Basic Ethical Theories

Virtue Ethics
Plato and Aristotle
Plato (424 BC – 348 BC)
 Glaucon: It is in man’s nature to do
injustice

Do injustice To suffer from

without being LAWS injustice without the
punished power to retaliate

The goal of injustice: to be perceived as just

 The Myth of Gyges’s Ring
Plato’s Concept of Reality
Soul
•Virtue
•Truth
•Goodness

Body
•Pleasure
•Senses
•Pain

Man is like a charioteer of two-winged horses

 Socrates: Justice is
gaining the mastery
of everything inside a
person

◦ Just Person:
 Has integrity, honest,
unifies himself

◦ Unjust Person:
 Deceitful, his nature is
in chaos, destroyed
within
 Laws –
◦ rules the unjust
◦ Imposed so we are all steered by justice
◦ Sets man apart from beasts
◦ “…spend his life directing all his efforts to this
end…”
Aristotle (384-
322BCE)
 Nicomachean Ethics
Virtue

INTELLECTUAL MORAL
(inheritance and (habit)
education) resulting in States of
Character i.e.,
propensities to act in
accordance with a
mean of moderation

Philosophical Practical
Wisdom Wisdom
deficiency excess
mean
 What is the end of our
actions?
 Is life a mere “to-do” list?

 The highest of all goods is

HAPPINESS
◦ What is happiness?
◦ Definition varies

Happiness- final, self-sufficient,

end of all action
 Three Kinds of Life
1. Sensual – pleasure
2. Political
 Honor and Virtue

3. Life of Thought - ?
What is Happiness for Humans?
 Three Types of Life
1. Vegetation
2. Sensation
3. Rationalization

What is good for each of

these creatures?
 Virtue

INTELLECTUAL MORAL
(inheritance and (habit)
education) resulting in States of
Character i.e.,
propensities to act in
accordance with a
mean of moderation

Philosophical Practical
Wisdom Wisdom

deficiency excess
mean
Life of thought - ?

The Two Kinds of Virtues

 Intellectual Virtues
◦ the trained faculty of choice
◦ philosophical wisdom, understanding, prudence (practical
wisdom)
◦ requires teaching, Intelligence, foresight
◦ Experience and Time
◦ No Shortcut
 Moral Virtues
◦ Habit
◦ Liberality, temperance, courage, justice,
friendship
◦ One becomes good by doing good.
 Law –to train the citizens to have good habits
◦ Constant training

 Education – to feel pleasure and pain at the

right objects
◦ Pleasure at courage, justice
◦ Pain at cowardice and injustice
 What makes an act just?
1. Knows what he is doing.
2. Deliberately chose to do it.
3. Doing it as part of his own
firm and immutable
character.

A person does not become

virtuous by a theory. One
must do the act.
Nature of Virtue
Three Properties of a Soul
1. Emotions
2. Faculties – that which
makes us capable of
experiencing emotions
3. Moral States

Deficiency Excess

Mean
 Teleology
Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill
The Greatest Happiness Principle
Definition of Terms
Actions are:
 Right – promotes happiness
 Wrong – reverse of happiness

Happiness – intended pleasure and absence of

pain
Pain – lack of pleasure
The Desirable End
 Pleasure or Freedom from pain
a. Desirable for the pleasure inherent in them
b. Means to promote pleasure and/or
prevention of pain
But what is pleasure? Is this the same as
pleasure of animals?
What is pleasure?
Mental Pleasures
 Intellect
 Feelings
 Imaginations
 Moral Sentiments
 Intelligence over
foolishness
 Education over ignorance Human Dignity
 Feeling and Conscience
over Selfishness
“It is better to be a human
being dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied. Better to be a
Socrates dissatisfied than a
fool satisfied.”
The Greatest Amount of Happiness
Altogether
 The world gains in noble character
• Intellect
• Feelings
• Imaginations
• Moral Sentiments

Happiness
multiplied
 General cultivation of character
 Everyone must contribute
 How many people will benefit from it?

 Utilitarianism requires the individual to be

disinterested.
 “To do as you would be done by and
 to love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

 Owning the happiness of the majority as your

own happiness
 Deontological Ethics
The Categorical Imperative by Immanuel Kant
 Immanuel Kant (1724-
1804)

Intelligence,
Courage, Wit,
Judgment
Gifts of Nature

Courage,
Good Will (gives Perseverance
pleasure) ->
Happiness

Power, Riches,
Gifts of Fortune
Health, Pride
Imperatives - commands
 Hypothetical – good
only as a means to
something else; for
a purpose
 Categorical – good in itself

“Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst

at the same time will that it should become a
universal law.”

Hence, the imperative of duty is:

“Act as if the maxim of the thy action were to

become by thy will a universal law of
nature.”
Examples

1. Taking one’s own life

 “From self-love I adopt it as a principle to

shorten my life when its longer duration is
likely to bring more evil than satisfaction.”

 Destroy life to improve life

2. Lying to borrow money

 False pretenses
3. Squandering one’s
talents

4. Refusal to help others

 Worth of an object – acquired
 Worth of a person – ends in themselves
 “…Man and any rational beings exists as an end in
himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily
used by this or that will…”

Of course I would still

love you if you lost all
your money – I’d miss
you too.
“What most people need to learn in life is how
to love people and use things instead of using
people and loving things.” – Zelda Fitzgerald

Kingdom of Ends
 The possibility of unity of all ends through

abstraction.