IB Philosophy -- Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Normative Ethics

Any moral theory that equips us with instruction on how one "ought" to behave in any given situation

Meta Ethics

Explores the status, foundations, and scope of moral values, properties, and words, from "above" so to speak

Applied Ethics

Focus on what is moral in everyday modern issues and choices

Utilitarianism

Normative ethical theory that promotes the greatest good for the greatest number of people

Jeremy Bentham

Founder of utilitarianism who believed that decision was governed by pleasure and pain

Hedonism

From the Greek for "pleasure", seeking it above all else

Hedonic Calculus

Bentham's famous series of questions to heirarchically place pleasures/pains

Moral Agent

person who engages in any moral or immoral activity

Moral Patient

person who bears the outcome of moral action

John Stuart Mill

Author of On Liberty, redefined utilitarianism to include "higher" and "lower" pleasures

Happiness

Mill defined it as "the maximation of pleasure and the minimization of pain

Principle of Utility

Moral command to create the greatest good for the greatest number.

Act Ultilitarianism

Utilitarianism which judges each decision based on its own merits.

Rule Utilitarianism

Utiltarianism which emphasizes hard societal rules that lead to the greatest happiness/good

Positive Utilitarianism

Concerned with the maximisation of pleasure, and has been criticised by some philosophers as an overly idealistic aim.

Negative Utilitarianism

Concerned with the minimisation of pain and is seen by many to be more pragmatic.

Ideal Utilitarianism

The theory that holds that happiness is not the only thing that is independently good, but includes truth, beauty, education,freedom, and virtue

G.E. Moore

Modern Cambridge philosopher considered an "ideal utilitarian," arguing that happiness is not the only ideal

Preference Utilitarianism

promotes actions that fulfill the happiness of the beings involved

Peter Singer

preference utilitarian who most famously advocated for the rightrs of animals

Consequentalism

the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged soley by its outcome

Deontology

theory which denies that an action is right or wrong because of its consequences, duty-based morality

Immanuel Kant

deontological ethicist who wrote Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason who argued for "categorical imperatives" instead of hypothetical ones

Critique of Pure Reason

one of the most influential works by Immanuel Kant history of philosophy

Categorial Imperative

Kant's idea of a rule that should always be followed without exception and in all cases and for every person

Hypothetical Imperative

Kant's idea of a rule that is generally good to follow but can have exceptions, but still as a means to an end

Virtue Theory

an approach to Ethics that emphasizes an individual's character as the key element of ethical thinking, rather than rules about the acts themselves or their consequences

Plato

original Greek moral theorists who believed moral truths reside in essence of holiness, justice, prudence, and other 'forms

Aristotle

Greek author of Nichomachean Ethics who advocated for a virtuous mean between two vices, one of excess, one of deficiency

Nichomachean Ethics

book by Aristotle, inquiry into the nature of the good life for a human being.

Ethos

Greek term for "character' -- base root for term ethics

Eudaimonia

Greek term for happiness, excellence, or "the good life," the ultimate goal, Aristotle

Doctrine of the Mean

Aristotle's idea: virtue is a mean state between extreme vices of excess and deficiency

Alisdair MacIntyre

modern Scottish philosopher who reawakened Aristotelian virtue ethics in the book After Virtue.

After Virtue

written by Alasdair MacIntyre; thesis is that what we have in the way of moral language is left over from a way of thinking long since abandoned

Community-Based Ethics

ethics based on a community

Four Rules of Medical Ethics

autonomy, justice, beneficence, non-maleficence

Cognivists

those who believe that ethical statements can be understood as truths through reason

Non-Cognitivists

those who believe that ethical statements are only value judgments, not reasonable truths

Moral Realism

the meta-ethical view that there exist such things as moral facts and moral values as an independent category of right and wrong

Intuitionism

There are such things as moral facts, which are discovered not through reason but through a sixth sense similar to instinct

Is-Ought Controversy

the problem of moral compulsion; why should I behave in a certain way if I don't want to?

Emotivism

non-cognitive ethical theory that regards ethical and value judgments as expressions of feeling or attitude

A.J. Ayer

English emotivist who concluded that becuase moral statements were not claims to knowledge, they were not fit for philosophical study and should be consigned to a separate class of statements, which he termed 'factually nonsensical'

Tautology

a statement is true by definition such as 'all sisters are female'

Boo-Hooray Theory

ethical sentences do not express propostions, but emotional attitiudes

Prescriptivism

the theory that knowledge of a subject is inevitably partial and limited by the individual perspective from which it is viewed

R.M. Hare

Oxford "Prescriptivist" moral philosopher who who argued that morality is an expression of human emotion and thus cannot be awarded fact status

Ethical absolutism

view that at least some moral values are universal and apply to all individuals and cultures

Ethical subjectivism

moral values are relative to the individual

Culutural Relativism

different cultures have different moral codes, so there is no objective truth in morality, and right and wrong are only matters of opinion

Nihilism

the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.

