Writing101 PSU ?Humans are Intrinsically Valuable Essay Follow instruction in the attachment. All the information are in the attachment. This essay should be between 1000-1500 words.
Please select one of the questions from the list below, and make sure to clearly state the
question you are answering at the start of your essay.
Essay Questions:
(1) What is the ‘perspective of eternity’, and what relevance, if any, does it have for the
problem of the meaning of life?
(2) Are human beings intrinsically valuable? If so, why? If not, then what moral
consequences does this have (e.g., does this mean that, say, cannibalism is morally
permissible)?
(3) Is my moral obligation to help someone in need on the other side of the world exactly the
same as my moral obligation to help someone in need right in front of me? If not, why not? If
so, then what moral consequences does this have?
(4) What is the difference between act and rule utilitarianism? Is either preferable to the
other?
(5) Why does Kantian ethics hold that there is something inherently wrong about lying? Is
this a problem for the view, do you think?
(6) What do virtue ethicists mean when they say that morality is a matter of virtuous
character? Are they right to emphasize the importance of character in this way?
The slides attached contain all the thing I have learnt
“Essays don’t need to use a particular style of formatting or referencing. All that is important is
that they are clearly written throughout (and full references are given somewhere, where
appropriate).” That means, references are needed though you don’t need to use a particular
style of referencing. In the field of philosophy, authors usually choose APA or Chicago style. This
website (https://pitt.libguides.com/citationhelp) details the difference between them.
Need further guidance? Here are a few other tips:
Audience: The essay should be written for a smart, philosophical novice who is apt to
misinterpret but wants to learn. In other words, imagine you are writing this essay for a
classmate in another class. Ask yourself, “Will my non-philosopher classmate be able to
understand what I’m saying in this essay even though he/she hasn’t taken the class?”
Language: Overall, the language should be as transparent, simple, succinct, precise, direct, and
professional as possible. Technical or important terminology should be explained/defined and
augmented with examples when warranted. The grammar and word-choice should be
conservative. When proof-reading be on the lookout for the following:
1. Typos, misspellings, errors in grammar or punctuation
2. Misused expressions or expressions that are too slangy, insulting, archaic, euphemistic
3. Ambiguous or vague word choices
4. Excessive verbiage: redundant words/phrases/sentences/paragraphs/etc.
5. Overly long sentences, especially those with three or more embedded clauses
6. Arbitrary changes of terminology
Content: When proof-reading ask yourself the following:
1. Is the issue you’re addressing in your essay clearly explained and motivated?
2. Does the essay wander off topic?
3. Is it a unified essay, or just a collection of distinct sections?
4. Are any arguments merely referred to without being discussed?
5. Is every technical term defined?
6. Is any argument explained without being evaluated?
7. Does your reader know what to expect based on your thesis? (Make sure you have a thesis!)
8. Is the structure clear, or will the reader get lost?
9. Do the sizes and parts of the essay match their relative importance?
10. Is anything important not made clear and fully explicit?
Make sure you proof-read your essay!
TOPIC 1
INTRODUCING ETHICS
q The aim of this course is to introduce you to ethics,
which is one of the most important fields of philosophy.
q We will be covering such topics as death and the
meaning of life, ethics and religion, and particular
normative moral theories like Aristotelian virtue ethics.
q Our textual guide in this tour will be What is This Thing
Called Ethics? (Routledge), by Christopher Bennett.
SOME GENERAL GUIDANCE
q As we will see, ethical topics are often quite weighty (e.g., global poverty) and
can often be very personal too (e.g., the sanctity of life). This is simply a feature
of the area, and it can’t be avoided, but it does mean that ethical debates can
sometimes make one feel uncomfortable.
q It’s important to remember, however, that we are here trying to learn about a
range of ethical positions and debates, and that will inevitably mean learning
about viewpoints that you might not share.
q If you at any point are tempted to throw your hands in the air and say that
morality is just a matter of subjective opinion, remember that this is itself a
philosophical position regarding morality, and hence one that needs to be
argued for and not merely assumed!
