PHLO 178
RECAP OF THE THREE MAJOR THEORIES IN
ETHICS
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
●​ explores the nature of the good life for human
beings
Book 1: The Good and Happiness
●​ every action or human activity aims at some
good, with the highest good being eudaimonia
○​ eudaimonia = happiness or flourishing
●​ function argument: the good life for humans
involves fulfilling their unique function
○​ rational activity in accordance with virtue
○​ virtue is a disposition rather than an
activity
■​ a virtuous person is disposed to
behave in the right ways and for
the right reasons
●​ types of life:
○​ the life of pleasure
○​ the political life
○​ the contemplative life
■​ this is the highest
Book 2: Moral Virtue
●​ virtue is a mean state between the extremes of
excess and deficiency
○​ example: courage is the mean between
recklessness and cowardice
●​ virtues are acquired through habit and practice,
not by nature
○​ a person becomes virtuous by
performing virtuous actions
Book 3: Voluntary Action
●​ voluntary action: any action that originates in the
agent and not in some outside force
○​ characterized by rational deliberation
and choiec
○​ only voluntary actions are praiseworthy
or blameworthy
●​ involuntary action: actions done out of ignorance
or compulsion
○​ moral virtues are closely tied to choice,
which is the result of deliberation about
means to an end
Book 4: Specific Virtues
●​ generosity: virtue related to the giving and taking
of wealth
○​ between wastefulness and stinginess
●​ magnificence: related to large-scale giving
○​ between vulgarity and niggardliness
●​ greatness of soul: concerned with the right
attitude toward honor and dishonor
○​ between vanity and smallness of soul
●​ gentleness: virtue concerning anger
○​ between irascibility and lack of spirit
Book 5: Justice
●​ justice encompasses all the other virtues
●​ justice is also seen as a mean between getting
too much and getting too little
●​ two forms of justice:
○​ distributive:
concerned
with
the
distribution of honors or wealth
■​ must be given according to
merit
○​ rectificatory: concerned with rectifying
wrong
■​ aim at restoring a sense of
balance and equality
Book 6: Intellectual Virtues
●​ distinguishes between intellectual virtues like
sophia (theoretical wisdom) and phronesis
(practical wisdom or prudence)
●​ practical wisdom is necessary for moral virtue
because it involves knowing how to act rightly
○​ involves correct deliberation about what
is good for humans
Book 7: Continence and Incontinence
●​ incontinence: a person knows what is right but
fails to act on it due to passions
●​ continence: a person overcomes base desires
●​ role of pleasure and pain in the moral life: the
virtuous person finds pleasure in virtuous
actions
Book 8 & 9: Friendship
●​ three types of friendship:
○​ friendships of utility
○​ friendships of pleasure
○​ friendships of the good (virtue)
■​ only friendships based on virtue
are lasting and genuine
●​ friendship is an essential part of the good life
and closely related to virtue, as friends wish
good for each other
Book 10: Pleasure and the Contemplative Life
●​ pleasure: pleasure is not the highest good but is
an essential aspect of the good life when aligned
with virtuous activity
●​ the contemplative life: the highest form of
happiness is found in the life of contemplation
(theoria), where one engages in intellectual
activity in accordance with reason
○​ this life is considered divine and
self-sufficient
SUMMARY
●​ the highest human good is flourishing through
virtuous activity
●​ moral virtues are habits that strike a mean
between extremes, developed through
practice
●​ practical wisdom is essential for living a
virtuous life, guiding moral choices
●​ friendship is an essential component of a
fulfilled life
●​ the highest and most fulfilling life is one of
intellectual contemplation
Jeremy Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism and Felicific
Calculus
●​ act utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that
evaluates the morality of individual actions
based on their consequences
●​ he introduced the concept of felicific calculus as
a method to quantify the pleasure and pain
generated by actions
Act Utilitarianism
●​ principle of utility: central principle is the
“greatest happiness principle”
○​ states that the moral value of an action
is determined by its contribution to
overall happiness or pleasure
○​ an action is morally right if it produces
the greatest amount of happiness for the
greatest number of people
●​ hedonism: Bentham’s utilitarianism is hedonistic
○​ pleasure and pain are the only intrinsic
values
○​ happiness is understood as the
presence and the absence of pain
●​ act utilitarianism evaluates each individual action
on its own merits
○​ the morality of an action depends on the
specific consequences it produces in a
particular situation
Felicific Calculus
●​ a method to measure the utility (happiness or
pleasure) generated by an action
○​ intended to guide individuals in making
moral decisions by quantitatively
assessing the consequences of their
actions
●​ criteria:
○​ intensity: how strong is the pleasure or
pain?
