Ethics Lakeland

Hume lectures

2007-11-13T18:26:00.001+09:00

Lectures 19 and 20
Slave to the Passions: David Hume’s Ethics
Dr. Geoffrey Roche

19.1 Resources for these lectures
Secondary resources:
A.J Ayer. Hume: A very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
David Hume “Morality as Based on Sentiment” in James Rachels and Stuart Rachels,
eds. The Right Thing to Do Boston: McGraw Hill, 2007:65- 70.
Stephen Darwall, University of Michigan. Phil 433 course: History of Modern Ethics. Available at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdarwall/433dh1200.txt
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdarwall/433dh200.txt
William Edward Morris “David Hume” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
James Fieser “David Hume” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Available at: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/humelife.htm
Rachel Cohon “Hume’s Moral Philosophy” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/

Primary resources:
David Hume Treatise of Human Nature (1739- 1740).
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/ToC/hume%20treatise%20ToC.htm [accessed Nov 5th 2007].
Or here:
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hume/david/h92t/

19.1 Opening Questions
a). What character traits (‘virtues’) would make a person pleasing to themselves? (That is, what traits do you need to have to enjoy your own company?)
b). What virtues make a person useful for themselves (that is, independent)?
c). What virtues would make a person pleasing, or useful, to others?
d). Is intelligence necessary and sufficient to be a good person?
e). Is the Motive of Duty necessary and sufficient to be a good person?

19.2 David Hume: Biographical sketch
David Hume (1711-1776), philosopher, historian and essayist, is considered the greatest philosopher ever to write in English. In the words of His three main philosophical works, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), the Enquiries concerning Human Nature (1748) and Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) remain very influential, and had a major impact even on those who disagreed with him (Kant, in particular). His thought inspired Jeremy Bentham to write his Utilitarian ethics. He was also an influence on non- philosophers, such as his friend the economist Adam Smith (Hume suggesting that open markets are better for the economy) and the father of the theory of Evolution, Charles Darwin. Philosophers now consider Hume to be the father of contemporary cognitive science (the study of how the mind organizes information and creates experience). Much of what we now generally accept as logical principle, especially as applied to scientific and logical analysis, we owe to Hume. (The Naturalistic Fallacy and the Is- Ought Fallacy are two examples we’ve already seen).

David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a precocious youth, and was sent to Edinburgh University at the age of twelve. He was supposed to study law, but instead secretly studied the Classical authors of ancient Greece and Rome. (He had to keep this a secret as his parents were very religious and did not approve of such pagan literature). He left university without taking his degree (you will notice that Kant always writes of “Mr. Hume” for this reason) and spent three years thinking and writing about philosophy. He briefly tried to hold a regular job at a sugar import company- he got fired because he criticized his boss’s writing style. Then he went to live in La Flèche, France (where his small stipend was enough to get by) to study French writings. There he wrote the draft for Treatise of Human Nature between 1734 and 1737, arguing with Jesuit priests about religion in his spare time.
Hume saw this book published in 1739, anonymously, with the more anti- religious parts removed (“castrated,” in Hume’s words). Hume then tried to find academic work, but no university would hire him: his thought was too controversial. He never held an academic post.
Hume found teaching work in 1745 as the private tutor to the Marquess of Annandale, but the boy was insane. Eventually he found work as a librarian, which gave him the stability, and the books, needed to write The History of England, which became a best- seller. This gave him the financial stability (at the age of 43) to write more philosophy. In 1763 Hume was made secretary to the Ambassador to France, and spent the next three years in Paris, where he frequently met the French philosophes Diderot, D’Alembert and d’Holbach (all atheists and free-thinkers). In 1766 Hume returned to England with Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Their friendship collapsed- Rousseau, totally paranoid, was convinced that Hume was organizing an international conspiracy against him.
After a year working for the Government, Hume returned to Edinburgh in 1769, this time for good. One of his young female friends, Nancy Orde, one night wrote “St. David’s Street” on the wall of Hume’s home in chalk. The street still bears the name.
Hume died of intestinal cancer in 1776, not before preparing his most controversial works for publication.

David Hume, 1 St. David’s Street, Edinburgh.

Hume’s philosophical work was very carefully argued, firmly grounded in solid logical and scientific principles, and profoundly skeptical. Although never explicitly stating his lack of faith, he was attacked for his atheism and skepticism. He rigorously argued that we have no way of knowing that external reality exists, that causality is quite possibly an illusion, and that there is no self or free will. He was also an influential critic of conventional religious belief, in particular Christian belief (for his brilliant argument against the Argument from Design, see Ayer: 115).

Hume summarizes his general approach in the final lines of the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding: philosophy is not about being nice and respecting everyone’s point of view. It is about destroying falsity. Philosophy before Hume was about discovering theoretical explanations based on pure reason, or mere speculation. After Hume, philosophy is a descriptive inquiry based on direct experience of what can be observed. (This philosophy is called Empiricism, as opposed to Rationalism).

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion (E:165).

Here we will concern ourselves with Hume’s ethical theory, in which we see this attitude that philosophy is a confused mess, and someone has to clean it up.

19.3 Hume’s ethics: background
Hume is not so interested in what the rules of morality should be (he just assumes Utilitarianism, more or less, in particular Rule Utilitarianism, as a theory of morality, and a variant of Virtue Theory as a theory of how to be moral). Hume’s main concern in ethics is the psychological foundation of morals. For Kant, morality was grounded in reason. For Kant, moral decision- making is based on intelligible ideas and inescapable conclusions. For Hume, by contrast, morality is grounded on an immediate, innate sense of right and wrong that is conceptually distinct from the operations of pure reason. I will quote and expand on Ayer (19.4- 19.13) in summarizing Hume’s eleven moral principles (Ayer: 98- 100).

19.4 The Limits of Reason.
Reason alone, being concerned only with the discovery and falsehood, “can never be the motive for any action of the will” (Treatise: 413). It is from this principle that Hume derives his celebrated dictum:

Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them (Treatise: 415).

What does this mean? It means that reason can never be the motive of any action. For Hume, reason is merely the capacity to draw inferences and appraise statements for their truth or falsehood.
As such, Hume is presenting an Emotive theory of morality. A simple Emotivist theory says that moral statements are statements of our feelings about a particular action, rather than statements actually describing anything objectively real. “Murder is immoral” in this sense is more akin to the statement “I hate you” or “ouch” than “There are 28 chairs in room 602.” Ayer thinks that Hume is not offering such a crude theory, however: moral language expresses our moral sentiments, but not our personal mental condition (Ayer: 104).

Hume’s Ethics: The Basics

Hume's position in ethics, which is based on his empiricist theory of the mind, is best known for asserting four theses: (1) Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions” (2) Morals are not derived from reason (3) Morals are derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action (4) While some virtues and vices are natural others, including justice, are artificial (that is, created by particular societies for their own long- term benefit). We’ll go over the first three points.

Against Rationalism: Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions”

Against the moral rationalists – in particular Kant- Hume argues that it is actually impossible to understand their theory of distinguishing between right and wrong (T, 455-470). (Recall that Kant can hardly explain why telling lies is always immoral). Reason, Hume argues, judges either of matters of fact or of relations. Nothing else. Morality never consists in any single matter of fact that could be immediately perceived, intuited, or grasped by reason alone; morality for rationalists must therefore involve the perception of relations. Distinguishing these cases requires more than reason alone can provide.
Hume also rejected the rationalist model of ethics proposed by the Social Contract theorists, in particular Hobbes. Morality cannot be reduced to self- interest, Hume reasons, because an accurate description of the social virtues, benevolence and justice, will show that there is more to these phenomena than mere selfishness.
Hume also argues that our benevolent sentiments can't be reduced to self-interest. It is true that, when we desire the happiness of others, and try to make them happy, we may enjoy doing so. But benevolence is necessary for our self-enjoyment, and although we may act from the combined motives of benevolence and enjoyment, our benevolent sentiments aren't identical with our self-enjoyment.
What is reason good for then, according to Hume? It can recommend the best means for attaining a given end, but it can't recommend ultimate ends. (It can’t tell us which is better: a life of adventure, or a life of hard work, or a life in front of television). Reason can provide no motive to action, for reason alone is insufficient to produce moral blame or approbation. We need sentiment to give a preference to the useful tendencies of actions.
Hume not only argues against Kant. He is arguing against a very old, in fact traditional belief that reason and the passions are opposed to each other. (A recent argument against the Jury system in Japan: people will be overwhelmed by emotion if they have to sit on a very horrific court case, so they will not be able to judge rationally). Hume rejects this dichotomy [division]. Instead he states that “reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will,” and that reason alone “can never oppose passion in the direction of the will” (T 413).
From Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature:

Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of the combat of passion and reason, to give the preference to reason, and to assert that men are only so far virtuous as they conform themselves to its dictates. Every rational creature, 'tis said, is oblig'd to regulate his actions by reason; and if any other motive or principle challenge the direction of his conduct, he ought to oppose it, 'till it be entirely subdu'd, or at last brought to a conformity with that superior principle. (T: Part III, Section III Book II, paragraph 1).

What is Hume’s argument here, exactly? He reasons as follows. Human Understanding has two rational functions. It can analyze the relations of ideas (such as mathematical or logical reasoning). Human understanding can also judge, using probability, the relations of objects, especially their causal relationships, revealed by our experience. That’s all it can do.
As such, Human Understanding cannot cause any action by itself. It is our feelings of pleasure or pain, or our aversion or attraction to them, that really decide which action we should take. “'Tis from the prospect of pain or pleasure that the aversion or propensity arises.”
Hume has a second argument which is the corollary (the logical twin) of the first. Reason alone cannot prevent or stop any passion or impulse. If reason could prevent an impulse, then it would be able to give rise to a contrary impulse. But if it could do that, it would be an original impulse on the will (that is, a capacity to cause volition). So, when we calm ourselves down and hold ourselves back from some passionate but violent or immoral act, it is actually a calming passion, and not reason, that stops us.

A second aspect of this theory: as reason alone cannot guide actions, neither actions or passions can be contrary to reason. (Recall Ayn Rand’s argument that attacking people, or driving a hotrod, is against reason). According to Hume's definition of reason, something can be contrary to reason only if it can be false, or mistakenly inferred. But, he says, neither actions nor passions can be contrary to reason in this sense since they aren't even the sort of thing which can be false (or inferred). To say that “reason shows that doing dangerous things is irrational” is just a category error. Something can be false only if it has a "representative quality," that is, if it claims to represent reality in some way, and if it represents incorrectly (For example, we can say “this argument is invalid” or “that picture of Godzilla attacking Tokyo Tower is incorrect, because Godzilla does not exist.” “But passions and actions have no such quality--each is an "original existence" (415) and "compleat in themselves" (458). Therefore, they can neither be false, nor mistakenly inferred. Therefore, they cannot be contrary to reason (Derived from Darwall: Hume I).

Hume expresses these thoughts in some rather shocking ways.

Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Tis not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me.

A more vivid version of the same insight occurs in the work of Donatien Alphonse François, the Marquis de Sade, in the novel Juliette (1797).

If from immolating three million human victims you stand to gain no livelier pleasure than that to be had from eating a good dinner, slender though this pleasure may appear in the light of its price, you ought to treat yourself to it without an instant’s hesitation; for if you sacrifice the good dinner, the necessary result is a privation for you, whereas no privation results from the disappearance of the three million insignificant creatures you must do away with to obtain the dinner, because between it and you there exists a relationship, however tenuous, whereas none exists between you and the three million victims (J: 642).

(Again, the question is: is Kim Jong- Il irrational?)

19.5 The Passions (Hume’s Moral Psychology).
The passions by which we are motivated, according to Hume, may be direct or indirect, calm or violent. The direct passions, such as those of joy, grief, hope or fear, arise either from natural instinct, or from our desire of good, which can here be equated with pleasure, or aversion from evil, which can here be equated with pain. The indirect passions, such as those of pride, humility, love, or hatred, arise from a combination of these primitive motives with other factors. This distinction is independent of that between calmness and violence. It is because the motivation may be [so] violent that “men often act knowingly against their interest” and are not always influenced by “their view of the greatest possible good” (Treatise: 418).

19.6 Hume’s Virtue Ethics
Recall that Kant argued that an action must be done out of a sense of duty to be truly moral. Hume turns this thinking on its head. For Hume, and action is only moral if it is done out of some motive other than a sense of its morality. Ayer explains: understanding the morality of a particular action does not confer any merit on an action. The moral subject must have a good motive or a good character to truly be good. They must be habitually good.

A man who is of a miserly disposition may grow ashamed of it [his miserliness] and so force himself to perform acts of generosity. In time his initial reluctance to perform them may or may not be overcome. It is not, however, necessary that it should be overcome in order for his actions to be morally good. Their goodness depends on their conforming to a habitual practice of generosity… (Ayer: 107).

