 Rhaid i chi ddaeth i chi eich gwleifion. Rwy'n deall yma, wedi bod nhw'n fwy yw yw weithiau logig ac argument yn ei gweithio fel y gallwn chi diolch yn penodol yn lleolwydd. Rwy'n gobeithio sto'r etymy a'r politi. dyna'r cyhoedd yw yw pob hwn yn ystod o'r cyffredin ni hwn. Rwy'n gweithio gennych gweld eich trefiant Mae'r three ethical theories. Obviously, I've chosen three because I could have talked about all the number of things. But these three are probably the three most popular theories. Firstly, Aristotle and his, what has become virtue ethics now. Then I'm going to talk about Kent, and then I'm going to talk about Utilitarianism. I'll compare and contrast them to each other, but I hope by the end of today you'll at least have a feel for some of the key issues of each of these theories. Okay, so we're going to start with Aristotle. Now, tell me actually before I go on to Aristotle, what is it that we're trying to answer in ethics, when we're trying to do ethics? What do you think the question is that we're concerned with? That's not a question. Yes, we're concerned with right or wrong, but what is the question to which... It's morally right to do something. Right, okay. One question might be, is it right to do whatever? To lie, to kill, to whatever. That might be your question. Good, that's right. There are two sorts of ethical question. You can't hear my answer. Sorry, you can't hear the question. Oh, their answer. Got it. The first answer was... The question we're looking to answer is doing this right or wrong. And the second answer was the principles behind. What are the principles behind decisions about right or wrong? Is that fair? Okay. Between the two of you, you've come up with absolutely the distinction that I want to come up with. Thank you very much. Between first-order ethics and second-order ethics. Now, first-order ethics looks at the world. It looks at certain action types, lying, killing, cloning, whatever. And it says, is an action of this type morally acceptable? Okay, that's a first-order question because it pertains to the world, if you like. Then there are second-order moral questions which ask, what is it that makes an action right or wrong? Do you see that we've gone one back, if you like? So just in the same way, if I talk about first-order beliefs, I'm talking about beliefs about the world. So my belief that shares blue is a first-order belief. But if I then think, is my belief that that shares blue true, that's a second-order belief because it's a belief about a belief? Got it? And you can have second-order desires as well. Does someone want to give me a first-order desire? What's a first-order desire? Or I want a cream cake or I want something to eat or whatever. And a second-order desire, it's a bit more difficult actually with desire, so I realise now I've started, I'll finish. Can anyone think of a second-order desire? Why would I want a cream cake? Very nearly, absolutely. You might think, okay, I want a cream cake but I want to be slim, both of those first-order desires, but then you might think I want to be the sort of person who wants a salad rather than a cream cake. Or I want to be the sort of person who wants my health more than I want a cigarette or something like that. So you should be noticing incidentally that the philosophy works in the second order. So is that belief true? Is a very philosophical question. What is truth? What constitutes truth? What constitutes rightness? So okay, we can say whether cloning is right or killing is right or keeping promises is right. But as a philosopher, what we're interested in is what is it for something to be right? What is it for an action to be right? What is it for an action to be wrong? Okay, we step back a bit. So what we're interested in today is not so much first-order ethics but second-order ethics or meta-ethics it's sometimes called. We're interested not so much in judgments about particular types of action. We're interested in judgments about that sort of judgment, what it is that makes something right. Now, very importantly, you can only test your second-order ethical theories against your first-order ethical theories. So if an ethical theory says, well, what it is for an action to be right is this, it would be perfectly reasonable to say, well, there's one problem with that, and the problem is that it comes out as saying that it's fine to kill people. Now, because it clashes with first-order ethics, you think there's probably something wrong with your second-order ethics. Do you see what I mean? You test the two against each other. As in everything, theory and practice interact with each other. So to link this to last week, when I was doing logic, I said to you quite a few times, you are all rational animals. You all make logical decisions, you make judgments the whole time, because whenever you decide whether an argument is good or bad, you're making a logical decision. The difference between us is that I know what I'm doing when I do that, whereas you do it just from instinct, from intuition. But what a logician does is identify what you do when you reason, and then formulate a theory on that. But of course, if that theory came out telling you to do something that's obviously wrong, all of you do, then there's something wrong with the ethical theory. So theory and practice interact. You test your intuitions about ethical theory against your ordinary, everyday ethical judgments. We're going to be doing a bit of that today, so I'll draw your attention to the fact that we're doing it when we do it, so you'll see what I mean when I'm saying now. Okay, so we're going to talk first about Aristotle. Now, Aristotle, I've given you his dates there, says that the right action is the action that would be chosen by a virtuous person. Now, you feel like saying, not very useful, Aristotle. Not a good decision-making theory, this one, because I've now got to know who's a virtuous person and ask them and make sure I understand when it's on. That's what Aristotle says, the right action is the action that would be chosen by a virtuous person. And what is a virtuous person? Well, here we are. A virtuous person knows three things, or at least has three characteristics. The first is he or she knows which is the right action in a situation. Now, this is quite important feature of Aristotelianism. Aristotle believes that morality has nothing to do with rules. Rules like keep promises, don't tell lies, et cetera. And let me give you an example of that. Okay, I want you to imagine a situation. Okay? Your mum comes back from a hairdresser or your wife or your husband or your daughter or whoever you like. Comes back from the hairdresser and says, what do you think? And you think, yuck. Okay, you've got a problem, haven't you? What's your problem? Truth isn't a problem, it's a word. Tell me what the problem is. You might hurt the person. Okay, that's one element. But that's only one side because that's not a problem. You might have to lie. You're not going to have to lie. You've got a choice, haven't you? You might be wrong. Well, if you think, yuck. You can't be wrong about what you think, at least, your mum has asked you what do you think. Okay, you've got a problem here. There are two rules, aren't there? Be kind, be honest. And it looks as if in this situation you've got a conflict. You can't be both kind and honest. Right, so what do you do? Okay, well Aristotle says this is a classic example of a moral dilemma. You cannot use rules here because the rules run out. The thing about rules is that their general claims don't lie, don't kill that have to be applied in particular situations and given that, in various particular situations they're going to come into conflict, aren't they? And so in this time you're thinking my goodness, if I tell her what the truth she's going to think I'm really cruel if I tell her a lie I'm going to think I'm really awful and what do you do? So you've got to make a choice between these two. Does it change your mind if I say your mum's been depressed for six months? This is the first time you've seen her smile. Does that push you in one direction? Okay. You thought that before. Oh I see, you thought you'd be kind before. Okay. Well, okay I'm going to embarrass some of you now because what you'll do if you're not a proper moral agent in this situation is make yourself a set of rules. You're going to say, oh goodness I can't bear this sort of moral dilemma. You know, I don't want to be cruel and I don't want to be dishonest either. What am I going to do? I'll just have to say it, look I value truth more than I value being kind. So whenever this situation arises, whenever I hit a dilemma of this kind, I'm going to be honest. Now we all know people like