SOME GENERAL GUIDANCE
q Philosophy involves giving arguments in support of philosophically significant
claims. An argument involves reasons which support the truth of a certain
conclusion.
q More formally, we can think of arguments as involving premises which are meant
to provide support for the truth of a conclusion. One can then object to that
argument by either rejecting one or more of the premises, or by disputing that
the premises offered really do support the truth of the conclusion.
q Whether an argument is a good argument or not is not a subjective matter. It is
not a good philosophical response to an argument to simply say that you don’t
like the conclusion!
EVERYDAY ETHICS AND ETHICS IN PHILOSOPHY
q All of us engage in ethical reasoning all the time. Should I give more to charity?
Should I help my elderly neighbour more? Should I do more to protect the nature
environment? And so on.
q What we are doing in philosophy when we do ethics is to try to put these
everyday ethical judgements onto a more systematic basis. What are the
reasons for our ethical judgements, and are they good reasons? What are the
general ethical principles that inform those judgments, and are they consistent?
What is the nature of an ethical judgement anyway? And so on.
ETHICAL REASONING
q Ethical reasoning might be worth doing just for its own sake. Ethics is an
important topic, after all, which covers lots of very important questions, so that
by itself ought to make it worth doing.
q But there is also another, more personal, reason. Plausibly, we each have a duty
to ourselves to work out what we think the right ethical judgements are. In
particular, we seem to have a duty to ourselves to work through and examine our
ethical opinions. It’s not enough to simply get our moral views from others, or
just to go with our first instincts.
MORAL RELATIVISM
q I mentioned earlier that when faced with disagreement on moral topics you
might be tempted to throw your hands in the air and say that it’s all subjective.
This is known as moral relativism, and it’s the view that there are no objective
moral truths. Your moral system and my moral system might be radically
opposed, but on this view, they are both legitimate, since there is no objective
fact of the matter who is right.
q I think sometimes people are attracted to this position—and remember, as I said
earlier, it is a philosophical position, and as such needs to be argued for—
because it seems at first blush to very pluralistic and liberating. After all, we
don’t need to decide who is right about moral question X, since in a sense
everyone is right!
MORAL RELATIVISM
q We’ll talk more about moral relativism in its own right later in the course, but just
now I want to get you to think again about whether such relativism is plausible.
q In particular, have a think through what this really means. For example, take
some atrocious event like the holocaust. Some people really did think that this
genocide was morally acceptable. If you’re a moral relativist, this is going to
mean that this moral viewpoint is entirely legitimate. Indeed, objectively
speaking, those who engineered the holocaust did absolutely nothing morally
wrong.
q The point is that moral relativism can seem very liberating at first, but it does
commit you to some rather unpleasant conclusions.
MORAL SCEPTICISM
q I think it is also worth making a distinction at this point between moral relativism
and moral scepticism. The former is the idea that there are no moral truths, as all
morality is relative.
q Moral scepticism is slightly different. It is the view that we can’t have any knowledge
of objective moral truths. The reason one is a moral sceptic might be that one is a
moral relativist—if there are no objective moral truths, then of course there is nothing
to be known.
q But notice that you could be a moral sceptic without being a moral relativist. Perhaps
there are objective moral truths, it is just that we are unable to know them.
q For example, it could be that we are unable to formulate good arguments for our
moral opinions, or that our moral viewpoint is internally inconsistent. The point is
that this could all be true without it entailing moral relativism, so it’s important to try
to keep these two positions apart.
