ETHICS

Dr. S. M. Mehboobul Hassan Bukhari

 Life Boat Case
• Summer, 1884, Dudley captain, Brooks sailor, Stephan first
mate and Parker cabin boy,
• Is killing justified in any circumstances for whatever reasons?
• Sacrifice
• Logic of the ethics
• Idea of consent:
• Lottery idea: preference of one’s needs, desires on others.
Lottery brings equality to the table, that is to say, anyone can
sacrifice his needs and desires. Is it a problem of Fair
procedure? Fair procedure
• Calculate the balance of happiness , welfare, number of
people involved, they had families, children,
• Why murder is a murder and wrong? Three questions must
be investigated:
• Do we have fundamental rights?
• Does fair procedure justify any results?
• What is the moral worth of the act of consent will justify the
act of killing?
 ETHICS AND MORALITY

• Morality: internal standards of good and right.

• Ethics: what makes good good and what makes right
right is evaluated, examined and debated.
• Sometimes they are used interchangeably
 NORMATIVE STUDY
• Ethics studies the norms and values in normative way
• Normative study is different from descriptive and
analytical study
• Normative study looks at things ‘how things ought to
be’
• Descriptive Study the fact – how things are
 THE EICHMANN PROBLEM
• Eichmann was not a designer of final solution but just an implementer
or a manager
• ‘the number of transport trains I had to provide – whether they were
bank directors or mental cases , the people loaded to these trains
meant nothing to me. It was really none to my business’ Eichmann
• He didn’t ask question the authority Blind obedience authority
• He separated means from ends. good manager without reference to
what is being managed.
• No moral question he raised about his actions.
 Ethics: the moral action
• Ethics studies how should one behave and analyzes what is it
that makes an action good or evil, right or wrong.
• It follows that it deals with two types of questions
• 1st order questions: how should one behave?
• 2nd order questions: What is the meaning of right / nature of
moral judgments in the moral context?
 Ethical theories
• Ethical action is theorized (primarily) in two ways
• Teleological /Consequential Ethical Theory:
Consequences of the action determine the worth of
action.
• Deontological/Duty based Ethical Theory: The
intention or the sense of duty of the actor determines
moral worth of action.
 Consequential Ethics
• Consequences of the action determine the worth of action.
• This is manifested in Hedonism/Utilitarianism.
• Hedonism: Ultimate aim of human activity is happiness.
• Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832)
• Happiness is blissful mental
state.
• The source of happiness is
irrelevant
• ‘Principle of Utility’ or ‘The
Greatest Happiness Principle’
‘Whatever brings about the
greatest total happiness’
 Bentham’s utilitarianism
• Two sovereign rulers in nature: pain and pleasure
• Any action that has more pleasure and less pain is moral action
• Right action can be calculated by probable consequences of the
various possible courses of action.
• Which action brings about most happiness is the right action in those
circumstances
• Utilitarianism has to deal in probable consequences rather than the
precise results of any particular action as it is difficult.
• Difference is degrees must be considered as one kind of the
same
• Greatest good (more pleasure and less pain) for the greatest
number
• Hedonic or ‘felicific calculus’ – a set of guideline – can
calculate the pleasure / happiness
• Hedonic calculus is good for comparative purpose
• This has been translated into Cost Benefit Analysis.
 Is really pleasure standard

• Mood altering drug such as Ecstasy is inserted in water

supply. Is it morally good? How we achieve this state of
happiness is important.
• Plugged in sophisticated virtual reality experience machine.
Happiness is not an issue of mental happiness but how that
is produced.
 Philip Morris Study: Smoking
Negative Effects Positive Effects

Increased Health Care Costs Tax Revenue from cigarette sales

Early death cause Health Care

Savings
Pension savings
Housing costs saving for elderly

The state draw147 Million dollars

Dollars Premature deaths saves

Check Republic $1227 per person
 Ford Pinto
• Ford Pinto in 1970s
• Fuel tank at the back of the car which exploded during
collisions
• Cost benefit analysis revealed
Cost Benefit (s)