Arthur Schopenhauer

German Philosophy; 1st Nihilist from his book The Fourfold Foot of Sufficient Reason; believed that there was no good reason to believe in moral truth

Friedrich Nietzche

German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, philologist, Existentialist. Wrote Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, and Thus Spake Zarathustra; said "God is Dead" and created modern notion of the Ubermensch (Superman) who truly expresses his "Wil

Existentialism

a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will; dismisses rules in favor of creating "authentic individuals

Soren Kirkegaard

Danish philosopher, theologian, and cultural critic seen as the father of Existentialism; In Fear And Trembling, he argued that even religious faith had to be an authentic relationship with God; said "The Crowd is Untruth!

Jean Paul Sartre

French Existentialist novelist, playwright, and philosopher; Author of Age of Reason and Existentialism And Humanism; most important post-WWII voice of Existentialism

Authenticity

authenticity is derived from the natural self, genuineness, and self-fulfillment; whereas inauthenticity is a result of external influences.

Ethical Egoism

normative ethical theory that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest; also called Objectivism

Ayn Rand

Objectivist novelist of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead who espoused Ethical Egoism and "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as

The Ethics of Authenticity

book by Charles Taylor that attempts to rescue the modern idea of authenticity from its critics.

3 Malaises of Modernity

Individualism, Instrumental Reason, and Soft Despotism

Individualism

Taylor: a belief in the sovereignty and priority of the individual in society

Instrumental Reason

Taylor: notion of reason or rationality that values efficiency above all other goods; treats people as means to an end, not end in themselves

Soft Despotism

Taylor: Alexis De Tocqueville's term for a society in which most of its members have given up an active role in the ordering of society only to discover that society and government is run by an "immense tutelary power" which endangers political liberty an

Horizons of Significance

Taylor: "backgrounds of intelligibility", the "background against which our tastes and desires and opinions and aspirations make sense

dialogical character of human life

Taylor; humans are capable of understanding themselves only through the shared languages of humand expression and in dialogue with one another

La Lotta Continua

Taylor: The "perpetual struggle" between individualism/authenticity and society/culture/horizons of significance.

The "Iron Cage

Taylor: Max Weber's metaphor for modern society's self-imposed captivity to technology and instrumental forms of reason

Subtler Languages

Taylor: Percy Bysshe Shelley's notion of artistic and poetic language, or "something defined and created as well as manifested.

Boosters

Taylor: Modernity's cheerleaders: those who embrace the consequences of Modernity and believe that its rejection will lead to societal regress

Knockers

Taylor: Modernity's critics: those believe that modern individualism and instrumental reason lead to a culture of narcissism, endangering moral horizons and political liberty.

Care Ethics

Ethical theory which emphasizes empathy for others

Nel Noddings

American philosopher and author of Caring: A Feminine Approach To Ethics and Moral Education

Myth of Gyges

Plato's story of a mythical king who owned a magical ring to make him invisible; good example to question consequentialism

Divine Command Theory

What is right and wrong is defined by God

Ludwig Wittgenstein

German logical positivist who said about ethics "that about which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.

Stanley Milgram

modern philosopher who argues that human default response to authority is obedience, such as in the military or police force

schadenfreude

German word for the enjoyment obtained from the suffering of others

dehumanization

denying someone the status of personhood

Holmes Rolston

animal ethicist who argues for the intrinsic value of all human and non-human life in symbiotic ecosystems; precluding, for instance, both animal and human medical testing

phronemos

Aristotle's term for person of practical wisdom (virtue), who does not teach virtue, but is observed and learned from.

Joseph Campbell

Anthropologist who analyzed the role of heroic archetypes in every culture's ethics, in The Power of Myth and Masks of the Gods

ubermensch

Nietzsche's "superman" or "overman" who transcends conformity and achieves authenticity in the will to power.

second-order desires

Harry Frankfurt's description of the distinctly human quality of forming desires about their desires, opinions about their opinions

Michel Foucault

French post-modern philosopher who examined the assumptions of modern institutions, like the inherent violence in prisons and militaries, as well as the marginalization of those labeled "insane", "deviant", etc. Ethics, for him was not about moral philoso