stealing - virtue ethics
- Aristotle says there are some actions that never fall within the golden mean and stealing is one of them
- stealing is an injustice because it deprives a person what is justly and fairly theirs
- Aristotle distinguishes between unjust actions and unjust states of affairs (an unfortunate situation, but that’s just the way the world is sometimes)
- according to Aristotle, it is much worse to deliberately and freely choose to commit unjust actions, even if you are committing these unjust actions to counteract unjust states of affairs
eating animals - utilitarianism
- Bentham claims that utilitarian principles must be extended to animals because animals can feel pleasure and pain just as humans can
- Singer claimed that to privilege human pain and pleasure over animals is speciesist; it is immoral discrimination against animals just because they are not human (there are important differences here, e.g. reason, emotional depth, moral agency but these are not relevant to causing suffering)
- an action is good if it maximises pleasure and so you could argue that, if it wasn’t for farming animals for food, many animals would never have existed and so would never have been able to experience pleasure and pain in the first place
- if the animals farmed for food have an overall happy life and a painless death, then eating animals is morally justifiable because it results in a net increase of pleasure
- an implication of this view is that farming conditions and practices are important
- farming animals in cramped or uncomfortable conditions where they have unhappy lives, say, would be morally wrong according to utilitarianism
eating animals - kant
- Kant’s categorical imperative is only intended to apply to rational beings
- Kant would say that animals do not have rational will and so are excluded from the categorical imperative and therefore eating animals is morally permissible
- there is no contradiction in conception and no contradiction in will that results from the maxim ‘to eat animals’
- and the humanity formula only says don’t treat humanity as a means to an end
- humans have a rational will and so are ends in themselves and should be treated as such but animals don’t have a rational will and so can be treated solely as means
- thus, we do not have any duties towards animals
- however, Kant does argue that being cruel to animals violates a duty we have towards ourselves, the duty to develop morally
- moral development involves developing compassion for other human beings but being cruel to animals weakens these feelings
- so, even though we don’t have any duties directly towards animals, we do have dutiesin regards to them, as such, Kant might morally object to cruel farming practices but would not object to eating animals in principle
eating animals - virtue ethics
- eudaimonia is concerned with the good life for human beings specifically, animals, unlike humans, are not capable of reason and so eudaimonia doesn’t apply to them
- therefore, Aristotle would not see any issue with eating animals.
- virtue ethicist Cora Diamond, argues that eating animals is wrong, but acknowledges degrees to which different practices around eating animals are good or bad
- Diamond argues that animals are a different kind of being to humans and so we shouldn’t treat their happiness as equal
- however, animals are living beings that can have good and bad lives
- to completely ignore this demonstrates the vices of callousness and selfishness, in contrast, rearing your own chickens and treating them humanely demonstrates the virtues of sympathy and respect
- virtue ethics might acknowledge this and argue that whether eating animals is acceptable depends on if it is done in the right way and for the right reason
- eating animals might sometimes fall within the golden mean, but not always
simulated killing - utilitarianism
- act utilitarianism could say that simulated killing is morally acceptable as the person gets some enjoyment from the simulated killing, and the person being killed doesn’t actually suffer because it’s fictional, in this situation, simulated killing results in a net gain of happiness
- however, there are ways simulated killing could possibly decrease happiness, eg if exposure to simulated killing makes a person more likely to kill someone for real, then maybe this pain would outweigh the happiness; simulated killing could make people more violent in general
- if there was an irrefutable study that showed simulated killing makes people significantly more likely to murder in real life, then rule utilitarianism could say simulated killing is wrong
simulated killing - kant
- Kant would most likely have no major objection to simulated killing
- simulated killing does not lead to a contradiction in conception, or a contradiction in will, or violate the humanity formula and therefore does not go against the categorical imperative.
- however, Kant’s remarks on animal cruelty may be relevant here:
- he argues we have an imperfect duty to develop morally, which means cultivating feelings of compassion towards others
- simulated killing, like being cruel to animals, may weaken these feelings of compassion and so Kant could potentially argue we have a duty not to engage in simulated killing
simulated killing - virtue ethics
- virtue is a kind of practical wisdom (phronesis)
- being a good person is not just about knowing what the virtues are, it’s about acting on them until the virtues become habits
- Aristotle might argue that if someone spends a lot of time playing video games that involve simulated killing then they may develop bad virtues
- eg repeatedly killing fictional innocent people in a game may make someone increasingly unkind or unjust
- however, Aristotle might argue that killing fictional people is not actually unjust or unkind, they’re not real, and so there’s no real injustice
- doing unjust acts develops the vice of injustice, but simulated killing is technically not an unjust act
- a virtuous person might partake in simulated killing in moderation as a form of entertainment and because they enjoy the competitive challenge of gaming
- in this context, simulated killing might not be unvirtuous
- but doing nothing with your life except killing people in video games just because you love killing people is not virtuous.
