88, c1 Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Jefferson borrowing from Locke
Locke: humans have the same basic nature, so they should be treated equally.
"Naturalism in Ethics" what is good is a function in some way of the way things are.
Pleasure, or the fulfillment of human nature.
Natural Law Theory: moral law is based on human nature
Natural Rights Theory: human rights are essential for our functioning as human beings
Virtue Ethics: Ethics that emphasizes good habits-those character traits that enable us to function well as human beings.
Virtue Ethics 88 c2
A virtuous person is a morally good person
Examples of virtues: Loyalty and honesty
Opposite of virtue is vice: Stinginess is a vice.
Note that Kant and Mill both give a place to virtue in their theories.
According to a Kantian, we should develop in ourselves and others habits that would make it more likely that we would be fair and treat people as ends rather than means.
For Mill, who also talks about virtue, having a good character is conducive to promoting the greatest good for the greatest number.
HOWEVER: In their theories virtues are secondary.
Their primary goal is to DO good rather than to BE good.
Virtue ethics stresses the ideal way for persons to be, and not just to act.
Moral Life is about developing good character
Determining ideals for one's life and trying to embody these ideals in one's life.
Originator of Virtue Ethics: Aristotle
Historical Background: Aristotle
Aristotle is regarded as the originator of both Virtue Ethics and Natural Law theory.
Born in 384 B.C. in Stagira-in the Kingdom of Macedon in Northern Greece.
Age 17 he went to Athens to study in Plato's academy (the first university)
Aristotle very influenced by Plato but with a major difference:
Plato, somewhat otherworldly--looking for perfection and the perfect types of things
Aristotle more down to earth.
After Plato's death Aristotle wanted to be head of Plato's academy but the honor went to Plato's nephew.
Aristotle traveled the known world a bit,
Was also the tutor of Alexander the Great, later conquered more of that known world.
Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his own school the Lyceum.
He died in 322.
Major thinker in: ethics, logic, metaphysics, also biology and physics.
We'll read The Nichomachean Ethics based on lecture notes compiled by Aristotle's son Nichomachus.
Aristotle a great observer of nature.
In his observations it appeared that everything had some PURPOSE, some telos
purpose of an acorn--become an oak tree
Purpose of a tadpole--to become a frog.
Wanted to base moral theory in: what is the PURPOSE for INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEINGS?
THE NATURE AND KINDS OF VIRTUE 89, C2
Our word virtue-comes from the Latin word vir meaning manliness (like virility)
Aristotle's word: arete- excellences
Aristotle: two types of excellences: intellectual virtues and moral virtues
Excellences of mind, can be learned from teachers
Moral virtues: what disposes us to act well: learned by repetition, practice.
Practicing courage or honesty like practicing a musical instrument
Also true of vice-you learn of vice through practice
Pick up bad habits
Question: do you think morality is a matter of good and bad habits?
Roman poet Horace: strive for the Golden Mean: moderation
See this in Aristotle's ethics
Virtue is a means between extremes of deficiency and excess.
Too little courage is cowardice.
Too much is foolhardiness.
Courage-having the right amount of fear.
MacKinnon-story of Goldilocks
Question: how important is moderation?
Question: what would be wrong to do, even in moderation?
Chart pg. 90
| Virtue and Vice | Deficit (too little) | Virtue (the mean) | Excess (too much) |
| Fear | Cowardice | Courage | Foolhardiness |
| Giving | Illiberality | Liberality | Prodigality |
| Self-regard | Humility | [Proper] Pride | Vanity |
| Pleasures | [Anhedonia] my term | Temperance | Profligacy |
Contemporary Virtue Ethics
Phillipa Foot-contemporary English philosopher
Her version of virtue ethics:
1. Both we and the community benefit from our having virtues
Just like we and the community are harmed by certain vices
2. Some difficulty in figuring out which virtues are virtuous-is wit, for example, a moral virtue?
3. What about someone who has good intentions?
They want to be generous, but never quite seem to help anyone.
Is the virtue found in the being or the doing?
4. Virtues are corrective. We strive to be courageous, that makes us less fearful.
We strive to be temperate, that makes us less profligate.
