Jeremy Bentham
developed classical utilitarianism and hedonic calculus, arguing that the morally right action is whatever produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
John Stuart Mill
refined utilitarianism by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures, emphasizing that the quality of happiness matters just as much as its quantity.
Peter Singer
expanded utilitarian thinking to argue that we have strong moral obligations to reduce suffering globally, including for animals and people in extreme poverty.
William MacAskill
key figure in the effective altruism movement, argues that future people who could outnumber everyone alive today matter morally just as much as present people, and we have a obligation to ensure the long-term future goes well. The book makes the case for “longtermism”
Blaise Pascal
perhaps best known in ethics for “Pascal’s Wager,” which argued that it is rational to believe in God because the potential infinite reward outweighs any finite cost of belief.
Derek Parfit
Derek Parfit originally formulated the Repugnant Conclusion as follows: “For any
possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life,
there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other
things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely
worth living”
Robert Nozick
Wrote the experience machine. Defended a libertarian theory of justice in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, arguing that individuals have inviolable rights and that any redistribution of wealth beyond constitutes a violation of those rights.
Five Main Branches of Philosophy
metaphysics (the nature of reality), epistemology (the nature of knowledge), ethics (how we ought to act), logic (the principles of reasoning), and aesthetics (the nature of beauty and art)
Metaethics
examines the foundations of morality itself, asking questions about whether moral facts exist, where they come from, and what we mean when we make moral claims
Moral Objectivism
holds that moral truths exist independently of what any individual or culture believes, meaning some actions are objectively right or wrong regardless of opinion
Moral Relativism
argues that moral judgments are not universally true but are instead relative to the individual or culture holding them, meaning there is no single objective moral standard
Moral Nihilism
is the view that morality does not exist in any meaningful sense, and that moral claims are neither true nor false because there are no moral facts at all
Consequentialism
is the ethical theory that the morality of an action is determined entirely by its outcomes, meaning an action is right if it produces good consequences and wrong if it produces bad ones.
Egoism
is the view that individuals are either always motivated by self-interest (descriptive egoism) or that they ought to act in their own self-interest above all others (ethical egoism)
Altruism
is the belief that we have a moral obligation to act in the interest and welfare of others, even at a cost to ourselves
Utilitarianism
is a form of consequentialism holding that the right action is whatever maximizes overall happiness or well-being for the greatest number of people
Impartiality
is the ethical principle that every person’s interests should be given equal weight when making moral decisions, with no special preference given to oneself or those close to you.
Hedonic Calculus
is Jeremy Bentham’s method for measuring the moral value of an action by calculating the amount of pleasure or pain it produces
The 7 Factors of Hedonic Calculus
are the criteria Bentham used to measure pleasure or pain: intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity (nearness in time), fecundity (likelihood of producing more pleasure), purity (likelihood of not producing pain), and extent (how many people are affected)
Higher and Lower Pleasures
John Stuart Mill’s distinction between pleasures of the mind, such as intellectual and creative pursuits, which he considered superior, and pleasures of the body, which he considered lower in quality
The Golden Rule
the widely shared moral principle found across many cultures and religions that one should treat others as one wishes to be treated oneself
The Experience Machine
Robert Nozick’s thought experiment in which a person can be plugged into a machine that simulates a perfectly happy life, used to challenge utilitarianism by arguing that most people would refuse, showing that we value more than just pleasure
Supererogation
refers to actions that go above and beyond what is morally required, such as acts of heroic self-sacrifice, which are praiseworthy but not obligatory.
Pascal’s Wager
Blaise Pascal’s argument that it is rational to believe in God because if God exists the reward is infinite, while the cost of belief is finite, making belief the safer bet under uncertainty