In this sense Hume is reviving the ancient Greek notion of Ethics as an art of self- cultivation. Ethics, in this Virtue Ethics sense, is not about following rules or maximizing the good, but of making oneself an ‘excellent person’ through cultivating good character traits (‘virtues’). Aristotle sums up this principle: “Excellence, […] is not an act but a habit.” As a theory of ethical motivation it has its advantages, but its main weakness is that it gives (arguably) little guidance in what to do in any particular instance. In any case, Hume poses an important challenge to Kant’s moral schema. For Hume (reasons Ayer) to rely entirely on a sense of duty for one’s morality suggests that one is “deficient in natural benevolence” (Ayer: 107).

19.7 Sympathy
All humans, reasons Hume, have two sentiments: self- love and sympathy. Sympathy here means ‘sense of humanity.’ Hume holds that it is a natural instinct. It strength is such that although it is “rare to meet with one, who loves any single person better than himself,” it is equally “rare to meet with one, in whom all the kind affections, taken together, do not over- balance all the selfish” (Treatise: 487). This natural instinct or sympathy or benevolence plays a large part in the formation of our moral and political attitudes. He also takes it to be Utilitarian in nature. From the Enquiry: Hume charts all virtues as being either useful or agreeable.

For ourselves (self- love) For others (sympathy)
Agreeable Qualities immediately Agreeable to ourselves Qualities immediately agreeable to others
Useful (= productive of something agreeable) Qualities useful to ourselves Benevolence
Justice

Below is Hume’s Table of Virtues:
To Ourselves To Others
Agreeable Tranquility
Good Taste Politeness
Wit
Decency
Useful Discretion
Industry
Frugality
Honesty and Fidelity
Strength of Mind Benevolence
Gratitude
Generosity
Friendliness
Justice

(Note that a). this idea of an ethics as good for the ethical agent, and yet also good for other people, is the ‘missing third option’ that Ayn Rand fails to consider in rejecting all non- egoistic ethics. Note also that Hume can explain why industry and strength of mind are good to have, whereas Rand merely asserts it).

Here is Hume’s argument for justifying moral rules.

Any being which has feelings of sympathy and self- love will be pleased by anything useful or pleasant to itself or others (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest).
Man has the feelings of sympathy and self- love.
It follows that man will be pleased by anything useful or pleasant to ourselves or others (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest).

Hence, for example, Justice is useful to ourselves and others.
So, justice pleases us (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest).

Any character [trait] that pleases (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest] is morally good.

Therefore, we ought to be just.

19.8 On Reason and Morality
“Since morals… have an influence on the actions and affections, it follows that they cannot be deriv’d from reason” (Treatise: 457). Accordingly, “the rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason.”

19.9 Moral Judgments are Not Facts, and cannot be Derived from Facts
Moral judgments are not descriptions of matter of fact.

Take any action allow'd to be vicious: wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. (T:468).

when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. (T: 469)

Similarly, when “instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not,” one suddenly meets “with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not” (Treatise: 469), one is being tricked. It is not possible that “this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.”

19.10 (3) Morals are derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action

[This idea is similar to the theory of perception developed by the Empiricists, in particular John Locke {1632-1704} and George Berkeley {1685-1753}]. “Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which according to modern philosophy [that is, Empiricism and Science, which was then called ‘natural philosophy,’] are not qualities in the object, but perceptions in the mind” (T: 469). Accordingly, “when you pronounce any character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature, you have a feeling of sentiment or blame from the contemplation of it.”
The following quotes illustrate this idea.

To have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration. We do not infer a character to be virtuous, because it pleases: But in feeling that it pleases after such a
particular manner, we in effect feel that it is virtuous. The case is the same as in our judgments concerning all kinds of beauty, and tastes, and sensations (T: 471).

Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar'd to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind." (T: 469)

19.11 Virtue and Vice are determined by Motives Only
Though one speaks of virtuous or vicious actions, they derive their merit or demerit only from virtuous or vicious motives, and it is only as signs of such motives, or the character of the person who acts from them, that actions are subject to moral evaluation.

19.12 The Utilitarian Thesis
[For Hume, our moral sentiments are essentially Utilitarian]. What arouses our approbation [approval] or disapprobation is the appraisal of qualities as being respectively productive of a preponderance of pleasure or pain. These appraisals may also be characterized as judgments of utility.

19.13 The Sense of Justice is Culturally Inculcated, rather than Innate
The sense of justice, on which both moral and political obligation depend, is derived not from any natural impressions of reflection but from impressions due to “artifice and human conventions” (T: 496).

Criticisms
Reason and Passions

Does reason really have no control over the passions? Ayer gives some counterarguments.

Anscombe J. Ayer in 1989.
Ayer writes

Reason has control over the passions, in so far as it can be used to discover that a passion is based on a false judgment, as for example when the object of one’s fear is proved not to exist, or that the means chosen to procure [get, achieve] some end are insufficient for the purpose. A third instance, which Hume failed to notice, is that in which reason shows us that the achievement of a desired end will probably result in the occurrence of something which we have a greater desire to avoid. (Ayer:108)

As such,
The dramatic statement that reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions amounts to only […] the truism that reason enters into the sphere of action only when we have been motivated to aim at some end (ibid).

Ayer also notes that another supporting argument is invalid. Hume argues that morals cannot be derived from reason, as they have an influence on our actions and affections. Ayer, in response, argues that our actions and affections may be influenced by reason. We may, for example, be influenced by the truth or falsehood of our judgments or the soundness (or cogency) of our inferences. But Ayer concedes that the main point stands (Ayer: 109).

Is the Sense of Justice Really Artificial?
Hume argues that our sense of justice is artificial because there are no natural motives to supply it. Men do not have, in particular, a natural love of mankind, so their natural benevolence towards only the people close to them is basically unjust. Hume also argues that people are more or less selfish, so it is unlikely that a sense of justice would arise naturally (Ayer:110). Hume suggests something like Hobbes’ Social Contract, and also tends towards Rule Utilitarianism, but without offering much of an explanation: tolerating exceptions would lower respect for the general rule (Ayer: 111).

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Hume’s thought is so subtle, so good, and so complex that merely being able to explain it clearly will suffice. For the final exam, you should know:

§ Hume’s theory of virtue
§Hume’s argument that reason cannot motivate action
§ Hume’s theory of moral sentiments

Final test Fall 2007

2007-11-13T18:26:00.000+09:00

Lakeland College Wisconsin

Ethics 212- 2 FINAL EXAM

Answer any TWO questions, ONLY ONE from each section. Time allowed: 2 hours

Section 1. Egoism

Either

Question 1a). What is Stirner’s argument against morality? What is the most serious objection to his philosophy, and why?

OR

Question 1b). Critically discuss Ayn Rand’s “Philosophy of Objectivism.”

Section 2. The Kyoto School

Either

Question 2a).

What, for Watsuji Tetsurô, is ethics? How does his conception of ethics compare with that of Western ethical thought? Are these differences strengths or shortcomings for Watsuji’s thought?

OR

Question 2b).

What does Watsuji Tetsuro mean when he says that individuals do not exist? What is the relevance of this idea to his ethics, and what are his arguments for this claim? Critically discuss.

Section 3. Hume

Either

3). Why does Hume say that reason is “slave of the passions”? What are his arguments for this claim? And what are the implications of this theory for ethical thought?

4). What is Hume’s Virtue Ethics? And what is Hume’s criteria for deciding whether a character trait is a virtue? Critically discuss the merits of this theory.

Section 4. The Death Penalty

Either

4a). Give a critical discussion of at least TWO objections to the death penalty

OR

4b). Should Japan abandon the death penalty?

Section 5. Euthanasia

Either

Question 5a). What is the difference between passive and active euthanasia? Why is it considered a morally relevant distinction in the USA? is this a morally relevant distinction?

OR

Question 5b). Give a critical discussion of at least TWO objections to the legalization of euthanasia.

Hume and Ethics November 2007

2007-11-10T14:27:00.000+09:00

Lectures 19 and 20
Slave to the Passions: David Hume’s Ethics
Dr. Geoffrey Roche

19.1 Resources for these lectures
Secondary resources:
A.J Ayer. Hume: A very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
David Hume “Morality as Based on Sentiment” in James Rachels and Stuart Rachels,
eds. The Right Thing to Do Boston: McGraw Hill, 2007:65- 70.
Stephen Darwall, University of Michigan. Phil 433 course: History of Modern Ethics. Available at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdarwall/433dh1200.txt
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdarwall/433dh200.txt
William Edward Morris “David Hume” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
James Fieser “David Hume” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Available at: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/humelife.htm
Rachel Cohon “Hume’s Moral Philosophy” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/

Primary resources:
David Hume Treatise of Human Nature (1739- 1740).
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/ToC/hume%20treatise%20ToC.htm [accessed Nov 5th 2007].
Or here:
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hume/david/h92t/

19.1 Opening Questions
a). What character traits (‘virtues’) would make a person pleasing to themselves? (That is, what traits do you need to have to enjoy your own company?)
b). What virtues make a person useful for themselves (that is, independent)?
c). What virtues would make a person pleasing, or useful, to others?
d). Is intelligence necessary and sufficient to be a good person?
e). Is the Motive of Duty necessary and sufficient to be a good person?

Disclaimer: The contents of this lecture is substantially paraphrased from Darwall and Ayer, and is not to be cited as an original work by the compiler.

19.2 David Hume: Biographical sketch
David Hume (1711-1776), philosopher, historian and essayist, is considered the greatest philosopher ever to write in English. In the words of His three main philosophical works, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), the Enquiries concerning Human Nature (1748) and Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) remain very influential, and had a major impact even on those who disagreed with him (Kant, in particular). His thought inspired Jeremy Bentham to write his Utilitarian ethics. He was also an influence on non- philosophers, such as his friend the economist Adam Smith (Hume suggesting that open markets are better for the economy) and the father of the theory of Evolution, Charles Darwin. Philosophers now consider Hume to be the father of contemporary cognitive science (the study of how the mind organizes information and creates experience). Much of what we now generally accept as logical principle, especially as applied to scientific and logical analysis, we owe to Hume. (The Naturalistic Fallacy and the Is- Ought Fallacy are two examples we’ve already seen).

David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a precocious youth, and was sent to Edinburgh University at the age of twelve. He was supposed to study law, but instead secretly studied the Classical authors of ancient Greece and Rome. (He had to keep this a secret as his parents were very religious and did not approve of such pagan literature). He left university without taking his degree (you will notice that Kant always writes of “Mr. Hume” for this reason) and spent three years thinking and writing about philosophy. He briefly tried to hold a regular job at a sugar import company- he got fired because he criticized his boss’s writing style. Then he went to live in La Flèche, France (where his small stipend was enough to get by) to study French writings. There he wrote the draft for Treatise of Human Nature between 1734 and 1737, arguing with Jesuit priests about religion in his spare time.
Hume saw this book published in 1739, anonymously, with the more anti- religious parts removed (“castrated,” in Hume’s words). Hume then tried to find academic work, but no university would hire him: his thought was too controversial. He never held an academic post.
Hume found teaching work in 1745 as the private tutor to the Marquess of Annandale, but the boy was insane. Eventually he found work as a librarian, which gave him the stability, and the books, needed to write The History of England, which became a best- seller. This gave him the financial stability (at the age of 43) to write more philosophy. In 1763 Hume was made secretary to the Ambassador to France, and spent the next three years in Paris, where he frequently met the French philosophes Diderot, D’Alembert and d’Holbach (all atheists and free-thinkers). In 1766 Hume returned to England with Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Their friendship collapsed- Rousseau, totally paranoid, was convinced that Hume was organizing an international conspiracy against him.
After a year working for the Government, Hume returned to Edinburgh in 1769, this time for good. One of his young female friends, Nancy Orde, one night wrote “St. David’s Street” on the wall of Hume’s home in chalk. The street still bears the name.
Hume died of intestinal cancer in 1776, not before preparing his most controversial works for publication.

David Hume, 1 St. David’s Street, Edinburgh.

Hume’s philosophical work was very carefully argued, firmly grounded in solid logical and scientific principles, and profoundly skeptical. Although never explicitly stating his lack of faith, he was attacked for his atheism and skepticism. He rigorously argued that we have no way of knowing that external reality exists, that causality is quite possibly an illusion, and that there is no self or free will. He was also an influential critic of conventional religious belief, in particular Christian belief (for his brilliant argument against the Argument from Design, see Ayer: 115).

Hume summarizes his general approach in the final lines of the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding: philosophy is not about being nice and respecting everyone’s point of view. It is about destroying falsity. Philosophy before Hume was about discovering theoretical explanations based on pure reason, or mere speculation. After Hume, philosophy is a descriptive inquiry based on direct experience of what can be observed. (This philosophy is called Empiricism, as opposed to Rationalism).

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion (E:165).

Here we will concern ourselves with Hume’s ethical theory, in which we see this attitude that philosophy is a confused mess, and someone has to clean it up.

