Lecture 1: Introduction to the Course

PHI 105: Introduction to Ethics

Douglas W. Portmore
Arizona State University

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1. What’s philosophy? (a philosophical question itself)

• Philosophy investigates certain types questions:

• Questions that are some of the most fundamental questions that can be asked.
• Questions that cannot be answered empirically.
• Questions whose answers are usually just taken for granted by ourselves, our
institutions, and our other academic disciplines.

• Examples: What is truth? Does science make progress towards the

discovery of truth? Is there an external world? How, if at all, can we come to
know the truth about an external world? Can we trust our senses? Can we
trust our reasoning?

• Also: What is it to be an asshole? What’s bullshit?

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2. What’s unique about philosophy?
• Nothing is taken for granted. Everything is open to doubt and
subject to questioning.

• What, if anything, does philosophy take for granted?

• Not any assumptions.
• Not any methodology.

• Not that there are answers.

• Not that we can know what the answers are.

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3. Is philosophy just bullshit, then?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgoB2JMEowc

• “Both the liar and the bullshitter try to get away with
something. But ‘lying’ is perceived to be a conscious act of
deception, whereas ‘bullshitting’ is unconnected to a
concern for truth. Frankfurt regards this ‘indifference to
how things really are’, as the essence of bullshit.
Furthermore, a lie is necessarily false, but bullshit is not –
bullshit may happen to be correct or incorrect. The crux of
the matter is that bullshitters hide their lack of commitment
to truth. Since bullshitters ignore truth instead of
acknowledging and subverting it, bullshit is a greater enemy
of truth than lies.”

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 4. Does philosophy make progress?
• Unlike mathematicians and scientists, philosophers never converge on the answer to a
question, and, so, they never stop investigating a question. That is, they never conclude
that they’ve answered it once and for all. For it’s impossible to converge on an answer
without sharing the same starting points (e.g., the same methodology and/or
assumptions). And there are no universally agreed upon starting points in philosophy.
• But this doesn’t mean that philosophy doesn’t make progress. For the aim of philosophy is
not to answer questions once and for all, but to uncover assumptions, question those
assumptions, and show how things are more complicated and less certain than they may
initially seem. And, in this aim, philosophy has made tremendous progress.

• Why study philosophy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMRDhoyBy4U

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5. What’s ethics/morality?
• Moral claims are distinct from psychological claims.

• Unlike psychology, morality is not in the business of describing,

explaining, or predicting how people do/will behave. Instead,
morality is in the business of prescribing how people should
behave.

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6. Prescriptive/Normative vs.
Descriptive/Non-Normative
• Thus, moral claims are prescriptive/normative versus
descriptive/non-normative. The point is not to describe how
things are, but to prescribe how things ought to be.

• A norm is a rule, standard, requirement, or principle that

specifies what you should or shouldn’t do, what is permitted or
forbidden, what is correct or incorrect, what is appropriate or
inappropriate, etc.
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 7. Two Senses of Normative

• And moral claims are not just normative in the rule-involving sense. What’s more,
they are normative in the reason-involving sense.
• A norm is normative in merely the rule-involving sense if and only if it specifies
rules that we only contingently have some reason to follow, depending, for
instance, on whether our aim is to follow these rules and/or to avoid the sanctions
associated with violating them.
• A norm is normative in the reason-involving sense if and only if it specifies rules
that we necessarily have some reason to follow and, thus, independently of
whether or not our aim is to follow these rules and/or to avoid the sanctions
associated with violating them.
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8. Moral Claims vs. Anthropological Claims

• Moral claims are distinct from anthropological claims.

• Unlike anthropology, morality isn’t about what various groups

believe to be right and wrong, nor is morality about what moral
norms and practices various groups accept and follow. Instead,
morality is concerned with which, if any, moral norms are
correct.

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9. Moral Claims vs. Legal Claims

• Unlike psychological and anthropological claims and like moral

claims, legal claims are prescriptive/normative.
• But moral rules, unlike legal rules, are reason-involving norms.

