine their pets, zoos are immoral |
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| Peter Singer (animal rights) |
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Definition
• Utilitarian- believe in maximizing good
• All animals are equal in the sense that they feel suffering and pleasure (this is moral value which depends solely on amounts of pleasure and pain)
- • States that the same quality of pain has the same moral value, no matter who feels it, but that humans are capable of greater suffering and greater happiness than animals are |
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| Tom Regan the case for animal rights |
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Definition
- kantian
- • Also implies that certain human lives are less valuable then others
• This is not correct because we consider babies and people who are senile or comatose to have rights and to deserve full moral status |
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| Tom Regan (animal rights) |
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Definition
| • Also says that animals deserve moral respect, but not solely because they have the capacity to suffer. Also because animals have inherent moral value and rights just like humans. |
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| Carl Cohen (animal rights) |
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Definition
• Therefore, only humans can be self- legislating members of the kingdom of ends, also only we deserve full moral consideration
- • Medical research is justified- must balance the pain the animals experience against the expected benefits of the research to humans and to other animals |
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Term
| Plato (offensive speech and behavior) |
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Definition
• Speech that should be prohibited: contains lies, incites conflict, encourages cynicism or injustice, discourages courage or self-control- this all harms society
- • Classic case for censorship- a society is only as good as its people |
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Definition
| case for freedom of speech |
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| Stanley Fish (offensive speech and behavior) |
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Definition
• Speech is never really free
• The exceptions that are made are not based on principles but on politics
• Deciding what speech to allow is deciding what will be politically favored
• He defends speech codes and other restrictions- they produce social benefits |
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| Jonathan Rauch (offensive speech and behavior) |
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Definition
• Sees Fish’s argument as a humanitarian threat to freedom
• Says that people restrict offensive speech for good, humanitarian reasons- to protect people from offense and harm
• But the restrictions threaten the entire institution of liberal science |
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| Utilitarians (environment) |
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Definition
| look at environment questions in terms of consequences-that is, in terms of costs and benefits. |
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| maintain that everything in the natural world has dignity. Utilitarians go wrong in assigning everything (including humans) a price. We need to re-evaluate our our place in the natural world. |
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| ecofeminists on environment |
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Definition
| say that the arguments about how humans are superior to nature are parallel to arguments that men are superior to women. We must reject both and the "logic of domination" and recognize moral equality. |
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| Garret Hardin (environment) |
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Definition
• Describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest will ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen.
- • He suggests there be no commons. We privatize everything, b/c they have a reason and an incentive to preserve it for future generation. But there is a problem of privatizing air or climate. |
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Term
| Richard Stroup and John Baden, with David Fractor- Property Rights: the Real Issue |
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Definition
• Utilitarian Views
• Argues against governmental solutions to environmental problems. (gov. officials have incentives and these incentives aren't always the best for the world
• Defends market based solutions |
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| 5 factors that tend to undermine the accountability of officials: Richard Stroup and John Baden, with David Fractor- Property Rights |
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Definition
1. no citizen has the time or resources to analysis every policy issue
2. although no individuals attempt to analyze or influence all gov policies, some do attempt to influence specific in which they have a special interest. Resulting in a medley of narrow minded groups with lots of influence.