ETHICAL THEORY
q In ethical theory it is common to distinguish between normative ethics, applied
ethics, and meta-ethics.
q Normative ethics is concerned with constructing moral theories about what we
ought to do, from a moral point of view.
q Applied ethics involves the application of normative ethics to particular
questions. Examples of applied ethical questions include the ethics of abortion,
or the ethics of euthanasia.
q Meta-ethics is concerned with questions about the nature of morality. Examples
of meta-ethical questions include what is it for a moral judgement to be true, or
what is the nature of a moral judgement.
q In this course we will mostly be setting meta-ethical questions to one side until
later on.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD ETHICAL THEORY?
q There are various properties that one should look out for in a good ethical theory.
q One property is consistency, in that we want all the elements of our moral theory
to be consistent with one another. If they aren’t consistent, then that’s a sign that
our moral theory has serious flaws.
q A good moral theory should also be reasonably comprehensive, in that it should
be applicable to a wide range of moral questions that concern us.
q A good moral theory should also be explanatory, in that it explains why certain
actions are morally right, and some not. Relatedly, it should be able to guide our
action, in that we can use the theory to know what to do when faced with moral
problems.
q Note that a good ethical theory is unlikely to be identical with the pre-theoretical
moral opinions that you grew up with.
TOPIC 3
WHICH LIVES COUNT?
q Ethical questions about killing are raised all the time. Is it wrong to have an
abortion? Is it wrong to kill animals for food? Is euthanasia wrong (i.e., ending
someone’s life because it is in some sense in their best interests to die)? And so
on.
q We may already have opinions—perhaps even very strong opinions—about these
topics. But the purpose of ethical theory is to try to determine what reasons we
have for holding certain views, and whether they are good reasons. This might
well involve, for example, appealing to general moral principles.
q The result of this process should hopefully be a better understanding of one’s
moral opinions. We might even change our moral opinions as a result of
examining them in this way.
WHICH LIVES COUNT?
q These questions about killing are closely related to the
issues about the meaning of life that we looked at
previously. This because what we think determines the
value of a life affects whether it is morally acceptable to
end that life. For example, if one thinks that only humans
lead valuable lives, then one might be less inclined to
become a vegetarian.
q We will begin by considering the idea that human life has a
special value. Note that sometimes this claim is
understood in a religious way to say that human life is
sacred. We will come back to this stronger reading later on.
For now, the idea is to explain the special value of human
life without appeal to religion.
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q One motivation for the idea that life has a special kind of
value comes from our strong moral conviction that one
can’t simply kill people because it is convenient (e.g., that
they are causing you difficulties).
q This suggests that human beings have a value that other
things lack. After all, I can get rid of my car because it is
convenient to do so (e.g., if it keeps breaking down). (But
what about a cat? Or even a tree?)
q The point is that some things are disposable, but not
human beings (though we still need to work out why not).
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q One argument people have offered for why the special value of human beings
entails that they are not disposable like mere objects is that each human being
has a unique individual value. This means that they are not replaceable in the
way that mere objects which don’t have any unique individual value, like cars,
are.
q For example, if you lost a child, you wouldn’t think having another child would
replace the child lost. But a new car does replace the old one.
q This suggests that human beings have an intrinsic value. Recall that this means
that they are valuable in terms of their intrinsic properties—just for being who
they are and nothing else (such as the relational properties of being clever,
beautiful, etc).
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q If human beings are intrinsically valuable, then this would explain why we cannot
simply get rid of someone because it is convenient for us to do so. That would be
to treat another person as just another thing—worth having if they are useful, but
disposable otherwise. Instead, we should recognise that human beings have a
value that extends beyond their usefulness; they are valuable in themselves.
q Notice that the view that human beings are intrinsically valuable doesn’t entail
that it is never morally right to kill them. It just means that they have a special
kind of value. That’s consistent with even this special kind of value being
sometimes outweighed by other factors.
q Nonetheless, those other factors are not going to be things like ‘so-and-so is
annoying’ etc!
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q Another rationale for the idea that human life is
intrinsically valuable is that it seems right to say that
we own our lives. We are autonomous beings, after
all, with our own thoughts, experiences, choices and
so on.
q Mere things in the world, like cars or chairs, are not
like this at all, which is why they are only extrinsically
valuable (e.g., because they are useful).
q But if we do own our lives, then that implies that it
would be wrong to take that away from us by killing us.
