ETHICS Living the good life with good people

ETHICS Living the good life, with good people doing the right thing

What does it mean to live a “good” life? Pearls of wisdom from: • One. Republic • Kanye West • Miley Cyrus

Buddhist approach • All life is suffering which arises from desire, desire can be eliminated by following Eightfold Path • Virtues play an important role; cultivating virtues like nonviolence can help an individual attain nirvana • Inclusive and egalitarian • Everyone is responsible for their own actions

Confucianist and Taoist approach • Confucianists see people as a part of a whole (community) • Relationships within the family and community are important • Taoism (Lao-Tzu) • Emphasize harmony with nature

Stoic approach • Zeno (4 th century BCE philosopher) • Happiness achieved through wisdom • Saw universe as ordered guided by underlying reason or logic • Seek to eliminate desires and accepting things that cannot be controlled

Hedonist approach • Good life is devoted to seeking pleasure • Can be pleasures of the body or, as Epicurus advocated, pleasure of wisdom (ataraxia)

What makes a “good” person? • Virtue ethics • Although Plato wrote of virtues, Aristotle is credited with formulating theory • Eudaimonia (happiness in wisdom and satisfaction in one’s character) • People can be taught to be virtuous – must know and choose “good” over “evil)

Ross’ virtue ethics • Fidelity • Reparation • Gratitude • Justice • Beneficience • Self-improvement • Non-maleficence Duties that one had in order to strive to be a good person. “Goodness” is defined by one’s actions.

Existentialist answer • Soren Kierkegaard (19 th century Danish philosopher) • People make their own moral choices and are accountable only to God. • Authentic choices – consistent in perception, thought and action • Nietzsche – Rejected concept of a god. People determined their own values • Jean-Paul Sartre – people are “condemned to be free” • Responsible for own moral choices…. Actions, beliefs and attitudes are a matter of choice.

Sartre • “For most, adolescence brings an unsettling awareness that the comforting framework of values taken for granted as children is not fixed and unchanging… This moment is crucial. If, on realizing this, people refuse to accept their freedom in the face of the collapse of their childhood faith, they choose a life of self-deception. They choose to deny their freedom”

Do the right thing…. Because a supreme being(s) told us to is the: • Divine command ethicist response • That which we call God defines right and wrong

Euthypthro Dilemma

Do the right thing…. Because it brings about the maximum benefit for the most people Utilitarian response Morally right choices are those whose consequences will bring the greatest pleasure for the most people

Jeremy Bentham • Father of utilitarianism, a cosequentialist theory (focuses on consequences of moral acts) • Drew on ideas from Maimonedes and Francis Hutcheson • Moral ledger

John Stuart Mill • Also a utilitarian but believed Bentham’s approach was too simplistic • Emphasized pleasures of the mind (intellectual and aesthetic) over physical pleasures • Utilitarianism of Mill and Bentham are sometimes called act utilitarianism because their theories focus on a single act.

Three minute philosophy

Criticism of Utilitarianism • Is pleasure always good? Can other things like knowledge, friendship be good? If you take pleasure in drowning kittens is that “good”? • Tyranny of the majority • Can pleasure be measured accurately?

Three minute philosophy - Kant

The Kantian response • Having good will and acting on moral principles justified by reason are the same • We are responsible for being our own moral agent • Categorical imperative – choose the same course of action in all situations that you would want everyone else to do all of the time Act only according to that maxim [principle or general rule] whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law of nature

Kant touch this! • Respect one another • Cannot use a person as a means to an end • Lying is morally wrong because it denies another’s autonomy and uses a person as a means to a liar’s end • Emphasis also placed on intent of moral agent • Categorical imperative ignores consequences and focuses on duty • Also called deontological theory ( deon – duty; logos – reason) a person is a person, no matter how small

Critics of Kantian ethics • Criticized the notion that consequences of actions are unimportant • Contemporary philosophers have criticized Kant’s theories for not taking into account ideas of responsibility to the community or care of others.

Egoism and Intitutionism EGOISM • Consequentialist school of thought that posits that the people act on moral dilemmas based on whatever serves their own interests • Ayn Rand “there is no such thing as society… only individual men” INTUITIONISM • Moral truths are understood through intuition (independent of reason • G. E. Moore, Richard Taylor

Ethical Nihilism • No action is instrinsically moral or amoral • Morality, social, political and religious rules are constructs and have no validity • Actions, no matter what, cannot be judged as good or bad. They simply are. • For example, killing a person is neither immoral or moral because nothing is inherently right or wrong

Was Nietzsche a nihilist? • Not really • Nietzsche wrote on nihilism as well as a number of other topics. His ideas were not always consistent. • Nietzsche can be seen as nihilistic in the descriptive sense in that he wrote religious, social, political and ethical rules were all merely concepts which he rejected. • However, this rejection of prevailing ethical norms at them time left room to build new ideas.

Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has hitherto always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thoughts on Prejudices of Morality Moralities and religions are the principal means by which one can make whatever one wishes out of man, provided one possesses a superfluity of creative forces and can assert one's will over long periods of time — in the form of legislation and customs. Will to Power

Nihilist or not?

Nihilist or not?

Nihilist or not?

Nihilist or not?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? When watching the film try to consider: How do the actions of the characters represent philosophical responses to: -Living the good life -Being a good person -Doing the right thing