telling lies - utilitarianism
- it depends on the situation; if telling a lie leads to greater happiness, then act utilitarianism would say you should lie
- rule utilitarianism could argue that a rule to ‘never lie’ would lead to greater happiness than a rule that allows everyone to lie
- eg if everyone was an act utilitarian and always lied to increase happiness, then nobody could trust anything anyone said, the rule utilitarian could argue that such a society where no one can trust anyone else’s word would be less happy overall
- Mill says that lying can be permissible, e.g. when it is the only way to withhold information from someone who intends harm
telling lies - kant
- Kant would argue that the maxim ‘it’s morally permissible to lie’ fails the first test of the categorical imperative because it would lead to a contradiction in conception
- if it was always acceptable to lie, the very concept of telling a lie wouldn’t make sense, so, according to the categorical imperative, we should always tell the truth
- philosopher Constant challenged Kant’s approach of radical honesty by asking whether you should tell a known murderer the location of his victim when asked
- eg, a person is escaping an axe-murderer and you let them hide in your house, shortly after, a crazy looking guy with an axe and blood-stained clothes asks you ‘where is he?’, according to Kant, you should tell the truth
- telling the truth in this situation is seemingly the wrong thing to do, though, and so Kant’s ethics cannot be the correct account of moral action
- Kant’s response to this example is that you should not lie to the murderer even to save a life
- the moral worth of actions is determined by whether they are done for the sake of duty, not their consequences
- furthermore, Kant argues that it is impossible to know the consequences of our actions; if we choose not to follow our duty and decide to lie, then we can be held responsible for the consequences
telling lies - virtue ethics
- boasting is a vice of excess, and false modesty is a vice of deficiency
- telling the truth is in the middle (the golden mean) and so is the virtuous action
- Aristotle says ‘falsehood is in itself bad’, he says that lying is always wrong
- however, Aristotle later describes degrees to which telling lies is bad:
- lying to protect your reputation, for example, is not as bad as lying to gain money
- given this, you could potentially argue that there may be situations where it is morally acceptable to lie, such as saving a life
stealing - utilitarianism
- for act utilitarianism, whether or not it is acceptable to steal something will depend on the situation
- there is no moral right to property over and above its utilitarian benefits and so if an act of stealing results in a greater good then it would be morally acceptable to steal
- however, rule utilitarianism could argue that although there may be individual instances where stealing leads to greater happiness, having a rule of ‘don’t steal’ leads to greater happiness overall
- Mill makes a similar argument in his discussion of justice and property rights
- e.g. a society that permitted stealing would be one in which no one could trust anyone
- this distrust and fear would lead to a less happy society than one in which stealing isn’t allowed, and so a rule utilitarian could argue that we should follow the ‘don’t steal’ rule
stealing - kantian deontological ethics
Kant would argue that a maxim that allowed stealing would fail the first test of the categorical imperative because it would lead to a contradiction in conception
stealing - metaethics
moral realism:
- naturalism: ‘stealing is wrong’ is true if stealing has the natural property of wrongness (e.g. because it causes sadness, and sadness is a natural property)
- non-naturalism: ‘stealing is wrong’ is true if stealing has the non natural property of wrongness
moral anti-realism:
- error theory: ‘stealing is wrong’ is false because the property of wrongness doesn’t exist
- emotivism: ‘stealing is wrong’ is not capable of being true or false
- prescriptivism: ‘stealing is wrong’ means ‘don’t steal’ and so is not capable of being true or false
simulated killing - meta ethics
moral realism:
- naturalism: ‘simulated killing is wrong’ is true if simulated killing has the natural property of wrongness
- non-naturalism: ‘simulated killing is wrong’ is true if simulated killing has the non-natural property of wrongness
moral anti-realism:
- error theory: ‘simulated killing is wrong’ is false because the property of wrongness doesn’t exist
- emotivism: ‘simulated killing is wrong’ is not capable of being true or false
- prescriptivism: ‘simulated killing is wrong’ means ‘don’t do simulated killing’ and so is not capable of being true or false
eating animals - meta ethics
moral realism:
- naturalism: “eating animals is wrong’ is true if eating animals has the natural property of wrongness (e.g. because wrongness is a natural property such as pain)
- non-naturalism: ‘eating animals is wrong’ is true if eating animals has the non-natural property of wrongness
moral anti-realism:
- error theory: ‘eating animals is wrong’ is false because the property of wrongness doesn’t exist
- emotivism: ‘eating animals is wrong’ is not capable of being true or false
- prescriptivism: ‘eating animals is wrong’ means ‘don’t eat animals’ and so is not capable of being true or false
telling lies - meta ethics
moral realism:
- naturalism: ‘telling lies is wrong’ is true if telling lies has the natural property of wrongness
- non-naturalism: ‘telling lies is wrong’ is true if telling lies has the non-natural property of wrongness
moral anti-realism:
- error theory: ‘telling lies is wrong’ is false because the property of wrongness doesn’t exist
- emotivism: ‘telling lies is wrong’ is not capable of being true or false
- prescriptivism: ‘telling lies is wrong’ means ‘don’t tell lies’ and so is not capable of being true or false