Put another way, the killer is doing something that she
simply has no right to do.
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q This train of argument suggests that people have a
right to life. If so, then others are under an
obligation—a moral duty—to respect that right. And
that means not violating that right by killing us.
q Compare this with other kinds of things we might
think we have a right to. If I have a right to free
speech, for example, then that means that others
have a moral duty not to prevent my free speech.
q Others may even be under a moral duty to
positively act to promote free speech (e.g., if they
are legislators).
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q Notice too that while rights must be respected, they can sometimes be correctly
ignored. If your right to free speech is physically harming those around you, for
example (you shouted ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre and thereby caused panic, say),
then we may well shut you up!
q The same could be true of our right to life. As we noted earlier, even something
that is intrinsically valuable could be morally killed if there were sufficient
considerations to outweigh this value (such as that your right to life is
outweighed by other people’s right to life).
q This means that we still might have some tricky ethical decisions to make, in
determining just when the right to life is outweighed.
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q There are other issues here too, such as how far
this right to life extends.
q Does it apply to someone in an irreversible coma?
q Does it apply to a foetus?
q Does it apply to animals (chimpanzees, say)?
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q We noted earlier that the apparent reason why human beings are intrinsically
valuable relates to the fact that human beings have a kind of autonomy, where
this entails that we in a sense own our lives.
q If so, it might explain why human life is distinctively valuable, unlike the lives of
animals and plants, say. For we might argue that only human beings have the
capacity to live genuinely autonomous lives—to have hopes and dreams, to make
plans, to choose to live their life in a certain way, and so on. To be persons.
q We could even use this idea to explain why we think we ought to treat animals
better than, say, mere objects, or plants. The thought would be that although
they lack our capacities, they do approximate to us in certain ways—e.g., they can
experience pleasure and pain (unlike cars, chairs etc).
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q Notice how this last point can be used to explain why it is morally acceptable to
eat meat, but not other humans. In the latter case, this would be to treat human
beings as just things, rather than something which is intrinsically valuable. But
since animals aren’t intrinsically valuable, they can be killed for food.
q One might add to this argument that what is important is rather what the
animal’s life (and death) is like. Pleasure and the avoidance of pain are morally
important, so we should look after animals and ensure a painless death. But we
can also treat them as replaceable—which is effectively just what animal farming
is—unlike humans.
q (And notice that if animals are replaceable, then it seems to be in their interests
to be farmed, as otherwise they wouldn’t exist in such numbers).
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q What implications does this idea that human life is
intrinsically valuable because we are genuine
persons have for particular ethical debates?
q In terms of euthanasia, the issue will rest on what
the person’s situation is. Someone in an
irreversible coma, for example, would be a prime
candidate for euthanasia on this view, since not
only do they lack all the relevant capacities, but
also have no chance of regaining them.
q Other cases where the subject has better
prospects for recovery might be more difficult to
assess.
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q In terms of abortion, it seems to generate the
result—surprisingly—that this is morally fine.
q After all, a foetus is just a collection of cells, with
none of the capacities of a human. Indeed, many
animals are much more sophisticated creatures
(and on this view we can eat them!).
q (But does the potentiality to become a person
count? We will return to this idea).
THE SPECIAL VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
q I said that it was surprising that the idea that human life has special value because
we are genuine persons might explain why abortion is morally permissible. It is
surprising because often those who argue for the special value of life advance the
exact opposite claim.
q There is a reason for this, however, which is that many who think abortion is wrong
hold the stronger claim that human life is sacred, a thesis which has a religious
dimension (nothing we have said so far presupposes religion). This is a stronger
claim, because if something is sacred then there are no countervailing
considerations that can outweigh this value.
q If life is sacred, for example, then you shouldn’t kill someone even if by doing so you
save the lives of 20 others.
DEONTOLOGISM VERSUS CONSEQUENTIALISM
q This last point may itself be surprising, since it sounds almost contradictory. If life is
sa…
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