3. Voter themselves have no direct input on individual issues.
4. People lack info about future costs and benefits, so they elect officials based on the net benefits they get now. No incentive for efficient natural resource management
5. Gov. intervention will not produce far-sighted decisions. They focus too much on short-sighted gains and profits |
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| Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich- Risks, Costs, and Benefits |
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Definition
| • They believe that great caution is needed when making potentially irreversible changes to the Earth |
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| Bill Devall and George Sessions- from Deep Ecology |
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Definition
• Raise other objections to Utilitarian analysis
• Natural world deserves respect
- all forms of life deserve respect |
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Term
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Definition
| when we begin to identify with other humans and the non-human world. Organic wholeness |
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Term
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Definition
| all things have an equal right to live and blossom and to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and and self-realization within the larger Self-realization. |
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Term
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Definition
| Laws regulating religious practices, diet, and various forms of sexual behavior- adultery, polygamy, polyandry, sodomy, prostitution, premarital sex and pornography |
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| Laws promoting Health and Safety |
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Definition
| Laws regulating alcohol, drugs, (both medical and recreational), suicide, self-mutilation, voluntary euthanasia, working conditions, and the use of motorcycle helmets and seat belts. |
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| Laws promoting economic welfare |
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Definition
| Laws regulating wages, working hours, shopping hours (for example “blue laws”), gambling, investments and retirement (for example Social Security) |
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Definition
• Contends the best government is that which produces the best citizens
• There should be laws against not being virtuous
• Habituation leads to virtue
• The pains inflicted shall be those that are most opposed to the pleasures such men love (pg 130) |
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Definition
• Liberty doesn’t flourish without a tradition
• You only have freedom if you have a stable government
• Liberty when men act in bodies is power
• Change is okay as long as it is kept in the accord of natural law
• Politics is an art of balancing values |
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| John Stuart Mill (liberty) |
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Definition
• Utilitarian – believes individual liberty should be held almost as first principle
• Utilitarian – the greatest happiness if tht is not possible at least prevent harm
• Theres nothing an individual does that only harms himself
• Against paternalistic laws, he believes in regulating the action but not prohibiting the whole thing
o Regulate tht which affects others, ex: drunkness, prohibit drunk driving but not drinking
• He is a libertarian against paternalism |
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Definition
| against paternalism—preventing individuals from harming themselves or trying to make them positively help themselves |
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Definition
• Respected economist
• War on drugs has been a costly failure
• Urges decriminalization of drugs- which is the removal of criminal penalties against their sale and use
• Advocates treating drugs as we treat alcohol and cigarettes
• As substances that should be regulated and whose users should be treated rather than jailed |
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Term
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Definition
• Went to grad school at UT- “drug czar” under Pres. Reagan and Bush
• Maintains that Friedman’s proposal is flawed and even reckless
• Defends criminal penalities for drug use by arguing that they reduce harms ro drug users and to others
• Contends that “gov’t has a responsibility to craft and uphold laws that help educate citizens about right and wrong |
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| Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice William O. Douglas |
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Definition
| • They decided that the gov’t may regulate pornographic materials, banning those that are obscene |
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Term
| criteria for determining obscenity |
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Definition
a. it must, judged by the average person applying contemporary community standards, appeal to a prurient (that is arousing and unwholesome) interest in sex
b. it must depict or describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way
c. it must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value
i. first two pertain to harm
ii. the third, to lack of any positive communicative value that might balance the harm |
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| Catherine MacKinnon (pornography) |
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Definition
• Porn is a practice of sex discrimination and thus a violation of women’s civil rights
• Argues for morality and constitutionality of ordinances that prohibit porn |
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Term
| attorney generals comission on porn |
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Definition
• Certain kinds on porn- which include violence, are harmful and ought to be restricted
• These forms of porn harm not only the “users” (viewers of the material) but also others whom the users come into contact |
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Term
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Definition
• Feminism has opposite implications than what MacKinnon says
• Woman who choose to produce or consume porn are exercising freedom
• MacKinnon’s restrictions would restrict the liberty of women
• Censorship on the grounds of sex discrimination treats woman as children whose interests must be protected by law because they are incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions |
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Term
| Plato offensive speech and behavior |
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Definition
• Are good by encouraging virtue in their members
• Socrates argues that speech that discourages virtue should be banned
• Speech that should be prohibited: contains lies, incites conflict, encourages cynicism or injustice, discourages courage or self-control- this all harms society |
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Term
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Definition
• Allows “time, place, and manner” restrictions on speech
• To have the right to speak is not to have the right to speak anywhere, at any time, at any volume, and in any way
• You have the right to say what you want to say, but you do not have the right to say it through a loudspeaker in Mill’s neighborhood in the middle of the night |
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Term
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Definition
• Speech is never really free
• The exceptions that are made are not based on principles but on politics
• Deciding what speech to allow is deciding what will be politically favored
• He defends speech codes and other restrictions- they produce social benefits |
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Term
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Definition
| • It punishes those who are wrong by ridiculing them and their idea- not an unfortunate accident- is essential to the scientific process |
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