Philosophy: Ethics and Morality

Ethics and Morality

• Ethics: systematic questioning and critical examination of the underlying principles of morality
• Morality: customs including the customary behavior of a particular group of people, what is good and what is bad
• Normative Ethics: answers what is good, pertains to certain norms or standards for goodness and badness
• Meta-Ethics: questions the basis of assumptions proposed, why bad, why good
• Applied Ethics: describes how to apply normative theories to specific issues

Key Concepts

• Sanctions: threatened penalty for disobeying a law
• Customs: traditional and widely accepted way of behaving
• Habits: settled or regular tendency which is hard to give up
• Jean-Paul Sartre: "Man is condemned to be free", man is an unconstrained free moral agent
• John Motherheads: Ethics: The Modern Conceptions of the Principles of Right; Morality = Freedom & Obligation

Morality and Values

• Moral Judgements = Moral Decisions
• Making moral judgments is budgeting actions
• Intellectual Choice: answers the question of what we ought to do according to a normative ethical system
• Practical Choice: deals with how a person will act according to a given situation

Approaches to Moral Reasoning

• Kant's Metaphysics: Phenomena (the thing as it appears to an observer) vs. Noumena (the thing-in-itself)
• Deontological Ethics: based on duty, categorical imperative
• Teleological Ethics: based on consequences, "the end justifies the means"
• Utilitarianism: maximization of pleasure and the avoidance of pain to promote happiness
• Jeremy Bentham: pleasure is quantifiable, introduced the concept of Hedonic Calculus
• J.S. Mill: focused on the quality of pleasure, distinction between intellectual and physiological pleasure

Critique of Moral Reasoning

• Failure to recognize the vagueness of moral concepts
• Failure to recognize the value-laden nature of many concepts which appear value-free
• Uncritical use of emotive terms
• Hasty generalizations
• Faulty causality (Post Hoc Fallacy)
• Rationalization: offering justifications or reasons to cover-up or clothe an already arrived at decision

Intersubjectivity and Solipsism

• Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology: study of that which appears, consciousness is intentional
• Natural Attitude: stereotyping, adding prejudices and biases to our experiences
• Bracketing/Epoché: suspension of judgments concerning the reality and existence of the world
• Reduction: transcendental reduction, examining a phenomenon to identify its essential elements
• Solipsism: asserts the self as the only certain reality

Self-Recognition and Intersubjectivity

• Self-consciousness: can never be achieved in isolation, product of our interaction with our world
• The desire to be desired
• Mutual recognition among conscious subjects is necessary for self-consciousness
• Master and Slave: relationship of domination and subjugation
• True Recognition: against domination and recognition, understanding of who we are as persons as we relate with others

I-Thou and I-It Relationships

• Martin Buber's I and Thou: distinguishes between "I-Thou" and "I-It" modes of existence
• I-Thou Relationship: genuine form of conversation, dialogue, recognizing the person as another distinct person
• I-It Relationship: treating the other as an object or a tool
• I-I Relationship: people whose world revolves around themselves, aim is to transform the other into their own likeness### Pre-Industrial Societies
• Hunting and Gathering Societies:
  • Simplest type of society
  • Survives by hunting and gathering food
  • Men hunt, women gather
  • No permanent settlement, typically 30 people or less
  • Egalitarian, decisions made by consensus
• Pastoral Societies:
  • Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Society
  • Discovered animal domestication
  • Men herd larger stocks, women manage smaller stocks and food production
  • Need to move to provide food for animals
  • Typically 50-200 people
  • Production of goods leads to trading, centralization of wealth and power
• Horticultural Societies:
  • Cultivate and nurture plants
  • Limited technology, small land area
  • Men clear land, women care for fruits and vegetables
  • Trading occurs, leading to some families being superior
• Agrarian Societies:
  • Introduced new materials and methods for cultivating plants and animals (plow, wheel)
  • Improved labor and production, used animals for travel and field work
  • Led to innovations in water transportation, agricultural techniques, and establishment of the printing press

Industrial Societies

• Emerged from continued innovations in agrarian societies
• Factors that gave birth to industrial societies:
  • Advancement in water transportation
  • Further advancement in agricultural techniques and practices
  • Establishment of the printing press
• Characteristics:
  • Source of energy comes from coal, petroleum, natural gas, and electricity
  • Communication made easier with the invention of the telephone
  • Led to wealth and power concentrated in fewer people (capitalists)
  • Masses belonged to the working class, exploited by capitalists
  • Labor Unions formed to fight for workers' welfare

Post-Industrial Societies

• Popularized by Daniel Bell
• Characterized as knowledge and service-oriented
• Service sector is the protagonist of the postindustrial society
• Knowledge is the main capital, with means of production following suit
• Increase in wealth comes from possession of information

Consumer Society

• Emerged in the 20th century
• Result of efficiency in production, excess supply of goods
• Culture of consumption established
• Factors contributing to consumer society:
  • Birth of printing press aided penetration of new products
  • Advertising encouraged consumption
  • Industrial Revolution drove people to towns and cities
• Consequences:
  • Oppression, alienation, and impoverishment of workers
  • Labor Unions formed to challenge capitalists
  • Awareness of labor power spread, leading to absenteeism and high turnover rates
  • Henry Ford introduced Fordism, using labor specialization and a moving assembly line

Sign Consumption and the Society of Spectacle

• Consumption changed by adding element of sign value in commodities
• Sign values are elements added by manufacturers via advertising
• Sign consumption: consumption of signs and meanings attached to commodities
• The Society of Spectacle:
  • Guy Debord argued that society has been reduced to sign or image relations
  • Human life and relations are not authentic, and people are focused on having rather than being
• Effects of sign consumption:
  • Suppressed critical thinking
  • Materialistic lifestyle
  • Discrimination based on possessions

Throw-Away Society

• Due to excessive production and consumption
• Characteristics:
  • Throw-away practice in food consumption
  • Throw-away packaging of products
  • Proliferation of throw-away products
  • Culture of disposability
• Consequences:
  • Environmental pollution
  • Resource depletion
  • Climate change

Technological Society

• Emergence of the internet changed how people interact
• Characteristics:
  • Anonymity and lack of physical contact
  • Openness in chat rooms and online forums
  • Social networking allows people to be connected
  • Obsession with virtual world and recreating oneself online
• The Disembodied Subject:
  • Dissatisfaction with limitations of the body drives people to prefer technology
  • People prefer interacting with gadgets rather than human physical interaction
  • The practice of selfie and group selfies
  • Complications in human interactions and relationships
• The Essence of Technology:
  • Heidegger argues that nearness is not about proximity or distance
  • Technology abolishes distance, but we are not near to many things
  • The essence of technology is a way of thinking that represents nature as something to be harnessed for human use
  • It poses a threat to humans and reduces human persons into calculable objects