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Emily C (1)
Hi Stephen, I cannot remember where we are supposed to post our questions so I hope that this reaches you in time
Emily C (2)
Please may you unpack/explain the question for exercise 3?
Could scientific discoveries undermine, or support, ethical principles?
Is there any route to knowledge of an ethical principle’s truth or falsity which nontrivially depends on premises known through scientific discovery?
Method 1: Find places where a particular ethical argument relies on an empirical claim, and where knowledge of this claim depends on scientific discoveries.
Method 2: undermine judgement (Singer, 2005; Greene, 2014)
Could scientific discoveries undermine, or support, mathematical principles?
Could scientific discoveries undermine, or support, psychological principles?
Emily C (2)
Please may you unpack/explain the question for exercise 3?
Hannah M (2)
Could you please explain what you have written in the postscript in the Singer vs Kamm section, I got a bit confused!
Not enough attention has been paid to the ways in which discoveries in moral psychology are directly involved in some ethical arguments, including those offered by Foot, Singer and Kamm. Recent philosophical discussion has tended to focus on the use of discoveries in moral psychology for supporting debunking arguments (for example, Königs, 2020; Rini, 2016; Kumar & Campbell, 2012; Sandberg & Juth, 2011), typically concluding that discoveries in moral psychology have little or no significance for ethics. It may be correct that the debunking arguments considered do not yield substantive new ethical knowledge. But examining particular ethical arguments shows that discoveries in moral psychology can be important, in a direct and straightforward way, to evaluating arguments in ethics.
Could scientific discoveries undermine, or support,
ethical principles?
Standard Approach
Identify an abstract form of argument.
Argue that arguments of this form [are/are not*] useful (Königs, 2020; Rini, 2016; Kumar & Campbell, 2012; Sandberg & Juth, 2011).
Steve’s Weird Approach
Find places where a particular ethical argument relies on an empirical claim, and where knowledge of this claim depends on scientific discoveries.
Hannah M (2)
Could you please explain what you have written in the postscript in the Singer vs Kamm section, I got a bit confused!
Emily C (3)
You say that "Discoveries in moral psychology can undermine, and support, ethical principles if Kamm’s broad approach is not entirely misguided."
I thought that Kamm is misguided because Nagel and Waldmann discovered that a premise Kamm relied on was false? Have I misunderstood?
Principle: Suppose a factor (e.g. distance) explains why many people confidently make judgements which indicate that moral scenarios are different ...
then we may consider the possibility that the factor is a morally relevant difference between the scenarios; and
if we can also find theoretical justification for this possibility,
and if we lack reason to reject it,
then it reasonable to accept this possibility as obtaining.
Putative Observation: Distance explains why many people confidently make judgements which indicates that Far Alone and Near Alone are different.
There is theoretical justification for the possibility that distance can be morally relevant.
Therefore, distance is morally relevant.
If not for J. Nagel & Waldmann (2013), we might have thought we knew Kamm was right about distance.
Emily C (3)
You say that "Discoveries in moral psychology can undermine, and support, ethical principles if Kamm’s broad approach is not entirely misguided."
I thought that Kamm is misguided because Nagel and Waldmann discovered that a premise Kamm relied on was false? Have I misunderstood?
Emilie H
It seems like Kamm is claiming that we should be more morally concerned with helping in the near distance than in the far distance. [...]
But does she draw this from scientific discoveries?
I thought her thought experiments did not draw on scientific discoveries but justify the theory she promotes.
I don’t see how she would say that scientific discoveries could undermine one’s ethical principles. I am a bit lost !
Principle: Suppose a factor (e.g. distance) explains why many people confidently make judgements which indicate that moral scenarios are different ...
then we may consider the possibility that the factor is a morally relevant difference between the scenarios; and
if we can also find theoretical justification for this possibility,
and if we lack reason to reject it,
then it reasonable to accept this possibility as obtaining.
Putative Observation: Distance explains why many people confidently make judgements which indicates that Far Alone and Near Alone are different.
There is theoretical justification for the possibility that distance can be morally relevant.
Therefore, distance is morally relevant.
Emilie H
It seems like Kamm is claiming that we should be more morally concerned with helping in the near distance than in the far distance. [...]
But does she draw this from scientific discoveries? I thought her thought experiments did not draw on scientific discoveries but justify the theory she promotes. I don’t see how she would say that scientific discoveries could undermine one’s ethical principles. I am a bit lost !
Hannah M (1)
Is a reworking of Thomson's proposal that what matters is whether harm was going to happen anyway and one is morally obligated to reduce the amount of harm caused? Therefore Frank is morally obligated to pull the lever, but David cannot cause any harm to the patient.
Hannah M
What matters is whether harm was going to happen anyway and one is morally obligated to reduce the amount of harm caused.‘what matters in these cases in which a threat is to be distributed is whether the agent distributes it by doing something to it, or whether he distributes it by doing something to a person’
(Thomson, 1976, p. 216).
‘if the one has no more claim on it than any of the five has, we may deflect it [the Health-Pebble] away from him and towards the five’
(Thomson, 1976, p. 210).
Hannah M
Is a reworking of Thomson's proposal that what matters is whether harm was going to happen anyway and one is morally obligated to reduce the amount of harm caused? Therefore Frank is morally obligated to pull the lever, but David cannot cause any harm to the patient.
Isabel
Moral disengagement would NOT support that:
moral intuitions can be a consequence of reasoning from known principles which the reasoner can articulate
‘Some people have to be treated roughly because they lack feelings that can be hurt’ (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996).
but that
moral intuitions can be a consequence of a process of reasoning, the basis of which is erroneous principles
more questions?