• What determines whether an act is legal or illegal?

• Is this what determines whether an act is right or wrong?

• Are some acts legal but immoral? Examples?

• Are some acts illegal but not immoral? Examples?
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10. Moral Claims vs. Prudential Claims

• Like moral claims, prudential claims are normative in the

reason-involving sense.

• Your act is a prudent one if and only if it is in your best long-term

self-interest.

• Are some acts imprudent but not immoral? Examples?

• Are some acts prudent but immoral? Examples?

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11. Moral Claims vs. Etiquette Claims

• Like the law, claims of etiquette are normative in merely the

rule-involving sense.

• Etiquette is about what’s rude and polite, whereas morality is

about what’s right and wrong.

• Are some acts rude but not immoral? Examples?

• Are some acts polite but immoral? Examples?

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12. What’s distinctive about morality…

• …as compared to psychology and anthropology.

• In contrast with psychology, morality is in the business of prescribing
how people ought to behave as opposed to describing, explaining, or
predicting how people do/will behave. And, in contrast to
anthropology, morality is in the business of prescribing which moral
norms people ought to accept and follow as opposed to describing
which moral norms people do accept and follow. In other words,
morality is prescriptive/normative, whereas psychology and
anthropology are descriptive/non-normative.
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 13. What’s distinctive about morality…

• …as compared to the rules of chess, the law, and etiquette.

• In contrast to the norms of chess, law, and etiquette, moral norms are reason-involving
norms.

• …as compared to prudence (and the law and etiquette).

• Both prudential and moral norms are reason-involving norms, but, unlike prudential
norms, moral norms are conceptually tied to blame. The connection is such that if you
freely choose to violate the requirements of morality without legitimate excuse (e.g.,
without being ignorant of some crucial fact), then you are blameworthy for your actions,
making it appropriate for you to feel guilty for your actions and for others to be indignant
with you for your actions and even to resent you for action if they were thereby harmed.
There is no such connection in the case of legal, prudential, or etiquettal requirements.
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14. The Three Branches of Ethics

• (1) Normative Ethics (and its three sub-branches): What makes an

act, agent, or outcome right or wrong, virtuous or vicious, good or
evil?
• Theory of the Right: What features of actions make them either right or wrong
• Theory of the Good: What features of things, events, and states of affairs make
them good or bad?
• Theory of Virtue: What character traits make an agent virtuous or vicious?

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 15. Continued…

• (2) Meta-ethics: What is the nature of moral language, moral thought,

moral properties, moral knowledge, and moral attitudes?
• Moral Semantics…
• Moral Metaphysics…
• Moral Epistemology…
• Moral Psychology…

• (3) Applied Ethics: Is this or that particular act-type (e.g., abortion,

capital punishment, affirmative action, etc.) right or wrong?
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16. Philosophical Methodology

• The non-empirical nature of philosophical inquiry…

• Is induction rational?
• Is God compatible with the existence of evil?
• Do we have knowledge of an external world?

• Is free will compatible with determinism.

• The reliance on intuitions…

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 17. Intuitions
• “An intuition is just a belief in a proposition that (1) the person does not currently hold because of
perception or introspection or memory or testimony or because the person has explicitly inferred
the proposition, but (2) the person now holds simply because the proposition seems true to the
person upon due consideration” (DePaul 2006, 395).

• Intuitions are intellectual seemings that are analogous to perceptual seemings. An intuition is a
belief in a proposition that just seems to be true upon due reflection on merely the content of the
proposition.

• Intuitions, like all seemings, are fallible. Things are not always as they seem to be.

• The sorts of intuitions that philosophers rely on are not raw, untutored gut reactions.

• Suppose that I tell you that there is woman named Jane who absolutely adores horses. Now which is
more likely:
• (a) Jane has ridden in a bus.
• (b) Jane has ridden in a bus and has ridden a horse.
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 18. Which Are Intuitions?
1. George Washington was the first President of the United States.