○​ duration: how long will the pleasure or
pain last?
○​ certainty or uncertainty: how likely is it
that the pleasure or pain will occur?
○​ propinquity or remoteness: how soon
will the pleasure or pain occur?
○​ fecundity: will the action likely lead to
further pleasure or pain in the future?
○​ purity: how free is the pleasure from
subsequent pain (or vice versa)?
○​ extent: how many people will be
affected by the pleasure or pain?
John Stuart Mill’s Rule Utilitarianism
●​ builds on the foundation of Bentham’s
utilitarianism but introduces refinements
●​ Mill addressed some of the criticisms of act
utilitarianism by focusing on the role of general
rules in ethical decision-making
Rule Utilitarianism
●​ principle of utility: rightness or wrongness of
actions is determined by their consequences,
specifically by their contribution to overall
happiness or pleasure
○​ Mill emphasizes that actions should
conform to rules that lead to the greatest
happiness
●​ higher and lower pleasures: one of Mill’s
contributions is the distinction between higher
(intellectual) and lower (bodily) pleasures
○​ intellectual and moral pleasures are
inherently superior to physical pleasure
○​ “it is better to be a human being
dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to
be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied”
●​ rule utilitarianism: evaluates the morality of an
action based on whether it adheres to rules that
generally promote the greates happiness
○​ rules are justified if their general
observance leads to greater overall
happiness than any alternative set of
rules
Roles of Rules
●​ following established moral rules will lead to
better overall outcomes than evaluating each
action individually
○​ these rules are derived from the
principle of utility and should be followed
unless there is a compelling reason to
deviate
●​ rules serve as heuristics or guidelines for
making moral decisions
○​ by following rules that have been shown
to
generally
produce
good
consequence, individuals can more
reliably contribute to overall happiness
●​ Mill acknowledges that there may be exceptional
cases where breaking a rule would lead to a
better overall outcomes
Act vs. Rule Utilitarianism
●​ rule utilitarianism provides a more consistent
and
predictable
framework
for
ethical
decision-making than act utilitarianism
○​ by
following
established
rules,
individuals can avoid the potential chaos
and uncertainty of constantly calculating
the consequences of every action
●​ rule utilitarianism seeks to prevent morally
questionable actions that might be justified
under act utilitarianism if they produce a net
increase in happiness
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
●​ addresses the limits and capabilities of human
understanding
●​ seeks to reconcile the rationalist and empiricits
traditions
Aim of the Critique
●​ answer the question “what can we know?”
