The Ethics of Character Virtues and Vices

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PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
CDT409 LECTURE 4 Utilitarianism, Rights,
Justice
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Department of Computer
Science and EngineeringMälardalen
University2007
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Repetition on Virtue Ethics

• Emphasizes character, rather than rules or
  consequences, as the key element of ethical
  thinking.
• In the West prevailing approach in the ancient
  and medieval ethics. Today one of the three
  dominant approaches to normative ethics (the
  other two being deontology and utilitarianism/cons
  equentialism).
• Concern for virtue appears in several
  philosophical traditions, notably Chinese and
  Indian.

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Virtue Ethics

• In the West found in work of Plato and Aristotle.
• Main concepts include
• arête (excellence or virtue)
• phronesis (practical or moral wisdom), and
• eudaimonia (flourishing).

Eudaimonia (Greek e?da?µ???a) is a classical
Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'.
Etymologically, it consists of the word "eu"
("good" or "well being") and "daimon" ("spirit,
meaning one's fortune). Although popular usage
of the term happiness refers to a state of mind,
related to joy or pleasure, eudaimonia refers to
the less subjective "human flourishing.
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The Seven Virtues

• The Seven Virtues were derived from the
  Psychomachia ('Contest of the Soul'), an epic
  poem written by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (c.
  410 CE) involving the battle of good virtues and
  evil vices.
• The intense popularity of this work in the Middle
  Ages helped to spread the concept of Holy Virtue
  throughout Europe.
• Practicing these virtues is alleged to protect
  one against temptation from the Seven Deadly
  Sins, with each one having its counterpart.

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The Seven Virtues

• Chastity (Latin, Castitas) (purity, opposes Lust,
  Latin Luxuria) - Moral wholesomeness and purity
  of thought.
• Temperance (Latin, Frenum) (self-control, opposes
  Gluttony, Latin Gula) - Mindfulness of others
  practicing self-control.
• Charity (Latin, Liberalitas) (will, generosity,
  opposes Greed, Latin Avaritia) - Generosity. A
  nobility of thought or actions.
• Diligence (Latin, Industria) (opposes Sloth,
  Latin Acedia) -A zealous and careful nature in
  one's actions and work. Decisive work ethic.
  Guard against laziness.
• Patience (Latin, Patientia) (peace, opposes
  Wrath, Latin Ira) -Endurance through moderation.
  Resolving conflicts peacefully. The ability to
  forgive, show mercy.
• Kindness (Latin, Humanitas) (satisfaction,
  opposes Envy, Latin Invidia) - compassion,
  friendship, and sympathy.
• Humility (Latin, Humilitas) (modesty, opposes
  Pride, Latin Superbia) - Modest behavior,
  selflessness, and the giving of respect. Giving
  credit where credit is due not unfairly
  glorifying one's own self.
• Self-control is the keystone of the seven holy
  virtues.

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The Seven Capital Virtues as Opposites to The
Seven Capital Sins

• The Roman Catholic church recognized the Seven
  Capital Virtues as opposites to the Seven Capital
  Sins or the Seven Deadly Sins. According to
  Dante's The Divine Comedy the sins and their
  respective virtues have an ordering based upon
  their importance. In order of descending
  importance.
• Sin Virtue
• Pride (vanity) Humility (modesty)
• Envy (jealousy) Kindness (admiration)
• Wrath (anger) Forgiveness (composure)
• Sloth (laziness) Diligence (zeal/integrity)
• Greed (avarice) Charity (giving)
• Gluttony (over-indulgence) Temperance
  (self-restraint)
• Lust (excessive appetites) Chastity (purity)

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The Essential Virtues Defining Moral IQ

• Empathy
• Conscience
• Self-Control
• Respect
• Tolerance
• Fairness
• Kindness

• Wisdom
• Courage
• Temperance
• Justice
• Integrity
• Responsibility
• Honesty

Aristotles cardinal virtues
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Overview

• Utilitarianism
• Rights
• Justice

Based on Lawrence M. Hinman, Ph.D. Director, The
Values Institute University of San Diego
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Utilitarianism
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Basic Insights of Utilitarianism

• The purpose of morality is to make the world a
  better place.
• We should do whatever will bring the most benefit
  to all of humanity.

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The Purpose of Morality

• The utilitarian has a simple answer to the
  question of why morality exists at all
• The purpose of morality is to guide peoples
  actions in such a way as to produce a better
  world.
• Consequently, the emphasis in utilitarianism is
  on consequences, not intentions. (At times, the
  road to hell is pawed with good intentions!)

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Fundamental Imperative

• The fundamental imperative of utilitarianism is
• Always act in the way that will produce the
  greatest overall amount of good in the world.