2. Pleasure is good for its own sake.

3. If A=B and B=C, then A=C.

4. DWP is wearing pants.

5. The fact that both “If P, then Q” and “P” are true is a reason to believe that Q.

6. The sun will rise in the east tomorrow.

7. The sum of the angles of every triangle equals 180 degrees.

8. I feel warm/cold/comfortable.

9. The fact that an evil demon will torture me if I don’t believe that 2+2=5 is not a reason to believe
that 2+2=5, although it is a reason to want to believe that 2+2=5 and to do whatever will cause oneself
to believe that 2+2=5.

10. Every proposition is either true or false.

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19. The Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism
• The Principle: If it seems to S that p and there are no good
reasons for S to believe that things are not as they seem, then S
ought rationally to believe that p. In other words, the fact that it
seems to S that p is a (defeasible) reason for S to believe that p—
in other words, this fact counts as defeasible evidence for S’s
believing that p.

• Why is it hard to argue against this principle?

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 20. Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE)
• The method involves three steps—that is, the method tells us to do three things:

1. Reflect on the interconnections among our beliefs—specifically, reflect on the evidential connections
that obtain among our beliefs. (Examples: the belief that the sun has always risen in the east in the
past and the belief that it will rise in the east tomorrow; the belief that artificial selection can result in
dramatic changes in gene frequency and the belief that natural selection can result in dramatic
changes in gene frequency; the belief that p and that p entails q and the belief that not-q.)

2. Leave nothing out of our reflections. Reflect not only on our own initial beliefs and their
interconnections, but also on ourselves and our competency to judge, on our background
assumptions, on alternative beliefs, on the various theories that might be used to systematize our
beliefs, on arguments that count for and against our beliefs, and on the sources of our beliefs and the
reliability of those sources.

3. Settle any conflicts that emerge, deciding what to continue to accept and what to give up on the basis
of what seems most intuitively plausible upon reflection.

• Does faithfully following this method ensure that you will come closer to the truth? Why or why not?
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 21. The Trolley Problem
• http://youtu.be/Fs0E69krO_Q

• The work of Joshua Greene…

• Singer: “For most of our evolutionary history, human beings have lived in small groups….
In these groups, violence could only be inflicted in an up-close and personal way – by
hitting, pushing, strangling, or using a stick or stone as a club. To deal with such situations,
we have developed immediate, emotionally based responses to questions involving close,
personal interactions with others. The thought of pushing the stranger off the footbridge
elicits these emotionally based responses. Throwing a switch that diverts a train that will
hit someone bears no resemblance to anything likely to have happened in the
circumstances in which we and our ancestors lived. Hence the thought of doing it does not
elicit the same emotional response as pushing someone off a bridge.” [Continued on next
slide…]
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 22. Continued…
• “So the salient feature that explains our different intuitive judgments concerning the two
cases is that the footbridge case is the kind of situation that was likely to arise during the
eons of time over which we were evolving; whereas the standard trolley case describes a
way of bringing about someone’s death that has only been possible in the past century or
two, a time far too short to have any impact on our inherited patterns of emotional
response. But what is the moral salience of [this fact]? I would answer: none. Thus recent
scientific advances in our understanding…of the nature of our intuitive responses suggests
that there is no point in trying to find moral principles that justify the differing intuitions
to which the various cases give rise. Very probably, there is no morally relevant distinction
between the cases” (Singer 2005, 237-238).

• Does this pose a problem for WRE or on our reliance on intuitions?

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 23. WRE in Practice
• Suppose that you initially believe the following:
1. I know that I have hands.
2. I know that I have hands only if I know that I’m not a brain in a vat.
3. I don’t know that I’m not a brain in the vat.

• Now these three beliefs conflict. So to resolve this conflict you must
give up at least one of claims 1-3. The method tells you to give up the
one that seems the least intuitively plausible while also continuing to
reflect and consider arguments for and against each of claims 1-3.

