1. Quick Class Survey

2. Open the class with a controversial story

3. Ask countless open-ended questions

4. We define terms

5. We discuss moral theories - duty-defined & consequentialist

Yes or No - Purple Dress

You run across Mary, a causal acquaintance (on the hefty side), in the hallway at Three Rivers. She says, "After Prof. Flick's class, I'll be going to Yantic River Inn for a luncheon with dear friends I haven't seen for a couple of months. Oh, by the way, do you like my new dress?

It's purple with horizontal red oblongs.

If you absolutely hate the dress, is it OK to lie and tell Mary you like it?

__________Yes     ____________No                             (back to  What do I do )

Open the class with a controversial story

For $4.50 some subjects lives were changed forever.
Two-thirds delivered potentially fatal electric shocks to innocent "learners"  of word pairs when urged by "professionals" in white coats
Of the 40 male subjects:

•  Only 5 refused to go beyond the 300-volt level (where the learner pounded on the wall)
• 9 others defied the scientists within the 300-volt range
•   65% complied to XXX 450 volts
        
          

     
All "teachers" felt 45 volts & were told 
               electrode paste avoids "blisters & burns"
               "No permanent tissue damage"
Those who did not give in were able to articulate justifications (moral principles and moral theories) . In other words, they were able to state why delivering such shocks was wrong (Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority  1969).

Those who gave shocks lacked resources, theories,  to support their intuitions..

The APA's 1992 Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct states deception may be used only when the benefits of the research outweigh the potential harm - and if it is believed participants would agree to the terms when understanding the benefits.  A debriefing must follow

* The German Supreme Court in 1936, "refused to recognize Jews living in Germany as 'persons' in the legal sense." (Ernst Fraenkel, The Dual State)
* SS physician Fritz Klein compared  the destruction of Jews to removing "a gangrenous appendix from a diseased body" ((Lifton, The Nazi Doctors)

 Were they like college students with "inconsistent informational assumption" on homosexuality, pornography...    Solid critical theory is needed to "clarify, critically analyze and rank the moral concerns."  Theories offer guidance, a framework to identify contradictions and conflicts" (Boss 2)

90% of adult Americans, while they "acknowledge universal moral principles such as equality, believe that for the most part, that morality is relative to or created by society" (Boss 4)                                                                       (back to  What do I do )

Ask countless open-ended questions

• What does it mean to be a moral person (to be moral)

•   How can one grow or evolve in to an ethical person?

• Can one teach morality?

• What characteristics does a moral person possess?

• What color is morality – black & white or all shades of gray?

• What is the impact of morality and ethics on happiness & success?

• Where do rules for morality come from? Do we or the culture  make them up? 

• How do atheists arrive at their rules & what resemblances do these bear to traditional rules?

•  Is morality something that we control or does it control us?

•  How free are we to create ourselves and define our being?

•    Is it possible to be moral for selfish reasons? Is being selfish moral?

•    Can moral people come up with two completely different answers?

• Can the ends justify the means? Is it OK to do evil to create a greater good?

• What does it mean to be just?     

• Who is the most moral and immoral person that you know?  How did they get this way? What would it take for them to change their personality?                                         (back to  What do I do )

________________________________________________________________________

We define terms

Philosophy means "love of wisdom."  Philosophy studies the most fundamental and important concepts underlying all of human existence: What is reality? What is the nature of God? How did the universe come to exist? How should we live? What is knowledge? How is knowledge different from belief?...

Morality, loosely speaking the rules for right action and the prohibitions against wrong acts. Morality  concerns how we should act  and the kind of person we should become. 

Values:  "Principles or qualities that one considers important, right, or good" (Carter),  These values must be freely chosen. they become deeply ingrained that they form a regular pattern - like kindness, generosity, diligent work...  

Criteria for values: It is freely chosen, from alternatives, after thoughtful deliberation, and something which we are proud of.. Values reveal themselves in our actions and persist (as opposed to being one-time actions).

For example, a young child cannot be said to value studying, an orderly room, reading, or going to church if he only does so when he is forced. Upon maturing, the child may freely choose to value these activities. 

Value System Definition:
Value System:  The total of all your values.       