19.3 Hume’s ethics: background
Hume is not so interested in what the rules of morality should be (he just assumes Utilitarianism, more or less, in particular Rule Utilitarianism, as a theory of morality, and a variant of Virtue Theory as a theory of how to be moral). Hume’s main concern in ethics is the psychological foundation of morals. For Kant, morality was grounded in reason. For Kant, moral decision- making is based on intelligible ideas and inescapable conclusions. For Hume, by contrast, morality is grounded on an immediate, innate sense of right and wrong that is conceptually distinct from the operations of pure reason. I will quote and expand on Ayer (19.4- 19.13) in summarizing Hume’s eleven moral principles (Ayer: 98- 100).

19.4 The Limits of Reason.
Reason alone, being concerned only with the discovery and falsehood, “can never be the motive for any action of the will” (Treatise: 413). It is from this principle that Hume derives his celebrated dictum:

Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them (Treatise: 415).

What does this mean? It means that reason can never be the motive of any action. For Hume, reason is merely the capacity to draw inferences and appraise statements for their truth or falsehood.
As such, Hume is presenting an Emotive theory of morality. A simple Emotivist theory says that moral statements are statements of our feelings about a particular action, rather than statements actually describing anything objectively real. “Murder is immoral” in this sense is more akin to the statement “I hate you” or “ouch” than “There are 28 chairs in room 602.” Ayer thinks that Hume is not offering such a crude theory, however: moral language expresses our moral sentiments, but not our personal mental condition (Ayer: 104).

Hume’s Ethics: The Basics

Hume's position in ethics, which is based on his empiricist theory of the mind, is best known for asserting four theses: (1) Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions” (2) Morals are not derived from reason (3) Morals are derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action (4) While some virtues and vices are natural others, including justice, are artificial (that is, created by particular societies for their own long- term benefit). We’ll go over the first three points.

Against Rationalism: Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions”

Against the moral rationalists – in particular Kant- Hume argues that it is actually impossible to understand their theory of distinguishing between right and wrong (T, 455-470). (Recall that Kant can hardly explain why telling lies is always immoral). Reason, Hume argues, judges either of matters of fact or of relations. Nothing else. Morality never consists in any single matter of fact that could be immediately perceived, intuited, or grasped by reason alone; morality for rationalists must therefore involve the perception of relations. Distinguishing these cases requires more than reason alone can provide.
Hume also rejected the rationalist model of ethics proposed by the Social Contract theorists, in particular Hobbes. Morality cannot be reduced to self- interest, Hume reasons, because an accurate description of the social virtues, benevolence and justice, will show that there is more to these phenomena than mere selfishness.
Hume also argues that our benevolent sentiments can't be reduced to self-interest. It is true that, when we desire the happiness of others, and try to make them happy, we may enjoy doing so. But benevolence is necessary for our self-enjoyment, and although we may act from the combined motives of benevolence and enjoyment, our benevolent sentiments aren't identical with our self-enjoyment.
What is reason good for then, according to Hume? It can recommend the best means for attaining a given end, but it can't recommend ultimate ends. (It can’t tell us which is better: a life of adventure, or a life of hard work, or a life in front of television). Reason can provide no motive to action, for reason alone is insufficient to produce moral blame or approbation. We need sentiment to give a preference to the useful tendencies of actions.
Hume not only argues against Kant. He is arguing against a very old, in fact traditional belief that reason and the passions are opposed to each other. (A recent argument against the Jury system in Japan: people will be overwhelmed by emotion if they have to sit on a very horrific court case, so they will not be able to judge rationally). Hume rejects this dichotomy [division]. Instead he states that “reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will,” and that reason alone “can never oppose passion in the direction of the will” (T 413).
From Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature:

Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of the combat of passion and reason, to give the preference to reason, and to assert that men are only so far virtuous as they conform themselves to its dictates. Every rational creature, 'tis said, is oblig'd to regulate his actions by reason; and if any other motive or principle challenge the direction of his conduct, he ought to oppose it, 'till it be entirely subdu'd, or at last brought to a conformity with that superior principle. (T: Part III, Section III Book II, paragraph 1).

What is Hume’s argument here, exactly? He reasons as follows. Human Understanding has two rational functions. It can analyze the relations of ideas (such as mathematical or logical reasoning). Human understanding can also judge, using probability, the relations of objects, especially their causal relationships, revealed by our experience. That’s all it can do.
As such, Human Understanding cannot cause any action by itself. It is our feelings of pleasure or pain, or our aversion or attraction to them, that really decide which action we should take. “'Tis from the prospect of pain or pleasure that the aversion or propensity arises.”
Hume has a second argument which is the corollary (the logical twin) of the first. Reason alone cannot prevent or stop any passion or impulse. If reason could prevent an impulse, then it would be able to give rise to a contrary impulse. But if it could do that, it would be an original impulse on the will (that is, a capacity to cause volition). So, when we calm ourselves down and hold ourselves back from some passionate but violent or immoral act, it is actually a calming passion, and not reason, that stops us.

A second aspect of this theory: as reason alone cannot guide actions, neither actions or passions can be contrary to reason. (Recall Ayn Rand’s argument that attacking people, or driving a hotrod, is against reason). According to Hume's definition of reason, something can be contrary to reason only if it can be false, or mistakenly inferred. But, he says, neither actions nor passions can be contrary to reason in this sense since they aren't even the sort of thing which can be false (or inferred). To say that “reason shows that doing dangerous things is irrational” is just a category error. Something can be false only if it has a "representative quality," that is, if it claims to represent reality in some way, and if it represents incorrectly (For example, we can say “this argument is invalid” or “that picture of Godzilla attacking Tokyo Tower is incorrect, because Godzilla does not exist.” “But passions and actions have no such quality--each is an "original existence" (415) and "compleat in themselves" (458). Therefore, they can neither be false, nor mistakenly inferred. Therefore, they cannot be contrary to reason (Derived from Darwall: Hume I).

Hume expresses these thoughts in some rather shocking ways.

Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Tis not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me.

A more vivid version of the same insight occurs in the work of Donatien Alphonse François, the Marquis de Sade, in the novel Juliette (1797).

If from immolating three million human victims you stand to gain no livelier pleasure than that to be had from eating a good dinner, slender though this pleasure may appear in the light of its price, you ought to treat yourself to it without an instant’s hesitation; for if you sacrifice the good dinner, the necessary result is a privation for you, whereas no privation results from the disappearance of the three million insignificant creatures you must do away with to obtain the dinner, because between it and you there exists a relationship, however tenuous, whereas none exists between you and the three million victims (J: 642).

(Again, the question is: is Kim Jong- Il irrational?)

19.5 The Passions (Hume’s Moral Psychology).
The passions by which we are motivated, according to Hume, may be direct or indirect, calm or violent. The direct passions, such as those of joy, grief, hope or fear, arise either from natural instinct, or from our desire of good, which can here be equated with pleasure, or aversion from evil, which can here be equated with pain. The indirect passions, such as those of pride, humility, love, or hatred, arise from a combination of these primitive motives with other factors. This distinction is independent of that between calmness and violence. It is because the motivation may be [so] violent that “men often act knowingly against their interest” and are not always influenced by “their view of the greatest possible good” (Treatise: 418).

19.6 Hume’s Virtue Ethics
Recall that Kant argued that an action must be done out of a sense of duty to be truly moral. Hume turns this thinking on its head. For Hume, and action is only moral if it is done out of some motive other than a sense of its morality. Ayer explains: understanding the morality of a particular action does not confer any merit on an action. The moral subject must have a good motive or a good character to truly be good. They must be habitually good.

A man who is of a miserly disposition may grow ashamed of it [his miserliness] and so force himself to perform acts of generosity. In time his initial reluctance to perform them may or may not be overcome. It is not, however, necessary that it should be overcome in order for his actions to be morally good. Their goodness depends on their conforming to a habitual practice of generosity… (Ayer: 107).

In this sense Hume is reviving the ancient Greek notion of Ethics as an art of self- cultivation. Ethics, in this Virtue Ethics sense, is not about following rules or maximizing the good, but of making oneself an ‘excellent person’ through cultivating good character traits (‘virtues’). Aristotle sums up this principle: “Excellence, […] is not an act but a habit.” As a theory of ethical motivation it has its advantages, but its main weakness is that it gives (arguably) little guidance in what to do in any particular instance. In any case, Hume poses an important challenge to Kant’s moral schema. For Hume (reasons Ayer) to rely entirely on a sense of duty for one’s morality suggests that one is “deficient in natural benevolence” (Ayer: 107).

19.7 Sympathy
All humans, reasons Hume, have two sentiments: self- love and sympathy. Sympathy here means ‘sense of humanity.’ Hume holds that it is a natural instinct. It strength is such that although it is “rare to meet with one, who loves any single person better than himself,” it is equally “rare to meet with one, in whom all the kind affections, taken together, do not over- balance all the selfish” (Treatise: 487). This natural instinct or sympathy or benevolence plays a large part in the formation of our moral and political attitudes. He also takes it to be Utilitarian in nature. From the Enquiry: Hume charts all virtues as being either useful or agreeable.

For ourselves (self- love) For others (sympathy)
Agreeable Qualities immediately Agreeable to ourselves Qualities immediately agreeable to others
Useful (= productive of something agreeable) Qualities useful to ourselves Benevolence
Justice

Below is Hume’s Table of Virtues:
To Ourselves To Others
Agreeable Tranquility
Good Taste Politeness
Wit
Decency
Useful Discretion
Industry
Frugality
Honesty and Fidelity
Strength of Mind Benevolence
Gratitude
Generosity
Friendliness
Justice

(Note that a). this idea of an ethics as good for the ethical agent, and yet also good for other people, is the ‘missing third option’ that Ayn Rand fails to consider in rejecting all non- egoistic ethics. Note also that Hume can explain why industry and strength of mind are good to have, whereas Rand merely asserts it).

Here is Hume’s argument for justifying moral rules.

Any being which has feelings of sympathy and self- love will be pleased by anything useful or pleasant to itself or others (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest).
Man has the feelings of sympathy and self- love.
It follows that man will be pleased by anything useful or pleasant to ourselves or others (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest).

Hence, for example, Justice is useful to ourselves and others.
So, justice pleases us (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest).

Any character [trait] that pleases (when considered in general without reference to our particular interest] is morally good.

Therefore, we ought to be just.

19.8 On Reason and Morality
“Since morals… have an influence on the actions and affections, it follows that they cannot be deriv’d from reason” (Treatise: 457). Accordingly, “the rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason.”

19.9 Moral Judgments are Not Facts, and cannot be Derived from Facts
Moral judgments are not descriptions of matter of fact.

Take any action allow'd to be vicious: wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. (T:468).

when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. (T: 469)

Similarly, when “instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not,” one suddenly meets “with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not” (Treatise: 469), one is being tricked. It is not possible that “this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.”

19.10 (3) Morals are derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action

[This idea is similar to the theory of perception developed by the Empiricists, in particular John Locke {1632-1704} and George Berkeley {1685-1753}]. “Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which according to modern philosophy [that is, Empiricism and Science, which was then called ‘natural philosophy,’] are not qualities in the object, but perceptions in the mind” (T: 469). Accordingly, “when you pronounce any character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature, you have a feeling of sentiment or blame from the contemplation of it.”
The following quotes illustrate this idea.

To have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration. We do not infer a character to be virtuous, because it pleases: But in feeling that it pleases after such a
particular manner, we in effect feel that it is virtuous. The case is the same as in our judgments concerning all kinds of beauty, and tastes, and sensations (T: 471).

Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar'd to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind." (T: 469)

19.11 Virtue and Vice are determined by Motives Only
Though one speaks of virtuous or vicious actions, they derive their merit or demerit only from virtuous or vicious motives, and it is only as signs of such motives, or the character of the person who acts from them, that actions are subject to moral evaluation.

19.12 The Utilitarian Thesis
[For Hume, our moral sentiments are essentially Utilitarian]. What arouses our approbation [approval] or disapprobation is the appraisal of qualities as being respectively productive of a preponderance of pleasure or pain. These appraisals may also be characterized as judgments of utility.

19.13 The Sense of Justice is Culturally Inculcated, rather than Innate
The sense of justice, on which both moral and political obligation depend, is derived not from any natural impressions of reflection but from impressions due to “artifice and human conventions” (T: 496).

Criticisms
Reason and Passions

Does reason really have no control over the passions? Ayer gives some counterarguments.

Anscombe J. Ayer in 1989.
Ayer writes

Reason has control over the passions, in so far as it can be used to discover that a passion is based on a false judgment, as for example when the object of one’s fear is proved not to exist, or that the means chosen to procure [get, achieve] some end are insufficient for the purpose. A third instance, which Hume failed to notice, is that in which reason shows us that the achievement of a desired end will probably result in the occurrence of something which we have a greater desire to avoid. (Ayer:108)

As such,
The dramatic statement that reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions amounts to only […] the truism that reason enters into the sphere of action only when we have been motivated to aim at some end (ibid).