that, don't we? Some of you may be people like that. Okay. And there are other people who hit that situation and they say, oh I hate this sort of dilemma I'm going to make myself a little rule and the rule is whenever I hit a situation of this kind, I'm going to be kind. I think kind is trunks honesty and I'm going to be kind. Perhaps you're usually. Okay. But you see that if you make that sort of we all know that sort of person too, don't we? Aristotle says that you shouldn't be a person of either of those kinds because what you should do is maintain the value of both truth and honesty and make a decision in this particular situation that doesn't necessarily have any ramification whatsoever for any other situation. So you don't make a rule that says I value truth more than honesty or I value honesty more than truth. You say in this situation given the particularities of the whole situation I'm going to go for kindness given that my mum's been depressed for so long etc. But in another situation pretty much the same. You'd say I'm going to go to proof of her honesty and the point according to Aristotle is you don't make yourself rules you just do whatever seems to you in that situation that needs to be the right thing to do. Surely the problem is that the mother she's never actually said what do you think because I've never in a million years said to my daughter what do you think Well I'm glad you wouldn't but many other people wouldn't. And if you didn't say what about does my bum look big in this or what do you think of this stress or did you like the stew I made tonight I mean we're constantly seeking the opinions of others on things and therefore putting them potentially into that situation of moral dilemma. Anyway the fact is that you can generalise the example I'm using the example I'm using is fairly trivial but any moral dilemma is exactly this situation you've got two values two general rules which in a particular situation come into conflict and you can't obey both. Of course you're going to wriggle aren't you I'm going to be cruel to be kind I'm going to say or something like that or of course it's not really a lie it's only a white lie Did you both try that before you gave your answer again I'm sure you did because one of the things about being a virtuous person is that you've got to be a wise person says Aristotle he thinks that all the virtues come together and the thing about a wise and virtuous person is that they do know what to do in a situation unfortunately not in a way that they can give you a rule okay all they can do is well they can't do anything because they're likely to be modest as well of course but if you think they're virtuous you should watch them see what they do try and intuitively act as they would act ask yourself how would they act in this situation that sort of thing so he knows what the right action is even though knowing what the right action is is so very difficult and there aren't any rules that you can give to anyone that are going to help them the second thing about a virtuous person is that he performs the right action well we all know about this don't we you know what the right thing is to do but do you do it there you went again you gave in to temptation you needn't be malicious or something like that it could be just a moment of weakness or whatever clearly knowing what the right action is is not a sufficient reason for being not a sufficient condition of being virtuous you've actually got to do the right action as well and Aristotle says that the thing about the virtuous person is that and this is actually very important here you can be born benevolent you're a sort of naturally benevolent person but that doesn't mean that you're going to acquire the virtue of benevolence a comparison here is you could be born strong with the potential to be a real athlete or something like that but if you sit around eating crisps and watching television all day this disposition is going to disappear isn't it so you were born with the potential to be strong but you're not strong born with the potential to be athletic but you're not athletic similarly you might be born with the potential to be virtuous to be benevolent say but not be benevolent and the difference is that you actually have to exercise benevolence you have to do it so if you're born strong you actually have to exercise you have to practice you have to train if you do all those things you will become strong properly strong it doesn't matter whether you've been born benevolent so you occasionally do kind things just because it's your nature to Aristotle you've actually got to do it because it is the right thing to do and you've got to practice you've got to get the habit of telling the truth we all know don't we that the first slide is quite difficult but the second one is a bit easier and the third one and the fourth one and the fifth one you can get the habit of being dishonest you can get the habit of not fulfilling your attentions of going swimming this afternoon that's the little reminder to me you've got to try and get the good habits the habits the other way round so you've not only got to know what the right action is you've actually got to act on that knowledge and what's more make it a habit of acting on that knowledge okay and finally you've got to perform the right action for the right reason okay now each of us is the guardian of our own morality if you like of our own values imagine the situation again with your mum okay here's the situation she said what do you think and you've made it you think yuck and you make a lightning decision I'm going to be kind here now you can justify that can't you it's very easy to say I was just being kind you can also justify I was just being honest but we all know that sometimes when we were honest actually what we did was give into a moment's spite have we ever done that don't need to admit I won't ask you to put your hands up so you can you can claim to be being honest but actually you're giving into a moment's strife at this fight and similarly you can claim to be being kind but actually you've just failed in moral courage is that also a common situation so it's no good just knowing what the right action is and performing the right action you've got to perform the right action for the right reason so one's intention is very important to Aristotle and if throughout a lifetime you do these things I mean obviously you get better as you get older and so on if throughout a lifetime you do these things you will become a virtuous person and at that point you can be looked to as someone whose actions to emulate someone's decisions to emulate somebody whose advice to ask and so on so for example when the government gets together a group of the great and the good and form an advisory committee or something like that what the government is doing is actually acting in a very Aristotelian sense they're saying look all you lot you're wise and virtuous so let's put you together and ask your advice on these issues let's see what you would do or what you would tell us to do and that's what we're doing is consulting people who have a reputation who have proven themselves in some sphere of life ok that's Aristotel then yes I was just going to say are there any questions firstly he seems to have added an unnecessary layer of complexity to this business about having to find a virtuous person why is that an unnecessary layer of complexity he has sufficient to look at those three conditions and some people may have them in some situations of not others it's not just a sort of black or white thing Aristotel is virtuous and this person is not virtuous doesn't and sort of allied to that there's the issue of the right action it presupposes the very situation there is any right action that will approach and comes no it doesn't presuppose I'll deal with that one first because it's very easy it's a right action as a matter of fact in a situation I gave you with your mum either of those actions could be right and it would be perfectly reasonable for you to make either of those decisions if you were sincerely making them on your best judgement so the fact is there can be many different right answers but that doesn't mean there isn't a wrong one do you see what I mean I mean there are lots of different right answers in a situation on the first one I don't think it's a layer of complexity because if I have a moral dilemma if I have a problem that I think is a moral one I'll go and ask lots of different people but I'm not going to ask anyone I think it's either stupid or wicked or likely to give me biased advice or something like that but the use will be people I think can give me something safe and of course I'm not going to choose just one I'm