Virtues Vices Habits                (back to  What do I do )

We discuss moral theories - duty-defined and consequentialist

Duty-Defined   individuals would probably say, "It's my duty to be honest , not to cheat and not to lie.   It's a universally rational law that a world could not exist well if people cheated.  There's no question as to what I should do. The Ten Commandments say so.  It's either black or white, right or wrong. Time, place and circumstance don't matter."

Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought, Page 15, "The simple minded use of the notions 'right or wrong' is one of the chief obstacles to the progress of understanding."

Criticism:
How can we know God’s will? All read the  same Bible
It can be used to subjugate the masses.
It may undermine human autonomy

Kantian Ethics (1727 - 1804)   

Categorial Imperative- Kant – kingdom of ends  - like Martin Buber Ich Du
Dream is to bring scientific certainty of ethics

Categorical Imperative: Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature

Imperative:  order or commandment
Categorical:   without qualification or condition

"Act in such a way that you always treat humanity  whether in your own person or in the person of any other never simply as a means, but always as an end."

Four conditions apply to double effect:   (Can't ever use evils means for a good end)

1. The act must be morally indifferent
2. The indifferent act must directly produce a good effect
3. The motive of the indifferent act is desired for the good effect
4. The good to be attained must be at least equal to the possible evil which may result.

(example hospital procedure to remove cancer (neutral act) saves mother (desired good) baby dies (unintended negative effect);  or to give morphine to reduce pain, yet it affects respiration...

Can reason provide us with adequate guidelines about how we should act? 
Can reason provide us with adequate motivation to do the right thing?  

–Consequentialist - Time, place & circumstances matter

Situation Ethics Supporters claim:

• Uniqueness of each human act
• It is essential that humans be free of all constraints to decide any way we want depending on the situation
• Love is paramount

Opponents claim the following problems:

• Nothing is immoral in itself
• We can't simplify human complexity
• Situation isn't the sole deciding factor for making judgments

Paul Tillich Systematic Theology Vol 1, p. 151: "The law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law; it is absolute because it concerns everything concrete."

Proportionalism (or consequentialism in its extreme form): An ethical system wherein one weighs good and bad effects in order to determine the proper action.

Support for Proportionalism:
Absolutist rules are illogical and irrelevant to today's complicated life. 
No action is good or bad in its own right, but must be judged in context with the effect.  For example, being generous and giving money is not intrinsically good or bad.  Rather, one must weigh to whom money is being given - to a poor mother who needs it to support her child, or to a drug addict who wants it to purchase illegal drugs. Proportionalists claim all must be weighed in its own terms.

Criticism of proportionalism:

• Nothing is evil in itself.  We have to wait until we see the consequences.
• Proportionalism implies that what is good is not really good, but merely better.
• Denies that each moral action humanizes and each immoral action dehumanizes, independent of consequences.   This denies that we are what we do (evil or good).   Thus proportionalism claims we can separate ourselves from our actions - that our body and spirit can be separated.
• It may encourage one to do a small evil to produce a greater good (i.e., steal to help finances, lie to save face or prevent conflict)
• Proportionalism implies  we are able to weigh incommensurable goods and foresee all consequences.  Is life more complex than Dear Abby?
• Proportionalism is very subjective.  Moral visions vary  and shouldn't our moral vision grow daily?

Utilitarianism

Thus the best (or most just) society is the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number.

Insights of Utilitarianism:

1.  The purpose of morality is to make the world a better place
2.  Morality is about producing good consequences

3.  We should do whatever will benefit humanity the most (Hinman)

Critique:

1. Responsibility - we are responsible for the consequences
2. Integrity – we have to put aside our own moral convictions to benefit others (cheat , lie, steal…)
3. Intentions – concerned too heavily with consequences and not intentions – intentions matter
4. Should pleasure be the standard for morality? Can the human mind calculate the pain or pleasure that would result from any given action?  Can pleasure alone form a valid distinction between right and wrong? 
5. Can the end justify the means? 
6. Motives don't enter the picture.  (Hinman)

 Further Criticism of  Utilitarianism

1.  The rights of minorities may be violated by the majority
2.  It is the right of the majority to determine "What is justice?"
3.  The additive nature - Whether pleasures and pains are additives, making it more of a crime to kill two than to kill one. Can we say the loss of two or more lives is morally worse than the loss of one?    (Is it better to execute one wrong man to appease the mobs who may kill many?)
4. Who does the calculating and who is included vary the results

Psychological egoism

Ethical egoism