Review Sheet: Chapt. 1: The Moral Point of View Moral concerns are unavoidable in life. Ethics

Moral concerns are unavoidable in life.

How is ethics like nutrition?

a. the fields consist of everyday knowledge and specialists

b. specialists disagree on certain issues but provide firmer foundation and insight

c. we can’t avoid their questions in our lives

d. doing, not just saying, the right thing leads to joy

1. 
   Professional discussions of ethical issues in journals.
   
2. 
   We come back to ideas again and again, finding new meaning in them.
   

Ethics: a second order, conscious reflection on the adequacy of our moral beliefs.

Distinguish between overt and covert moral beliefs (what I say I believe and what I demonstrate in action.

Self knowledge required for awareness of moral beliefs.

One aim of the course is discussion to promote this self-knowledge.

Thus we seek to determine what will nourish our moral life and what will poison it.

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  Content: duties, rights, human welfare, suffering, character, etc.
  
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  Perspective: impartial, compassionate, etc.
  

Example: Cheating

Imagine a situation in which you see a classmate cheating. There are several elements from a moral point of view in this situation.

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  Some people are hurt by the cheating.
  
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  There is deception in the situation.
  
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  Cheating seems to be unfair to those who don’t cheat.
  
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  There are conflicting values—honesty, loyalty, etc.
  
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  There are questions of character.
  

a. Relativism

b. Absolutism

c. Pluralism

Language of moral concern: ought, must, should, right -- used by normative ethics.

Many philosophers have argued that the moral point of view is characterized by impartiality, that is, I don’t give my own interest any special weight. Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill

Josiah Royce: “Such as that is for me, so is it for him, nothing less.”

Some philosophers maintain that moral obligations are universally binding and that is what gives them their distinctive character. Immanuel Kant.

Philosophers from Aristotle onward have seen the primary focus of morality to be character.

What ought I to do (Kant and Mill)

What kind of person ought I to be? (Aristotle)

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  Evaluate other people’s behavior
  
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  Search for meaning and value in our own lives
  

Ethics as the Evaluation of Other People’s Behavior

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  Ethics used as a weapon
  
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  Hypocrisy possibility of knowing other people
  
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  Right to judge other people
  
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  Right to intervene
  
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  Judging and caring
  

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  Positive focus
  
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  Aims at discerning what is good
  
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  Emphasizes personal responsibility for one’s own life
  

What to Expect from a Moral Theory

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  Description – Descriptive ethics does not take a stand
  
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  Explanation
  
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  Strength
  
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  Prescription – new possibilities and wonder – normative ethics gives direction
  

Ethics is more like engineering than physics. Physics has clear-cut, definitive answers, where engineering offers several possible ways of doing things, including many ways that are wrong.

There is significant disagreement in both fields but also common ground.

“The era of moral relativism between those who practice or condone terrorism, and those nations who stand up against it, must end.” P . 24 5th ed.

Definitions:
Three responses to moral conflicts: relativism, absolutism and pluralism.

Live and let live – acknowledge differences without judgment. Criticize practices outside our culture and speak out against them or intervene using force?

1. Clitoridectomy. Painful, traumatizing mutilation of young girls that leaves them permanently disfigured and deprived of sexual enjoyment. Unsanitary conditions without anaesthesia. Sometimes against the will of the girls themselves. Middle East and Africa.

Follow God’s will – or religious teachings: polygamy

Ethical egoism: pursue self-interest. Produce greatest overall amount of happiness or pleasure. Kant: respect for autonomy of ourselves and others. Use girls as means not ends. Rights: moral minimum with which all must comply – children are vulnerable and have rights – using peyote in Native ceremony!
Some women ask for asylum in this country for themselves or their daughters.

Ethical relativism: Moral values are relative to a culture and cannot be judged by an outsider. Another version says that peripheral values differ from culture to culture.

Ethical relativists see each culture as an island unto itself, right in its own world, and they deny that there is any overarching standard in terms of which conflicting cultures can be judged.

