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Psychological Egoism:
• Human nature is wholly self-centered and self motivated
• People always act in their own interest and cannot but
act in their own interest, even if they disguise their
motivation with reference to duty or helping others
• Seemingly altruistic behavior (giving a stranger money)
always has a self-interested component. E.G. Feeling
guilty or looking bad in front of a peer group
• To assess the validity of this theory, we must look to
moral motivations...
Psychological Altruism:
• Psychological altruism holds that human action is othercentered and other-motivated
• We are “other-oriented”--much of what we do is for the
sake of others
• Motives of Altruism: 1) to benefit the self (egoism), 2) to
benefit the other (altruism), 3) to benefit a group
(collectivism), 4) to uphold a moral principle (principlism)
• Psychological egoism argues that no act of sharing,
helping, or sacrificing is truly altruistic, as the agent
receives an intrinsic reward--e.g. personal gratification
• On his way to a important function Abraham Lincoln
stopped his coach in order to save a sow and her piglets
from drowning, and in so doing, got a goodly amount of
mud on his clothes. Lincoln was reputed to remark,
• “Why that was the very essence of selfishness. I
should have had no peace of mind all day had I gone
on and left that suffering old sow worrying over those
piglets. I did it to get peace of mind, don’t you see?”
Ethical Egoism: Agree or Disagree? Why/why not?
1. “People should, or ought to, act from the motive of selfinterest.”
2. “The promotion of one’s own good is in accordance with
morality (i.e. it is moral to be selfish).”
3. “Man--every man--is an end in himself, not the means to
the ends of others.”
4. Man “must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing
himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.”
Challenge to Altruism:
• According to ethical egoism and rational selfinterest theory, both people are being selfish-and that’s fine!
• Neither person is morally superior.
•
It’s about pursuing the things you value the
highest.
Challenge to Altruism:
Rand’s Ethical Egoism - Epistemology
• Not only is it rational to pursue one’s self-interests; it is
irrational not to pursue them
• "[I]t is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept
of 'Value' possible," and "the fact that a living entity is
determines what it ought to do."
• Since reason is the means of human knowledge, it is
thus each person's most fundamental means of survival
and is necessary to the achievement of values. The use
or threat of force neutralizes the practical effect of an
individual's reason, whether the force originates from
the state or from a criminal.
Rand’s Ethical Egoism - Self-Interest
• Just as man cannot survive by any random means, but
must discover and practice the principles his survival
requires, so man’s self-interest cannot be determined by
blind desires or random whims, but must be discovered
and achieved by the guidance of rational principles. A
morality of rational selfishness
• An individual's primary moral obligation is to achieve his
own well-being—it is for his life and his self-interest that
an individual ought to adhere to a moral code.
• Freedom (life), liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are
what really matter for life well-lived!
Rand’s Ethical Egoism - Capitalism
• Only a minimal state, limited to enforcing contracts and
protecting people against force, theft, & fraud, is justified.
• Nobody should be forced to help other people. Voluntary
consent should be required.
• Taxing the rich to help the poor coerces the rich. It violates
their right to do what they want with the things they own.
• Distributive justice relies on two requirements: justice in
initial holdings and justice in transfer.
• If “no one starts out with ill-gotten gains, any distribution
that results from a free market is just, however equal or
unequal it turns out to be.”
Libertarians/Liberal Democrats
Libertarians/Conservatives
-Pro Gay Rights/Marriage
-Fiscal Discipline/Conservatism
-Pro Pot Legalization
-Reduce National Debt
-Cut Military Spending
-Balance Budgets
-Pro Choice
-Free Enterprise/Markets
-Protect Civil Liberties
-Keep Taxes as Low as Possible
-Vote Against War (unless completely
necessary)
-Anti Welfare State (the poor are
better off with less government)
-Anti Police-State
-Pro Guns
-Social Tolerance
-Privatization
-Separation of Church/State
The Libertarian Theory of Rights...