going to choose several and I don't see why that shouldn't be described as looking for a virtuous person to help me out in this situation of course the decision is eventually mine but I think I'd be stupid not to go seeking advice I would have just thought it's hardly enough making the decision in some situations where it's complex it's hardly enough knowing the right action and doing it for the right reasons without having to then make decisions in order to get there to make decisions about which person is virtuous in this respect and which person isn't but I think you're getting it the wrong way round because it seems to me that when I have a moral dilemma what I usually mean by that is I don't know what the right action is in this situation or I can give arguments for several different actions and it might be that any one of them would be right and that's why I would seek the opinion of somebody else whom I respected I guess my trouble will respond to that in fact my response is to think about it and why that person comes to myself and look at the reasons for those reasons You wouldn't consult anyone else? It depends on the situation not necessarily Right, well that's a personal anecdote what Aristotle would say is is you might not consult them but you might say what would so and so do in this situation what would so and so do in this situation Anyway you don't have to agree with Aristotle but this is his theory I do agree with Aristotle here I would certainly I wouldn't make a serious moral decision where I wasn't sure of the pros and cons myself without asking some other people then of course I'd weigh the pros and cons for myself because eventually the decision must be yours, mustn't it You know you can't get away from weighing the pros and cons but you can either do it without advice or you can take advice from people whom you respect and admire Okay, any other questions about Aristotle? What's the trivial question? What do you think of my hair? That's trivial I'm speaking What do you think of my hair? If you ask Sandrobyn who is a great friend of yours and you say to them are you going to go to a ex or are you going to go to a ex or are you going to go to a ex and she says I'm certainly going to go to a ex and then you're on then you will find yourself that you are going to go to a ex and are you going to have a problem where you support your friend who is going to have an argument about it Well I mean I would suggest that you argue with her first and maybe support her or not support her depending on how the argument went but I would also say that you should ask someone else and the key question is why are you going to vote for ex and you ask someone else why are you going to vote for wife I use the trivial question as an example but as I said in every case of moral dilemma I mean should we allow cybrids for example these the use of a cow egg to incubate a human nucleus producing something that's 99% human 1% bovine I mean should we do that is that morally acceptable Well I would just weigh the pros and cons by myself or I could ask just one friend but I think what I would do is ask lots of people I would set up a commission to look into it get lots of people on this commission who have a reputation for being wise and I would ask them to discuss it and then weigh the pros and cons on the basis of this So the question it doesn't matter how trivial or important the question is it brings out the same process which is that you consult as many virtuous people as possible and then weigh up the situation for yourself Sorry Sorry The problem I have with virtue is that it implies that somebody's virtue is all the time where in this instance it feels that it's only virtuous for this particular event that has been that non-virtuous for something else No, Aristotle wouldn't think that was the case You don't become virtuous until you've been performing the right action for the right reason on many occasions in the past and we can all get it wrong occasionally but we all know that there are some people who get it wrong a lot they either never know what the right you think well he's a car crash waiting to happen isn't he this one or they know what the right action is but never perform it you know they're weak or malevolent or something or they do perform the right action so I mean for example if I'm an honest if I'm a dishonest person my best bet is to tell the truth isn't it most of the time and what a dishonest person does is merely hold themselves ready to be dishonest when it's going to benefit them I mean actually it's important if I want to be dishonest to get you to trust me but if what I'm doing is telling the truth I know that telling the truth is the right thing to do I'm often telling the truth but the reason I'm doing it is to get you to trust me so I can then sell you that nice time share that I've sadly just sprang a link the other day or whatever then I'm doing it for the wrong reason so it's not in a situation that someone is virtuous if they're virtuous says Arun Solff they have been virtuous over a long period the nice thing is you can't really be virtuous till you're quite old I mean we'll qualify we've made it by now no we can all make mistakes nobody's denying that you can make mistakes but the thing is this is not a foolproof procedure because Mary Warnock came out recently and said she made the wrong decision on special schools she's a prime example of the sort of person the government consults when it comes to wanting a virtuous person while she's come out and said she believes she was wrong on something that's entirely consistent with being a virtuous person but if someone did it too often then you'd stop consulting them wouldn't you we're spending too long on Arun Solff so just one quick question I was going to say that it makes it more virtuous yes it suggests that something is going right there ok so that's Aristotle so you've got one ethical theory now one account of what it is what the right action is the right action is one that's performed by a virtuous person chosen by a virtuous person not very action guiding but a good theory I think another one Kant believes that an action is right only if the person performing it does so out of reverence to the law or as he would also put it out of a sense of duty but in duty here you've got to be quite careful because we have a tendency to think of duty as something dry and horrible whereas Kant doesn't think of it like that let me leave that for a second Kant talks about in the ground work in the metaphysic of morals which is on your reading list he talks about the only way you can tell whether someone is virtuous or not is if in a situation of moral dilemma they're prepared to act out a duty rather than inclination ok so we always have many motives for doing almost everything we do there are several different motives there are reasons for doing it reasons for not doing it and some reasons are better than others and if we act on the right reasons so Kant is very similar to Aristotle in this he thinks it's intention that's important it's acting out of reverence for the law out of duty so let's say ok we've got I'm having from one end a braised nose lane what's your name? Alison's coming from the other the beggar who sits there with her young child in winter wrapped up at least is asking for money and Alison gives her a pound and I give her a pound so exactly the right action Alison gave her a pound because she thought it was the right thing to do I gave her a pound because I wanted Alison to think I'm a kind person ok both acted morally or have I acted morally and Alison's acted in self-interest or did I get that the wrong way round you know what I mean just a little test for you make sure you're listening who thinks that I have acted just as morally as Alison ok, why? because in the end she's actually self-interested because she wants to know what's happening ah but why do you sorry what's your name? Georgia Georgia is saying that Alison did it as well because she wanted to make herself feel good is that right? yeah you think everything is done mostly yeah even if it's done for good reasons there's self-interest involved because you're making yourself feel like you're doing right there you're in good company here David Hume, a Scottish philosopher would say the same thing that everything is performed out of self-interest that you do absolutely nothing out of altruism Kant thinks that that is absolutely wrong he thinks that if you do something out of inclination then it's not that by inclination he means for self-interest at any level then it's not a moral action and he actually thinks that most of the actions we do and people think they're moral are in fact not moral because they are done