Ethics
Dr Robert Shaw
Victoria University
Community Continuing Education
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Descriptor
This course presents traditional and
modern theories of ethics.
It invites you to consider their relevance to
everyday living and issues such as
climate change, criminal justice and
business practice.
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Descriptor
Two-thousand-five-hundred years of
Western philosophy in six hours.
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Today
Part 1 :
Part 2 :
Part 3 :
Ethics as usual
Traditional
Modern
The death of God & the meaning of Life
Kant
Nietzsche
Western metaphysics
Heidegger
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Ethics courses
Find dilemmas
Approaches
Important people
The big three (normative ethics)
Virtue ethics
Utilitarianism
Deontology
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Ethics courses
Find dilemmas
Approaches
Important people
The big three (normative ethics)
Virtue ethics
Utilitarianism
Deontology
Big topics
Children
Medical questions
Rights
Government’s priorities
The just war
Corporate social responsibility
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Normative ethics
How one ought to act
The drivers
Virtue ethics – moral character
Utilitarianism – outcomes (consequentialism)
Deontology – rules
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Normative ethics
How one ought to act
The drivers
Virtue ethics – moral character
Utilitarianism – outcomes (consequentialism)
Deontology – rules
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Ethics courses
Find dilemmas
Approaches
Important people
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Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And René Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker
But a bugger when he's pissed
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Classical theories
What is the good life for us?
How should people act?
The path well trod
Modern theories
Philosophical analysis
Commitment / preparation
Classification
Basic enquiries
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Part 1
Classical theories
What is the right thing to do?
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Part 1
Classical theories
What is the right thing to do?
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Part 1
Classical theorists
Plato – Idealists
Aristotle - Happiness
Epicurus - Hedonists
Sceptics
Cynics
Stoics
Christian ethics
Spinoza
Bentham
Mill - Utilitarianism
Kant - Deontology
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School of Athens
Raphael, Sistine Chapel, 1511
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School of Athens
Raphael, Sistine Chapel, 1511
1-Plato,
2-Aristotle,
3-Socrates,
4-Xenophon,
5-Æschines,
6-Alcibiades,
7-Zeno,
8-Epicurus,
9-Federico Gonzaga,
10-Averroes,
11-Pyhthagoras,
12-Francesco,
13-Heraclietus,
14-Diogenes,
15-Archimedes,
16 -Zoroaster,
17-Ptolemy,
18 Raphael.
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Plato & Aristotle
Classical theories
What is the good life for us?
How should people act?
What are they?
Plato – idealist, mathematics, innate
Aristotle – moderation, virtues
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Aristotle
Ethics is practical
No set way, use reason, good habits
Doctrine of the mean – nature & desirable
Virtue ethics
Happiness: activity of a soul in accord with
perfect virtue
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Virtue ethics
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Epicurus
Hedonism
342-270 BC
School of philosophy, Athens, 306 BC
Everything we know comes from the senses
Goal of life: body free from pain
mind free from worry & fear
Free will
Democritus is right about atoms
Philosophical hedonism
Psychological hedonism
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Skeptics
Consolation theorists
Questioning attitude
Impossible to know
Peace comes when
you admit ignorance
Positive aspects
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Cynics
“Dog like”
Indifference to their way of life
Shameless
On guard
Friend & foe
Asceticism
“I’m no one’s mug”
Self-reliance
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Diogenes (the dog) Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
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Stoics
Zeno of Elea, 333 – 264 BC
Replaced Cynics
Stoa = porch
Paradoxes (the arrow)
Power of rationality
“
Man conquers the world
by conquering himself.
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Influenced: Romans & Christians
Zeno
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Christian ethics
Decalogue
Source of authority
An example of virtue ethics
Consolation
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Spinoza
1632-1677
Portuguese
Dutch Jew, Spain
Lens grinder, dust killed him
Moral character - injustice
Age 23 excommunicated
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Spinoza
The Lords of the ma’amad, having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de
Spinoza, have endeavord by various means and promises, to turn him from his evil ways.
But having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving
more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practiced and
taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses
who have deposed and born witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they
became convinced of the truth of the matter; and after all of this has been investigated in the
presence of the honorable chachamin, they have decided, with their consent, that the said
Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel. By the decree
of the angels, and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and
damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of
all the Holy Congregation, in front of these holy Scrolls with the six-hundred-and thirteen
precepts which are written therein, with the excommunication with which Joshua banned
Jericho, with the curse with which Elisha cursed the boys, and with all the curses which are
written in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be
he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out,
and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him; the anger and wrath of the
Lord will rage against this man, and bring upon him all the curses which are written in this
book, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven, and the Lord will separate him
to his injury from all the tribes of Israel with all the curses of the covenant, which are written
in the Book of the Law. But you who cleave unto the Lord God are all alive this day. We
order that no one should communicate with him orally or in writing, or show him any favor, or
stay with him under the same roof, or within four ells of him, or read anything composed or
written by him.
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Deontology
Duty ethics
Like virtue ethics
Rights theory
Kant
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Deontology
deon = obligation, duty
Like virtue ethics – rules
C D Broad
Deontological c/f teleological (consequence)
Kant – the transition person
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Utilitarianism: Bentham
Aristotle – happiness
Bentham
1748-1832
Auto-Icon
English social reformer
Animal rights
Economic freedom
Separation of church & state
University College London
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Utilitarianism: Bentham
Principle of utility (from Hume)
Only consequences count
Greatest good for the greatest number
Objective measures
Public discussion
Pain & pleasure
Natural rights
Animal rights
Concern for the poor
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Utilitarianism: Mill
James Mill
John Stuart Mill 1806-1873
Consequences
Cost-benefit analysis
The morality of Government
“Evidence based”
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Classical theories
What is the good life for us?
