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Deontology Criticisms

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Deontology Criticisms Too absolutist, inflexible, severe - no exceptions to moral rules Assigns no moral value to attitudes, feelings, or actions motivated by them – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Deontology Criticisms


1
DeontologyCriticisms
  • Too absolutist, inflexible, severe - no
    exceptions to moral rules
  • Assigns no moral value to attitudes, feelings, or
    actions motivated by them
  • Pessimist about human nature (egoism)

2
DeontologyCriticisms
  • Assumes all rational people will agree on moral
    principles
  • Ways to cheat with the categorical imperative
  • Kants conclusions dont necessarily always
    follow his principles, e.g. suicide, prostitution

3
DeontologyCriticisms
  • Doesnt tell you what to do when two duties
    conflict
  • The consequences do seem to matter in extreme
    cases

4
Virtue Ethics
  • Defines ethics in terms of
  • the good person vs. the right act
  • the characteristics of an ideal individual
  • successful living

5
Virtue Ethics
  • Based on human nature
  • Goal of life Eudaimonia (success)
  • Mistranslated happiness
  • means doing well what you were meant, designed to
    do.
  • Teleological system (based on purpose, function)

6
Virtue Ethics
  • Purpose or Function
  • What is a good X?
  • What is it supposed to do?
  • What is its characteristic activity or function?
  • What sets it apart from other things?
  • What characteristics allow it to perform its
    function well?

7
Virtue Ethics
  • Purpose in nature (teleology)
  • The purpose or function of
  • The eye to see
  • The heart to pump blood
  • A fin to swim
  • Bacteria to decompose

8
Virtue Ethics
  • Plants
  • Nutrition
  • Growth
  • Animals plants plus
  • Sensation
  • Locomotion
  • Humans animals plus
  • REASON

9
Virtue Ethics
  • Aristotle defines Man as the rational animal
  • What he does characteristically, uniquely and
    best is rational activity

10
Virtue Ethics
  • Goal of life success, actualizing ones natural
    potential
  • Humanity defined by reason
  • Success for humanity therefore defined by
    intellectual activity

11
Virtue Ethics
  • The ideal life scholar, scientist, intellectual
  • This life best actualizes ones potential as a
    rational animal

12
Virtue Ethics
  • Aristotle is a realist
  • Being an intellectual requires certain things
  • Friends to philosophize with
  • Not being hideously deformed
  • Wealth for food, servants, avoiding
    non-intellectual work (i.e. manual labor)
  • Avoiding serious illness or financial ruin (luck)

13
Virtue Ethics
  • Do natural things have purposes?
  • Can you discover their purposes by looking at
    what they do?
  • If human beings have purposes, must they be the
    same?
  • Is what humans do characteristically or best
    REASON?

14
Virtue Ethics
  • Virtue (arete) A Disposition of character which
    lead to success (eudaimonia)
  • Disposition a tendency to act a particular way

15
Virtue Ethics
  • Virtue is a mean between the extremes of excess
    and deficiency.
  • Virtue is learned through good upbringing and
    practice as an adult
  • One learns courage through attempting to act
    courageously
  • No distinction between the good life in the
    natural and moral senses

16
Virtue Ethics
  • Virtue means doing something at the right time in
    the right amount.
  • Example virtues Courage, Temperance, Honesty,
    Pride, Generosity
  • Christianity
  • Added Faith, Love, less emphasis on reason
  • Replaced Pride with Humility, Servitude
  • Made Poverty a virtue

17
Virtue Ethics
  • Ethics empirically justified
  • No egoism/altruism dichotomy
  • Whats good for you is good for others
  • Aristotle understands the role of unquantifiable
    judgment

18
Virtue Ethics
  • Criticisms
  • Underlying teleology - purpose in nature?
  • Is there a virtue for every moral value?
  • Is Aristotle universalizing his bourgeois
    intellectual values or those of Greek culture?
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