from this idea of wanting to appear good or you give something to charity and it gives you a nice warm glow that's a nice feeling well if you do it for that reason then it's not a moral action says Kant it's only a moral action if you perform it because you think it's the right thing to do and the real test is there's an action that you really really really want not to perform and yet your duty tells you you should perform it so you believe it's the right thing to do it can do the right thing rather than what you want to do you are acting morally in that particular instance whereas if you give into your inclination you're not acting morally so Kant would disagree with you on the belief that every action is self-interested he thinks most actions are self-interested but not all of them there are the occasional acts that it's performed out of reverence for the law well Kant wouldn't care wouldn't care about that no this is a very few philosophers would care about that because they're not religious sorry go on I see because you're saying to the extent that religion gives you an inclination towards performing the right thing okay this is what Kant would say this will remind you of something I said last week in fact it's exactly the same something I said last week okay doing A is right I should do A okay and do you remember I said that Kant would say that that is entailed by that you don't need in here anything like I want to do the right thing now in effect Georgia this is what you're saying that there must always be a desire of that kind in between this premise and this conclusion and Kant would say well no because actually if you think you need to add in that you want to do the right thing you're implying that there might be an occasion on which you didn't want to do the right thing and if that's true you don't have the concept of right at all you don't understand what right is if there is an occasion you might not want to do it do you see the very important thing here is that this without the want here is what Kant would call a categorical imperative the imperative I should do A is not contingent upon your having this desire about doing the right thing because this desire doesn't make any sense because if you know what it is to do right you couldn't not want to do right doesn't mean that you will always do right because we do quite often do things that we don't want to do but the fact that we believe we were wrong will be manifested in shame and guilt so if you really know what's doing right and doing wrong is you cannot want to do wrong that's what Kant says so okay so there's a very long tradition stemming from Hume that says you can't do any action without a self-interest behind it now if that's so and if Aristotle is right the ancients believe that it has to be reason not desire that's propelling moral actions it would mean that actually none of our actions is moral wouldn't it because not one of them is altruistic so Kant sorry Hume has to come up with another account of morality that's consistent with no actions being altruistic anyway so that's Kant and I've talked about reverence for the law so what is this moral law okay well this Kant gives six different accounts of the categorical imperative of which this is one and I'll give you this one because I like this one best but there are six others but they're supposed to be equivalent so it shouldn't really matter that I'm giving you one rather than six act in such a way that you treat humanity whether in your own person or the person of another always at the same time as an end and never solely as a means so what's your name? Dorothy let me your pen for a second thank you now I used Dorothy as a means to my end then didn't I I wanted to tell you something to show you something I asked her to give me her pen and she gave it to me so she was a means to my end of giving you an example is that right but I also at the same time you can have it back then used her as an end in herself because she could have said no she could have said I'm sorry I'm using it or it's the only pen I've got or no why should I lend you my pen or you know she had the choice actually that's not true is it really in this but you can see what I mean we're always using each other of means when we say past assault would you carry my suitcase you know will you do this form etc but it's what's important is that we always treat others as ends in themselves as well in other words we allow them to make their own choices if I trick you into carrying my suitcase then I'm not treating you as an end in yourself because I'm not giving you the choice am I so what Kant says is that you've always got to treat humanity as an end in themselves because the thing about humans and he allows that there may be other rational animals but let's just talk about humans the thing about humans is they're rational they make choices and they make them freely not all our choices are free but some of them are and the fact we can make free choices is what makes us moral animals it's that what makes us moral and notice it's not just the other people we've got to treat as ends in themselves it's also ourselves your every bit as wicked if you treat yourself as nothing more than the means to somebody else's end because that's conflicting with your integrity as an autonomous being as somebody with free will so that's the moral law notice incidentally that Kant is also pretty lousy as a decision maker okay what's the right action oh well it's the one that the law says we should perform what's the law it's the one that says we should always treat others as ends a lousy school rule isn't it you know please treat others as ends at every time and I why does he bring time into it um dosi oh oh just saying as you treat them as a means you're also treating them as an end so it doesn't mean there's no duration to it it's just that simultaneously you can't make up for having treated someone as a means by then treating them as an end you were wrong to treat them as a means in the first place okay so that's Kant we're going to run him through the philosophers here okay the next one we're going to look at is utilitarianism now utilitarianism is quite different from either Aristotle or Kant because utilitarianism tells us that um the right action is the action that produces the greatest happiness and the greatest number now this is a consequentialist doctrine not a doctrine based on intention or will so whereas Kant believes that the only thing that's good in itself is the will the choices, the intentions on which you act the utilitarian thinks it's the consequences of your action that matter so let's think about the nature of an action for a minute um here's an act okay whatever that act is it might be me scratching my nose because I told um what's your name okay I told David that um if Mike isn't at the back today filming me I'll let him know by scratching my nose okay and so I'm scratching my nose and in effect the scratching of the nose is a lie isn't it because Mike is there uh so um this act could be a scratching of the nose but of course it's also a lie well then it wouldn't be a lie but it would be a scratching of the nose actually no that's quite important because um oh goodness this is all me here oh I do go on don't I um now I'll never find this bit again hang on um if you think of okay think of me I'm an object um I'm an object with many properties there are many descriptions that pick out me uniquely aren't there so um she's the only person in this room who's on the stage um she's the person who's director of studies in philosophy at OUDC she's the person who's wearing a um a turquoise jumper there's several other people here but I'm the one on the stage wearing the turquoise jumper etc do you see these are all uniquely identifying descriptions of me so there are lots of different ways of getting to me and the same thing is true of an action action that okay here's the class of nose scratching this one is a lie okay because this is the one where I'm looking at Dave and say to tell him that Mike's not in the room this one isn't this is just the nose scratching okay and this one is a is a I'm very bored with this sort of move um and so on do you see so it can be a token thing that is also a lie but when any token action so here's a token action it's an action of scratching the nose the fact that it's action means that it must have an intention mustn't it okay so if I come in a trip over the map and you all laugh I might think to myself oh that's interesting I might make them laugh I'll do it again next week so when I come in next week I trip over the map again now the first one was unintentional wasn't it the second one is intentional so in order for it to be an action