Evaluating Virtue Ethics 90 c2
Question: are there any universally valuable traits-virtues?
Do the virtues represent the civic virtues of our day.
Alasdair MacIntyre-virtues depend at least partly on the practices that constitute a culture or a society.
A warlike society will value heroic virtues
Question: Think of the Clingons on Star Trek: What would be virtuous for them? What about a Jedi Knight?
A peaceful society might value generosity.
For Aristotle, proper pride is a virtue
For an Amish society, pride is a vice
Christian virtues v. Renaissance virtú
Virtues of self-denial: faith, hope, charity
Virtues of self-assertion: ambition, courage, wit
MacKinnon-looking at human excellences
Can we say what it means to live a full human life?
Do men and women have different virtues?
90 c2 The problem here is not only how we know what excellences are human excellences, but also whether there are any such traits that are ideal for all persons.
Comment: MacKinnon may be missing some of the spirit of virtue ethics here.
Does the theory need to be universalizable in the same way Kant's theory is?
Many virtue ethicists, MacIntyre to Aristotle would say no.
MacKinnon-probably a little skeptical of virtue ethics.
Key criticism: virtue ethics emphasizes how to be rather than what to do.
Problem: for every virtue, there is a corresponding good to be achieved or done.
Is virtue just an aspect of an action-oriented moral philosophy.
Virtue ethics is optimistic and positive type of ethics.
Problem though: What does it have to say to those who don't meet the ideal?
Problem with virtue ethics: very fuzzy: being good, having excellent character: what does this mean?
My response: Aristotle says {not in our text} you can only have as much precision as the subject matter allows.
97 c2 bottom of page:
But it must be admitted at the outset that all reasoning upon practical matters must be like a sketch in outline, it cannot be scientifically exact.
Ethics not amenable to total precision.
Other theories give almost a mathematically precise way of figuring out what we should do.
One reading: Aristotle's emphasis is on phronesis-practical wisdom
You, the practically wise person, are making ethical judgments on a case by case basis.
Question: do you think of ethics more like this, or more in a Kantian sense of a universal ethics?
NATURAL LAW THEORY 91 C2
Another theory that says that morality is based on human nature.
How do we know what morality requires? LOOK TO NATURE!
John Locke-all people are equal. Therefore all people ought to be treated equally.
Idea: morality not in some esoteric realm-be can be determined by a close examination of human nature by our own mental faculties.
What does NATURAL LAW mean? 91, c2
1. Moral law accessible to human reason
2. Moral law is based on human nature
3. Moral law is universally applicable
Question: is such a morality possible?
Nuremberg Trials: Goering sentenced to death (Hess sentenced to life imprisonment)
Nazi doctors performing experiments on human subjects
[that's how we know how long someone will survive in cold water]
Experiments were "crimes against humanity," even if not against German civil law.
Idea here: there is a law more basic than civil laws-a moral law
The doctors should have known what this basic moral law required.
What Kind of Law is Natural Law? 92, 1
First distinction: NATURAL LAW v. laws of nature
Laws of natural science are DESCRIPTIVE LAWS
How does natural phenomenon work.
Force = Mass × acceleration ==> LAW OF NATURE!
Moral Laws are PRESCRIPTIVE--NORMATIVE--laws
They tell us how we OUGHT to behave.
The Natural Law is the NATURAL moral law.
How do the two relate?
What we OUGHT to do according to NATURAL LAW is determined by looking at particular aspects of NATURE.
Looking at HUMAN NATURE--us, as human beings.
Question: is there such a thing as HUMAN NATURE?
Distinction: NATURAL LAW v. CIVIL LAW
Natural law: what we naturally OUGHT to do.
Civil law: man made legislation.
Both are Prescriptive
Moral law supposed to be higher than civil law
Sophocles tragedy: Antigone - posing a conflict between civil and moral law.
BASIC PRINCIPLE OF NATURAL LAW: while the laws of particular societies vary over time, the natural law is universal and stable.
Natural law takes precedence over civil law.
