What is Ethics
What is Ethics
Morality is your sense of right and wrong
Ethics is putting morality to practical use
in decision making.
Where does morality or ethics come from?
Deontological Ethics
Following duties
Utilitarian or Consequentialist Ethics
Do the maximum good
Virtue Ethics
Virtuous people don’t need to worry about it
Societal Ethics
What society generally says is right, is right
Deontological Ethics
Religious Ethics
Do what god told you to do
Deontological Ethics
Religious Ethics
Do what god told you to do
How do you know what he said?
Does he tell you something is good because it is
good and he has the wisdom to see that,
Or is something good just because he says it is?
Deontological Ethics
Religious Ethics
Do what god told you to do
Exodus 20/13:
Thou shalt not kill.
Exodus 22/18:
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Exodus 22/19:
Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.
Deontological Ethics
Rule-Utilitarian Ethics
Nobody can reliably predict the harm or good their
actions will cause.
So work out rules of behaviour that should in general
be expected to cause the most good or the least harm.
Always just follow those rules.
No time to think it all through when situations arise.
Deontological Ethics
Kantian Ethics
Based on performing duties.
People have a right to be free and happy.
We have a duty to do things consistent with that
right, and a duty not to do anything inconsistent
with it.
The only ethical action is to do your duty.
The consequences of an action never matter, only
the reason for it.
Kant
Duty is expressed as a set of rules, and being
ethical is following those rules.
The chief rules are:
Symmetry: Only do things to people if you
would be happy for the situation to be reversed.
Universalisability: Only do things if you would
be happy for everyone to be doing those things.
Utilitarian / Consequentialist Ethics
Always do whatever causes the greatest total good.
The consequences (or at least, the intended results)
of your actions are what counts, not what those
actions are.
Negative-Utilitarian Ethics
Always do whatever will cause the least overall bad
or unhappiness.
Virtue Ethics
Good personal characteristics should be cultivated.
People should have a personal tendency to (for
example) be generous when it is appropriate.
The virtuous person need not worry about ethics
because they will naturally do the right thing.
Aristotle’s big idea, and he was somewhat goofy.
Societal Ethics
What society generally says is right, is right.
Obey the law.
Your elders and betters know what is good
for you.
Moral Relativism
People from different societies often have very
different ideas about right and wrong.
There is no world consensus.
What makes us so superior?
Nobody has any business making judgments
about people in other societies.
Case 1.
Why do we want Artificial Intelligences?
What are robots for?
What is intelligence?
What is intelligence?
What are robots for?
Case 2.
Copyright
Some people want to make a living by
creating or distributing works of art,
music, literature, or even software.
Case 3a.
Heroin
Should you give a dose of heroin to an addict
suffering from withdrawal because it would
make him feel so much better, even though
the long-term consequences would be bad?
Case 3b.
Overpopulation
Is it ethical to send food to the starving
masses in the third world?
It makes them better in the short term, but
saving lives now results in even higher
populations in the future.
There will be worse food shortages, and even
more suffering, starvation, and death.
Case 4.
Harvest the Rich
If we killed the 1000 richest people in the
country and distributed all their wealth
amongst the rest of us, how much suffering
would that cause? How much good would it
do?
...........
OK then, what if we don’t kill them.
Just seize their assets.
The only bad thing that happens to them is that they
now have to live like the rest of us do already.
How can that be called suffering?
If living like we all do is suffering, then surely it is
our duty to do this.