Polygamy

Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans by the Serbian forces to eliminate Muslims from their territory – US intervened Taliban

1. description and explanation

2. strength

3. critique -- see moral blind spots

4. new possibilities

5. wonder

It does not merely tell us what’s right or wrong, but how to determine what’s right or wrong.
Attractions of relativism:

1. need for tolerance and understanding

2. the fact of moral diversity – recognizes this fact

3. lack of plausible alternative

4. relativity of all understanding

5. defense - don’t cast the first stone

Problems with relativism:

1. Easily collapses into subjectivism: moral values are relative to each unique individual. It’s right because I think it’s right.

2. Makes critique difficult -- and standing up against evil.

In action: it gives no advice when cultures overlap, or tell why we act, gives no leverage to provoke change -- no room for revolution. Majority is de facto “right.”

3. In understanding: it claims one needs to be a native to understand sufficiently

4. Need to be a native to judge: only Romans can judge Romans.

5. Relativism supposes determinism -- values determined by culture.

Strengths and values of Pluralism.

Behavior: belch with approval after dinner, spit at another’s feet to express respect – good to express appreciation of a meal, but the way differs from culture to culture

Peripheral values: individual privacy: freedom to smoke, value of private property, polygamy – value family but different ideas of family and childrearing.

Fundamental Values: torturing and killing innocent children

Action: how to act consistent with local customs.

What to do when cultures overlap

Why we should act this way

Provide leverage to convince the majority to change
Understanding

Understand background meanings in a culture

Claims cultural context can be understood only by participants, outsiders can’t get it.

Weak version: outsiders can understand and dialog is possible

Judge only by standards of the society in question. Strong versions allows only Romans to judge Romans, weak version allows anyone to judge if they use Roman standards

Moral values are caused or determined by cultural forces. If you were born in Rome you would have the Roman values- “when in Rome…”. – not freely chosen.

Only from within culture. Accept the views of a culture from perspective of the culture. Nazi anti-Semitism could not be questioned.

1. 
   Facts of Moral Diversity – do not justify ethical relativism -- establishes descriptive ethical relativism but does not commit us to normative ethical relativism. There may be many scientific views in the world today but that doesn’t make them all right. Also are we referring to low level values or fundamental values. May have seemed right to Nazis to exterminate Jews, homosexuals and gypsies – but wasn’t right.
   
2. 
   The refutation of relativism through the defense of one’s own absolutist position – debatable – and the subject matter of the course – everyone would have to accept this absolute position for it to function as needed here
   
3. 
   Claim that relativism is self-defeating – what if the Romans are absolutist and ethnocentric, or if they are intolerant (where relativism is presented as promoting toleration)? Furthermore should tolerance be our highest value? Racism, Genocide – tolerance is important but not highest value.
   
4. 
   Concern that ethical relativism is a form of moral isolationism or indifference that ignores the fact that moral judgments are unavoidable – if it’s all relative then we can’t criticize it. No basis for criticism., also care-less and isolating. No way to resolve moral disagreements between cultures, ignores shrinking world needing intercultural moral judgments, that are part of everyday life, cultures intersect.
   
5. 
   Unable to provide an adequate basis for moral change – no basis for change – prophets who oppose the system don’t make sense. We mean something by progress – freedom, respect for more people, etc.
   

Pluralism: like deciding who’s the best baseball player: many ways to decide.

1. Satisfies need to understand differences in cultures

2. Satisfies need for tolerance

3. Recognizes limits to tolerance in the face of evil

4. Acknowledges “we” could be wrong, fallibility

Plurality of moral values: actions, consequences, agents, intentions, character. Not a single factor. Several standards See p. 56 graph

Standards may not be consistent but will be compatible – checks and balances.
Fallibility: moral humility – we might be mistaken (circumcision)

Understanding: understand the meaning of practices of other cultures.

Tolerance: many ways to achieve moral excellence. Leave different cultures room

Standing Up Against Evil: can’t lead to moral laissez faire policy. Can’t say anything goes. Most outrageous wrongdoing is often directed against the powerless: children, women, minorities.

Fallibility: two way conversation recognizing our own possible shortcomings.
Ch. 3 – The Ethics of Divine Commands: Religious Moralities
Religious moralities are based on the conviction that religion tells us how to act and that religion overrides society’s morality.
Diversity of Traditions:
The Christian Worldview

Contrast with atheistic: the Euthyphro then relationship between religion and ethics

Creation

Universe comes from God and thus if fundamentally good

The natural order because it is created by God is fundamentally good

Ways God is in touch with the world

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  “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving;
  
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  “That his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms;
  
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  “That no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave,
  
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  “That all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are all destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system,
  
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  “And that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins
  
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  “--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.
  