Martin Luther King, for example, in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" justified his opposition the segregation laws on the grounds of NATURAL LAW.
Segregation laws--civil law--were UNJUST because they degraded the human spirit--they were in violation of NATURAL LAW!
On What is Natural Law Based? 92, c2
Natural law is TELEOLOGICAL: BASED on an understanding of the goals and order present in nature.
How does this work?
Aristotle: natural order to things: tadpoles make frogs, not turtles
Telos-goal, end aim.
Natural beings come in types: kinds, species.
Fundamental to Natural Law: there are NATURAL KINDS--TYPES
(Nominalism--philosophical position that denies that there are natural types--just a matter of giving certain things a common name.)
Biology: natural types:
Squirrel: A living being.
A Mammal
Has certain characteristics: bushy tail, gathers and eats nuts, climbs trees easily, does not subscribe to cable tv (marketing also relies on putting people in types)
There are good squirrels and bad squirrels
Here good doesn't refer to morality.
Squirrel a non-rational animal--has no capacity for morality.
A good squirrel is a thriving squirrel--good a doing squirrel things: gathering and storing nuts, running along tree limbs, etc. etc.
Question: what's a bad squirrel?
Turn to Human beings and human nature. 93 c1
Humans have certain characteristics and abilities we share as humans.
For example: capacity to act morally--to seek the GOOD!
Aristotle's question: WHAT IS THE GOOD FOR HUMAN BEINGS?
Aristotle defines good as well functioning.
Well functioning eye: sees well
Well functioning ship: sails well
Well functioning horse: does what horses do.
Humans: occupations have their good:
A good carpenter: makes good cabinets.
A good musician: plays music well.
Question: is their some good for humans as humans?
What is Human Nature and the Human Good? 93, c1
Well functioning human: doing the things that will make a human flourish and thrive.
Aristotle: a flourishing human is a HAPPY human
EUDAIMONIA = happiness, blessedness, prosperity.
Happiness for Aristotle: living a comfortable, successful life = living and doing well--doing what you do best, doing what makes you happy
How does he get this?
Look at human beings: what features do we have.
Like other life forms: WE REQUIRE NOURISHMENT
WE GROW FROM AN IMMATURE TO A MATURE FORM
WE CAN HERE AND SO AND MOVE AROUND--like the other ANIMALS
Human beings are part of the larger type--the GENUS--ANIMALS
What is unique to humans--what sets us apart from the OTHER ANIMALS?
Aristotle: our "RATIONAL ELEMENT"
Aristotle's definition of human beings: MAN IS A RATIONAL ANIMAL
This means that the good, for humans, should consist in humans functioning in a way consistent with and guided by this rational element.
Two sides of this: one THEORETICAL the other PRACTICAL
Theoretical side: theoria-understanding and knowing the world and the truth
Practical side: Pragma-acting, how to CHOOSE wisely!
Sophos and Phronesis
Sophos = wisdom
Phronesis = practical wisdom--making good--prudential--choices.
Question: what's a prudential choice?
VIRTUE--(Aristotle's ethics sometimes called virtue ethics)
Arete--a kind of EXCELLENCE
Humans should function is the most excellent ways.
Acting in accordance with the best and most complete kinds of virtue.
We'll come back to this understanding of virtue later.
THOMAS AQUINAS: (1224-1274)--major figure in Natural Law Theory
Aquinas: a medieval philosopher and theologian: adapted the newly rediscovered Aristotelian philosophy to the theology of the Medieval Church.
Major work: the Summa Theologica
Following Aristotle: Aquinas pointed to the material and biological basis of human beings--things we share with other animals:
Aquinas developing his philosophy following Aristotle: talk about University of Paris strike: 1200 to 1210: Students to Church: no Aristotle, we don't go to class.
We develop and grow
We take in nutrition from our environment
We know the world through our physical sense capacities
We reproduce sexually and raise our young
We are social in nature
These are all things we share with other animals.
Unlike other animals: We also have the capacity for higher knowledge and free choice.
These faculties allow us to understand natural law:
Basic tenet: From our natural inclinations of species capacities flow our moral duties
Natural inclination toward life and maturity.