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24. Is there any rational alternative to WRE?
• Let’s consider whether there is any rational alternative to any of the
three steps.

• Step 1: Reflect on the interconnections among our beliefs.

• What’s the alternative to this?

• Is this rational?

• Step 2: Leave nothing out of our reflections.

• What’s the alternative to this?

• Is this rational?
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25. Continued…
• Let’s consider whether there is any rational alternative to any of the
three steps.

• Step 1: Reflect on the interconnections among our beliefs.

• What’s the alternative to this?

• Is this rational?

• Step 2: Leave nothing out of our reflections.

• What’s the alternative to this?

• Is this rational?
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26. Continued…
• Step 3: Settle any conflicts that emerge, deciding what to believe
on the basis of what seems most intuitively plausible upon
reflection.

• What’s the alternative to this?

• Is this rational?

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27. What’s Next?

• Next we’ll consider whether there are moral

facts.

• In preparation for the next lecture, please read

both Russ Shafer-Landau’s “Values in a
Scientific World” and his “Ethics as Philosophy:
A Defense of Ethical Nonnaturalism.”
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 28. Study Guide for Lecture 1
• (1.1) (a) Give an original example of norm. (b) Give an original example of something that is not a
norm. (c) Give an original example of a merely rule-involving norm. (d) Give an original example of
a reason-involving norm.

• (1.2) (a) Give an original example of an act that is legal but immoral. (b) Give an original example of
an act that is illegal but not immoral. (c) Give an original example of an act that is rude but not
immoral. (d) Give an original example of an act that is prudent but immoral.

• (1.3) What’s distinctive about moral claims as opposed to other claims, such as psychological claims
and anthropological claims?

• (1.4) What’s distinctive about moral norms as opposed to to other norms, such as legal norms,
prudential norms, and the norms of etiquette?

• (1.5) Which, if any, of the following are moral claims in the business of doing (choose as many as
apply): (a) describing how people do behave, (b) explaining why people behave as they do, (c)
predicting how people will behave, (d) prescribing how people should behave, and (e) describing
what moral norms people accept and follow.
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 29. Continued…
• (1.6) Explain how philosophy makes progress.

• (1.7) Explain how philosophy differs from, say, science.

• (1.8) Explain what intuitions are.

• (1.9) Which of the following are intuitions (choose as many as apply)? (a) George
Washington was the first President of the United States. (b) Pleasure is good for its
own sake. (c) If A=B and B=C, then A=C. (c) DWP is wearing pants. (d) The fact that
both that “If P, then Q” and “P” are true is a reason to believe that Q. (e) The sun will
rise in the east tomorrow. (f) The sum of the angles of every triangle equals 180
degrees. (g) The fact that the sun has always risen in the east in the past is a reason to
believe that it will rise in the east in the future.

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 30. Continued…
• (1.10) The principle of phenomenal conservatism holds that if it seems to S that p and there are no
good reasons for S to believe that things are not as they seem, then S ought rationally to believe that
p. Explain why it is hard to argue against such a principle.

• (1.11) The method of wide reflective equilibrium involves the following three steps: (1) Reflect on
the interconnections among our beliefs—specifically, reflect on the evidential connections that
obtain among our beliefs; (2) leave nothing out of our reflections—reflect not only on our own
initial beliefs and their interconnections, but also on ourselves and our competency to judge, on our
background assumptions, on alternative beliefs, on the various theories that might be used to
systematize our beliefs, on arguments that count for and against our beliefs, and on the sources of
our beliefs and the reliability of those sources; and (3) settle any conflicts that emerge, deciding
what to believe on the basis of what seems most intuitively plausible upon reflection. (a) For each of
the three steps, explain whether or not there is any rational alternative to that step. (b) Does
faithfully following this method ensure that you will come closer to the truth? Why or why not?

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