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The Emphasis on the Overall Good

• Utilitarianism is a demanding moral position that
  often asks us to put aside self-interest for the
  sake of the whole.
• It always asks us to do the most, to maximize
  utility, not to do the minimum.
• It asks us to set aside personal interest.

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Bringing Certainty to Ethics

• Utilitarianism offers a powerful vision of the
  moral life, one that promises to reduce or
  eliminate moral disagreement.
• If we can agree that the purpose of morality is
  to make the world a better place and
• If we can scientifically assess various possible
  courses of action to determine which will have
  the greatest positive effect on the world then
• We can provide a scientific answer to the
  question of what we ought to do.

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Standards of Utility Intrinsic Value

• Many things have instrumental value, that is,
  they have value as means to an end.
• However, there must be some things which are not
  merely instrumental, but have value in
  themselves. This is what we call intrinsic
  value.
• What has intrinsic value? Four principal
  candidates
• Pleasure - Jeremy Bentham
• Happiness - John Stuart Mill
• Ideals - George Edward Moore
• Peoples Preferences - Kenneth Arrow

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Jeremy Bentham

• Bentham believed that we should try to increase
  the overall amount of pleasure in the world.

Jeremy Bentham1748-1832
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Standards of Utility Pleasure

• Definition The enjoyable feeling we experience
  when a state of deprivation is replaced by
  fulfillment.
• Advantages
• Easy to quantify
• Short duration
• Bodily

• Criticisms
• Came to be known as the pigs philosophy
• Ignores spiritual values
• Could justify living on a pleasure machine or
  happy pill

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John Stuart Mill

• Benthams godson
• Believed that happiness, not pleasure, should be
  the standard of utility.

John Stuart Mill 1806-1873
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Standards of Utility Happiness

• Advantages
• A higher standard, more specific to humans
• About realization of goals

• Disadvantages
• More difficult to measure
• Competing conceptions of happiness

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Standards of Utility Ideal Values

• George Edward Moore suggested that we should
  strive to maximize ideal values such as freedom,
  knowledge, justice, and beauty.
• The world may not be a better place with more
  pleasure in it, but it certainly will be a better
  place with more freedom, more knowledge, more
  justice, and more beauty.
• Moores candidates for intrinsic good remain
  difficult to quantify.

G. E. Moore1873-1958
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Standards of Utility Preferences

• Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel Prize winning Stanford
  economist, argued that what has intrinsic value
  is preference satisfaction.
• The advantage of Arrows approach is that, in
  effect, it lets people choose for themselves what
  has intrinsic value. It simply defines
  intrinsic value as whatever satisfies an agents
  preferences. It is elegant and pluralistic.

Kenneth J. Arrow Stanford University
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May This Help? Lets Make Everyone Happy!
Happy pill as a universal solution?
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The Utilitarian Calculus

• Math and ethics finally merged all consequences
  must be measured and weighed!
• Units of measurement
• Hedons positive
• Dolors negative

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What Do We Calculate?

• Hedons/dolors defined in terms of
• Pleasure
• Happiness
• Ideals
• Preferences

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What Do We Calculate?

• For any given action, we must calculate
• How many people will be affected, negatively
  (dolors) as well as positively (hedons)
• How intensely they will be affected
• Similar calculations for all available
  alternatives
• Choose the action that produces the greatest
  overall amount of utility (hedons minus dolors)

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How Much Can We Quantify?

• Pleasure and preference satisfaction are easier
  to quantify than happiness or ideals
• Two distinct issues
• Can everything be quantified?
• The danger if it cant be counted, it doesnt
  count.
• Are quantified goods necessarily commensurable?
• Are a fine dinner and a good nights sleep
  commensurable?

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the problems of three little people dont
amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

• Utilitarianism doesnt always have a cold and
  calculating face.
• Besides, in a way we perform utilitarian
  calculations in everyday life too.

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Criticisms of Utilitarianism 1. Responsibility

• Utilitarianism suggests that we are responsible
  for all the consequences of our choices.
• The problem is that sometimes we can not foresee
  consequences of other peoples actions that are
  taken in response to our own acts. Are we
  responsible for those actions, even though we
  dont choose them or approve of them?

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Criticisms of Utilitarianism 2. Integrity

• Utilitarianism often demands that we put aside
  self-interest. Sometimes this may mean putting
  aside our own moral convictions.
• Integrity may involve certain identity-conferring
  commitments, such that the violation of those
  commitments entails a violation of who we are at
  our core.

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Criticisms of Utilitarianism 3. Intentions

• Utilitarianism is concerned almost exclusively
  with consequences, not intentions.
• There is a version of utilitarianism called
  motive utilitarianism, developed by Robert
  Adams, that attempts to correct this.