We ought to promote rather than hinder these capacities.
Morality of furthering life and health.
Features here:
We should not injure our senses.
We should treat ourselves and others as beings capable of understanding and free choice
We ought to find ways to live together: no person is an island.
We need to develop self-discipline.-
Question: can we base morality on what is natural? Can we always decide what is natural?
Evaluating Natural Law 94, c1
Natural law is appealing in many ways.
Examples: objectivity of morals laws--based on a universal human nature
Notion of the good as human flourishing.
Still, questions remain.
Two main criticisms:
First: How do We Interpret Nature?
Natural law theory says that nature is a certain way and our task is to understand it--to read the book of nature.
Question: does nature tell us one thing, or many things?
Is slavery, for example, in accordance with nature.
Are there natural masters and natural slaves?
Or does slavery violate natural law?
Hobbes and Locke used natural law to both defend and criticize the absolute rule of monarchs.
Question: is human nature good? What are the bad aspects of human nature?
Remember Hobbes: life is nasty, brutish and short
What about Evolution? - does it teach us anything
Arguments about evolution might be interpreted as having an impact on NATURAL LAW
SOCIAL DARWINISM: 19th century view: Herbert Spencer coined term:
"survival of the fittest"--if this is what happens in nature, then this is what human society should be based on.
Question: how would that work?
Second Question: Can the way things are by nature provide the basis for knowing how they ought to be?
Just because something exists doesn't mean it's good: floods, famine, disease
[[Though a naturalist, say environmentalist, might argue that acting "unnaturally causes floods, famine and disease]]
Problem of deriving an ought from an is.
Question: what do you think of that problem?
Natural law: teleological-nature has a certain direction.
Modern science: final purposes are suspect.
Question: Does Natural Law Need a Basis in Divine Law?
What is the SOURCE of the purposes in nature?
Big Question for Natural Law: Does natural law require a divine presence?
Can we conceive of an order in nature without an orderer?
Question:
Depends on what we mean by order in nature.
If this means a plan, then it seems there must be a planner.
If it just means a regular order, that might mean there is no plan: just our way of reading nature.
Evolution: does this mean that nature is arbitrary?
a: an evolutionary order: natural law might say that things evolve and change--morality should take this into account.
b: Chauncey Wright-mid-nineteenth century American philosopher.
Chance occurrences don't mean uncaused occurrences--just that the causes are unknown to us.
{Evolution controversy: probably something to do with natural law.}
Problem: Sexual Orientation:
Natural law: sexuality (questioned in contemporary world)
The purpose of sexuality is procreation
Therefore--proper, natural sex is sex leading to procreation
Marriage--the natural setting for procreation.
Homosexuality, sex outside of marriage (adultery, etc) ruled out.
What counts as natural rights?
Natural Rights 95 c1
Origin of natural rights in natural law.
Goes back the Stoic philosophers of the first and second century A.D.
Follow Nature
Question: what does it mean to follow nature?
Followed up by Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson: \\
Long tradition of natural rights in Western philosophy
Roman jurists: common element beyond local customs in the legal and moral codes of various people: a Jus Gentium
Jurist Grotius: moral law determined by right reason.
Legal rights grounded in this universal moral law
Natural Rights, Natural Law: justification for certain aspects of civil law.
Civil Law should be moral
Contrast with Legal Positivism: civil law not fundamentally moral law.
1947: United Nations declaration of Human Rights
Positive and Negative rights: (MacKinnon doesn't use this term)
Negative right: freedom of speech-can't be taken away
Positive right: health care-should be provided
Evaluating Natural Rights Theory
Problem: should rights include the positive rights: food, clothing, shelter
or just the negative rights: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly
Some claim that natural rights are only "liberty rights":
the right not to be interfered with in our daily life.
Question: what do you think?
Need a rationale to decide what rights are the true human or natural rights.
What about women's rights?
Second Challenge: What natural rights theory must prove:
1. Needs to show that human nature as it is should be furthered and that certain things ought to be granted to us to further our nature.