How should people act?
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Classical theories
What is the good life for us?
How should people act?
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Ethics as usual
Classical theories (now complete)
What is the good life for us?
How should people act?
Modern theories
Philosophical analysis
Commitment
Preparation for real-world ethics
Basic enquiries .........
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Part 1
Ethics as usual
Basic enquiries of modern ethics
Language
Objectivity & subjectivity
Free will & determinism
Naturalism, non-naturalism
Emotivism
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Language
Frege
Russell
Wittgenstein
Ayre, age 26
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Part 2
The death of God & the
meaning of Life
Continental tradition
Kant
Nietzsche
Heidegger (Part 3)
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Part 2
The death of God & the
meaning of Life
Part I Before the death of God
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1 PLATO
2 KANT AND CHRISTIANITY
3 SCHOPENHAUER
4 EARLY NIETZSCHE
5 HEGEL
6 HEGEL
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Part II After the death of God
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7 LATER NIETZSCHE
8 POSTHUMOUS NIETZSCHE
9 EARLY HEIDEGGER
10 SARTRE
11 SARTRE
12 CAMUS
13 FOUCAULT
14 DERRIDA
15 LATER HEIDEGGER
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160
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Kant
Kant himself
Integration of
Metaphysics
Ethics
Aesthetics
Education
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Kant
Two things fill the mind with ever new
and increasing admiration and awe, the
more often and perseveringly my
thinking engages itself with them: the
starry heavens above me and the
moral law within me.
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Kant
Metaphysics
Ethics
Aesthetics
(judgement)
Youtube version (attack ad)
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Kant metaphysics
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Kant metaphysics
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Kant metaphysics
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Kant metaphysics
Philosophy of mind
Consciousness
The chair
Youtube Kant’s song
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Kant’s deontology
1. Find the rational principle that would stand as a
categorical imperative grounding all other ethical
judgments. (c/f hypothetical or conditional)
2. Always act in such a way that you can also will that the
maxim of your action should become a universal law.
3. Act so that you treat humanity, both in your own person
and in that of another, always as an end and never merely
as a means.
4. Deontological = duty based
5. Human rights are inviolable.
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Kant’s deontology
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Kant: Ethics (education)
Nation – Culture – Student
Depth
Today’s teachers & students
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Nietzsche
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Nietzsche
The person
Metaphysics
Ethics
God
Women
Eternal return
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Aphorism
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Nietzsche: The death of God
YouTube version
L dramatic
R explanatory
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Nietzsche’s ethics
Eternal return / recurrence
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Nietzsche’s
ethics
You are going to women?
Then don’t forget the whip.
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Part 3
Western metaphysics
The essence of humankind
Modernity
Heidegger
Truth
Technology
Epoch
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Martin Heidegger
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Model of human-ness
Ontological “structure”
Understanding
Disposition
Nomination
Ontological kinetic
For-the-sake-of-which cascades
Way of being-in-the-world:
past-present-future
equiprimordial
(care structure)
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What is truth?
Heidegger : Two notions
Correspondence
Disclosure
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Truth mediates metaphysics
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Appendix: Kant Song
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Kant song 1
Let us first divide cognition into rational analysis
and sensory perception (which Descartes considered valueless).
Now reason gives us concepts which are true but tautological;
sensation gives us images whose content is phenomenal.
Whatever greets our senses must exist in space and time
for else it would be nowhere and nowhen and therefore slime;
the space and time we presuppose before we sense reality
must have innate subjective transcendental ideality.
Thus space and time
are forms of our perception
whereby sensation’s synthesized in orderly array;
the same must hold
for rational conception:
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in everything we think, the laws of logic must hold sway.
Kant song 2
But a problem here arises with respect to natural science:
while empirical in method, on pure thought it lays
reliance.
Although for Newton’s findings we to Newton give the
glory
Newton never could have found them if they weren’t
known a priori.
We know that nature governed is by principles
immutable
but how we come to know this is inherently inscrutable;
that thought requires logic is a standpoint unassailable
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but for objects of our senses explanations aren’t
available.
Kant song 3
So let's attempt
to vivisect cognition
by critical analysis in hope that we may find
the link between
pure thought and intuition:
a deduction transcendental will shed light upon the
mind.
You may recall that space and time are forms of
apprehension
and therefore what we sense has spatiotemporal
extension;
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whatever is extended is composed of a plurality
but through an act of synthesis we form a commonality.
Kant song 4
If we are to be conscious of a single concrete entity
each part of its extension must be given independently
combining in a transcendental apperceptive unity
to which I may ascribe the term “self-conscious” with
impunity.
The order of
our various sensations
arises from connections not beheld in sense alone;
our self creates
the rules of their relations
and of this combination it is conscious as its own.
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Kant song 5
While these rules correspond to scientific causal laws
the question of their constancy remains to give us
pause;
but once we recollect the source of our self-conscious
mind,
to this perverse dilemma a solution we may find.
The self is nothing but its act of synthesis sublime;
this act must be the same to be self-conscious over
time.
The rules for combination of its selfhood form the
ground
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so what we perceive tomorrow by today’s laws must be
bound.
Kant song 6
These constant laws
whereby we shape experience
are simply those which regulate our
reason: that is plain.
So don’t ask why
the stars display invariance -the Cosmos is produced by your
disoriented brain!
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