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Criticisms of Utilitarianism 4. Moral Luck

• By concentrating exclusively on consequences,
  utilitarianism makes the moral worth of our
  actions a matter of luck. We must await the
  final consequences before we find out if our
  action was good or bad.
• This seems to make the moral life a matter of
  chance, which runs counter to our basic moral
  intuitions.

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Criticisms Of Utilitarianism 5. Who Does The
Calculating?

• Historically, this was an issue for the British
  in India. The British felt they wanted to do what
  was best for India, but that they were the ones
  to judge what that was.
• See Ragavan Iyer, Utilitarianism and All That
• Typically, the count differs depending on who
  does the counting.

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Criticisms Of Utilitarianism 6. Who Is Included?

• When we consider the issue of consequences, we
  must ask who is included within that circle.
• Classical utilitarianism has often claimed that
  we should acknowledge the pain and suffering of
  animals and not restrict the calculus just to
  human beings.

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Concluding Assessment

• Utilitarianism is most appropriate for policy
  decisions, as long as a strong notion of
  fundamental human rights guarantees that it will
  not violate rights of minorities, otherwise it is
  possible to use to justify outvoting minorities.

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Rights
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Changing Western History

• Many of the great documents of the last two
  centuries have centered around the notion of
  rights.
• The Bill of Rights
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
• The United Nation Declaration of Human Rights

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Human Rights

• After the King John of England violated a number
  of ancient laws and customs by which England had
  been governed, his subjects forced him to sign
  the Magna Carta, or Great Charter, which
  enumerates what later came to be thought of as
  human rights.

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Human Rights

• Among rights of Magna Carta were the right of the
  church to be free from governmental interference,
  the rights of all free citizens to own and
  inherit property and be free from excessive
  taxes. It established the right of widows who
  owned property to choose not to remarry, and
  established principles of due process and
  equality before the law. It also contained
  provisions forbidding bribery and official
  misconduct.

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Rights, A Base for Moral Change

• Many of the great movements of this century have
  centered around the notion of rights.
• The Civil Rights Movement
• Equal rights for women
• Movements for the rights of indigenous peoples
• Childrens rights
• Gay rights

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Justifications for Rights

• Self-evidence
• Divine Foundation
• Natural Law
• Human Nature

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Self-evidence

• We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that
  all Men are created equal, that they are endowed
  by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
  that among these are Life, Liberty and the
  Pursuit of Happiness.
• Declaration of Independence
• July 4, 1776

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Divine Foundation

• We have granted to God, and by this our present
  Charter have confirmed, for us and our Heirs for
  ever, That the Church of England shall be free,
  and shall have her whole rights and liberties
  inviolable. We have granted also, and given to
  all the freemen of our realm, for us and our
  Heirs for ever, these liberties underwritten, to
  have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of us
  and our Heirs for ever.
• The Magna Carta, 1297

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Article 1.
• All human beings are born free and equal in
  dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason
  and conscience and should act towards one another
  in a spirit of brotherhood.
• http//www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

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Rights-related Questions

• Freedom of Speech
• Death Penalty
• The Disappeared
• Economic Social Rights
• Terrorism Anti-Terrorism
• Corruption

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Natural Law

• According to natural law ethical theory, the
  moral standards that govern human behavior are,
  in some sense, objectively derived from the
  nature of human beings.

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Natural Law Human Nature

• Arguments for natural rights that appeal to human
  nature establish the following
• Some characteristic of human nature, such as the
  ability to make free choices, is essential to
  human life.
• Certain conditions, such as freedom from physical
  constraints, are necessary for the existence or
  the exercise of that human ability
• Conclude that people have right to live in
  conditions which allow for essential
  characteristics of human.

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Two Concepts of Rights

• The distinction depends on the obligation that is
  placed on those who must respect your rights.
• Negative Rights
• Obliges others not to interfere with your
  exercise of the right.
• Positive Rights
• Obligates others to provide you with positive
  assistance in the exercise of that right.

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Negative Rights

• Negative rights simply impose on others the duty
  not to interfere with your rights.
• The right to life, construed as a negative right,
  obliges others not to kill you.
• The right to free speech, construed as a negative
  right, obliges others not to interfere with your
  free speech

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Positive Rights

• Positive rights impose on others a specific
  obligation to do something to assist you in the
  exercise of your right
• The right to life, construed as a positive right,
  obliges others to provide you with the basics
  necessary to sustain life if you are unable to
  provide these for yourself
• The right to free speech, construed as a positive
  right, obligates others to provide you with the
  necessary conditions for your free speech--e.g.,
  air time, newspaper space, etc.
• Welfare rights are typically construed as
  positive rights.