Ayer also notes that another supporting argument is invalid. Hume argues that morals cannot be derived from reason, as they have an influence on our actions and affections. Ayer, in response, argues that our actions and affections may be influenced by reason. We may, for example, be influenced by the truth or falsehood of our judgments or the soundness (or cogency) of our inferences. But Ayer concedes that the main point stands (Ayer: 109).

Is the Sense of Justice Really Artificial?
Hume argues that our sense of justice is artificial because there are no natural motives to supply it. Men do not have, in particular, a natural love of mankind, so their natural benevolence towards only the people close to them is basically unjust. Hume also argues that people are more or less selfish, so it is unlikely that a sense of justice would arise naturally (Ayer:110). Hume suggests something like Hobbes’ Social Contract, and also tends towards Rule Utilitarianism, but without offering much of an explanation: tolerating exceptions would lower respect for the general rule (Ayer: 111).

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Hume’s thought is so subtle, so good, and so complex that merely being able to explain it clearly will suffice. For the final exam, you should know:

§ Hume’s theory of virtue
§Hume’s argument that reason cannot motivate action
§ Hume’s theory of moral sentiments

Egoism Homework Worksheet

2007-09-17T16:35:00.001+09:00

Preparation Homework Questions: Egoism
1). Is Kim Jong- Il Irrational?
2). Suppose your friend had found a magic ring that made them invisible. Suppose that she got frightened of its power and destroyed it. Was this the right thing to do, do you think?
3). Is driving a hot- rod or powerful motorcycle irrational, do you think?

4). Is there anything wrong with this argument?

P1. to aid others, we must know exactly what they want and need, otherwise we will
bungle the job and cause unhappiness.
P2. We do not know what others want and need
∴ we will bungle the job and cause unhappiness.

5). Consider the following argument:

P1). Altruistic theories of morality demand from the individual total self sacrifice, their money and lives wasted on supporting unproductive people.
P2). A doctrine that demands of the individual total self sacrifice is a violation of individual rights (in particular property rights)
P3). A doctrine that violates individual rights is immoral
P4). One must choose a moral theory that is not immoral
P5). One must choose between Altruistic theories of morality and Ethical Egoism.
∴ One must choose Ethical Egoism

Is Premise 1 true, do you think? (By ‘altruistic theories’ we mean Utilitarianism, Kant, Social Contract, and any other theory that requires considerations for other people). If not, does the argument convince?

6). Consider the following argument:

P1. Every living thing tries to stay alive, for its own sake. [for the sake of being alive].
P2. Therefore, for any living thing, its own life, and nothing else, is valuable for its
own sake.
P3. Because all people are living things, it follows that everyone should do what keeps them alive. (for this is what they should value).
P4. A person can only live if they are rational. (corollary: Irrational behavior leads to death).
P5. [‘Rational’ means “do only what is good for me.”] (implied premise)
P6 [‘Rational’ means ‘do productive work’]
P6 [‘Rational’ means ‘do not hurt or exploit other people or live off their labors’] (implied premise)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
∴ We should only do what is good for ourselves, but should not exploit other people

Is Premise 5 true, do you think?

7). Is this a good argument, do you think?

Tokyo is full of air pollution
∴Tokyo should be full of air pollution

8). Is this a good argument, do you think?

There is war
∴There should be war

9). Do you think this is a good argument?

Morality and society are myths, because they have their origins in religion, which is itself a fiction.

Lectures on Egoism: Ayn rand and Max Stirner

2007-09-17T15:40:00.000+09:00

Ayn Rand and Max Stirner
Dr. Geoffrey Roche
Lakeland College Wisconsin
Waseda University

Ayn Rand, 1947.

Introduction Questions.
1). Is Kim Jong- Il Irrational?
2). Suppose your friend had found a magic ring that made them invisible. Suppose that she got frightened of its power and destroyed it. Was this the right thing to do, do you think?
3). Is driving a hot- rod or powerful motorcycle irrational, do you think?

1.1 Egoism: Introduction

Egoism (riko- shugi) is the tendency to place one’s own interests and well- being ahead of anyone else’s. Psychological Egoism is the view that, as a matter of psychological fact, everybody is an egoist. (This view will not preoccupy us here; Rachels explains why the theory is unsound in pp. 68-74). Ethical Egoism is an ethical theory. Its central claim is that we are not morally required to concern ourselves with others, and that we are concerned with ourselves. The implications of accepting this theory are serious: it undermines all normative ethics. In the first class we will look at Rachels’ treatment of Egoism, and the arguments of Russian- born American writer Ayn Rand (1905-1982). Rand’s philosophy is so poor that you may wonder why we bother. I think that her work is an important exercise in logical fallacies. If this handout appears long, keep in mind a). the arguments here are extremely simple; b). this covers the same material as in Rachels, so you only really need to read the handout. In the second part of this section we’ll look at the arguments of Max Stirner, a German philosopher (1806-1856).

1.2 Ayn Rand (1905-1982): Biographical Note
Ayn Rand (born Lisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum) was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Her family was ethnically Jewish, but were not religiously observant. Her father was a chemist. She was precocious, was greatly interested in literature, and began to write screenplays at the age of seven.
During the Russian Revolution her father’s pharmacy was confiscated by the Revolutionaries. Studying history and philosophy at the University of Petrograd now Saint Petersburg) she graduated in 1924. Her favorite philosophers were Aristotle and Nietzsche (she later rejected Nietzsche for his doctrine of “Might is Right,” essentially the same idea in Stirner).
In 1925 Rand migrated to the United States, settling in New York. (She never set foot in her homeland again, and in 1937 she stopped all contact, after hearing that letters from Americans may imperil their recipients). She changed her name and found work as a script reader. She later began writing film scripts. Her first novel, We the Living, appeared in 1936. The Fountainhead appeared in 1943. Both novels are philosophical novels: the first explains Rand’s disgust for the Soviet ‘morality’ that destroys individual freedom, whereas The Fountainhead expresses Rand’s egoist philosophy. The Fountainhead was made into a movie in 1949 (you can see the conclusion on Youtube). Atlas Shrugged appeared in 1957, and like its predecessors became a bestseller.
In 1950 Rand set up the Rand Institute, an organization that promulgated Rand’s philosophy (one of the first members was Alan Greenspan, the economist). She spent the rest of her life writing both fiction and non- fiction (philosophers may beg to differ on the distinction). She died in 1982. Alan Greenspan attended, and a huge wreath in the shape of a dollar- sign was placed near her casket.
An estimated 500,000 copies of Rand’s books sell each year, and 22 million of her books have been sold so far. There are also branches of her organization, the Objectivist Society, throughout the world. Libertarianism is the political version of her doctrine.

1.3 The Self- Defeating Argument.
Rachels states four arguments (p.76) that each purport to undermine the view that advocates altruism (that is, the principle of helping others). In standard form:

1.3.1 The bungler argument:
P1. to aid others, we must know exactly what they want and need, otherwise we will
bungle the job and cause unhappiness.
P2. We do not know what others want and need
∴ we will bungle the job and cause unhappiness.

1.3.2 The privacy argument
P1. It is immoral to invade the privacy of others
P2. Helping others is an invasion of the privacy of others
∴ it is immoral to help others

1.3.3 The insult argument
P1. It is immoral to rob people of their dignity and self respect
P2. Helping others robs them of their dignity and self respect
∴ It is immoral to help others

1.3.4 The moral corruption argument
(Note that Rachels runs 1.3.3 and 1.3.4 together).

P1. It is immoral to promote immoral behavior
P2 It is immoral to promote dependence
P3. Altruism promotes laziness and dependence
∴ Altruism is immoral

1.3.5 The ‘great cause’ argument
Max Stirner offers a similar argument, although the formulation is quite loose:

‘ […]Man must make sacrifices for a great idea, a great cause! A ‘great idea,’ a ‘good cause,’ is, it may be, the honour of God, for which innumerable people have met death; Christianity, which has found its willing martyrs; the Holy Catholic Church, which has greedily demanded sacrifices of heretics; liberty and equality, which were waited on by bloody guillotines. (Stirner: 70).

As Rachels notes, there are two problems with these arguments. Firstly, they do not question the basic assumptions of Utilitarianism and Deontology. That is, they presuppose either that we should respect rights (the right not to be interfered with, for example) or that the infliction of pain is morally wrong. The arguments merely assert that altruistic behavior is the wrong way to go about promoting happiness. The second problem is that these arguments do not support egoism. On the contrary: If one was a selfish, (that is, egoistic) sadistic person, who actually believed these rather forced premises, these arguments would encourage them to give money to poor people so that they could upset and humiliate them.
Secondly, each one of these arguments has premises which are highly questionable. None of these arguments makes any sense when applied to, say, supporting Amnesty International, ending slavery in Yemen, or banning animal abuse.

1.4 Ayn Rand’s Argument for Egoism

Rachels is a little too fast with Rand, but his summary of her theory on pp. 78- 79 is essentially sound. We’ll go into Rand in more detail however. Here’s the argument Rachels discusses, in very basic terms:

P1). Altruistic theories of morality demand from the individual total self sacrifice, their money and lives wasted on supporting unproductive people.
P2). A doctrine that demands of the individual total self sacrifice is a violation of individual rights (in particular property rights)
P3). A doctrine that violates individual rights is immoral
P4). One must choose a moral theory that is not immoral
P5). One must choose between Altruistic theories of morality and Ethical Egoism.
∴ One must choose Ethical Egoism

Rachels notes that P4 is simply untrue. That is, Rand offers a false dichotomy. She also runs a severe straw man fallacy.
We will look a little more closely at Rand’s essay “The Objectivist Ethics,” given at the University of Wisconsin in 1961.

1.4.1 Premise 1: Altruistic Theories of Ethics demand Total Self Sacrifice
Rand makes the following claims concerning ‘Altruistic Ethics’:

Every code of ethics is derived from a metaphysics, that is: from a theory about the fundamental nature of the universe in which man lives and acts. The altruist ethics is based on a “malevolent universe” metaphysics, on the theory that man, by his very nature, is helpless and doomed- that success, happiness, achievement are impossible to him- that emergencies, disasters, catastrophes are the norm of his life and that his primary goal is to combat them.” (VS: 48-49).

Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value- and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes.
Hence the appalling immorality, the chronic injustice, the grotesque double standards, he insoluble conflicts and contradictions that have characterized human relationships and human societies throughout history, under all the variants of altruistic ethics (VS: viii).

[Altruism is] “the ethical theory which regards man as a sacrificial animal, which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self- sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.” (34).

In short, Altruistic ethics is invalid as an ethics because it a). causes unhappiness, and b). violates personal rights to liberty and one’s own property. That is, when a state (or a moral system) demands that one assist others, through taxation or other means, it is a total violation of a person’s rights and liberty. Any socialist ethics is therefore “cannibalism,”(VS: 81); “Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism and with individual right […] One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal” (p.95). State health plans, paid for with tax money, are morally equivalent to robbery:

“Medicare” is an example of such a project. “Isn’t it desirable that the aged should have medical care in times of illness?” its advocates clamor. Considered out of context, the answer would be: yes, it is desirable. Who would have a reason to say no? And it is at this point that the mental processes of a collectivized brain are cut off; the rest is fog. Only the desire remains in his sight- it’s the good, isn’t it? […] The fog hides such facts as the enslavement and, therefore, the disintegration of all medical practice, and the sacrifice of the professional integrity, the freedom, the careers, the ambitions, the achievements, the happiness, the live of the very men who are able to provide that “desirable” goal- the doctors.

Note that Rand does not attack any specific moral philosophy, lumping them all together as ‘altruistic ethics’ (as they all make non- egoistic demands). Note that she frequently presupposes a). Utilitarian ethics (in suggesting that altruistic ethics causes unhappiness) and b). deontology, in particular the right to be free and own property. Many of her statements on particular issues seem quite sensible (spaceflight is a waste of money, Soviet Russia is immoral as its policies are cruel) but have more to do with Utilitarian or Kantian principles than egoism (84,88). What has gone wrong here?

1.4.2 The Argument from Naturalism (in Rand’s terms, ‘Objectivity’).
The following is Rand’s ‘Naturalistic Argument’ for egoism. I call it a naturalistic argument as she argues that ‘egoism’ is somehow in nature. (Rousseau, similarly, argued that we are naturally moral so should be moral; Nietzsche argued that we are naturally aggressive so should be aggressive, and so on). (Rand thought that this theory was ‘objective,’ so called her theory ‘Objectivism’).

P1. Every living thing tries to stay alive, for its own sake. [for the sake of being alive].
P2. Therefore, for any living thing, its own life, and nothing else, is valuable for its
own sake.
P3. Because all people are living things, it follows that everyone should do what keeps them alive. (for this is what they should value).
P4. A person can only live if they are rational. (corollary: Irrational behavior leads to death).
P5. [‘Rational’ means “do only what is good for me.”] (implied premise)
P6 [‘Rational’ means ‘do productive work’]
P6 [‘Rational’ means ‘do not hurt or exploit other people or live off their labors’] (implied premise)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
∴ We should only do what is good for ourselves, but should not exploit other people

There are some problems with this argument.

