The Basis of Moral Claims

2 Normative Ethical Questions You Have Thought about in the Last Year

What makes these questions moral questions?

Why have these moral questions resisted resolution?

Intrinsic vs. Instrumental Value

Ethics: Easy StreetDo what’s “normal:” Ask no questions, seek no answers.

Do what “feels” right.

Do whatever: it doesn’t matter anyway.

Easy street “undermines your personal freedom.”

Easy street results in moral positions that are “incomplete, confused, or mistaken.”

Easy street prohibits “moral growth.”

Easy street leaves one unable to explain ones judgments and actions.

The Divine Command TheoryHow about Divine Command Theory as an ethical path?

Ambiguity & Contradiction.

Silence of religious texts on some issues.

“Good” and God—the Euthyphro Dilemma.

If I do the something because I’m told to do it, in what sense is it an expression of my moral self?

Ethics: The Hard Road

Endless opinion?“Our commonsense moral experience suggests that if a moral judgment is to be worthy of acceptance, it must be supported by good reasons” (7).

“Logic requires that moral norms and judgments follow the principle of universalizability” (7).

Is & Can (facts)

What happened or is happening?

What responses are possible? What can I/we/they do?

What do I know?

Ought & Should (judgments)

How should things be? What ought to happen?

What response should I/we/they choose? What should I/we/they do?

What is significant about what I/we/they know?

How do you move from what you know to what to do?

Moral reasoning.

A set of principles or a framework that guides the application of value to knowledge and directs thought toward action.

How does one discover or create that set of principles or that framework?

Is Ought

Example: John Rawls’ “Veil of Ignorance” Thought Experiment: How do we create a just society?

Is/Can (i.e. knowledge)

Everyone desires a “good life.”

The world has limited resources.

Individuals fight for their own interests against the interests of others.

Individual conceptions of “good life” and interests are determined by race, sex, country of origin, economic status, intelligence, etc.

Ought/Should (i.e. action)Define a society from a position of ignorance—that is, without knowledge of individual abilities, economic status, race, sex, social position, etc.

The Veil of IgnoranceBased on what “is,” what “ought” to be?Is that “just” your opinion?

From behind the veil, what “is”? In other words, what do you know?

“I’ve got issues”

The Afghan Goatherds

100 goats, two farmers, one 14 year old boy.

All unarmed.

No rope to tie them up.

Let them go, and they could give away location of Seals to Taliban.

Kill them or let them go?

Some Questions

Where is value located? Where does it come from?

Does it matter whether value is inherent or assigned?

From where can we derive moral authority?

When we claim that something is good/bad or right/wrong, what are we saying?