• “Favor[s] unfettered markets and
oppose[s] government regulation,
not in the name of economic
efficiency but in the name of human
freedom” (Sandel).
• Argues that “each of us has a
fundamental right to liberty--the
right to do whatever we want with
the things we own, provided that we
respect other people’s rights to do
the same” (Sandel).
The Minimal State: The libertarian rejects three types of
policies and laws that modern states commonly enact:
•
No Paternalism: Libertarians oppose laws to protect people from
harming themselves. Such laws violate the right of the individual to
decide what risks to assume. As long as no third parties are harmed, the
state has no right to dictate what people do with their bodies and lives.
•
No Morals Legislation: Libertarians oppose using the coercive force of
law to promote notions of virtue or to express the moral convictions of
the majority.
•
No Redistribution of Income or Wealth: Libertarians rule out any law
that requires some people to help others, including taxation for redistribution of wealth. Such help should be left to individuals to undertake, not mandated by the government. Redistributive taxes are a form
of coercion, even theft.
• Social Security (or any mandatory government retirement
program): “If a man willingly chooses to live for today, to use his
resources for current enjoyment... by what right do we prevent him
from doing so?” (Friedman)
• Minimum wage laws: “Government has no right to prevent
employers from paying any wage, however low, that workers are
prepared to accept” (Sandel).
• Employment discrimination laws: If employers want to
discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or other factors, the
state has no right to prevent them--such legislation interferes with
the freedom of individuals to enter into voluntary contracts with
one another.
• Occupational licensing requirements: Justice (pp. 62)
Libertarians claim that under a progressive state, the state
actually owns you. You are a slave to the welfare state.
• If the state takes 40% of my earnings, it is actually forcing me
to spend 40% of my time working for the state. This is the
definition of slavery. The state part-owner of you.
• If I own myself, I must own my labor. If someone else were
entitled to my earnings, that person would own my labor and
therefore me.
• Taxation = Taking my earnings; Taking my earnings = forced
labor; Taking my labor = slavery; Slavery = I don’t own
myself!
Objection #1: Taxation is not as bad as forced labor… If you
are taxed, you can always choose to work less and pay lower
taxes; but if you are forced to labor, you have no such choice.
Objection #2: The poor need the money more…
Libertarianism isn’t just. Sure there is voluntary exchange and
self-ownership, but the state’s job is to distribute justice for all.
Suffering, hardship, and starvation is the result of income
inequality; libertarianism leads to income inequality, and
therefore starvation and suffering.
Objection #3: We don’t earn our money by ourselves…
There is no such thing as a “self-made” man.
Objection #4: We are not really being taxed without our consent.
As citizens of a democracy, you have a voice in making the tax laws
to which you are subject.
Objection #5: Individuals who are successful at making
money and procuring prosperity are lucky. They are randomly
fortunate to possess such skills and abilities, and fortunate to live
in a society that values the specific skills and talents that make
them money.
Objection #6: The free market leaves most individuals less
free than would a healthy, well-regulated economy.
Ethical Justice - Journal #1
1. Should consensual cannibalism be legal? Why or why not?
Use your knowledge and reasoning.
2. Is price gouging fair? Should price-gouging be legal? Why, or
why not? Explain, using reasoning and evidence.
3. Is the free market truly free? Why or why not?
(Keep in mind: A) Here the libertarian will remind you that “provided no
one starts out with ill-gotten gains, any distribution that results from a
free market is just, however equal or unequal it turns out to be.” B) The
opposing side will want to ask you whether someone dying of cancer,
who pays $700 for one cancer pill, is truly entering into a “voluntary”
exchange, free from coercion.)
Normative Ethics (continued):
• Assessments of the rightness or wrongness of actions
• Assessments of motives and intentions behind acts
• Moral assessments of a person’s character or character
traits (e.g. honesty, generosity)
Political Philosophy:
• Questions of justice (e.g. what is a fair distribution of
benefits and burdens in society?)