1.4.3 The is- Ought Fallacy (premise 3).

A simple is- ought argument:

Humans are logical
∴Humans should be logical

Dogs have four legs
∴Dogs should have four legs

Looks reasonable enough. But what about this one?

I am 183 centimeters tall
∴ I should be 183 centimeters tall

Tokyo is full of air pollution
∴Tokyo should be full of air pollution

There is war
∴There should be war

Women are polite and pretty and bad at studying
∴ Women should be polite, pretty, and bad at studying

There’s a problem with this type of argument, and some very dangerous ideas have the same form:

Life is a painful, pitiless struggle for survival
∴ Life should be a painful, pitiless struggle for survival

Note that the naturalistic fallacy and the appeal to tradition fallacies are essentially the same.
In Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume explains the problem with this sort of argument (book III, part I, section I):

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

What does that mean? It just means: we cannot go from a description of the world to making prescriptions⎯ that is ⎯ rules about how things should be.
So, back to Rand’s argument: she argues that humans are a). logical and b). want to be alive, and that we need to be logical to be alive. That premise has something wrong with it. But then she argues that these facts mean that people should be logical and alive. But that just does not follow. “People typically have bad breath” does not entail “people should have bad breath.” “Most people do not understand calculus” does not entail “most people should not understand calculus.” Maybe logic dictates that we die (such as when fighting in a war).
Rand is aware that this objection will come up, but she attempts to argue that there is no is- ought fallacy (page 17). But her argument is essentially question- begging: she is just saying “everyone else is wrong.”

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.” (VS:17).

1.4.4 Questionable Premise: P2
Rand assumes that the only ‘end’ (or goal) for living things, including humans, is staying alive. As such, she contradicts some basic facts about living things- reproduction is more important than merely staying alive, and in any case, all living things die whatever they do.

1.4.5 Fallacy of Equivocation: P2-P3.
Rand slips from one meaning of the word ‘value’ to another. She makes the following claims:

It is a value to an animal to stay alive

Human values are based on the will to stay alive

And assumes that the term ‘value’ is the same in both. Is this correct?

1.4.6 Questionable Premise: P4.
Rand gives two reasons as to why you have to be fully logical. Firstly, we need to be logical to make things we need. Secondly, she states that if we are not logical, we die.

When man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscious in a subhuman sense of the word, since he experiences sensations and perceptions. But in the sense of this word applicable to man- in the sense of a consciousness which is aware of reality and able to deal with it […] an unfocused mind is not conscious. (VS: 21).

Man is free to choose not to be unconscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. (VS: 22).

Of the latter claim, it is not clear if she means we are merely inferior, or if we actually die in the normal sense of the word. (p.21 paragraphs 2 and 3). (If she thinks that we are morally inferior, the question is: how can this make sense, assuming pure egoism?)

1.4.7 Questionable Premise: P5. “Rational” means “Do only what is good for me.”
Rand never gives a reason why this is true. Instead she relies on her ‘refutation’ of all other ethical theories (1.4, 1.4.1 above).

1.4.8 Questionable Premise: P6 “Rational” means “do productive work.”
Rand holds that it is morally wrong to be lazy, and morally good to do productive work. As she assumes ‘rationality’ to mean ‘morality,’ she assumes that doing productive work is rational.

Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work- pride is the result (VS: 25).

There is no argument here as such: it’s just added on without explanation. (She holds that ambition and self- assertiveness are good qualities, but these do not follow from mere egoism. And they don’t collide with normative ethics⎯ even Kant thought that it was immoral to waste talents, and Utilitarians can easily explain why ambition is good for society). If we reject any moral principle besides egoism, Rand has to explain why the following:

1.4.9 Questionable Premise: P7: Enslaving, stealing from or killing others is irrational.

P6 [‘Rational’ means ‘do not hurt or exploit other people or live off their labors’]

Rand argues that rationality is necessary for survival, and to survive requires that one needs to be rational. So, it seems that whatever we do is good, so long as we don’t die. So, if we are egoists, why not enslave or rob others? This is what Rand says:

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals. But just as animals would not be able to survive by attempting the method of plants, by rejecting locomotion and waiting for the soil to feed them- so men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship (VS: 24).

Arguments from analogy:

P1. A person using force to get what they want is like a person behaving like an animal
P2. Animals do not use reason
∴So a person using force to get what they want is behaving like an animal.
∴So a person using force to get what they want is not using reason.

P1. A person behaving like an animal is like an animal behaving like a plant
P2. An animal behaving like a plant will die.
∴A person behaving like an animal will die.

Are these strong analogies? Note that Rand does not explain why it is irrational to use force (or deceit, or whatever) to get what one wants. She tries to show that it is dangerous: she asserts that “any individual or any dictatorship” that loots will be destroyed instantly. But this is neither a). obviously true nor b). a moral reason: it is merely prudent. Why is Kim Jong- Il, for example, irrational? Rand can’t say.

A hot- rod: irrational? Kim Jong- Il: irrational?

Rand does not merely argue that using force to get what one wants, or being lazy, are immoral: any pleasure or hobby she does not approve of is described in the same way: the road to instant death or sub- human status. This is what she has to say about Hot- Rods:

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. If a man values productive work, his happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his life. But if a man values destruction, like a sadist ⎯ or self torture, like a masochist ⎯ or life beyond the grave, like a mystic, or mindless “kicks,” like the driver of a hotrod car ⎯ his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. It must be added that the emotional state of all these irrationalists cannot be properly designated as happiness or even as pleasure: it’s merely a moment’s relief from their chronic state of terror (VS: 28).

Again, notice how Rand sneaks normative ethical principles in through the back door. As an egoist, she is committed to saying that only I matter, and that other people do not matter. Yet she presupposes a non- egoistic principle in assuming that sadism is morally wrong. The only way she can reject sadism is that it leads to self destruction. That’s just naively optimistic.

1.4.10 Rand’s Objectivism
In conclusion, we can say of Rand’s doctrine:
1). Her arguments have premises which are false
2). She begs the question (she has premises that are the same as the conclusion)
3). She attacks a straw man
4). She presupposes non- egoistic moral principles

So how did such a bad arguer become so popular? I think it’s because she said what people wanted to hear: it is morally okay to be selfish. That is, her conclusions are appealing. She writes in a style which appears to be philosophical, which seems impressive for people who don’t know philosophy, and revolting to anyone who does. Rand is to philosophy as McDonalds’ is to food.

1.5 The Compatibility Argument
Rachels discusses this argument on pp. 79-81. It is simply this: ethical egoism is the ‘background theory’ behind all normative ethics. We follow moral rules out of self interest. Don’t lie, and people will trust you. Do not harm others, and we will not be shunned and hated, and so on. This is essentially the same theory as Hobbes’ Social Contract.
The theory, according to Rachels, has one basic problem: it explains why it is best to do the right thing when nobody is watching. So long as one is intelligent or powerful enough to avoid the Police, there is no pressing reason to follow the moral rules of society. Ethical Egoism is not compatible with normative ethics (but may be compatible with Hobbes).

1.6 Arguments Against Ethical Egoism.
Rachels offers four arguments against Ethical Egoism: the Wickedness Argument, the Conflicts of Interest argument, the Inconsistency Argument, and the Arbitrariness Argument (pp. 81-88).

1.6.1 The Wickedness Argument
As Rachels notes, the most obvious objection to Ethical Egoism is that it endorses wicked actions (p. 81). Yet note that this presupposes some traditional notion of the good. That is, it begs the question, as it presupposes a non- egoistic notion of morality.
Three options are open here to the Ethical Egoist: a). give up; b). deny that Ethical Egoism really leads to accepting immoral acts, or c) bite the bullet (that is, accept the unpleasant implications), and assert that Ethical Egoism is superior to any theory that holds to traditional notions of right and wrong. (Friedrich Nietzsche {1844-1900} most famously rejected all such notions of morality, declaring his ethics ‘beyond good and evil’). These options are discussed below.

1.6.2 The Conflicts of Interest Argument
Kurt Baier, in the text The Moral Point of View, argues that Ethical Egoism can provide no solution for conflicts of interest. Normative ethics exists so that we can resolve conflicts of interest. He takes this to be an essential quality in a moral theory. Ethical Egoism has no such power, so it is inadequate as a moral theory.
Rachels cites an example from Baier’s book: two men, B and K, are both egoists and both want to be the president. So it is in B’s interest to kill K, and in K’s interest to kill B, yet this contradicts B and K’s self- interests to not be dead.
Rachels notes that this argument only works if one accepts Baier’s assumption about what a moral theory needs. An Ethical Egoist might simply not care about resolving disputes. (This is where Ethical Egoism completely separates from Hobbes). A true Egoist might simply accept the ‘law of the Jungle.’

1.6.3 The Logical Inconsistency Argument
Baier offers a more sophisticated argument, based on the example above (taken from Rachels p.84).

1). Suppose it is each person’s duty to do what is in his own best interests
2). It is in B’s best interests to murder K.
3). It is in K’s best interests to prevent B from murdering him.
4). (sub- conclusion). Therefore, it is B’s duty to murder K, and K’s duty is to prevent B from doing it.
5). But it is wrong to prevent someone from doing his duty.
6). Therefore, it is wrong for K to prevent B from murdering him.
7). Therefore, it is both wrong and not wrong for K to prevent B from murdering him.
8). But no act can be both wrong and non- wrong; that is a self- contradiction.
9). Therefore the assumption with which we started- that it is each person’s duty to
do what is in his own best interests- cannot be true.

Rachels (p. 85). Notes that Baier fails to reveal a real contradiction. Premise 5 is not a Ethical Egoistic principle. An Ethical Egoist is concerned only with their own duties, so premises 5 and 6 presuppose the claim that Ethical Egoism is untrue. (Writes Rachels, “ [for the egoist,] whether one ought to prevent someone from doing his duty depends entirely on whether it would be to one’s own advantage to do so.”

1.6.4 The Arbitrariness Argument
This argument is the real monster- killer. It also emphasizes the importance of dealing with egoism as a philosophical problem.
Rachels notes that racists and other bigots, whenever forced to articulate their views, fall back on the following principle:

The Principle of Equal Treatment: We should treat people in the same way unless there is a [morally] relevant difference between them.

Racists and sexists argue that there are relevant distinctions between themselves and others that justify differential treatment. (Kant and Hume argued, for example, that Africans were intellectually deficient). Any group, whether national, tribal, religious or criminal, that treats non- members as morally less significant than its own members, must (on pain of contradiction) either reject the Principle of Equal Treatment or find some morally relevant difference.
As Rachels notes, Ethical Egoism has essentially the same basic logic as racism or any other doctrine that makes an arbitrary in- group out- group distinction. Just as racists draw an arbitrary line between people of their own phenotype [physical appearance type] and everyone else, and the Yakuza draw an arbitrary line between themselves and the general public, Ethical Egoists arbitrarily draw a line between themselves and everyone else. That is, Ethical Egoism reduces the logic of racism down to a single person. (See Rachels pp. 85-88).

1.6.5 Further Note
Ethical Egoism may seem a fairly exotic idea: an idea so bizarre, in fact, that very few would want to actually follow it. This is not the case. Firstly, as a personal doctrine, the work of Ayn Rand is massively popular, most probably the most popular philosopher in history. Secondly, all groups, nations, corporations etc. that justify wars of conquest, imperialism, etc. for reasons other than defense, were they to attempt to justify their acts, would need to cite some theory resembling Ethical Egoism. If we can refute EE, we can refute such justifications.

Egoism Lecture 2:
Max Stirner

Drawing of Stirner by Engels Translation by Tsuji Jun. uiitsusha to sono shoyû", 1920

2.1 Introduction: Stirner’s Thought.
We are looking at Stirner for one reason: we need to know what Ayn Rand’s premises actually lead to. She thinks that everybody living selfishly will lead to a flourishing, healthy society in which proud, hardworking people will get what they deserve, and everyone else should just stop complaining and get a job. But she also complains about, for example, the injustice of tax money spent on pointless public monuments, and the cruelty of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. She agrees with Stirner that you should be an egoist, if you are free and rational, but she thinks that you shouldn’t hurt anyone else. By contrast, on this point, Stirner just does not care. Egoism for Stirner means nobody else matters.
This is the central question: who is the more logically consistent egoist: Rand or Stirner? Remember: egoism by definition means you do not care about other people. Instead of explaining why the leaders of nations are immoral, he wants to become like them. He wants to, in the language of Starwars, ‘turn to the Dark Side.’