Shield cost 11 dollars per part 180 deaths X $200, 000 per death
+

$11 into 12.5 million cars 180 injuries X $67000 +

2000 vehicles X $700

$137 Million $49.5 Million

 Some reflections
• Ford put monetary value (number)to life
• Do Economic benefits are more important than life?
• Using cell phone Drivers
• 2000 drivers die each year in USA
• Placing dollar value on everything is problematic to make
decisions
• Does it destroy Utilitarianism
 St. Anne's Girls College, 1970
• Overnight stay of male guests,
• Traditional faculty translated their argument into Utilitarian,
• Overnight stay was compromised by three times a week
overnight guests,
• Newspaper reads next morning, St Anne’s girls 50 cents per
night.
 Some objections
• No respect for individual rights
• No distinction between higher and lower pleasure
• Difficulties of Calculation/measuring happiness and comparing the
happiness of one with another. Moreover who is to decide what is
pleasing Think of a Sadist. How comparison can be made between
physical and eating and sexual pleasure.
• Not possible to aggregate all value to dollars (Thorndike 1930) single
value can
 John Stuart Mill
• Mill was brought up in a Utilitarian way by
his father, James Mill, who was a devoted
Utilitarian.
• For Mill, Bentham’s approach is crude.
Human rights and Higher and lower
pleasures
• Mill has distinctions between higher
(intellectual) and lower (physical) pleasures.
He says ‘it is good to be Socrates dissatisfied
than a fool satisfied’.
• Higher pleasures are counted for more and are preferable
• Compare reading Shakespeare with watching any good
sitcom. Mill humanizes under his wife influence
Utilitarianism two things
• One tries both of them: one prefers one over the other. No
independent standard. Can’t step outside desire.
• Higher pleasure requires cultivation of culture education.
• Individual rights are privileged due to the utility, it is part of
utilitarian reason. Long run interests of the society.
 Criticisms
• What is to be counted as effect of a particular action. Hitting the
children for misbehavior. Immediate or long term effects.
• Immoral actions can be justified. Public hanging as deterrent of an
innocent man. This is repugnant to sense of justice. Unpalatable
consequences. Saddam Husain's hanging videos
• Mill’s argument is elitist preferring intellectual pleasure justifying his
own
• Relative amount of happiness even after Mill’s distinction is complex
and not reasonable. There is no cut off point .
• Think the creditor has forgotten and borrower is there.
 Deontological Ethics
• Immanuel Kant (1734 – 1804)
• Out of sense of duty (intention of action rather than action in itself or
consequences)
• Man is moral. He is held morally responsible. ‘ought implies can’.
• Maxim: the general principle /intentions behind actions always help the
needy because it is your moral duty
• As a rational being, we have duties. Morality was a system of
categorical (not hypothetical duties) imperatives (duties) – Commands
to act – in absolute and unconditional ways. No matter what
consequences might follow from obeying them.
 Categorical Imperative
• There is only one basic categorical imperative: ‘Act only on maxims
which you can at the same time want to be universal laws’ known as
principle of universalizability.
• Universalizability: The underlying maxim behind an action must be
universalizable. It must be applied impartially and without any
exemptions. This is a version of Golden Rule of Christianity
• Means and Ends: ‘Treat other people as ends in themselves, never as
means to an end.’
• Respecting other people’s interests. Humans are individuals with wills
and desires of their own.
 Criticisms
• It is empty: No framework to make actual moral decisions. Some
content to morality treating people as ends.
• Conflicts of duty:
• Universalizable immoral acts: ‘kill anyone who gets in your way’.
These criticisms ignore Kant’s means/ends version
• Implausible aspects: it seems to justify some absurd actions, telling
axe man where his friend was. Well intentioned idiots can cause
death. Kant’s theory gives inappropriate role to emotions, sympathy.
Distinctively moral emotions were separated from morality. No
account of the consequences of actions.
 Virtue Ethics
• It substitutes the question ‘how should one act? with ‘how should
one live?’ Cultivate virtues. You will flourish as a human being.
• Neo Aristotlianism: focus on character of individual’s life as a whole.
Wholeness
• Not rightness of particular actions but men
• Eudemonia: Flourish (eudemonia) true happiness which applies to
whole life. Great physical pleasure without achieving eudemonia.
• Certain ways of living promotes Eudemonia.