something it's got to be something you've chosen to do is any action you haven't chosen to do is not an act for which you're morally responsible okay there can be manslaughter rather than murder you might be culpably guilty of manslaughter in that you really shouldn't have been cleaning your gun as it pointed at David and was loaded and so on so there's more or less guilt attached to the manslaughter but in order for it to be murder there has to be an intention there so you've got an intention you've got an action and you've got the consequences of an action okay there are always going to be consequences of the action so now David knows that Mike isn't there he's going to go up and ask where Mike is or something like that so that there's a consequence so every act has an intention and a consequence and Canton Aristotle thinks that the moral evaluation of an action carried goes on here whereas utilitarianism thinks that an act can only be evaluated here okay so it's not the intentions with which we act that make the act wrong it's the consequences of that act so if I want to take my dear old aunt out for tea and as I take her out we cross the road and she's squashed by a bus the action I have performed has been wrong even though my intention was a good one I'm going to feel guilty other people are going to worry about me what counts of making an action wrong is its consequences and you can see one huge advantage of this is that if we're looking at courts of law it's pretty well only consequences that we can look at isn't it I have no way of getting to your intentions other than through your actions including your linguistic actions you might tell me that your intention was this, that or the other so in a court of law it's nearly always the consequences that matter more than the intention of course I may want to get at the intention do you think that somebody could always intend well but as a matter of fact everything they do is wrong so they intend to do the right thing but they never actually succeed I mean wouldn't you be getting a bit suspicious so you know this is the third answer I've taken out and squashed under a bus and funnily enough they each left me money you know I mean what's going on here so we look at we look at the consequences in order to determine the intentions look oh god it's happened again oh my goodness me I just I'm meant to make her happy etc you're not going to believe me are you so in a court of law it tends to be the consequences not the there's another nice thing about utilitarianism and that is it gives us a bit of a decision procedure doesn't it so I mean Aristotle has a searching around for virtuous people and Kant has a searching our own intuitions for what the moral law tells us to do on this occasion but utilitarian is an inductive inductive moral theory it tells us that whatever action will produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the right action so it looks as if it's much easier to work out what you should or shouldn't do but do you think that's maybe misleading oh you'd all do then okay let me just give you one example dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was that the right thing to do or not well if you're a utilitarian you think it was the right thing if dropping the bomb produced the greatest happiness the greatest number and that it wasn't the right thing if dropping the bomb didn't produce the greatest happiness the greatest number now what's the truth of the matter did dropping that bomb produce the greatest happiness the greatest number or not I mean actually we can give arguments can't we on both sides there is a fact of the matter but the chances of our ever knowing that fact are virtually nil aren't they so utilitarianism might seem to give us a very easy decision procedure but actually it doesn't and there are sorts of other problems as well I mean let's say that David is such a happy cheery person he smiles all the time it's very easy to make David happy whereas Alison is a miserable old and I can think well okay I can produce much more happiness in this class by concentrating on David because he's very easy to make happy and I can just ignore Alison because she's nothing I can do is going to make her happy am I talking about average happiness or total happiness what is happiness anyway so actually utilitarianism is not as easy as it looks to execute or to increase so why you said that is a fact of the matter that you think about that if for example a certain we cannot know what would happen if we had it off that long the fact we can't know doesn't mean there isn't a fact of the matter so for example are there three consecutive sevens in the decimal expansion of pi excuse me a second I'm just looking for something here something I can't find yes but the intention doesn't matter I'm just saying happiness is to see what you're using there well no no ending a war does make people happy actually and of course the alleviation of unhappiness produces happiness as well but sorry going back to your question you can't say that because we'll never know what the fact was therefore there wasn't a fact I mean the decimal expansion of pi is an infinite expansion if there are no three consecutive sevens in the decimal expansion of pi then we will never know this ever and we can know that in principle it doesn't mean there isn't a fact of the matter was there a tree here 20,000 years ago right here I mean there is a fact of that matter isn't there do you know it? yes because that's gone past because the correct answer is the future and it wasn't that future well it isn't that future I mean it's been it's been thought ah well the fact of what would happen there is in the future and we can never know that yes but that's a different problem because the fact is it was a long time ago and there is a fact of the matter that would reduce more happiness than not but the fact that the future we can't know about happiness is actually very interesting isn't it because it does mean that when you actually act you don't know what the consequences of your action will be you can make a good guess perhaps but you can never be certain what the consequences of your action will be so utilitarianism makes a very important distinction between the morality of an agent and the morality of an action and whereas the morality of the action always depends on the consequences the morality of an agent depends upon the fact that they act with the intention of producing the best consequences okay so if a moral agent could carry out a moral action yes so if I go and plant a bomb in a supermarket or something like that and it's actually quite a small bomb and as it goes off it it's sorry I'm trying you can probably see where I'm going somewhere but I can't it stops a major disaster from happening it causes something else so my small bomb actually results in a lot more people being left alive than would otherwise have been left alive the consequence of what I've done have been good but what I did was bad my I was bad for doing what I did even though the consequences have been good so for utilitarianism you've got to make a distinction between the moral worth of the agent and the moral worth of the action that they performed problems for utilitarianism one of the difficulties for utilitarianism is that it says that the action that produces the greatest number is the right action but there seem to be some very clear counter examples to this for example genocide it looks as if utilitarianism could justify genocide if you have a situation where the two of you down here or the three of you down here are different race from us or different something or other from us and we don't like them do we but they're not very many of them are they so let's just get rid of them ok now that's produced the greatest happiness of greatest number because you know they're not many of you to be happy so your happiness doesn't really count and we all wanted them then so that's produced the greatest happiness of greatest number hasn't it was a bit worrying to say the least now it might be that some of us feel pretty outraged that these people have been shot so four of you over here think that was really awful so we can actually put your unhappiness with their unhappiness but can we ever be sure that the unhappiness of those who are against genocide will outweigh the happiness of those who are for it can we be sure no it looks if we can't in which case go for utilitarianism it rather looks as if you're opening yourself to the possibility of justifying genocide and that's because to the utilitarian a human right the right to life for example is only a right on the understanding that your right to life isn't conflicting with the greatest happiness the