Notes for 11/20/2025

 

11/20/2025

[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]

[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]

 

Have you ever been a victim or perpetrator of bullying?

 

 

Why, exactly, is bullying wrong?

If authoritarian ethics is wrong, then what alternatives are there?

 

1.          Consequentialism

2.          Deontologism (ethics of duty/rules)

3.          Virtue theory (character ethics)

 

 

 

 

Consequentialism: Actions are made right/wrong by their consequences. What makes an action good is that it has good consequences.

 

 

Good how?

 

Good for whom?

 

 

 

Utilitarianism: Actions are good to the extent that promote happiness/pleasure/desire-satisfaction FOR as many people as possible

 

Utilitarianism says that happiness should be DISTRIBUTED

 

Jeremy Bentham (English utilitarian).

 

 

 

“Each is to count for one and no one for more than one.”

 

Everyone deserves moral consideration and equally so. (Because of the ability to experience pleasure/pain.)

 

 

Pleasures and pains come in DEGREES.

 

Whatever comes in degrees can be MEASURED.

 

We can assign numerical values to pleasures/pains.

 

Moral calculus

 

Subject1

Subject2

…

Total

Action 1

3

-1

 

22

Action 2

5

4

 

30 ¬

..

 

 

 

 

Action n

-2

2

 

19

 

 

An action is morally right if and only if performing the action produces at least as great an overall balance of pleasure over pain for all affected as any alternative action that could be performed instead.

 

 

What are THE consequences of an action?

 

Short term or long term?

 

Bentham: Long term?

 

Utilitarianism is BOTH:

(a) A METHOD by which moral decisions can be made

(b) It is a theory that explains WHY/HOW some actions are better than others

 

“But for” principle: “But for your doing x, y would not have happened.”

(Principle often used to assign responsibility.)

 

 

 

Consequentialism: The moral value of an action is entirely a function of its consequences.

 

Why isn’t everyone a consequentialist?

 

There are several main reasons, primarily revolving around 3 main moral concepts:

-    Justice

-    Rights

-    Covenants

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