A Wallace Ethical Issues and Life Choices Exam 1 Study Guide You should understand and being able to explain the following terms arguments and ideas in detail as discussed in class Philosophical Arguments Philosophical Argument A set of statements one or more of which are designated as premises and exactly one of which is designated a conclusion The premises provide reasons to believe the conclusion is true purport to show that given the premises the conclusion is highly probable Inductive arguments Example 1 90 of human beings are right handed 2 Barack Obama is a human being 3 Therefore Barack Obama is right handed Deductive argument they purport to establish that given the premises the conclusion is certain not merely probable Example 1 All dogs are mammals 2 My pet is a dog Therefore my pet is a mammal Deductive Validity A deductive argument is valid iff if and only if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false A deductive argument is sound iff 1 it is valid and 2 all of its premises Deductive Soundness are true Notes Like validity soundness only applies to deductive arguments And only valid deductive arguments can be sound all invalid arguments are also unsound When people talk in ordinary English about a good argument they often are thinking about soundness If an argument is sound then its conclusion is true Why The argument is valid so it is impossible for the premises to be true while the conclusion is false The premises are true So the conclusion can t be false So the conclusion must be true Psychological Egoism Descriptive vs Normative claims Descriptive claims claims about what is in fact the case Normative claims claims about what should or ought to be the case Ethics primarily concerns normativity The domains of normative ethics applied ethics and metaethics The main thesis of Psychological Egoism pursuing ultimately as an end in itself is his own self interest AKA Each of us has only one fundamental motive self interest and we re capable of acting only on that motive the only thing anyone is capable of desiring or No one ever really acts altruistically Altruism concern only for the welfare of others even at one s own expense PE allows that people might appear or claim to act altruistically but in all such cases investigation will reveal self interest as the true motivator According to PE we have only one fundamental desire self Fundamental vs derived desires interest fundamental not based on other stuff But we can have derived desires for other things including derived desires to help others Ex I have a derived desire to finish my dissertation because I have a more basic desire for a Ph D Even if PE is true you might have derived desires to help others if this is the best way to promote your own interests Effects vs aims PE claims that we always aim But actions can have other effects Ex when I talk I move air molecules around This is an effect not an aim If promoting self interest is an effect of our action this isn t good enough for PE The claim is that such promotion is an aim to do what most benefits us that weren t aimed for for PE and the arguments against it The Motive Argument Here s an argument for PE H 1 Every action I perform is prompted in part by desires that are my desires and not someone else s 2 Therefore all of my actions are intended to satisfy my desires 3 Therefore every time I act I am seeking my own satisfaction 4 Therefore every time I act I am pursuing my own self interest Notes Each premise is supposed to follow directly from the preceding premise None is supposed to require additional evidence 2 4 are intended to be equivalent each means the same as the others the argument commits a reasoning error Thus the argument requires in effect that an unselfish action be one which is not really motivated at all 516 But this demand is clearly unreasonable The for PE and the arguments against it Moral Education Argument 1 Morality must be teachable 2 Children are made to acquire moral behavior only by enticing rewards and painful punishment 3 Inculcating certain behaviors by reward and punishment is only possible if people have a fundamental desire for their own self interest 4 therefore Moral education is only possible if people have a fundamental desire for their own self interest a deeper look Premise 2 while it s true that parents often teach their children to behave in moral ways via reward and punishment this doesn t seem to be the only way they are taught It s often explained to children that an action of theirs may harm someone else or make someone else feel bad and this is the reason that the child is taught to act a certain way A similar response is available for Premise 3 Children can be taught to behave morally via reward and punishment when the rewards or punishments have to do with something the child cares about They might be told to behave in a certain way in order to not hurt the feelings of someone else who they care about In this way acting immorally may result in a type of punishment in which someone they care about is hurt Empirical Evidence against PE Parental Care parents seem to have a natural predilection to provide care for their child when that child appears to be in distress Hypotheses that explain this phenomenon 1 Egoistic Hypothesis a belief about the child s distress causes the parent pain that the parent believes she can alleviate by helping or the parent believes that she will be caused pain if she does not help 2 Altruistic Hypothesis the parent has a non derived desire that the child do well 3 Combination Hypothesis parental care might be explained by a combination of these mechanisms Counterexamples Some actions are very difficult to explain in purely self interested terms Soldiers jumping on grenades to save others People donating large sums of money anonymously We might try to give some self interested justification here Maybe the soldier thinks his actions will benefit him in the afterlife But atheists can sacrifice themselves as well Cultural Relativism Why Cultural Relativism seems to threaten morality morality because it challenges our ordinary views of The Cultural Differences argument and responses to it 1 Different cultures have different moral codes 2 Therefore there is no objective truth in morality Right and wrong are only matters of opinion and opinions vary from culture to culture Is this argument sound How about valid It looks to be invalid and therefore unsound Just
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