• Assessments of moral and legal responsibility
Ethical Concepts:
• Moral agents = Persons (competent persons) who can
have moral duties towards others and who can be held
accountable (or responsible) for their actions and
decisions.
• Moral subjects = The class of beings who should be
taken into account in our moral assessments and
reflections. All moral agents have duties towards all
moral subjects, in the sense that all moral subjects
have moral status or standing.
Consequentialism:
• The consequences of one's conduct are the basis for any
judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct
• A morally right act (or omission from acting) is one that will
produce a good outcome or consequence
• Plain Consequentialism: Of all the things a person might do
at any given moment, the morally right action is the one with
the best overall consequences.
• Produces an important conclusion for ethical thinking: No
type of act is inherently wrong, not even murder; it depends on
the result of the act.
Act Consequentialism:
• Looks at every single moral choice anew.
• It teaches: A particular action is morally good only if it
produces more overall good than any alternative action.
Good points of Act Consequentialism:
• A flexible system that can take account of any set of
circumstances, however exceptional.
• When a very serious moral choice has to be made, or in
unusual circumstances, individuals will think hard about the
consequences of particular moral choices
Shortcomings of Act Consequentialism:
• Every moral decision is a completely separate case that
must be fully evaluated
• Individuals must research the consequences of their acts
before they can make an ethically sound choice, though doing so
is often impracticable, and too costly
• The time taken by such research leads to slow decisionmaking which may itself have bad consequences that outweigh
the good consequences of making a perfect decision
• If adopted by all, it would be difficult to predict the moral
decisions that other people would make, and this would lead
to great uncertainty about how they would behave
Rule Consequentialism:
• In practice, people don't assess the ethical consequences
of every single act because they don't have the time.
• Instead they use ethical rules derived from considering
the general and historical consequences of particular
types of acts. That is called rule consequentialism.
• E.G., according to rule consequentialism we consider
lying to be wrong because we know that, in general, lying
produces bad consequences.
Good Points of Rule Consequentialism:
Practical/Efficient
• Evades practical problems of act consequentialism because the hard
work has been done in deriving the rules; people don't often have to
carry out difficult research before they can take action
•
Since individuals can shortcut their moral decision-making, they are
much more likely to make decisions in a timely way
Shortcomings of Rule Consequentialism:
Less flexible
• Because rule consequentialism uses general rules, it doesn't always
produce the best result in individual cases
•
Proponents argue it produces more good results over a long period of time
than act consequentialism
Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham & John Stuart Mill
• People should act so as to maximize human welfare or
well-being (a.k.a. utility--hence the name)
• This says that the ethically right choice in a given situation is
the one that produces the most happiness and the least
unhappiness for the largest number of people
• Happiness, according to Bentham, is the overall balance of
pleasure over pain
• Bentham argues--there’s no way of rejecting or discarding
utilitarianism. Every moral argument must implicitly draw
on the idea of maximizing happiness
Pain
Pleasure
“All moral quarrels, properly understood, are disagreements
about how to apply the utilitarian principle of maximizing
pleasure and minimizing pain…” --Jeremy Bentham
The Trolley Car Problem:
Updated Trolley Car Problem:
Transplant Case:
A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a
different organ, each of whom will die without that organ.
Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of
these five transplant operations. A healthy young traveler, just
passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for a
routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor
discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying
patients. Suppose further that if the young man were to
disappear, no one would suspect the doctor. Do you support the
morality of the doctor to kill that tourist and provide his healthy
organs to those five dying persons and save their lives?
Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:
• In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the
State and district wherein the crime shall have been
committed, which district shall have been previously
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses
against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining
witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel
for his defence.
Moral Jury Duty Directions:
1. Reread the case, the assignment, and the criminal charges, then
recite the “Juror Oath.”
2. Study the definitions of Murder (1st & 2nd degree) and
Manslaughter (voluntary & involuntary)
3. Discuss the case as a group, then record your findings for
questions 1 & 2.