2. The job of detailing just what things are essential for the good functioning of human nature.
Other defenses of Rights
Norman Daniels: Right to, say, basic health care required by the demands of justice
Walter Lippman-utilitarian justification of rights
(Bentham: rights are non-sense on stilts!)
Rights provide the basis for a democratic society.
What about animal rights?
ARISTOTLE: THE NICHOMACHEAN ETHICS
Nichomachean Ethics
Lecture notes compiled by Aristotle's son Nicomachus
We read Books I and II
How does it begin? 97 c2 THE NATURE OF THE GOOD
Every art and every scientific inquiry, and similarly every action and purpose, may be said to aim at some good.
Hence the good has been well defined as that at which all things aim.
Aristotle's Principle of Teleology: Aiming toward a final end.
Good, End, Aim--all synonymous--LIKE AN ARCHER
HAPPINESS: LIVING AND DOING WELL 98 C1
Wise people say that the good for man is happiness--which they identify with LIVING WELL AND DOING WELL.
Happiness for Aristotle is not a feeling of euphoria but:
EUDAIMONIA. Not a pleasant feeling, but a sense of satisfaction in living a good life.
But what exactly does this mean?:
HAPPINESS:
Aristotle says that happiness is not pleasure
or honor
or even Wealth
Rather: something that is an end in itself--that is desired as an end in itself and not as a means to some end.
For man the most desirable end is happiness.
Happiness is desired only for itself and not for any subsequent end.
Chief good, final end, the self-sufficient good
The final end or good should be self-sufficient--happiness, as this end is self-sufficient.
THE FUNCTION OF A PERSON 98 c2
Argument shifts to a kind of functional one--what is the function of man.
Concludes that the function of man is to live a certain kind of life.
The good person, lives a good life
The good life means a complete life, lived in accordance with the most complete virtue 98 c2
Aristotle's conclusion is that happiness is a product of virtue--something that can survive misfortune.
Happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue
VIRTUE: 99 c1 Two kinds of virtue:
1) Intellectual--philosophical wisdom, understanding, practical wisdom
2) Moral--liberality and temperance ethike, ethos
Moral virtues don't arise by NATURE
--otherwise we couldn't be unvirtuous.
99 c2 Moral virtue is the outcome of habit, not nature
A stone--falls by nature--drop it 10,000 times, it still can't learn anything new
We can learn to be virtuous by practicing virtue.
We learn virtues the same way builders learn building and harp players learn playing the harp.
Virtues are not passions, not faculties, but states of character.
Wisdom--respective of intellectual virtues.
Character--respective of moral virtues
What kind of state of character is virtue?
An excellence of character
Excellence of the eye makes both the eye and its work good.
DEFICIENCY AND EXCESS 100 c1
Virtue--an intermediate between excess and defect.
Means between extremes
Finding the right means--THE MEAN STATE
MODERATION: Virtue is a moderation between vices of excess and vices of defect.
PLEASURE AND PAIN 100 c1:
Aristotle says that pleasure and pain serve as a test of a person's moral state.
The true education will teach us to feel pain and pleasure at the right objects.
THE NATURE OF VIRTUE 100 C 1
Three qualities of the soul: emotions, faculties, and moral states
Moral states-cases where we are well or ill-disposed towards the emotions.
The virtues and the vices are not emotions
We are not praised or blamed for our emotions.
The virtues are not faculties but moral states.
Character of the moral state: every virtue or excellence has the effect of producing a good condition of that of which it is a virtue or excellence and of enabling it to perform its function well.
Excellence of the eye makes the eye good and its function good
Excellence of the horse makes the horse excellent
Thus: the virtue or excellence of man will be such a moral state as makes a man good and able to perform his proper function well.
VIRTUE AS A MEAN 101 c1
The Practically Wise individual can recognize the path between the extremes
Moral virtue a mean state lying between two vices--excess and deficiency
How do we know what the middle is?
Not the absolute mean, but the mean considered relatively to ourselves.
Some things don't admit to this account of moderation:
No moderate amount of malice, envy, or adultery or murder
These are intrinsically wicked.
