Download Consider Ethics

Consider Ethics:
Theory, Readings, and
Contemporary Issues
Third Edition
Bruce N. Waller
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Chapter 3
Ethics, Emotions, and Intuitions
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Follow Your Reason or
Follow Your Heart?
• To act ethically, is it essential to overcome
one’s feelings and suppress sentiment in order
to follow true rational moral principles that
transcend our natures?
• Or is ethics rooted in our sentiments, our
feelings of compassion and kindness that are
not derived from reason, that come from
nature?
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reason or Feelings: History of Conflict
• This fundamental conflict can be traced to
religious tradition
– Jewish adherence to divine law
– Christian tradition of caring for the less fortunate
– Confucian belief in the natural goodness of human
beings that stems from an innate compassion
• In contrast – Thomas Hobbes
– The natural state of humanity is war, in which life is
“nasty, brutish, and short.”
– Guided by self-protection
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Affection and Duty:
The Case of Huck Finn
• Huck Finn’s moral quandary: help Jim escape
slavery or become his legal owner
– Huck believes that his “moral duty” is to turn Jim
in
– Huck’s sentiments, his affection for Jim, prevent
him from reporting Jim
• Was Huck’s act to protect Jim morally good?
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Hume Versus Kant
• Hume – the primacy of feelings over reason
– Ethics is in the realm of feelings and passions
• Kant – ethical system based on pure reason
– Sets rational beings apart from the physical world
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sentimentalism
• Sentimentalism: feelings/sentiments are vital
to the proper understanding of ethics; without
the right kinds of feelings, there would be no
ethics.
– Two views of ethical sentimentalism:
• Objective: our feelings and sentiments can guide us to
objective ethical truth
• Subjective: feelings-based ethics is not objective
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sentimentalism
• Contrasts with
– Rationalism: ethics is a purely rational process.
– Utilitarian ethics: the right act is the act that
produces the best possible overall consequences
(i.e. pleasure and alleviation of suffering)
• Differs from
– Intuitionism: what is intuited is not the feeling,
but the direct insight, which is immediately known
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sentimentalism
• Moral Sense Theory
– Our feelings and sentiments are guides to an
objective moral truth (ex. my sense of shame
informs me that my act was immoral)
– Often relies on analogies with the aesthetic sense
• a sense of beauty and with feelings or judgments of
taste
– Your moral sense guides your appreciation of
virtue and detestation of vice.
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sentimentalism
• How do we know that our moral senses are
reliable?
– Anthony Ashley Cooper and Francis Hutcheson
(design argument)
• The moral sense is given to us by God, and God would
not instill in us a faulty moral sense
• Our moral sense is designed by God so that we perceive
virtuous acts as lovely and attractive
– Lord Shaftesbury
• Everything must be understood in terms of purpose (i.e.
how it fits into God’s divine design of the universe)
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sentimentalism
• Criticism of the design argument
– Hume: sentiments are the vital mainspring for all of
our behavior, including moral behavior. But those
sentiments do not come from God.
– Differing interpretations of Hume:
• Rejects all objective ethical standards (ethics is a matter of
feelings and not truth)
• Sentiments can guide us to correct ethical behavior
– Neosentimentalism – we cannot draw legitimate
moral guidance and conclusions from feelings, but
must carefully consider whether those feelings are
appropriate, justified, and we can genuinely endorse
them.
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Intuitionism
• Intuitionism: reason is not the source of basic
ethical truth, but neither are feelings. We know
the basic truths of ethics by intuition.
– Where does intuitive power come from?
• God
• Nature
• What Do We Intuit?
– What types of intuitions do we have?
– Many intuitionists believe we have a specific type of
intuition that guides our ethical behavior.
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Intuitionism
• Questions About Intuitionism
– How do we know that our intuitions are sources of
truth?
– How do we distinguish intuitions from feelings?
• The limited answer is you just know when you
experience them. The truth of intuitions is self-evident.
• Which Intuitions Should We Trust?
– Our intuitions can change as we age (W.D. Ross)
– Disputes about moral intuition can be difficult to
settle
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Ethics, Emotions, and Intuitions
• David Hume (Scottish, b. 1711)
– A Treatise of Human Nature
• Adam Smith (1723-1790)
– Theory of Moral Sentiments
• Jonathan Bennett (b. 1930)
– The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.