2.2 Stirner: Biographical Note.
Max Stirner (born Johann Kaspar Schmidt, 1806-1856) was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria, on October 25, 1806. His father, a flute maker, died when Stirner was six months old. At the age of 20 Stirner attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philology (the analysis of ancient texts), philosophy and theology. During his studies he attended lectures by the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831).
In 1841 Stirner joined a discussion group of intellectuals called “The Free” (Die Freien), which included Bruno Bauer, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx and Ludwig Feuerbach. Stirner found work teaching at a girl’s high school (university work was impossible as he was an avowed atheist) and in 1844 published his only book, The Ego And Its Own, in which he attacks religion, the government, morality, Communism, Hegel, and Feuerbach. The text was not a commercial success; an early ban on the book was immediately lifted because it was judged “too absurd” to be a danger to society.
Stirner married twice; his first wife died in childbirth; the second left him after he had wasted all her inheritance on a failed milk business. He had continual money problems, and was imprisoned for debt in 1853 and 1854. In 1856 he was killed after being bitten by a ‘winged insect.’ His life was quite unhappy, but happiness was less important to him than being unique.
Nobody is really sure of Stirner’s influence. Marx hated his work, once writing 400 pages explaining why Stirner was wrong. Yet it seems likely that the text influenced Marx a great deal. Stirner is recognized as being the pioneer of the Anarchy movement, in particular the American anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker. In 1939, Sidney Hook stated that the debate between Marx and Stirner involved “the fundamental problems of any possible system of ethics or public morality,” and in 1939, Isaiah Berlin noted that “the theory of the alienation of the proletarians was enunciated by the Max Stirner at least one year before Marx.” It is also suggested that Stirner greatly influenced Nietzsche’s moral thought.
Stirner was also discovered in Japan; seven editions of The Ego and Its Own were published in Japanese between 1900- 1929.

2.3 The Genealogy of Morals argument.

Stirner’s central argument against morality is that it has a Christian origin. Originally, morality was simply a matter of doing what God, that is, the Church, wanted you to do. As Protestantism challenged the authority of the Church, its authority was transformed into that of the State. The ‘spirit’ of God has become replaced with the ‘idea of humanity,’ and the idea of morality was transformed from doing God’s will to doing the Will of the State. “Society,” for Stirner, “is a new master, a new spook, a new ‘supreme being,’ which ‘takes us into its service and allegiance’! (111).

[…] one thing certainly happened, and visibly guided the progress of post-Christian history: this one thing was the endeavor to make the Holy Spirit more human, and bring it nearer to men, or men to it. Through this it came about that at last it could be conceived as the ‘spirit of humanity,’ and, under different expressions like ‘idea of humanity, mankind, humaneness, general philanthropy,’ appeared more attractive, more familiar, and more accessible. (p.87).

As ‘the brotherhood of man’ is both a Christian idea and a basic assumption of ethics, Stirner rejects it:
Is not ‘right’ a religious concept, something sacred? Why, ‘equality of rights’ […] is only another name for ‘Christian equality,’ the ‘equality of the brethren,’ of ‘God’s children,’ ‘of Christians’; in short, fraternité [‘brotherhood,’ in French] …When the [French] revolution stamped equality as a ‘right,’ it took flight into the religious domain, into the region of the sacred, of the ideal. Hence, since then, the fight for the ‘sacred, inalienable rights of man.’ (168-169).

Stirner makes the following claims (those claims which are necessary for the argument to make sense, but are not stated, are in square brackets).

‘Morality’ means ‘following the dictates of society.’
Society is an abstract idea.
Abstract ideas have their origins in fictions, not in facts.
[Fictions are not sound grounds for morality.]
The idea of society has its origins in religious beliefs.
The idea of morality has its origins in religious beliefs.
[Religious beliefs are irrational].

The conclusion is that morality is essentially a religious fiction. More simply:

Morality and society are myths, because they have their origins in religion, which is itself a fiction.

The following quotes illustrate this idea.

The Christian people has produced two societies whose duration will keep equal measure with the permanence of that people: these are the societies state and church. Can they be called a union of egoists? Do we in them pursue an egoistic, personal, own interest, or do we pursue a popular, an interest of the Christian people, namely, a state, and church interest? Can I and may I be myself in them? May I think and act as I will, may I reveal myself, live myself out, busy myself? Must I not leave untouched the majesty of the state, the sanctity of the Church? (189).

If the church had deadly sins, the state has capital crimes; if the one had heretics, the other has traitors; the one ecclesiastical penalties, the other criminal penalties; the one inquisitorial processes, the other fiscal; in short, there sins, there crimes, there inquisition and here- inquisition. Will the sanctity of the state not fall like the church’s? The awe of its laws, the reverence for its highness, the humanity of its ‘subjects,’ – will this remain? Will the ‘saint’s face’ not be stripped of its adornment? (213).

Stirner also takes the ban on homicide to be essentially religious, for the same reason.
p.213. [On Homicide]. “A man who lets a man’s life continue in existence because to him it is sacred and he had a dread of touching it is simply a- religious man.

2.4 The Injustice of Society
The second central argument in Stirner appears to be something like this:

P1 ‘Ethics’ simply means ‘doing that which society demands of us.’
P2 ‘Society’ (the Government, economic forces etc.) is unjust
∴ we should reject ethics

Stirner also believes that the people in power (the government and the wealthy) are also entirely egoistic, and that the Law is merely an instrument for protecting their own wealth. (Note how different this to Rand, who would say that wealthy people deserve their wealth, and that property rights are absolute). If you do not fight and die for the country’s leaders, or if you refuse to follow their laws, you will go to jail. We see this in the Justice system: white- collar criminals who steal millions of dollars often get light sentences, whereas those who merely steal cars can get heavier sentences.

Just observe the nation that is defended by devoted patriots. The patriots fall in bloody battle or in the fight with hunger and want; what does the nation care for that? By the manure of their corpses the nation comes to ‘its bloom’! The individuals have died ‘for the great cause of the nation,’ and the nation sends some words of thanks after them and- has the profit of it. I call that a kind of lucrative egoism.
But only look at that Sultan [ruler of a Muslim country- here Stirner means the rulers of our own societies] who cares so lovingly for ‘his people.’ Is he not pure unselfishness itself, and does he not hourly sacrifice himself for his people? Oh, yes, for’ his people.’ Just try it; show yourself not as his, but as your own; for breaking away from his egoism you will take a trip to jail. The Sultan has set his cause on nothing but himself; he is to himself all in all [he only cares about himself], he is to himself the only one, and tolerates nobody who would dare not to be one of ‘his people.’ (p.6).

But Stirner goes a little overboard here. He is committed to saying that “Every state is a despotism” (175).
[ …] I am free in no state. The lauded tolerance of states is simply a tolerating of the ‘harmless,’ the ‘not dangerous’; it is only elevation above pettymindedness, only a more estimable, grander, prouder- despotism. (201).

Why does he say this?
2.5 Freedom as Absolute Value
Stirner thinks that anything that limits freedom is bad. Hence, he is committed to saying that freedom is the only good.

But the social reformers preach to us a ‘law of society.’ There the individual becomes society’s slave, and is in the right only when society makes him out in the right, when he lives according to society’s states and so is- loyal. Whether I am loyal under a despotism or in a ‘society’ à la Weitling [1808-1871, a Utopian socialist], it is the same absence of right in so far as in both cases I have not my right but foreign right. (168).

One influential idea in Stirner is that workers are enslaved by their employers (recall that Stirner had a large, if unacknowledged, influence on Marx).

The labourers have the most enormous power in their hands, and, if they once become thoroughly conscious of it and used it, nothing would withstand them; they would only have to stop labour, regard the product of labour as theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of the labour disturbances which show themselves here and there. The state rests on the – slavery of labour. If labour becomes free, the state is lost. (105).

But note the tension here: Stirner thinks that slavery and injustice are morally wrong. Stirner presupposes a morality, according to which slavery is evil, and freedom is good.
Now […] when every one is to cultivate himself into man, condemning man to machine- like labour amounts to the same thing as slavery (108).

How can a pure egoist recognize a morality that makes such claims?

2.6 Might Makes Right

“Your property is mine. My property is also mine!”
Jaian, of Doraemon.

If there is no ‘equality of rights,’ what, for Stirner, is the basis of rights? One answer could be ‘there is no basis to the idea of rights.’ But Stirner thinks there are rights— the rights of the powerful. For Stirner There are no other rights. “You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has might ‘stands above the law.” (p.151).

But let the individual man lay claim to ever so many rights because man or the concept man ‘entitles’ him to them, because his being man does it: what do I care for his right and his claim? If he has his right only from man and does not have it from me, then from me he has no right. His life, for example, counts to me only for what it is worth to me. I respect neither a so- called right of property (or his claim to tangible goods) nor yet his right to the ‘sanctuary of his inner nature’ (or his right to have the spiritual goods or services, his gods, remain unaggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as well as the spiritual, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor, in the measure of my- might (219).

What then is my property? Nothing but what is in my power! To what property am I entitled? To every property to which I- empower myself. I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor’s power, full power, empowerment. (p.227).

As such, the only solution to social injustice is a War of All against All: “the property question cannot be solved so amicably as the socialists, yes, even the communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against all. The poor become free and the proprietors only when they- rebel, rise up.” (230).

Stirner also argues that this view is not unusual. In fact, he argues that it is the actual thinking of any truly powerful person. Many people in positions of power may talk of morality, but in reality they are not moral. They are egoists, they care only about themselves, and they function like (immoral) Gods. Instead of basing his ethics on making everyone happy (Utilitarianism) or duty (Kant) or a social contract (which he would dismiss as a hoax), Stirner thinks: “who has the best ethics for survival in this unfair, horrible world?” The answer:

And will you not learn by these brilliant examples that the egoist gets on best? I for my part take a lesson from them, and propose, instead of further unselfishly serving those great egoists, rather to be the egoist myself… let me hen likewise concern myself for myself, who am equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the only one [der Einzige](EH: 6).

Discussion question: Is this a good argument? Are there any other alternatives that have better reasoning behind them?

Note the implication: if the Government decides that Stirner is a dangerous writer and should be locked up, and it has the power to arrest, sentence and imprison him, or even kill him, Stirner has no argument against this. Why? Because might makes right.
A second implication: nothing is forbidden to the egoist. If you can do a particular action, and you want to, it is the right thing to do.

I decide whether it is the right thing in me; there is no right outside me. If it is right for me, it is right. Possibly this may not suffice to make it right for the rest; that is their care, not mine: let them defend themselves (170).
Stirner (and all other egoists, including Rand) may be able to avoid contradiction only by making this assertion: I am totally selfish, and I think you should be too, but I must accept that you may harm or destroy me because of your own selfish motives. This may be logical, but it is psychologically unlikely. It seems more logical to just accept Hobbes (which is essentially ‘cooperation amongst egoists’ anyway).

2.7 Implications: The Poor
Stirner, unlike Rand, is more explicit in the economic consequences of Egoism as a doctrine: people will have whatever they can steal or earn; anyone who cannot fight or work for food will starve.

If you are competent to furnish pleasure to thousands, then thousands will pay you an honorarium for it; for it would stand in your power to forbear doing it, hence they must purchase your deed. If you are not competent to captivate anyone, you may simply starve (235).

If your person is of consequence to me, you pay me with your very existence; if I am concerned with only one of your qualities, then your compliance, perhaps, or your aid, has a value (a money value) for me, and I purchase it (s; 235).

There is clearly something seriously wrong with Stirner’s philosophy, but it is important (and good practice) to concentrate on the internal contradictions in Stirner’s thought, rather than the implications.

2.8 Marx’s Critique
Marx argued that Stirner’s whole system is self- defeating. If we live with a group (which requires that we follow its rules and conventions) we are better placed to follow our projects and live our lives than in a war of all against all. Even if we were totally free in a non- society of egoists, we would be too busy avoiding being killed or robbed to do anything else. Stirner’s philosophy is essentially Hobbes without the contract.

2.9 Other Problems with Stirner
[internal contradictions]
[questionable premises].

2.10 Conclusion
We can at least credit Stirner with being more thorough and more honest than Rand. Further, Stirner’s criticism of the State will not simply go away: we should always be wary of governments who attempt to convince the people that the Will of the Government, the Will of the People and Morality (capital ‘M’) are one and the same thing.

2.11 Egoists in Movies

Kill Bill
It’s mercy, compassion and forgiveness I lack, not rationality.

Arlene Machiavelli /Beatrix Kiddo
Quentin Tarantino Kill Bill Volume 1.