●​ he investigates the foundations of human
knowledge, distinguishing between what we can
know
through experience (a posteriori
knowledge) and what we can known
independently of experience (a priori knowledge)
Copernican Revolution in Philosophy
●​ Kant proposes a “Copernican revolution” in
philosophy
●​ suggesting that objects conform to our
knowledge
rather than our knowledge
conforming to objects
○​ this means that the human mind actively
shapes our experience of the world
Key Concepts and Divisions of the Critique
●​ transcendence aesthetic:
○​ Kant argues that all knowledge begins
with experience, but not all knowledge
arises from experience
○​ sensibility: our capacity to receive
sensory input
■​ sensibility is structured by two
pure forms: space and time
●​ these are not properties
of objects themselves
but are the conditions
under
which
we
perceive objects
○​ space and time are a priori intitions
■​ we cannot perceive anything
that does not conform to the
structures of space and time
●​ transcendental analytic:
○​ the understanding (our capacity to think)
applies concepts to the sensory data
provided by sensibility
■​ Kant introduces the notion of
categories–pure concepts of
understanding–than
structure
our experiences
○​ transcendental
deduction:
the
categories are necessary for the
possibility of experience
■​ ith these categories, we could
not make sense of our sensory
inputs as coherent objects or
events
○​ synthetic a priori judgments: these are
statements that are necessarily true and
provide new knowledge but are not
derived from experiences
●​ transcendental dialectic:
○​ Kant examines the role of pure reason,
which goes beyond the bounds of
possible experience
■​ reason generates ideas and
these ideas cannot be known
through experience and are not
objects of knowledge but rather
regulative ideals that guide
inquiry
○​ antinomies: Kant identifies several
contradictions (antinomies) that arise
when reason attempts to apply its
concepts beyond possible experience
■​ he resolves these antinomies by
showing that they arise from
misapplying
the
categories
beyond the limits of experience
○​ Kant critiques traditional metaphysics,
which attempts to make knowledge
claims about things beyond possible
experience
■​ he argues that such claims are
not possible as knowledge but
belong to the realm of faith or
practical reason
Noumenon and Phenomenon
●​ phenomena: are the objects of experience, the
things as they appear to us
○​ our knowledge is limited to phenomena,
which are shaped by the forms of
sensibility and the categories of the
understanding
●​ noumena: things as they are in themselves,
independent of our experience
○​ Kant argues that while the concept of
the noumenon is necessary to think
about the limits of knowledge, we
cannot have any knowledge of noumena
○​ they remain beyond the reach of human
cognition
Impact of the Critique
●​ while we can know the world of experience
(phenomena), we cannot know the world as it is
in itself (noumrna)
○​ this sets the limits of human knowledge
and challenges the ambitions of
traditional metaphysics
●​ the critique of pure reason establishes Kant’s
critical philosophy, which emphasizes the need
to critically examine the limits and conditions of
human knowledge
CLASS DISCUSSION
Ethics
●​ ethos = character
3 Values
●​ truth value (true)
●​ moral value (good)
○​ 2 moral values:
■​ innate, inherent, intrinsic
■​ instrumental
●​ there needs to be an
agent
●​ aesthetic value (beautiful)
Main Question in Ethics
●​ “how one/i ought to live?” - Socrates
2 Types of Ethics
●​ agent-based ethics (i)
○​ virtue ethics
■​ Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle
●​ action-based ethics (to live)
○​ teleological / consequentialism
■​ Act Utilitarianism of Jeremy
Bentham
■​ Rule Utilitarianism of John
Stuart Mill’
●​ common principle of the
two: “greatest pleasure
for the greatest number
of people”
○​ duty-based/ deontological
■​ Kant’s Kantian Ethics
Virtue Ethics
●​ everything has a telos
○​ telos = end
●​ eudaimonia is the highest good
○​ eudaimonia = happiness or human
flourishing
■​ we need arete/virtue to arrive at
the highest good
Extremes of Virtue
●​ vice of excess
●​ vice of deficiency
○​ golden mean = balance between the two
○​ virtue lies in finding the right balance
●​ examples:
○​ rashness – courage – cowardice
○​ boastfulness – honesty – dishonesty
○​ prodigality – generosity – stinginess
○​ harshness – justice – leniency
○​ self-indulgence
insensibility
–
temperance
–
Act Utilitarianism
●​ quantity-based
●​ from the school of thought of Hedonism
●​ advocates for less pain and more pleasure
●​ felicific calculus
○​ purity
○​ proximity
○​ richness/fecundity
○​ intensity
○​ certainty
○​ extent
○​ duration
Rule Utilitarianism
●​ quality-based
●​ 2 qualities of pleasure
○​ higher pleasures
■​ intellectual pleasure
○​ lower pleasures
■​ physical pleasure
Kantian Ethics
●​ 2 imperatives
○​ categorical
○​ hypothetical
●​ 4 formulations of Categorical imperatives
○​ universalizability principle
○​ humanity principles
○​ autonomy principle
○​ Kingdom of Ends
Extensionism
●​ granting moral considerations to those
traditionally not given one
○​ anthropocentric extensionism
○​ non-anthropocentric extensionism