November 29, 2001 Duty and Famine: Singer Last time we considered Mill's version of Utilitarianism, called Eudaimonistic Utilitarianism characterized by what he calls \the greatest-happiness principle\: You ought always to act so as to maximize happiness, i.e., the right act is the act that results in the greatest amount of happiness overall. The \greatest-happiness principle\, however, just states one version of Utilitarianism. Other versions of

Utilitarianism Last time we considered three questions one might ask an ethical theory to answer i)Which acts are right and which are wrong? Which acts ought we to perform(understanding the\ought as a moral ii)What makes a particular action right or wrong? What is it about the action that determines its moral status? 111) How do we know what is right and wrong? There are a variety of strategies for answering(iii). One might hold e. g. that moral truths are revealed by god and

Moral Luck One of the important themes in the freewill debate is the idea that freedom is necessary for moral responsibility. In effect, if hard determinism is the correct view, then we should not hold ourselves or others morally responsible. Libertarians, in particular, seem to hold that in order to be responsible for an act, we must be its \sole author. Here is the principle at issue: Control Principle: You are only responsible for what you have control over. If you steal an axe from my garage and use it to break into a gas station, there's no point in holding me responsible, I didn't

Moral Relativism The problem of moral relativism begins with the fact of moral diversity: different cultures have different moral codes. Of course,it' s not just between different national cultures that moral opinions differ the same can happen between different subcultures of the same national culture. What does this show? Consider: Moral diversity: Different cultures have different moral codes/values. Does it even follow that: Moral conflict: Different cultures have conflicting moral codes/values

Different Sort of Personal Identity:\Ethical\ Identity . Personal Identity: \Ethical\v. \Metaphysical\questions The previous lectures and readings on personal identity were primarily concerned with the metaphysics of personal identity. Question of diachronic identity/unity: Confronted with an individual X at one time and Y at another, what would make it the case that X and Y are (or are parts of) the same person? We've seen that the answer to this question may well depend on what sort of thing you think persons are: are persons bodies? Streams of consciousness?

1. Whatever happens is determined by prior events. (Determinism) 2. I act freely iff I am able to act otherwise. (Avoidability Analysis of Freedom) 3. If my action is determined, am unable to act otherwise. 4. So, I never act freely. I. Consider(1): Determinism:

24.00: Problems of Philosophy Prof. Sally Haslanger November 7, 2001 Freewill IlI: Libertarianism I. Recap: Compatibilism v. Incompatibilism Hard determinism is the view that determinis is true and that because of this freedom is an illusion. The libertarian agrees with the hard determinist that freewill is incompatible with determinism, but disagrees about which claim should be rejected. The libertarian holds that we have free will, but this is only because determinism is false-free acts occur and are undetermined. The hard determinist and the libertarian are both incompatibilists. Soft determinism, also known as compatibilism, maintains that determinism is true, but also that determinism is

24.00: Problems of Philosophy Prof. Sally Haslanger October 31, 2001 Freewill: Hard Determinism 1. What is our investment in freewill? Not just a sentimental attachment: At the root of how we organize our own lives(deliberation matters). At the root of how we interact with others(presupposed by praise and blame, punishment)

October 22, 2001 Personal IdentityⅢ . Review soul criterion and body criterion Soul criterion: x is the same person as y iff and y have the same soul. Problems: i)There is no way to establish body-soul correlations; and no way to establish personality correlations. So soul criterion doesn't make sense of our practices of recognizing and identifying people ii)We have no special access to souls, so even in our own case we can't be sure it's the same soul \inside\ us whenever we are conscious. ii) The problem of identity is \pushed back\: what is it for person-stage x to have the same soul as person-stage y? What makes for sameness of souls? Body criterion: x is the same person as y iff x and y have the same living human body

ral questions that might arise concerning personal identity. When we ask\Who am I? we might be being we are, what our possiblities are, under what conditions\I\would continue to exist. We'll begin our discussionon n wonder what\makes us tick\, what we ultimately value, what matters to us. We might also be asking what sort personal identity with the latter set of questions Consider a parallel set of questions (Id) Under what conditions are baseball-events events in the same game? E. g, under what conditions are a