Bellwork 2808

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Bellwork 2/8/08

• What would the following do if they were enlisted
  to fight in a war?
• - A Benthamite
• - A Millian Utilitarian

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Reminder

• Journal Entry due TODAY
• Forum Post due TODAY

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Agendas

• Your homework for the weekend
• NONE!!

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Todays objective

• I will be able to apply the Categorical
  Imperative to a given moral scenario.

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Ethical Philosophy

• Teleological
• consequences

• Deontological
• duty

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Deontological Philosophies

• Some things are just right or just wrong
  no matter what
• Rightness or wrongness has nothing to do with
  outcomes
• Based on a sense of duty to what is the right
  thing to do

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Immanuel Kant

• 1724- 1804
• Cant to Kant
• Very pious upbringing
• Influential!!

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Immanuel Kant

• Many books
• Critique of Pure Reason
• Critique of Practical Reason
• Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals
• Etc.
• 1st Critique
• If I finish it, I am afraid
• I shall go mad!

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Immanuel Kant

• Never left Königsberg
• Lived there for 40 years
• Very routine
• Linden Allee
• Philosophers Walk
• Set their clocks to him
• Died unmarried of
• senile dementia

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Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals

• Small book, small man
• one of the small books which are truly great it
  has exercised on human thought an influence
  almost ludicrously disproportionate to its size

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Ought vs. Outcomes

• What you ought to do
• Unconditional!
• Not I ought to do this if I want this
• I ought to do this, period.
• The unconditional ought is the moral ought.

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Moral Ought

• Necessary
• Binding
• Duty
• Universal
• Everyone
• All the time
• If its relative, its not real!

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DUTY!!

• We should always act out of a sense of duty to
  act, not based on the outcomes
• Remember the little old lady??

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A Posteriori vs. A Priori

• Teleological
• A Posteriori
• Based on sense experience
• Deontological
• A Priori
• Based on reason alone

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A Posteriori vs. A Priori

• Teleological
• You need some sensory experience to make a
  teleological decision
• Deontological
• All you need is Pure Reason!!
• Does that make sense? ?

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Excerpt from Foundations of the Metaphysics of
Morals
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Categorical Imperative

• One of the most famous important concepts in
  Ethics
• The test of if something is right/wrong
• Act only according to that maxim by which you
  can at the same time will that it should become
  a universal law

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Categorical Imperative

• Categorical
• X is good, etc.
• If X is good, then
• By definition
• Imperative
• Ought to do it
• Sense of duty

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Categorical Imperative

• Act only according to that maxim by which you
  can at the same time will that it should become
  a universal law
• Make your choices in such a way that everyone
  ought to do this by definition

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Criticisms

• Isnt it too abstract to relate to real life?
• How can we ignore consequences
• Arent there exceptions??

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Activity

• Scenarios

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Reminder

• Journal Entry due TODAY
• Forum Post due TODAY

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Closure