phil 111 exam Essay Example

phil 111 exam Essay Example phil 111 exam Essay phil 111 exam Essay phil 111 exam BY JJ93allday John Gross PHIL 102 1. Utilitarianism is moral theory that tries to lay a set of rules that you should follow to achieve the most good or pleasure from any one act. Two popular proponents of this systems are philosophers by the name of Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. They both have different ideas for how one should go about the use of utilitarianism to achieve the greatest happiness. Benthams approach is often called quantitative utilitarianism in which Bentham came up with an idea called the felicific calculus which is a way one can measure the level of happiness that can come out of one ertain decision. For Bentham pleasure is countable and tangible, by this I mean that pleasure can be used as sort of a measuring system for what should be morally right or wrong. Now on the other hand James Mill takes a different view of utilitarianism in which he allows for so called greater pleasure. Meaning that even though the decision that the felicific calculus tells you to make may not be the most pleasurable because some decisions have the potential to grow overtime into a more rewarding pleasure. This is where Mills is commonly referred to as a qualitative utilitarianism ecause he differentiates between the qualities of the pleasures you can choose. This greater pleasure idea, though, also raises a few questions in such that is it really that the decision is a so called greater pleasure or is it that you choose such decision because of the opportunity to create more pleasure. It seems as though pleasure is still the end result when you make this decision it is Just that you have the opportunity to fail or be successful in this decisions which is not really consistent with the idea of pleasure but more so of opportunity. . The slave revolt in morality is the the lower class of society revolting against the pper class because they are oppressing their wills to be expressed. The leaders of this revolt are the people that were formerly a part of this upper class but tried to express their will which did not aline with the rest of the upper class or leaders of this upper class tha t failed at expressing their will upon the rest of the upper class forcing them to be cast down in to the so called slave class. These now former leaders are put in a position to express there will upon the slave class which is a much easier target for them. Now allowing them to manipulate the slave class into a evolt against the leaders and give the leader of the revolt his position back in the upper class and a leader. 3. Kant rejects consequences because to him consequences should not be taken into consideration in normativity. For Kant the only thing that should direct ones decisions and thus taking place of consequences are the moral obligations we have to act in accordance with the moral law, or our so called moral duty. We should not moral law then all good things will happen because moral law does now allow for contradictions. The moral law should constitute for moral significance because for Kant a rational and autonomous being with respect to the moral law will always act with dignity and good will. 4. Hypothetical imperatives are any situation that has a presupposed end that you want to achieve in a certain way, in other words in you want y then do x. Categorical imperatives on the other hand Just supposes you ought to do y only because that if your maxim can be willed as a universal law without contradictions then you should do it because then it can also be used as a universal law. Kants first categorical imperative is false promising. It says if i want something I should falsely romise to do something in order to gain that first something that I wanted. If we put this through the categorical imperative test it fails because of the fact that if we do make false promise in contradicts and devalues the meaning of a promise making a promise not possible making this categorical imperative false because it has a contradiction. Finally we ought agree to the validity of this test because if a categorical imperative is able to pass this test it has no contradictions it can be used as a universal and moral law. Essay Normativity is viewed differently among certain philosophers, for onsequentialists one must take actions that allow for the most level of good to come out of your decisions and for deontologists one must not impede any others autonomy but also act in accordance with moral law and duty. So for example if there is a murderer at your door trying to kill someone you are protecting inside these two side would have very different approaches. First the consequentialists would say that you must take into consideration that if you open the door for this murderer that if would allow him to kill the person you are protecting which would not be good or allow any pleasure for the protected. On the other hand though if you do not open the door the murderer does not get what he wants but their would be more of an overall good and pleasure because you saved the life of one person which has much moral value than allowing the murderer to kill the person. In conclusion the consequentialists would not open the door or either lie to the murderer and say that he is not sheltering anyone in his house to force the murderer to go away so you can achieve the most possible good which is allowing the person being protected to live. This situation for the view point of deontology would be handled very differently. For a deontologists autonomy and rationality control ones decisions so when confronted with a murderer at the door one would have a duty to respect the autonomy of the person on the other side of the door and open the door. Deontologists would not even think about not opening the door because for them the consequence does not matter. Although one would open the door with respect that the person on the other side is also acting out of respect to autonomy, rationality, and the moral law. So if the sheltering then they have not acted in accordance or respect of the persons utonomy because the murderer did not allow them to make the decision of death for themselves. Which brings me back to the person who opened the door now has a moral obligation to kill the murderer because he has in fact disobeyed all areas of morality. I think that both systems have flaws but if I was to pick one for myself to follow it would have to be deontology because I believe that not all situations can be handled with only the weighing of the outcomes. Some situations may only have equally negative outcomes but can be handled in such a way that allows each to himself to deal with that negativity. Some problems with consequentialism would in fact be how do you deal with equal outcomes. For example if I am in a subway and I see someone getting held hostage but the gun holder tells me that if I move towards him he will shot me I have a problem that can not be easily solved. If I stay and dont move then there is a possibly that he will kill the hostage but if I do move then he will kill me. The consequentialists sees only the death of one person or the other which is equally bad. This is Just a way in which consequentialism doesnt fully work. Although this example does not defeat this theory I think it definitely limits it.