Ben Gerry

Freewill and Determinism:

Hard Determinism:
Baruch Spinoza:

In the mind there is no absolute or freewill, but the mind is determined to will this or
that by a cause, which has been determined by another cause and so on to
infinity

Clarence Darrow:

Product of their upbringing - Leopold and Lobe murdered 14 year old boy
I know nothing happens in this world without a cause

John Locke:

Freedom is an illusion

John B Watson:

Take a dozen healthy infants - Would train them into anything

Ted Honderich:

We have a kind of life-hope which is incompatible with a belief in determinism. An

open future, a future we can make for ourselves, is one of which determinism isnt
true. - Strong advocate of Hard Determinism
"Determinism is true, compatibilism is false.

Voltaire:

"Pear trees cannot bear bananas."

Soft Determinism:
Steven Pinker:

as real for us as if it were decreed by the almighty or written in the Cosmos

- Describing our moral sense. Evolution might predispose men to violence,
but this doesnt excuse it as our moral sense is innate.

Libertarianism:
Peter Van Inwagen:

Road Analogy - Determinism only has one road, libertarianism has many that
branch off.
Once one might have said that the problem of free will and determinismwas the
problem of discovering whether the human will is free or whether its productions are
governed by strict causal necessity.

Werner Heisenberg:

In the strict formulation of the law of causalityif we know the present, we

can calculate the futureit is not the conclusion that is wrong but the
premise. - Better to refer to statistical probability than general laws

Jean-Paul Satre:

Man is free not to be free - Argues we are 100% responsible for our actions

Conscience:

St Augustine:

Return to your conscience question it see God as your witness.

Judith Butler:

Conscience comes from God.

it magisterially exerts itself spontaneously without being consulted

Ben Gerry
Freud:

Conscience is guilt
Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating
within us.

Fromm:

Authoritarian and Humanistic

Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information,
biases, irrational passions, rationalisations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth
swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real
and true.
It is the map we use for organising our life

Piaget:

Not everyone has the same conscience

Meta-Ethics

F. H. Bradley:

self-realisation within the community - People reach (Naturalism)

G.E. Moore:

We know what is good, but we just cant define it. (Intuitionism)

Goodness is indefinable as yellow is indefinable, because yellow is already in its
simplest form. Good is good.
Good is a simple, analysable property, just as a primary colour is.

W. D. Ross:

We intuitively know we have the duty to fulfil certain duties

A J Ayer:

The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual

content. Thus if I say to someone, 'You acted wrongly in stealing that money,' I am
not stating anything more than if I had simply said, 'You stole that money.
It merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in
the speaker.
Boo/Hurrah. (Emotivism)

R.M. Hare:

the problem of whether it makes sense to imagine myself being someone

else (would it still be me?), and of what I am constrained to say about that
person's situation when I do it
stealing is wrong really means you ought not to steal, and neither will I

Virtue Ethics

Plato:

Human behaviour flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and
knowledge.
A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

Ben Gerry
Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.
The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without
seeking to appear so.
Golden Mean
Aristotle:

Happiness is an activity of the soul expressing complete virtue.

Virtue, then, is of two sorts, virtue of thought (e.g., wisdom, comprehension,
intelligence) and virtue of character (e.g., generosity, temperance, courage, justice)
Virtue of thought arises and grows mostly from teaching, and hence needs
experience and time. Virtue of character (i.e., of ethos) results from habit (ethos);
hence its name ethical, slightly varied from ethos. Hence it is also clear that none
of the virtues of character arises in us naturally.

Anscombe:

Modern Moral Philosophy - 1958 Paper - Whats right and wrong without law giver?

Philippa Foot:

Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy - 2002 Book

Alasdair MacIntyre:

At the foundation of moral thinking lie beliefs in statements the truth of

which no further reason can be given. - After Virtue

Rosalind Hursthouse: Book - On Virtue Ethics 1999

- Normative Virtue Ethics - 2007
Uses the example of a child genius; a child genius may have several intellectual
virtues - because they can be taught - but may lack certain moral virtues (Not book)
Annette Baier:

The very professionalisation of philosophy makes the likelihood more remote that
those awkward questions, necessary for a healthy social consciousness, should
come from philosophers. It may make for better philosophy and a better society if
they come from a social misfit like Diogenes, or from an anathemetized lensegrinder like Spinoza
That any society ought to have philosophers in its midst seems to us an axiom of
any possible social philosophy.

Sexual Ethics

Christians:

Homosexuality = dishonouring their bodies

you shall not lie with a man as with a women
"[homosexuals are] sexually immoral
Certain homosexual Christian group = The group argues that homosexual
relationships must be loving, and that the Bible is only knocking the use of male
prostitutes

Engels:

[On marriage] "concealed domestic slavery

Kant:

[On homosexuality] "a slave to their passions

Ben Gerry
"beneath the beasts
"no longer deserves to be a person
[On sex] a necessary evil
Mill:

[On freedom of choice] "[we should not] attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede
their efforts to obtain it.

Philippa Taylor:

(Christian Utilitarian)[On co-habituation]

You are six times more likely to break up if you cohabit before marriage - it inflicts
more pain than pleasure

Cohabitation leads to a greater fear of rejection

There is a higher rate of alcoholism and pregnant women smoking in cohabiting

relationships
A higher rate of suicide among men
A higher rate of abortions
A higher rate of STDs
A higher rate of cancer

Environmental Ethics

Peter Singer:

We should give the same respect to the lives of animals as we do to the lives of
humans
[Against speciesism] "speciesism draws an arbitrary line.
"I don't think ethics is only for humans.

Bentham:

"not can they reason, nor can they talk but can they suffer?"

Kant:

"Animals are there merely as a means to an end.

But of course, treat everything as an end in itself. This also applies to humans
destroying the environment for our own benefit - Kant wouldn't agree.

Stephen Clark:

Also argues that respect for humans should be extended to respecting animals.

Aquinas:

[Natural Law] "it matters not how man behaves to animals.

"the life of animals and plants is preserved not for themselves but for men.

Aristotle:

[Virtue Ethics] "natures has made all animals for the sake of men.

Christianity:

Dominion and Stewardship

St Francis Assisi:

Creation spirituality
One with nature - moon is sister

Matthew Fox:

Panentheism - Christian view

God is within everything - everything alters with God

Ben Gerry
Arne Naess:

"a philosophy of ecological harmony

Calls dominion arrogant

Leopold:

"integrity, stability and beauty

Business Ethics