greatest number you have a right to life because on the whole it produces the greatest happiness number to treat people as if they have a right to life but if suddenly your right to life comes into conflict of the greatest happiness of the greatest number then your right to life lapses I have a duty to kill you if killing you will produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number so there seem to be counter examples to utilitarianism on the other hand it's so incredibly useful we're actually using it in the national health service at the moment has anyone heard of Qollies so quality adjusted life years or something quality quality adjusted life years when a surgeon or a doctor is considering some sort of intervention and he can only afford to do one of these perhaps rather than the other you decide by looking at the quality so the number of life years that would be produced by this intervention so for you it would be 10 and for you it would be 5 and then you look at the quality of those years that you're producing so you'll have 5 actually pretty mediocre years where I can give you 5 really good ones of course I have made it very difficult for myself but you see that you can look at Qollies to give you some way a measure of which intervention you should do and that's based very, very firmly on utilitarianism it's not just genocide it's just war it's happening more when you say it well do you remember the sailor the captain who had to shut off the oxygen in the engine room but this would be the theory that it just would well utilitarianism did seem to justify shutting off the oxygen in the engine room and it might justify war but of course camps could also perhaps justify a war and so could Aristotle if the war seems to be the only thing that's treating others as ends in themselves or the thing that virtuous people would suggest so it's not just utilitarianism that can justify war everyone can do that but what's utilitarianism can justify genocide and it's not obvious the other theories can do that so if you want to justify genocide utilitarianism is probably your theory it makes it sounds as if I've got a down on utilitarianism which is absolutely not the case I think that there are many ways of interpreting this in particular I think that you might want to say that utilitarianism is a descriptive theory not a prescriptive one in other words it's not telling us that this is what we should but that this is there's somebody in there no so there's somebody that's gone into the and they're fitting and wronged okay what was I saying? right a descriptive theory is just saying that when you do do the right action it will work out that that was the action that produced the greatest happiness, the greatest number not that's what you should do because actually there's something wrong with saying it's prescriptive I mean I intend to go home tonight after I've been swimming of course and have a glass of wine now I could actually go and work in the Oxfam shop or go and buy a house for a bit or something like that which would presumably make more people happy than me having my glass of wine at home should I be doing that I mean surely actually what I'm supposed to be doing producing the greatest happiness, the greatest number all the time I'm going to get very tired so you might think it's not a prescriptive theory at all but a descriptive one so I've given you the bad news headlines about utilitarianism but I promise you that there are ways of understanding this that make it much less simple than I've given the impression of it's probably a very naive view of moral philosophy but I would have it appears that many people look back at child development and how children develop moral reasoning that the thing that makes the differential switch from whether it's externally imposed by consequence as imposed by parents or something like that and when it comes internalised is one of the major factors is that child's own development of empathy and that any moral philosophy that doesn't actually take into account that one of the major corns stones of our own moral reasoning is our experience but these can all take empathy into account because yes, utilitarianism is it seems to sort of be a slight well if I'm concerned for your happiness I think that I've got to exercise I mean empathy is only a method of determining what others are feeling I mean if I put myself in your position then I'm using empathy but I'm using empathy to determine what's going to make you happy or I'm imagining who's going to be affected by my action how will they be affected by it or I'm thinking what is it in this situation to treat children as enemies in yourself what would you choose if I was able to ask you again I've got to use empathy I'm supposing children the beginnings of empathy is simply actually experiencing the experience like the other person it's not a reasoning or a rational process maybe not but the fact is if all they're acting on I mean think back to what Aristotle said about you can be naturally benevolent I mean children if one child in the nurse who starts screaming the others are all going to come out in sympathy very quickly and if you cry in front of a child a child gets very distressed I mean children are naturally empathetic but boy they're not naturally moral I mean in order to become moral they've got to learn what the right action is they've got to learn that they've got to do the right action and they've got to do it for the right reasons so that's the beginning of knowing that other people have feelings and experiences like you have internally and then from there children begin to see if I do such and such to service so it will hurt I don't like it but you're giving a psychological theory of morality and I'm interested in the philosophical theory of morality so in the same way I can say we can be interested in language what is language, what is meaning how do we manage to communicate with each other that's a philosophical interest or we can say how does language develop in a child psychological theory and I'm teaching you philosophy I would have just thought that the law is just a sort of more sophisticated development of that how does law and things like that otherwise where does this law come from yeah okay Margaret did you have a I just had a question I was asking you were telling what a descriptive theory was what is that a descriptive theory tells you what you want to do so it's a prescription of your action not just a descriptive you obviously had to do the right action simply because you were told to do it or it was the only action no you don't have to do it it's just that utilitarianism if it's a prescriptive thinking it says you should produce the greatest number if it's a descriptive theory when you have done the right action it will be the case that it does produce the greatest number whatever your intention was in doing it including if you intended to do wrong okay I'm going to move on to politics now because otherwise we're not going to get politics done so that's ethical theory and to go back to the developmental thing of course empathy is important I think of empathy is actually I call it charity the principle of charity I think there's very good reason to think that when we're trying to understand the physical world we're constrained in all our thinking by something called the principle of the uniformity of nature in other words if we want to understand whether A causes B we've got to see that see if we can get an A without a B because if we can that shows that it doesn't cause B so we're assuming nature is uniform but in the case of understanding each other we've got to use the principle of charity which is a form of empathy where if you say something that strikes me as mad so you say P and I say look it's obviously not P now I could dismiss you as stupid but actually if you're right I'll be losing my opportunity to learn something so the principle of charity tells you to always assume that the other person's error is less likely than your bad interpretation ok so if you seem to be saying something mad it's probably because I haven't understood you and I need to ask you why are you saying that if I dismiss you as mad then there's something wrong with me because you're a worthy collaborator you're a suit of truth you're another rational animal I'm doing wrong by dismissing you as stupid ok moving on to politics I'm going to talk about just one political issue because it's quite nice and central the issue of distributed justice how do we distribute the goods of society in such a way as it's done as to do it just fairly actually we have an income tax regime we also have a benefits regime we redistribute wealth in various ways and we presumably do