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Positive RightsCritique

• Who is obligated to provide positive assistance?
• People in general
• Each of us individually
• The state (government)

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The Limitations of Rights Concept

• Rights, Community, and Individualism
• Rights and Close Relationships

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The Limitations of Rights Concept Contradicting
Rights Athos and Women

• Greek public community is indignant at the
  decision recently taken by the Dutch court and at
  the resolution of European parliament.
• In January, a Greek law that allows monks from
  the Athos Monastery not to let women to the Holy
  Mount was officially declared in court as
  contradicting human rights.

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The Limitations of Rights Concept Contradicting
Rights Athos and Women

• An official response to the declaration was
  immediate governmental spokesman told European
  human rights activists that the right of the
  Athos monastery republic not to let women to the
  Holy Mount was confirmed in the treaty of
  Greece-s incorporation into the European Union.

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Concluding Evaluation

• Rights do not tell the whole story of ethics,
  especially in the area of personal relationships.
• Rights are always defined for groups of people
  (humanity, women, indigenous people, workers etc).

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Personal Integrity vs Public Safety
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Justice
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Introduction

• All of us have been the recipients of demands of
  justice.
• My students expect just grading policy.
• All of us have also been in the position of
  demanding justice.
• I told the builder of my house that, since he
  replaced defective windows for a neighbor, he
  should replace my defective windows.

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Conceptions of Justice

• Distributive Justice
• Benefits and burdens
• Compensatory/Recompensatory Justice
• Criminal justice

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Distributive Justice

• The central question of distributive justice is
  the question of how the benefits and burdens of
  our lives are to be distributed.
• Justice involves giving each person his or her
  due.
• Equals are to be treated equally.

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Distribution What?

• What is to be distributed?
• Income
• Wealth
• Opportunities

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Distribution to Whom?

• To whom are good to be distributed?
• Individual persons
• Groups of persons
• Classes

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Distribution How?

• On what basis should goods be distributed?
• Equality
• Individual needs or desires
• Free market transactions
• Ability to make best use of the goods

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Strict Egalitarianism

• Basic principle every person should have the
  same level of material goods and services
• Criticisms
• Unduly restricts individual freedom
• May conflict with what people deserve

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The Difference Principle

• More wealth may be produced in a system where
  those who are more productive earn greater
  incomes.
• Strict egalitarianism may discourage maximal
  production of wealth.

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The Difference Principle

• Each person is to have an equal right to the most
  extensive total system of equal basic liberties
  compatible with a similar system of liberty for
  all.
• If a system of strict equality maximizes the
  absolute position of the least advantaged in
  society, then the Difference Principle advocates
  strict equality.

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The Difference Principle

• If it is possible to raise the position of the
  least advantaged further by inequality of income
  and wealth, then the Difference Principle
  prescribes inequality up to that point where the
  absolute position of the least advantaged can no
  longer be raised.

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Critics of the Difference Principle (DP)

• Strict egalitarians DP dont treat anyone
  differently
• Utilitarians DP doesnt maximize utility
• Libertarian DP infringes on liberty through
  taxation, etc.
• Desert-based theorists argue DP to reward hard
  work even when it doesnt help the disadvantaged.
  Does not provide sufficient rewards for ambition

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Welfare-Based Approaches

• Seek to maximize well-being of society as a whole
• Utilitarianism

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Desert-Based Approaches

• Distributive systems are just insofar as they
  distribute incomes according to the different
  levels earned or deserved by the individuals in
  the society for their productive labors, efforts
  or contributions. (Feinberg)
• Distribution is based on
• Actual contribution to the social product
• Effort one expend in work activity
• Compensation to the costs
• Seeks to raise the overall standard of living by
  rewarding effort and achievement
• May be applied only to working adults

desert - förtjänst förtjänt lön,
vedergällning according to one's deserts efter
förtjänst
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Libertarian Principles

• 1. People own themselves.
• 2. The world is initially un-owned.
• 3. You can acquire absolute rights over a
  disproportionate share of the world, if you do
  not worsen the condition of others.
• 4. It is relatively easy to acquire absolute
  rights over a disproportionate share of the
  world.
• 5. Therefore Once private property has been
  appropriated, a free market in capital and labor
  is morally required.
• Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy

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John Stuart MillEarly Feminist Critique of
Liberal Distributive Structures

• Mill in The Subjection of Women (1869)
• Principles associated with liberalism require
  equal political status of women

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• Try to run Wealth Distribution, a model that
  simulates the distribution of wealth.
• http//ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/WealthD
  istribution