Dowling
College PHL 042 Ethics Fall 2002
Class
Notes
-----------------------------------------------
Week
1 Cloning
Leon
Kass
Main
thesis:
Cloning is immoral and should be banned by government.
Arguments:
We
feel repugnance about human cloning.
Normal
sexual reproduction is natural and profound.
Cloning
is unnatural and perverse.
Cloning
is perverse because
1)
It is a form of experimenting on a child-to-be that has grave risks of
deformities. (p. 183)
2)
One cannot obtain the future child’s consent to be cloned. (p. 183)
3)
The clone has a lack of individuality because it is genetically identical to a
human being who has already lived. (pp. 183-4)
4)
Cloning brings us closer to turning “begetting” into making. The maker is superior to the creation. This is dehumanizing. (p. 184)
5)
Cloning would change the meaning of what it is to have a child. (p. 185)
It would make children our property.
But children should not be our property.
Competing
view:
Cloning
should be permitted because it is a form of reproduction, and we have a right
to reproduce.
Kass’
argument against the competing view.
Kass
rejects the claim that cloning should be permitted because we value
reproductive freedom. He is suspicious
of the idea of a “right to reproduce.”
---------------------------------------------
Week
2: Animal Rights
Tom
Regan
He
discusses “Utilitarianism”
This
is a moral theory originated in the 19th century.
The
right action is the one that maximizes the total utility of society.
Utiliarians:
Jeremy
Bentham
John
Stuart Mill
Each
person counts once and once only.
Utility
is measured by happiness.
The
utilitarian principle says that our actions should maximize the happiness of
society.
Utilitiarians
don’t think there are any such things as fundamental human rights or any kind
of fundamental rights.
Whose
happiness counts? Should we include
animals in the utilitarian calculation?
Does
society include animals?
Regan
considers arguments against including animals, and shows they fail:
Regan
assumes that suffering in intrinsically bad.
He
is looking to see if there is some intrinsic moral difference between humans
and non-human animals.
Humans
have free will
Humans
have a concept of their own identity.
It
is not clear that animals lack free will.
Differences
between humans and animals:
Use
of language
Reasoning
Humans
have emotions
Humans
have a concept of self
Humans
have more memory
None
of these differences is absolute.
Animals have these qualities in some cases to some degree.
There
are many humans that largely lack these qualities.
Regan
comes to the conclusion that there is NO absolute difference between humans and
animals. Any moral difference we
propose would have the implication that some humans would also have no more
moral consideration than animals.
Utilitarianism:
are some kinds of happiness more valuable than others?
Carl
Cohen’s argument
There
are rights: humans have them but animals don’t have any.
If
animals had rights, and the right to live, then we would have to intervene in
order to stop them killing each other.
If
one animals kills another, then that animal has done wrong?
Rights
only apply to creatures that are capable of understanding rights. So animals do not have rights.
Cohen
says that moral considerability derives from simply being human. Our moral community is capable of
understanding rights, and that gives all humans rights.
The form of an Argument:
Premise
1
Premise
2
Conclusion
What
are the starting assumptions?
How
do they lead to the conclusion?
The
premises are meant to logically support the conclusion.
Illustrate
the argument with at least one example.
--------------------------------
Week 3: Moral Theory
Utilitarianism:
the morally right action is that which produces most happiness for society
Bentham
John
Stuart Mill
Mill
“On Liberty”
He
said we need to be free to experiment to find out what makes us happy, so we
should not limit freedom unless actions involved physically harm people.
He
drew a distinction between harm and insult.
A
free society is happier in the long run.
Aquinas:
Natural Law tradition.
God’s
purposes.
We
ask what is the purpose of sex?
Procreation.
Kant
1724-1804
You
should not treat people as means to an end.
Treat people as subjects, not objects.
For
any action, the intention of the action should be universalizable.
We
should do what is right because it is our duty: we should follow the moral
law.
Aristotle
He
develops the idea of virtues, and being a virtuous person, or a person of good
character.
Virtues
or personality traits;
e.g.
respect
for elders
altruistic
– unselfish
considerate,
sensitive to the reactions of others, empathize with their reactions
honesty
temperate:
Exercising moderation and self-restraint; don’t let your emotions or animal
urges take you over
We
need to develop and nurture our virtuous characters
“practical
wisdom”
practical
is distinguished from theoretical.
Wisdom as embodied in your actions, not just your words.
The
mean: the average, that which lies between extremes.
Most
moral philosophers assume that there is moral truth to be found. Furthermore, there some underlying basic
universal truth that is fixed.
But
RELATIVISM denies this. It says that the moral truth varies from
society to society.
We
think scientific facts are absolute and universal, not varying from society to
society. Scientific relativism does not
make much sense; it’s implausible.