this because we think that this is the most just way of distributing things like education the vote freedom of speech etc we try and equalise it but we don't go for equality we go for redistribution of the sort that we do we'll be talking about two philosophers John Rawls and Robert Nosey first I'm going to talk about Rawls 2002 how did that get in there I've no idea how that got there I've no idea I think he's still alive I'll have to look it up anyway it's definitely not that or at least if it is I don't know Rawls wrote a very influential book hugely influential book called the theory of justice it's very big it's very boring I don't recommend it but it has some very interesting stuff in it and what Rawls sets out to do is to choose the principles of justice he says what is it what are the principles on which goods should be distributed in such a way as to make it as just as possible and the real hallmark of Rawls' originality was something called the original position which is his way of choosing the principles of justice this is how he did it the original position is a position where people of a certain kind are put in a certain position and asked to decide on the rules by which justice should be by which goods should be distributed and the people are like this they're rational they're self interested okay so they're not stupid they care about themselves but they also you know they're quite happy to be kind to other people they're also risk averse they don't really want to put themselves into a difficult position they don't want to take risks and the original position sorry the position they're put in is behind the veil of ignorance now the veil of ignorance means that you don't know anything about yourself so you don't know whether you're male or female you don't know whether you're old or young you don't know whether you're rich or poor black or white intelligent or stupid ill or fit okay you know nothing about yourself you could be any of these things the only knowledge you have is the thin theory of good rules calls it and what the thin theory of good is tells you things like human beings need warmth they need comfort they need a certain amount of property over which they have autonomy humans gestate for nine months so you have a basic physiological, psychological political, economic facts about human beings but you don't know anything about you and now you've got to decide what the principles of justice should be and what rules thinks is that because you're behind the veil of ignorance you're forced to be fair okay you don't know whether you're well or sick so you're not going to make the setup such that people who are sick are going to be discriminated against because that might be you you don't know whether you're rich or poor so you're not going to give the rich everything it might be poor you're not going to be you don't know whether you're black or white so you're not going to set up systems so that black people are discriminated against or white people are discriminated against because you don't know who you are ditto with female, ditto with do you see what I mean because you don't know who you are your self-interest is not going to work for any particular type of person your self-interest is not going to work on behalf of anyone or rather everyone if you like cover isn't it goodbye to you and Rawls thinks that the two principles of justice that he believes will come out of this process are these two everyone's entitled to maximum liberty compatible with equal liberty for all okay so actually he's a libertarian he is a consequentialist but whereas the utilitarian will put happiness as the son of bernand as the thing we all want he puts liberty there it's liberty that's the most important thing and you could say we want equality things should be distributed equally but if you do that you're not taking into account of the facts that we're not given an equal distribution to start with are we you know if I'm ill I possibly need more goods than you need because you're fit so he says that inequalities are permitted but only when they make the worse off better off okay so those are the two principles of justice so to evaluate Rawls you've got to think okay what do we think of the original position in the first place and what do we think of the principles of justice that come out of it we might think we might dismiss the original position it's not a good idea or we might dismiss the principles of justice that come out and I'll say just a little something on the original position one important thing you've got to work out is just which information goes where behind the veil of ignorance or in the thin theory of good let's say that you believe that women are very emotional okay and that therefore they shouldn't be allowed to fly planes now do you put women are very emotional into the thin theory of good because this is a fact about half the human race and just as you put in it's women who have babies because it would be very important that was in the thin theory of good wouldn't it do you put women are emotional in there or do you put that in the behind the veil of ignorance so your decision about where you put various bits of information is actually going to so garbage in garbage out in effect isn't it so somebody in South Africa might have put all sorts of things about black people into the thin theory of good that we would think probably belong in the behind the veil of ignorance people 200 years ago would have put a lot of facts about women into the thin theory of good that we think ought to be behind the veil of ignorance so surely isn't the whole thing just question begging that we're going to put in to the veil of ignorance all the things you know all our prejudices are going to be exercised simply in the division of where we put things that's one thing there's none thing problem we might think and that's okay inequalities are permitted when they make the worst off better off well okay let's say that I've got something I can do that in this room you're the worst off sorry you're doing really badly to them I'm afraid you're the worst off we're the best off and I can do something that's going to make us a lot better off okay I can really do something unfortunately it's not going to shift them by so much as a hate me okay now this is ruled out we can't do that because this is an inequality that isn't making the worst off better off on the other hand I could do it if I make them just half a penny better off we could up ours by just a tiny little bit or something like that so there seems to be something of a politics of envy that could work in here quite worryingly because it might prevent changes that would make an awful lot of people better off but would be prevented just because it doesn't make the worst off better off so that's all I'm going to say about the rules but that's a very quick romp through distributive justice according to the theory of justice and the original position is the key thing in that point of that it's the original position and the thing, the theory of good that's very important and now finally I'm going to go on to Nosic Nosic holds a lockian John Locke English philosopher property theory what that says in effect is that you own the labour of your own body and everything with which you mix that labour now that's actually this theory of property underpins the American constitution it also underpins much of our law for example there was a time when you were allowed to enclose all the lands that you and your family could plough between sunrise and sunset and one thing that was rather fair about this if you were very strong and you had a family of nasty sons who could get up there and plough a lot of land then you could enclose a lot of that land between sunrise and sunset but you could also work it with all these sons and what's more you'd eat it too whereas if you and your little old mother were tilling the land you couldn't get much done but on the other hand you wouldn't need that much either would you so that was the idea between those who can own what you mix your labour with big problems though and somebody pointed out that if I empty a wine glass into the sea have I lost my wine on gains of the sea if I'm tilling the lands do I also get to own the mineral rights under the land or just the topsoil so there are big theories another big theory, Locke specified and so does Nose that you've got to leave as good and there's much behind for people who come after you and the trouble with this is it can zip back if there are ten apples then you take one, you take one you take one, you take one but when it gets to the tenth I can't take it because I'm not leaving as good and there's much behind but if I can't take it neither