4. Discuss again.
5. Vote guilty or not guilty for each defendant, then record your
results for question 3 (these are your own conclusions).
6. Tally-up the votes (majority rules) and record the group’s results
at the bottom of your Moral Jury Duty sheet.
Utilitarianism: The Foundation of Modern Democracy
• The right thing to do is whatever will bring about the best
state of affairs.
• In deciding what laws or policies to enact, a government
should do whatever will maximize the happiness of the
community as a whole.
• Citizens and legislators should ask themselves: If we add
up all of the benefits of this policy, and subtract all of the
costs, will it produce more happiness than the alternative?
• Attempts a “science of morality” serving as a basis for
political reform
Suppose you are buying ice cream for a party that ten people will attend. Your
only flavor options are chocolate and vanilla. Some of the people attending
like chocolate while others like vanilla. Let’s also say you only have enough
money to buy one gallon of ice cream. As a utilitarian, you should choose the
flavor that will result in the most pleasure for the group as a whole. If seven
like chocolate and three like vanilla (and if all of them get the same amount of
pleasure from the flavor they like), then you should choose chocolate. This
will yield what Bentham, in a famous phrase, called “the greatest happiness
for the greatest number.” You should choose chocolate even if you are one of
the three people who enjoy vanilla more than chocolate. The utilitarian
method requires you to count everyone’s interests equally. You may not
weigh some people’s interests—including your own—more heavily than
others. Similarly, if a government is choosing a policy, it should give equal
consideration to the well-being of all members of the society.
Quick jot: Can you think of any successful real world policies--political or
otherwise--that exercise the principle of utilitarianism?
-progressive taxation (income tax)
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social Security
Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and marketplace subsidies
defense and international security assistance
safety net programs
interest on the national debt
-property tax
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animal control
police protection
local road maintenance
community centres
Sewers
emergency plans
safe building regulation
fire services
safe drinking water
-sales tax: public schools, universities, courts, highway
departments, state police, medical programs, etc.
Objection #1: Individual Rights
• Utilitarians can fail to respect individual rights
• In utilitarianism, individuals do matter--but only in the sense
that each person’s preferences should be counted along with
everyone else’s.
• Caring only about “sum of satisfactions,” utilitarianism can run
roughshod over individual people
• Utilitarian logic, if applied consistently, could sanction ways of
treating persons that violate human rights
Utilitarianism in Fiction:
•
How is “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” a
story about utilitarianism? How is the principle
illustrated? Does the story offer a criticism or an
appreciation of utilitarianism? Explain.
Objection #2: A Common Currency of Value
• It is not possible to translate all moral goods into a single
currency. All values cannot be captured by a common
currency of value
• Utilitarianism wrongly reduces everything of moral importance
to a single scale of pleasure and pain.
• John Stuart Mill: “‘[S]ome kinds of pleasure are more desirable
and more valuable than others.’ How can we know which
pleasures are qualitatively higher?
• If more people would rather watch dogfights than view
Rembrant paintings, should society subsidize dogfight arenas
rather than art museums?
John Stuart Mill: Reinventing Utilitarianism
• To defeat objection #2 Mill analyzes the quality of pleasure,
invents “happiness equation”
• Question: What is it each individual is striving to achieve?
Simple Answer: Happiness
• What causes happiness? Not the simple and immediate
satisfaction of desires and sensual pleasures.
• Distinguishes between two types of desire: A) unmotivated
desires (the things we want that will give us pleasure) and B)
conscientious actions (the things we do out of a sense of duty
or charity, often against our immediate inclination, that ultimately
brings us pleasure)
Objection #3: Uncertainty
• If we just count the immediate amount of
pleasure and pain, we may be mistaken.
Long-range effects may give different
results.
• E.G. While the explosions in 1945 of the A-bomb over
Japan may have had beneficent effects in ending what
could have been a longer war, the long-range effects of
such weapons may be highly undesirable. We can never
assess the rightness or wrongness of an act until we know
all of its effects.