102 c1
Right or wrong in such actions as adultery does not depend on our committing them with the right person, at the right time or in the right manner; on the contrary it is sinful to do anything of the kind at all.
Question: what if you and your spouse have agreed on an "open marriage"?
Look at
SOME VIRTUES 102 C1
Taking particular virtues from the catalogue of virtues
Moderation: Virtue is a moderation between vices of excess and vices of defect.
Examples: Virtue of Courage: means between extremes:
Facing the fear of death in battle.
Rashness--throwing all caution to the wind
Cowardice--shrinking from the fight
Courage is in the middle between these two
Temperance--virtue with respect to pleasure and pain
we have a natural appetite for food, drink, even sex
Licentiousness: Self-indulgent person is one who does these to excess
Insensibility is the other side
Temperance is enjoying pleasure--moderately, rationally and according to natural desire.
Series of these virtues:
Money virtues:
Prodigality--being a spend-thrift--vice of excess
Illiberal-excessive in taking and deficient in spending
Liberality--the virtue of spending money wisely, being generous, but not to the point of excess.
Magnificence: spending a large sum of money wisely
Mean between vulgarity and meanness
Question: if you had a large sum of money, is this something you would have to consider? Bill Gates, John D. Rockefeller, The Walton (Walmart) family
Being: "reasonable," "realistic," "intelligent"
Honor and dishonor: high-mindedness
Too much: vanity, little mindedness
Making money: excess being ambitious
defect: being unambitious
mean: has no name
Question: what kind of name here?
Temperament--not being too angry, not too emotional-gentleness
Friendship--friendship plays an important role for Aristotle's ethics.
The Practically Wise individual can recognize the path between these extremes
Sometimes variable: Proper amount of food for a professional football player different than for a fashion model
WHY IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO BE VIRTUOUS 103 c1
No easy task to be good.
Hard to say when deviation becomes blameworthy
103 c1:
It's always hard work to find the mean or center of a circle
That is the reason why it is rare and laudable to do well.
Sometimes, he says, we have to choose the lesser of two evils.
We do this by steering clear from the evil which is further from the mean.
We also have to watch out for evils that will have a particular appeal to us.--things that are the most pleasurable can lead us into the most evil.
Question: what are the advantages and disadvantages of Virtue Ethics and Natural Law theory?
In Locke's state of nature, people live together according to natural law without a common superior on earth having the authority to judge them.
And since no one has rank over any one else--Therefore, all men are equal.
In other words, it is a state where all men are equal and free,
potentially a very happy state of affairs.
The state of nature is ruled by natural law--the natural order.
Locke has a kinder, gentler version of natural law--more Aristotelian, than Hobbes more cruel version.
Another element of the state of nature is the fact that it is a condition of plenty
There are no limits on anyone other than those of natural law and there is enough to go around for everyone.
The State of Nature starts to break down when there is a condition of force upon another person.
In the state of nature there is no common superior, so there is no one to mediate disputes when they arise.
A State of War, again: a condition of force upon another person with no common superior to mediate.
Natural rights (like Hobbes): right of revenge:
105 c2 Cain worries about being killed after he kills Abel
In the state of nature, every one has the executive power of the law of Nature.
Everyone a judge.
God appoints government to retrain the partiality and violence of men.
Locke pro-government, but opposes absolute monarchy.
Essentially: no one should be above the law
Hobbes' question: did the state of nature ever exist?
106 c2: Princes in the world are still in the state of nature
Some people are still in the state of nature-example, in the "woods of America" 106 c2,
People put themselves into a commonwealth to avoid the state of war.
In this society, you give up some of your rights, such as the right to punish offenders against you, in favor of society having the right to do this.
You give your tacit consent to the social compact and in return society must legislate according to your will and/or the will of the majority of your fellows.
The social compact is made as a form of gathering together for protection.
The basis of this compact is consent to it by individuals.
Legislative power comes out of this consent.
Freedom in society: not license but freedom to what is not proscribed by legislative rule.
Move from natural rights--those that come from natural law, the right of the individual who is naturally free and has a natural right to protection of this freedom.
To civil rights where the society--the commonwealth protects your own individual rights to liberty, property and life.