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  “Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”
  
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    No place for preordained purposes in Russell’s view
    
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    No goodness inherent in the world for him
    
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    No privileged place for humanity within his view
    
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  The implications of these differences for ethics are profound
  
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    No ultimate purpose for humanity
    
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    No ultimate reward or punishment
    

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  Nietzsche's question: if God is dead, is everything permitted?
  
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  No guarantee that nature is good or bad
  
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    “Unnatural” becomes a purely descriptive term
    

Now let’s expand the discussion beyond Christianity.

Tradition and Society

Oriented toward how Navajo treat one another

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  Small society
  
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  Practical, not theoretical
  

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  No Western mind-body split
  
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  Don’t choose one side of the dualism
  

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  Western view
  
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    mind/body split (Descartes)
    
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    heal the body
    
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    Stamp out disease
    
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  Navajo view
  
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    Mind and body together
    
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    Heal the whole person
    
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    Seek harmony
    

Morality guides individuals toward achieving balance and harmony.

Three levels to harmonize:

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  natural
  
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  human
  
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  supernatural
  
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  Create harmony rather than domination
  
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  Example: moving to higher ground rather than building a dam
  
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  Respecting the rattlesnake
  

The holy messenger wind is like the Christian conscience, a source of moral guidance. It swirls around an individual through a hidden point in the ear; it warns individuals of impending disruptions of hozho, it does not punish. It is both physical (we feel it on our faces) and ephemeral (we cannot see it), it can shift in direction and intensity. It is one but also many as it comes from four directions or mountains. It is local. Person who heeds the winds is “one who lacks faults.” He thinks and talks and acts in a good way.

Basic premise: life is very very dangerous

Maxims:

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  Be wary of non-relatives.
  
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  Avoid excesses
  
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  When you are in a new situation, do nothing.
  
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  Escape.
  
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  Maintain orderliness (harmony) in those sectors of life which are little subject to human control.
  

Role of Ritual – reestablish harmony and insure hozho.

The Blessingway is one of the ceremonies performed to reestablish harmony when there has been a disruption.

Balance and harmony are the chief ethical goals. Peacemaker Court provides structure for community to reestablish harmony disturbed by either criminal or civil offense.

The Islamic Shari’ah

Rejects traditional Western distinctions between church and state, religion and ethics.

Three canonical elements in Islam:

Belief or faith (imam)

Practice or action (islam)

Virtue (ishan)

Rational tradition known as Mutazila emphasized importance of rational reflection on belief. God is able to act only in ways that are good.

1. 
   what behavior is required (fard- obligatory – daily prayers, fasting, articles of faith, obligatory charity, the hajj)
   
2. 
   recommended – (mushtahab – proper behavior in matters such as marriage, funeral rites and family life. Same as areas of civil law in the West.)
   
3. 
   permitted – (mubah – eating apples or oranges)
   
4. 
   discouraged – makruh – may be subject to penalties – using great amounts of water for ablutions, eating shrimp.)
   
5. 
   forbidden – (haram – pre-marital sex, murder, getting a tattoo, eating pork, drinking alcohol)
   

Laws address behavior toward God and the ways human beings treat one another.

1. 
   Shahadah: the profession of faith that “there is no god but God (Allah) and Muhammad is the messenger of God.
   
2. 
   Salah: ritual prayer and ablutions undertaken five times a day while facing Mecca.
   
3. 
   Zakah: obligatory giving of alms to the poor to alleviate suffering and promote spread of Islam
   
4. 
   Saum: ritual fasting and abstinence from sexual intercourse and smoking during the month of Ramadan to commemorate the first revelations to Muhammad
   
5. 
   Hajj: ritual pilgrimage to Mecca undertaken at least once in a lifetime.
   

Family is central to Islamic society. Status of women higher than in tribal cultures of the Middle East. Limited number of wives to four, gave inheritance right to women, forbade infanticide of female infants.