can the ninth personal the eighth personal, the seventh personal the sixth personal and it looks as if property can't be owned at all so there are problems with the Locke and property theory which underpins Nose's theory but one of the big things that he claims is that taxation is forced labour and his argument for this he talks about Wilts Chamberlain who was a basketball player now Wilts is a wonderful basketball player he's absolutely fantastic and you all have a certain number of holdings okay you've got a bit of money let's say we've all got equal amount of money and so's Wilts everyone including Wilts has the same amount of money but Wilts has this talent but he says I'm only going to exercise this talent if you pay me and we all say that's all right we'll give you an extra 25 cents for playing basketball well Wilts does play basketball he ends up richer than the rest of us okay now Nosex says that's fair you all chose to give him the extra type of 25 cents he chose to exercise his talents he didn't have to work like that and his unequal wealth is owned by him if you now take 25% of that away in taxation in effect you're forcing him to work for 25% of the time I mean for the hour and a half I've been measuring here 2% of that I think is going to be taken away from me yeah that's wicked shouldn't I be left with that 25% we could then I mean we could have private medicine private education toll roads and so on why should the state take that money away and spend it on things that I don't have any children why should I spend money on education I don't drive why should I spend money on roads so the conflict between liberty inequality the only way says Nosex of avoiding that link is you either have to interfere with Wilt's ability to choose whether or not to exercise his talents you've got to make him exercise his talents for no extra money or you've got to stop you from choosing to spend your money freely okay you can't spend it all on Wilt either way there's a conflict between liberty and equality and that says Nosex is the key problem for all liberal theories of distributive justice what do you think of that as a theory rubbish there's someone why well I think it goes against my feeling of fairness well hang on what's unfair here well if you're talking about distributive justice well if you're talking about distributive justice choosing to give to the talent or to the private business that and the other is going to perpetuate inequalities whereas taxation as we understand it should I agree for the policy but should in theory even that sounds but Nosex could say that there's nothing uneven about this taxation we're starting from sorry about private use whoa sorry I've never tried to lean on that if we've all started with equality okay I don't have children and I don't have a car but I do like swimming occasionally I would like to spend my money on decent leisure facilities you know the national trust things like that you have a car you would be prepared to pay to have toll roads so private roads any of you who might get sick which is probably all of us would want to pay for private insurance to make sure that we had hospitals available when we did it so it's not that there wouldn't be hospitals but we don't all start having well that's exactly his point his point is that as we don't start out equal and you want to encourage everyone to use their talents if you're silly enough to make it to stop them from using their talents by taxing them then you're going to lose they're not going to use those talents I mean in some ways you can see that this happens if taxation is set too high the people with talent are going to leave the country and not pay the tax it's crucial isn't it to set the taxation level so that you don't lose the people because there is this conflict so it's not that he's saying there shouldn't be any taxation but he's saying that taxation is forced labour and therefore you don't want too much of it one thing you might say is that if you tax people at all there are some people who are going to fall out of the net you might say there has to be a safety net knows it wouldn't even accept that he thinks that very importantly charity must be supported in a big way so it must be voluntary giving becomes very important in a society where there is very little taxation and I'm sure that that must encourage that well in schools and in I mean there are ways of encouraging giving and they do it in America very much and they do it here but you get work after that too you get work after that too I mean will when you work when people are quite happy to talk to people they get to that kind of thing what do you think but will Chamberlain yes he has because will Chamberlain wanted to be a milkman let's say he did not want to play basketball he's playing basketball only because you're prepared to pay he doesn't like playing basketball he must have he must have he must have he must have OK that's stop there we have 5 minutes of questions let's have some questions on ethics and politics surely even if you didn't let everyone equal on one day the next day they will be in it again that's his point his point is that in order to get equality you've got to interfere with liberty Mae'r ystyried i'n meddwl i'r llyfr yma, nid yw i'r llyfr yn cael ei wneud, dwi'n meddwl i'n meddwl. Mae'r ysgolioniaeth cerddur o'r llyfr yn cael eu llyfr. mae'r llyfr yn cael ei wneud yn cael eu gweld. Georgia? Yn y gweithio, mae'n gweithio bod ar ôl y ffordd yma. Mae'n meddwl i'r ystyried i'n meddwl i'r llyfr, mae'n meddwl i'n meddwl i'n meddwl i'r ffordd yma. Mae'n meddwl i'n meddwl i'r ffordd yma? Ieg ti'n siŵn ei fod palau mi ar gyfer ointérieur cyfan ac oed yn poeit hwnnw, oed wedi bod yng Nghymru yn gweinio. Yn gwybod y dyfodol, yn ynddwi'n gweithlo gyda i ddad. O'r argychaf y pethau'r gynhyrchu, maen nhw gaur, oed y ddau'r pob0r, y sphytul, hefyd, yma'r cyfnodwch. Ond yn gweithio ar gyfer ar gyfer mae hi'n gweithio ei gweithio yw ddatblygiadau, Sure, of course it's money that pays for all these things so it does tend to come down to me. Have a baseline that's moves to survive? Yes. Then there needs to be a positive action of the noise. My second question relates to the такая operations. Shall I answer that one just quickly? I'll forget it otherwise. But there would be no contradiction embodig doing einen Asics'-work—he does think that you have to have property to be autonomous. For him, autonomy is the key value. They invented to make choices is the key value. But if you need property in order to make choices and if on his theory you could be left without any property at all because there is no redistributive mechanism in society.Raigl e have something that has wrong with that. I'm sure there will be some basic redistributive mechanism to ensure that everybody has some property, however much is needed to be autonomous being autonomous is the most important thing, in the future. But he's libertarian, and he's not just a conservative. So what I'm thinking... So is it possible to be a philosopher without having them? Oh yes, I mean... Philosophers are people. One would hope that their political positions are rather more thought out than those of non philosophers Felly, mae'n gael bod ni'n sefydlu i'r rhaid i'r blaen. Ond oedd eich pethau a'r hanfodon yn ddod, Rodgysgrwsgwyr, mae'n ddod yn ei ddod yn rhaid i ddod, a ddod yn ddod yn rhaid i ddod yn rhaid i ddod. Rwy'n cais bod i ddod yn ddod i ddod, ac yn gwneud i ddod i ddod i ddod. Rwy'n cais i ddod i ddod i ddod i ddod. Mae'n ddod i ddod i ddod i ddod i ddod i ddod. I'm a little bit suspicious of them. It's very hard to find somebody who is going to be equally reliable on all the matters when they ask for advice on it's sake. I think it's all right in practice as well, because it is what we do in practice. Aristotle would think that somebody who is virtuous would be virtuous about everything, although he would admit that they can get it wrong. I think what I mean is that our decisions and our hard decisions are often influenced by experience and circumstances. One thing you would want to do if you were a wise and virtuous person is to look at the problem as objectively as possible. You would try not to let these. Also, you might say, I'm sorry, this is something on which I don't want to advise you because I know that I'm going to be biased. I know that it's wrong to be biased, therefore this is not an issue on which I want to be consulted. I think that's perfectly reasonable and consistent with being virtuous, but perhaps a few people will say that. Two more very quick ones, one here and one there. Does it not involve an absolute virtue and an absolute right? Actually all the theories that we've looked at here are absolutist theories.