The Third Man
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo – Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance ...in Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Harry Lime, in Graham Green The Third Man (screenplay)

Egoists in Real Life

This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill ‘em, and I'm going to kill ‘em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way – of survival of the fittest.
Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s (1902-1984)

The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see their near and dear bathed in tears, to ride their horses and sleep on the white bellies of their wives and daughters.
Ghengis Khan (1167-1227)

Bibliography

1). Max Stirner
Carlson, Andrew. “Max Stirner (1806-1856).” (Chapter 2 of Anarchism in Germany: The Early Movement). http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/carlson.html (Accessed
September 14th 2007).
Feuerbach, Ludwig. “’The Essence of Christianity’ in Relation to ‘The Ego and Its
Own.’”(1845). Trans. Frederick M. Gordon. The Philosophical Forum Vol. 8, no.2-
3-4 (1976).
http://nonserviam.com/egoistarchive/stirner/articles/essence_feuerbach.html
Accessed September 14th, 2007.
Harvey, Lawrence R. “Max Stirner: A Snapshot.” The Philosopher’s Magazine
http://www.philosophersnet.com/magazine/article.php?id=914&el=true
http://www.philosophersnet.com/magazine/printer_friendly.php?id=914
(accessed September 14th 2007).
Laska, Bernd A. “Max Stirner, a durable dissident in a nutshell.” Trans. Shveta
Thakrar. Die Zeit Nr. 5, 27. January 2000, p.49.
http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html. Accessed September 14th, 2007.
Leopold, David. “Max Stirner.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy substantive
revision Fri August 4th 2006. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/max-stirner/
Myers, David B. “Marx and the Problem of Nihilism.” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Dec 1976): 193-204.
Nishitani, Keiji. The Self- Overcoming of Nihilism trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko
Aihara. New York: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Stepelevich, Lawrence S. “The Revival of Max Stirner.” Journal of the History of
Ideas Vol. 35, No. 2. (April- June, 1974): 323- 328.
Stepelevich, Lawrence S. “Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach.” Journal of the
History of Ideas Vol. 39, No. 3. (July-Sept., 1978): 451- 463.
Stirner, Max. The Ego and Its Own. trans. Steven Byington; ed. David Leopold.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Thomas, Paul. “Karl Marx and Max Stirner.” Political Theory Vol.3, No.2. (May,
1975): 159-179.

Stirner: Online resources
Non Serviam Magazine
http://nonserviam.com/egoistarchive/stirner/

Entire text of The Ego and Its Own in English available here:
http://www.nonserviam.com/egoistarchive/stirner/bookhtml/The_Ego.html
http://www.nonserviam.com/egoistarchive/stirner/TheEgo.pdf

2). Ayn Rand.
Huemer, Michael. “Critique of ‘The Objectivist Ethics.’”
http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand5.htm (Accessed September 14th, 2007).
Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. New York: Signet,
1964.
————. The Fountainhead. London: Panther, 1959.
————. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Signet/New American Library, 1959.
3). Others.
Barney, Rachel. “Callicles and Thrasymachus” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Wed 11 August, 2004. plato.stanford.edu/entries/callicles-thrasymachus/ - accessed September 14th 2007.
Rachels, James., Stuart Rachels. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 5th Ed. Boston:
McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Fall 2007 Syllabus

2007-09-02T16:57:00.001+09:00

PHI 232 Ethics
Syllabus
Lakeland College Wisconsin
Fall 2007
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00-12:25pm
Lecturer: Dr. Geoffrey Roche (PhD. Auckland)
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday. 4.00- 5.00 pm.
Webpage: http://unblinking-gaze.blogspot.com/

1. Course Description
This course will provide an introduction to some key ethical concepts and approaches, and will discuss questions such as the following: How should we decide what is best to do, and how to best lead our lives? Are our value judgments on such questions objective, or do they merely reflect our subjective viewpoints and preferences? Are ethical decisions merely an expression of our culture? In the first part of the course we will examine a variety of central ethical concepts, such as justice, rights, equality, and happiness, which are widely used in moral, legal and political argument. In the second part of the course we will investigate three practical ethical questions: can war be waged justly? Should Japan retain the death penalty? And should genetic information be used to decide on who will be born?

2. Course Objectives and Goals
i. Subject specific outcomes

• The student will demonstrate the ability to utilize and evaluate key concepts in
ethical theory.

• The student will develop an understanding of some traditional models of ethical
decision-making.

• The student will acquire a commonly shared language and set of conceptual skills, including logical and critical thinking abilities for analyzing moral issues.

• The student will be able to reflect on and articulate their own set of values and be able to articulate them to others.

Understanding and skill in philosophical analysis of major ethical theories and problems will be demonstrated in two coursework essays and two examinations.

3. Transferable skills
•The student will demonstrate the ability to debate (ethical topics) in a clear and structured manner.
•The student will demonstrate the ability to assess the ethical arguments, viewpoints
and doctrines of others.

4. Course Methodology and Format
The course will be comprised of twenty- six one- and – a half hour classes, roughly grouped into two – class units. The first class of the week will be a lecture, whereas the second class of the week will be either a tutorial or (in the case of coursework presentations) a guided discussion or debate. The first half of the course will be theoretical, with an eye to the real- world implications of the ideas under discussion. The second half of the course will address real world problems that are regularly addressed in politics, policy analysis and in daily life. The two halves of the course will be integrated, in the sense that students are expected to see the connections between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ theory.

5. 1 Required Reading
James Rachels, Stuart Rachels The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 5th Edition. New York: Random House, 2007.
James Rachels, Stuart Rachels The Right Thing to Do: Readings in Moral Philosophy. 4th Edition. New York: Random House, 2007.

5.2 Recommended Reading
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online
http://www.plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
Victor Grassian Moral Reasoning: Ethical Theory and some Contemporary Moral
Problems New York: Prentice Hall, 1992

6.1 Assessment Process.
(i). Submit essays to the Lakeland College office, on the second floor. Essays must be on time (before 5pm). Submission after this time will be considered a day late. Email submissions will only be accepted in extraordinary circumstances (such as illness). DO NOT hand in the only copy: always keep another copy.
(ii). Your work will be marked and ready to return to you within two weeks of the due date. You should collect your marked work in class or from the lecturer in person. It will be given enough commentary that you can understand how to improve your grade.
(iii). If you have any questions or concerns about the marking of your work, please discuss these with the lecturer in the first instance.

6.2 Assessment: Grade System

A (>92.5%): 4.0
AB (87.5%-92.5%): 3.5
B (82.5%-87.5%): 3.0
BC (77.5%-82.5%): 2.5
C (72.5%-77.5%): 2.0
CD (67.5%-72.5%): 1.5
D (60%-67.5%): 1.0
F (<60%): 0.0

6.3 Interpretation of Grades.
The marks can be interpreted as follows:
A range: essay showing analytical and argumentative power, with good command of the relevant facts and/ or arguments, and with evidence of the ability to organize them with clarity and insight.
AB range: essay showing analytical and argumentative power, with good command of the relevant facts and/ or arguments, but with less analytical or argumentative skill or less clarity of organization.
B-C range: competent work with no major problems, but misses important aspects of the discussion, or is inaccurate; has lapses in (but not without lacking) analytic and argumentative skills.
CD-D range: very poor quality work, showing little evidence of study or research.
0: Any script which fails to address the essay question or the objectives of the essay exercise.
One of the most common reasons for essays getting bad grades is irrelevance. Answer the essay question which was actually asked in the essay question (or, in the case of writing classes, the actual essay question you have chosen for yourself).

6.4 Plagiarism.
Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. Plagiarism is a form of dishonesty that occurs when a person passes off someone else’s work as his or her own. This can range from failing to cite an author for ideas incorporated into a student's paper to cutting and pasting paragraphs from different websites to handing in a paper downloaded from the internet. It also includes the act of running a non- English text through translation software. All are plagiarism.
There are three central things all Lakeland students should know about the consequences of plagiarism:
1) Plagiarism is a college offense. Students who plagiarize must also deal with the College and its policies.
2) Plagiarism in most instances is easy to identify and expose. The very force that makes plagiarism easy and tempting to some students--the internet--makes its detection extremely easy. Most professors can locate the source of suspected plagiarism within minutes of searching the web. In this context, plagiarism is as much stupidity as it is dishonesty.
3) All parties to plagiarism are considered equally guilty. If you share your coursework with another student and he or she plagiarizes it, you are considered as guilty as the one who has plagiarized your work, since you enabled the plagiarism to take place. Under no circumstances should a student make his or her coursework available to another student unless the professor gives explicit permission for this to happen.
6.5 Attendance Policy:
Five unjustified absences will result in a fail.

6.6 Assessment: policy on late assignments

6.6.1. In principle it is unfair to students who submit work on time to allow other students extra time to complete their work. Extensions are therefore granted only in
exceptional circumstances (bereavement or illness. Club activities do not qualify).
Extensions will be granted in exceptional circumstances, such as sickness (a medical certificate must be provided) or bereavement. Application should be made to the lecturer.
6.6.2. It is the responsibility of students to organize their workload and to ensure that their data is backed up. Therefore, extensions will not be granted for reasons such as
disorganization, pressure of work in other subjects, or malfunction of computer or
printer. Topics and deadlines are announced well in advance. Students should plan
their assignment schedule carefully and begin work well before the deadline. I.e. now.

6.6.3. Essays handed in late when no extension has been granted will be penalized by 20 per cent for every working day that the work is late. For this purpose
the day is defined as ending at 5pm. The lecturer may choose to mark but not provide
comments on late assignments.

6.7. Assessment and Coursework.
Course objectives are fulfilled through coursework and exams.

Essay 1
Deadline: 5pm, Friday October 12th, Lakeland College office 2F.
Topic: See below (page 12) for essay questions.
Word Limit: 1000 words.

Essay 2
Deadline: November 30th, 5pm, Lakeland College office 2F.
Topic: See below (page 13) for essay questions.
Word limit: 1000 words.

Percentage of Assessment: Coursework: 40%.
PLUSSAGE: Your coursework grade is the higher of the two essays that you submit.
(So, if your first essay receives 68% and the second essay receives 75%, your coursework grade will be 75% overall). If you only write one essay of acceptable (that is, pass) standard, your grade will be half its mark.

Examination 1: Thursday October 10th.
Percentage of Assessment: 30%
Exam type: write TWO essay answers.

Examination 2: Monday December 3rd.
Percentage of Assessment: 30%
Exam type: write TWO essay answers.

7.1 Schedule of Topics and Core Readings

Week I. Introduction
The first task of the course will be to clarify what we mean by `morality,' the three main branches of ethical inquiry ( practical, normative, and meta-ethics) and what purpose its study serves.
9/4 What is philosophy? What is ethics?
9/6 Moral Dilemmas.

Reading: James Rachels The Elements of Moral Philosophy (hereafter EMP) pp.1-15; James Rachels The Right Thing to Do (hereafter RTD) pp.1-28.
Discussion: The Lifeboat Case: United states vs. Holmes (1841)
Were you the captain of a lifeboat, and you had to make some tough decisions as to who should live, what decisions would you make, and what explanation would you give to justify those decisions?

PART ONE: ETHICAL THEORY

Week II. Ethical Subjectivism
We will discuss the view that ethics is merely subjective, or relative to a particular culture. Two distinct arguments have been offered as to why one should adopt this view, which is termed Moral Relativism; a). the view that a relativist view best serves tolerance, and b). the view that all cultures have, ultimately, different moral frameworks, implying that a universal morality does not exist. The nuts and bolts- the specific premises ⎯ of these arguments will be discussed. Of central concern is the possibility that certain practices simply cannot be tolerated.
9/11 The Cultural Differences Argument
9/13 The Argument from Tolerance

Reading: EMP: Chapter 2, 16-34; Chapter 3, 35-51; David Hume “Morality as based on Sentiment” in RTD: 65-69; William H. Shaw “Relativism in Ethics.”

Discussion: Is being a cultural relativist really justifiable on the grounds that it promotes tolerance?

Week III. The Utilitarian Approach.

Here we will discuss the Utilitarian approach to ethics (The ‘principle of Utility’ is simply the doctrine that we should act so as to maximize happiness). This approach forces us to consider whether all `good' can be reduced to a single principle that should be maximized- in the case of the Utilitarians ⎯ to happiness (this is called the hedonistic assumption). Is it really the case that happiness is all that matters? Further, is it simply the consequences of our actions that matter in our decision- making?

9/18 Utilitarianism Explained
9/20 Problems with Utilitarianism.

Reading: EMP: 89-116; RTD: 64-75. John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism (excerpt) in Rachels RTD: 70-81; Douglas Husak “The Immorality of SUV’s and Trucks” in Rachels RTD: 190-203; Jeremy Bentham “from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation” (1789), Victor Grassian “Hedonism” in Moral Reasoning pp.59- 72.
Discussion:
a). Are you a Utilitarian? We will discuss the case of a doctor who has the opportunity to `harvest' the organs of someone- without explicit consent ⎯ for the benefit of others. Even if the doctor can `maximize happiness,' is it truly the morally best thing to do?
b). Is it ethical to own a Sports Utility Vehicle?

Week IV. Deontology
Are there absolute, universal moral rules and principles to ethics, and if so, what are they? Does the famous ‘Golden Rule,’ which appears in Christian, Jewish, Chinese and Buddhist thought, provide a complete ethical theory? We will consider the approach of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who considered human freedom, and its protection, as being fundamental to ethics.

