so thinking about ethics RSL 3 areas of moral philosophy value theory area of ethics concerned with identifying what is valuable in its own right and explaining the value of well being normative ethics examining our fundamental moral duties meta ethics status of moral claims and advice what is ethics moral agents can t control their behavior through moral reasoning humans not animals if argument is true we should accept it but conclusion might be false truth of the premise is not enough to guarantee the truth of the conclusions moral reasoning morality distinct from tradition no objective truth in ethics morality is objective page 6 morality is not the law moral reasoning involves 2 things set of reasons conclusion these reasons support good arguments avoid false beliefs 1 heroin is a drug 2 selling heroin is illegal 3 therefore heroin is immoral true theses but good argmument because legal if argument is valid the truth of the premises guarantees the truth validity does not mean truth atlanta is in florida alexis is in atlanta alexis is in florida valid but NOT true when an argument is valid and its premises are true then it is sound valid means that the truth of the premises gauruntees the truth of the conclusion even if the premises may be false invalid not valid don t need truth for a valid argument identify premises imagine they are true could the conclusion possible be false if the conclusion can still be false it is an invalid argument if the conclusions cannot be false it is valid soundness is just an argument that works claim it is making premises must be true those claims must in fact logically support the conclusion p1 there are no objective truths c there are no objective morals p1 if everyone had an equal right to an opinion then all opinions are equally plausible p2 everyone has an equal right to his or her moral opinions c therefor all moral opinions are equally plausible moral objectivity supports dogmatism if there are objective moral standards then this makes dogmatism acceptable dogmatism is unacceptable therefore there are no objective moral standards atheism undermines moral objectivity morality can be objective only if god exists p2 god does not exist therefore morality cannot be objective values have no place in a scientific world p1 if science cannot verify the existence of X then the best evidence tells us that X doesn t exist p2 science cannot verify the existence of objective moral values c therefor the best evidence tells us that objective moral values do not exist SUMMARY so marquis thinks we need to first explain what makes killing wrong killing deprives the victim of a future is a very plausible wrong maker if this is what makes killing wrong then abortion is going to be wrong since if you want to oppose maruis you need to give a different account of making abortion deprives unborn future killing wrong marquis thinks his argument wouldn t make contraception wrong many people are okay with withdrawing life support but not administering lethal drugs because they think there is an important act omission distinction when we act to cause a result X there is not the same thing as failing to act to if i don t help to save someone s life when i could there is not the same thing as if we do not keep someone on life support this is not the same thing as giving cause a result X killing them them a lethal drug is choice always good we think you are not made worse off by being given a choice since you can always decline the option being presented sometimes by being given a choice we might tend to make a bad choice consider putting money into a retirement fund killing yourself culture values independence and is very critical of people who burdens others if euthanasia isn t an option she does not feel a burden to justify her continued existence best policy is to ban euthanasia but quietly fail to enforce the law rules and always are clumsy tools they cannot account for all circumstances public policy should be weak and vague Gun Control Hugh LaFollette guns dont kill people people kill people what do we mean a gun is not an agent humans must decide to kill a person who intends to kill does not need gun to do so even if we banned guns people would still ill each other they just do it without guns NNWA nuclear Harm p1 if X is a tool for Y then X does not Y p2 guns are tools for killing c guns don t kill people p1 if guns dont kill then society shouldn t control ban guns p2 guns don t kill c society should not control ban guns it is true of all weapons that they need a human operator of course a gun is not as dangerous as a nuclear weapon but neither is a gun as harmless as a feather Two questions are guns inherently dangerous are they objects such that we know without evidence that they are harmful Alcohol and tobacco are dangerous but not inherently so what is the empirical probability that they cause harm Are guns inherently dangerous they were invented to cause harm guns have been redesigned to make them more deadly cars have been redesigned to make them less dangerous this reflects the fact that a gun is a tool designed to cause harm while a car isnt Are guns inherently dangerous guns advocates think they are guns would only be important for self defense and for resisting tyranny if they were effective means of threatening and causing harm since there are legitimate use for guns we need otut try to figure out how risky gun ownership is before we can conclude it should be banned and we need to figure out if there are significant benefits to gun ownership inherently dangerous if guns are inherently dangerous we cannot dismiss the idea that they should be subject to government control how risky is gun ownership we are bad at determining risk we are afraid to fly and afraid of Ebola but are not afraid to drive and not afraid of the flu so our gut feelings are not always a good guide to objective risk 4 relevant factors 1 probability of harm 2 seriousness of the harm 3 probability of achieving benefits 4 importance of the benefits As the likelihood and seriousness of the harm guns causes increases we have more reason to control guns as the likelihood and importance of the benefits of gun ownership increase we have more reason to not control guns autonomy roger likes to skydive this carries some risk of something really bad roger could get his adrenaline fixes in other ways so maybe the benefits to him of skydiving are not that important but we allow roger to
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