The Ulama, or clergy, give the definitive interpretation of Allah’s will

No separation between church and state

The Ulama also have an executive role in implementing Allah’s will

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  Literally means “striving”
  
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  Focus on resisting, overcoming evil
  
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  Greater Jihad:
  
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    focus on internal striving
    
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  Lesser Jihad
  
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  focus on external striving
  

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  Moderate and Fundamentalist Factors
  
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  Islam, like many religions, has various factions.
  
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    Fundamentalist factions see little room for compromise with other religions
    
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    Leads to attacks against others, including attacks against the United States and against Hindus
    
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    Moderate factions see Islam as coexisting with other major religions.
    

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  Buddhism
  
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  An Ethic of Compassion for all
  
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  An Ethic of renunciation for monks
  
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  An Ethic of reincarnation for lay persons
  

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  The Four Noble Truths deal with
  
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  1. The inevitability of suffering
  
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  2. The sources of suffering
  
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  3. The elimination of suffering.
  
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  4. The paths to the elimination of suffering
  

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  Two Ways of Reducing Suffering
  
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  Suffering arises from a discrepancy between desire and actuality
  
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    change the actual world--Western technology
    
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    change the desire, extinguish the individual self--Buddhism
    

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  Reincarnation
  
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  Personal self moves through the wheel of existence like a flame being passed from one candle to another
  
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  Karma: each individual action helps to set free or bind us to the personal self
  
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  Moral commandments are generated by demands of karma
  

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  The Eightfold Path
  
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  right views; Wisdom Prajna
  
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  right intention; Wisdom Prajna
  
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  right speech; Wisdom Prajna
  
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  right action; Morality Sila
  
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  right livelihood; Morality Sila
  
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  right effort; Morality Sila
  
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  right mindfulness Concentration Samadhi
  
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  right concentration Concentration Samadhi
  

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  Compassion
  
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  Theravada Buddhism stresses an ethic of self-renunciation, self-purification, detachment
  
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  Mahayana Buddhism stresses an ethics of compassion for all living things
  

Overview

	Christianity	Navajo	Islam	Buddhism
Ideal	Love	Harmony	Law	Compassion
View of God	One God, Three Persons	Many Gods	One God	No personal/ individual God

Religion and Reason in Ethics

Weakness of Divine Command Theories:

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  How can we know God’s will? Sacred texts? Which ones? Which tradition? What exactly is God’s will? Inner voice? Clergy? Community consensus? Natural events?
  
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  God and the Criteria for the Divine: is something good because God wills it, or does God will it because it’s good?
  
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  Human Autonomy: human moral life depends solely on God’s will. Omnipotence of God, no independent human reason or choice.
  

Autonomy of Ethics Theories: Reason should override divine command

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  Heritage of the Enlightenment – reason is autonomous and effective.
  
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  Autonomy of Reason: nothing outside of itself taken for granted. (Descartes)
  
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  Efficacy of Reason: force for changing the world.
  
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  Theistic versions: Kant – reason is the same for God and human
  
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  Agnostic and Atheistic versions: disregard God.
  
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  Compatibilist Theories: faith and reason don’t conflict – Hegel and Aquinas.
  

Saints and Moral Exemplars

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  Models of moral goodness more compatible among religions than dogmas
  
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  Stories: allow cross-cultural identification more easily than dogmas.
  

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  Is Religion Harmful to Morality?
  
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  Marx and the “opiate of the people”
  
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  Nietzsche, morality and the Death of God
  
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  New atheism: Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens: religion is false, delusional and harmful
  
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  Are the bad effects necessary or accidental to history?
  

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  Does Morality Need Religion?
  
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  Ultimate reckoning: God will balance the scales
  
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  Motivation of reward and punishment
  
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  Practices and community that support values
  
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  Religion as liberating: Civil Rights, peaceful change, cause of the poor
  
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  Moral significance of suffering
  

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  Religious Belief: Diversity and Dialogue
  
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  Jihad vs.MacWorld
  
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  Fundamentalism: beliefs as literal and spelled out; beliefs are absolute; beliefs are true for everyone for all times. Intolerant of disagreement
  

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  Two types of egoism:
  
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    Psychological egoism
    
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      Asserts that as a matter of fact we do always act selfishly
      
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      Purely descriptive
      
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    Ethical egoism
    
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      Maintains that we should always act selfishly
      
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  Our concern here is with psychological egoism Part Two. Reconceptualizing psychological egoism
  
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