Notes on Questions in Lecture of 02/10/2023

 Q1. What is SEP?

Answer: It is the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

 
Q2. Mom encouraged law but he didn’t bite! … why, and what do you think?

Answer: Hume was enthusiastic about learning so he preferred that to having a more conventionally successful career

Q3. Logic and reason are not  the root of ethics. So what else could be the root, then?

Answer: Emotions

Q4. The passions are key – emotion and feeling

• …wrote Hume. What do you think?
• Does that sound like a deontological, utilitarian, or virtue ethics footing?

Answer: This sounds more like a utilitarian argument. I don’t totally agree. I think this explains people’s feelings about ethics but not ethics itself.

 

Q5. Should ethics ever be the same for robots, Martians, and humans?

·        Should ethics ever *not* be the same for robots, Martians, and humans?

·        What about humans and chimpanzees?

o   (Reference: Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, p. 207, 1982, Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.)

§  – Nikkie tried to attack Luit

§  – Puist helped Luit fend off Nikkie

§  – Nikkie then attacked Puist

§  – Luit watched, did nothing

§  – Puist then attacked Luit “furiously”

o   Why?

o   Is there a universal sentiment here?

o   Would Martians see it differently?

o   Would a race of superintelligent fish?

o   Robots?

Answer: I think this is a question of what should be versus what is. Ethics should be the same for robots, Martians, and humans but in practice it won’t be because of different feelings. About the example involving chimps, the universal sentiment seems to be one of reciprocity. The other organisms would probably have similar ideas since they would have evolved under similar conditions (except for robots of course).

 

Q6. Can ethics even exist?

• Can a universal  sentiment be a basis for ethics?

• Do we even need ethics?

Answer: If we think of ethics as rules for maximizing wellbeing then I think they do exist since these rules are objective. We definitely need ethics because maximizing wellbeing for everyone is intrinsically good.

 

Q7. Let’s try logic instead…

• Construct ethics from pure reason
  • Can you do it?
  • Even a little?

  Answer: I probably couldn’t but I think its possible in theory. Ethics could be viewed as a formal system like math so in theory it should be possible.

 

Q8. Any alternative to sentiment and logic?

• Received ethical codes
  • E.g. the Bible
  • Does that solve the problem?

  Answer: This would be divine command theory which has its own problems. These codes either have good reasons or they don’t. If they don’t have good reasons then they are arbitrary and if they do have good reasons then you can appeal to the good reasons directly.

 

Q9. “Can anything stronger be said

in praise of a profession…

than to observe the advantages

which it procures to society?”

– Hume

Do you agree?

“In all determinations of morality…

public utility is ever principally in view”

– Hume

Agree?

Answer: Yes, this sounds reasonable

 

Q10. Let me try to paraphrase Hume:

Undeniably,

a person who is benevolent

is a good person, because

benevolence is good, because

it helps society and

produces happiness.

How accurate was that?

Do you agree with it?

 

Answer: It seems accurate. Yes, this sounds reasonable.