9/25 Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative.
9/27 Problems with Deontology

Reading: EMP: 117-140; Immanuel Kant “The Categorical Imperative” in RTD: 81-86; Immanuel Kant “The Metaphysics of Morals” (excerpts); Victor Grey “Kantian Ethics.”
Discussion: a). What do you think of the claim “let justice be done though the heavens fall”? (in less poetic language- “When justice and utility conflict, as they may, always choose justice over utility”). b). Consider the case of a captain in command of a lifeboat, who is forced to abandon some in order to ensure the survival of others. Firstly, what possible decisions may he make? Secondly, what (moral) reasons would he offer to explain why he made his decision? Of central importance here is the issue of individual rights, and the duties that the captain must (assumedly) fulfil.

Week V. Egoism
Since the beginning of moral philosophy, there have been those who have rejected the most basic tenets of moral thought. Three such counter-morality figures will be discussed here; Glaucon, the semi- fictional figure in Plato’s Republic, Max Stirner (1806-1856), who declared that individuals have no moral responsibilities to others, and Ayn Rand (1905-1982), who famously declared selfishness a virtue.
10/2 Ethical Egoism: Glaucon and Thrasymachus in The Republic
10/4 Max Stirner.

Reading: Ayn Rand The Virtue of Selfishness (excerpt)
Max Stirner The Ego and Its Own (excerpt)
EMP: 68-81.
Discussion: Do you agree with Ayn Rand that selfishness is a virtue? Does it commit any fallacies? What are the implications of taking Rand’s theory seriously?

Week VI. Test I

10/9 Review Tutorial/ Discussion Session.
10/11 Test I.

Week VII: The Social Contract
Here we consider the ‘Social Contract’ theory of ethics ⎯ that is, the view that ethics is to be understood as a social contract between rational agents. Other moral theories, as we have seen, attempt to ground a framework in morality in some absolute moral principle or value. Social Contract theory, by contrast, defines morality in terms of an agreement reached between rational individuals. Here we assess this notion of morality, in particular its description of morality as a mutually beneficial behavioral strategy.
10/16 Social Contract Theory.
10/18 Social Contract Theory: Criticisms.

Reading: RTD:8-10,50-59; EMP141-155
Sharon A. Lloyd “Hobbes’s Moral and Political Philosophy,” in Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.Stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/

Discussion: Does social contract theory successfully deal with the ‘why be moral’ problem posed by Stirner, Glaucon and Thrasymachus?
Further, does it matter that the Social Contract is based on an historical fiction?

Week VIII. Religion and Morality
It is traditionally assumed that morality relies upon religious belief. Firstly we will look at a traditional philosophical rendering of this view, called Divine Command Theory. Secondly we will look at Plato’s Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks the question: is “right” that which the Gods command, or do the Gods command certain acts because they are right?

10/23 Divine Command Theory
10/25 Plato’s Euthyphro

Reading: EMP: 52-62; “Divine Command Theory” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Plato Euthyphro.
Discussion: What, for Socrates, is piety? And what is the relationship between piety and the Good?

Week IX: David Hume on Moral Sentiments
Does morality come from reason, as Kant thought? Or is the root of morality in the ‘Sentiments”? Is reason, as David Hume stated, the “slave of the passions?”

10/30 Hume on Moral Sentiments I
11/1 Hume on Moral Sentiments II

Reading: David Hume “Morality as Based on Sentiment” in RTD: 65-69.
Discussion: What is the relationship between reason and morality?

PART II: PRACTICAL ETHICS

Week X. Just War Theory: St. Augustine.
Is it ever morally right to wage war? And if so, what should the rules be? On Tuesday we will look at the philosophy of St. Augustine, who argued that Christians were morally permitted to wage war according to certain principles. Once we have a theory of just war, we may identify violations of these principles as war crimes. On Thursday we will discuss British philosopher A .C. Grayling’s argument that the Allies, in destroying Tokyo and other cities, committed such crimes.

11/6 St. Augustine on Just War
11/8 Grayling on the Destruction of Japanese and German Cities

Reading: A. C. Grayling Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan. Douglas P. Lackey “The Ethics of War and Peace” in TRD: 221-229.
Brian Orend “War” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/
Discussion: Was the allied area bombing of Tokyo, Dresden and other cities morally justified? Or was it a war crime?
Recommended viewing: Errol Morris The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the life of Robert S. Macnamara. (2003).

Week XI. Issues in Medical Ethics: Genetic Screening
Recent advances in genetic testing, such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), make it possible to test embryos for genetic abnormalities known to cause serious diseases and disorders. Genetic testing also allows couples to assess their genetic compatibility before conception, allowing the near elimination of genetic disorders without the destruction of embryos, zygotes or fetuses. However, a number of ethicists and members of the disabled community hold that genetic testing for serious disorders is morally objectionable (the so- called Disability Rights Critique). Are such objections sound? We will look at both sides of the debate.
11/13 The Disability Rights Critique and the Specter of Eugenics
11/15 The Case for Screening
Reading: Gregory E. Pence “Will Cloning Harm People?” in RTD: 114-125. Other handouts will be distributed in class.
Discussion: Should Japan liberalize genetic screening policy? Or does genetic screening for such conditions as Down syndrome violate the rights of handicapped people?

Week XII. Justice and Punishment: The Death Penalty
There are two schools of thought on this question. Firstly, there are those who take the death penalty as the only fitting punishment for murder or treason, on the grounds that the ‘punishment must fit the crime.’ Ernest van den Haag, for one, adds that execution acts as a deterrent; Kant held that executing murderers actually pays the criminal the respect befitting a rational agent. On the other hand, it has been argued that capital punishment is unfair, inhumane and grotesque. The two sides of the debate will be addressed.

11/20 The Case For the Death Penalty
11/22 The Case Against the Death Penalty: Cesare Beccaria

Reading: Ernest van den Haag “In Defense of the Death Penalty,” RTD: 230-236; Hugo A. Bedau” The Case Against the Death Penalty” RTD: 237-247.
Discussion: Should Japan retain the death penalty?

Week XIII. The Kyoto School: Watsuji Tetsuro
The Kyoto School was an early 20th Century Japanese philosophy group, originating at Kyoto University. Their project, broadly construed, was to integrate traditional Japanese thought and Buddhist (in particular Mahâyâna Buddhist and Zen) concepts with Western (typically German) philosophical language and concepts.
One of the Kyoto school philosophers, Watsuji Tetsuro, argued that Western ethics, being too preoccupied with the individual, is incompatible with the Japanese ethics of social harmony. We will critically discuss this approach.

11/27 The Kyoto School in Context
11/29 Watsuji Tetsuro’s Rinrigaku

Reading: Carter, Robert. “Watsuji Tetsurô” in Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. First published 11 November 2004. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/watsuji-tetsuro/
Watsuji, Tetsuro, Watsuji Tetsuro’ Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan (excerpt).
Discussion: a). Is Watsuji’s criticism of Western thought valid?
b). How does Watsuji’s ethics differ from other ethical models discussed
in this course?

Exam: MONDAY DECEMBER 3RD (Tentative)

8. Coursework Essay Questions :Essay 1 (due 5pm, Friday October 12th, Lakeland College office 2F).

Essay 1
Question 1: Cultural Relativism.
Either a: Choose one of the arguments for cultural relativism. Describe and offer a critical evaluation of that argument.
Or: Relativism is associated with the idea that we should show tolerance towards the values and norms of other cultures. Explain what the connection is and, if there is one, whether it provides a reason to accept relativism. Discuss also what room there is for the idea of tolerance within an objectivist approach. Does objectivism in any way exclude tolerance?
Question 2: Utilitarianism.
Either a). It is sometimes suggested that Utilitarians cannot explain the obligation to keep promises. Why might someone think this? How might a Utilitarian respond?
Or: b). Is it ethical to drive an SUV? Critically discuss the two most serious counterarguments to your position.

Essay 2 (due November 30th, 5pm, Lakeland College office 2F).
Question 1. Kant
Kant thinks that you must have ‘good will’ to be a good person. What does he mean by this? Do you agree with him? In your answer, discuss at least one of the possible counterexamples to Kant’s claim that the good will is necessary for being a good person (i.e. the virtuous person, the self interested person, the person who always brings about good consequences or the naturally kind- hearted person).

Question 2. Social Contract Theory.
In what ways is Social Contract Theory different from Kantianism or Utilitarianism? In your view, are these distinctive features advantages or disadvantages for a moral theory? In your answer, focus on no more than two features, and include a critical discussion of at least one objection to Social Contract Theory.

Questions 3. Egoism.
Critically discuss the two strongest counterarguments against Ayn Rand’s ‘Virtue of Selfishness.’ How might she respond?

Question 4. Religion and Morality
Why, according to Divine Command theory, are we obligated to obey Divine Commands? Critically discuss at least one counterargument to this view.

Question 5. Just War.
Does Japan have the moral right to wage war? If so, under what conditions? Critically discuss at least one counterargument.

Question 6. Hume
What are Hume’s arguments for the view that reason alone cannot motivate action? Are they good arguments?
Students may write an essay on their own question for the second essay, ONLY after consultation with the lecturer.

Kyoto School and Watsuji Tetsuro

2007-08-14T23:16:00.001+09:00

Lectures 15 and 16:
The Kyoto School and Ethics:
Watsuji Tetsuro (1889- 1960)
Dr. Geoffrey Roche
Lakeland College, Wisconsin (Tokyo Campus)
Fall Semester 2007
unblinkinggaze@hotmail.com

15.1 Preliminary Questions
15.2. Introduction: The Kyoto School.
The Kyoto School was an early 20th Century Japanese philosophy group, originating at Kyoto University. Their project, broadly construed, was to integrate traditional Japanese thought and Buddhist (in particular Mahâyâna Buddhist and Zen) concepts with Western (typically German) philosophical language and concepts.
The first, and unintentional, founder of the Kyoto School was Kitarô Nishida (1870-1945), widely regarded as Japan’s greatest thinker. Although Japanese philosophers had been studying Western thought (‘tetsugaku’) since the Meiji period, Nishida was the first to attempt to formulate his own theory. He studied at Tokyo Imperial University, reading Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer under the first philosophy professors in Japan. He graduated in 1884 with a thesis on Hume on causation.
Nishida’s first text, An Inquiry into the Good (1911), earned him a position at the Philosophy Department at the University of Kyoto. It was here that Nishida inspired the principal Kyoto School members Hajime Tanabe (1885- 1962) (who Nishida met for the first time in 1918, and considered the co-founder of the Kyoto School), and Keiji Nishitani (1900- 1990). The following generation of Kyoto school members comprised Kôsaka Masaaki (1900- 1969), Shimomura Toratarô (1900-1995), Kôyama Iwao (1905-1993), and Suzuki Shigetaka (1907-1988). I will give an outline of the school before discussing Tetsurô Watsuji (1889- 1960). Also associated with the group (although not an actual member) is Suzuki Daisetsu, famous for introducing Zen Buddhism to the West.
Classifying the group is not straightforward. Writes Bret Davis:

The […] Kyoto School should be understood neither as Buddhist thought forced into Western garb, nor as universal discourse (with the West happened to have invented or discovered) dressed up in Japanese garb. Rather, it is best understood as a set of unique contributions determined by its historical layers of traditional culture at the same time as being essentially conditioned by its most recent layer of contact with the West- to a nascent worldwide dialogue of cross- cultural philosophy.

15.3 Main Themes:

The Kyoto School philosophers were preoccupied with a broad range of philosophical themes, including metaphysics, ontology (theory of what exists), cultural criticism, political theory, and aesthetics. They are most well known for their religious thought (in fact, the Kyoto school is typically only discussed in religious studies departments in the USA, rather than in philosophy departments). Here we will be concerned with ethical thought, in particular that of Keiji Nishitani.

15.4 Absolute Nothingness (Zettai- mu).
The Kyoto philosophers had in common a preoccupation with the idea of nothingness, rather than being, as their primary focus and ground for theorizing. This is a difficult idea, so we will not dwell on it for too long.
In short, the first real face- to –face contact that any Japanese philosophers had with Western philosophers was when Hajime Tanabe, Kôichi Tsujimura and Nishitani went to study philosophy in Germany (Tanabe returning to Japan in 1924). While there, their principal philosophy teacher was Martin Heidegger. (Tanabe was in fact the first person to publish an article on Heidegger; Nishitani studied with Heidegger between 1937 and 1939, when Heidegger gave his famous lectures on Nietzsche, and in turn taught Heidegger Zen thought).

I will quote Bret W. Davis:

“First philosophy” in the Western tradition is ontology, which asks the question of “being qua being,” and tends to answer this question either in terms of the most universal “being-ness” or in terms of the “highest being.” For Aristotle, the essence of being was “substance,” ambiguously thought either as the particular (Socrates) or the concrete universal form (human being), and the highest being was the “unmoved mover.” Greek ontology later influenced the Christian theological tradition to think of God as the “highest being,” such that the dual threads of the Western tradition as a whole took shape as what Heidegger calls “onto-theology.” Hence, the fundamental philosophical question of the onto-theological mainstream of the West is, “What is being?” On the other hand, the counter-question which the Kyoto School finds in the East is, “What is Nothingness?” In place of an ontology, first philosophy in the East is more often a “meontology”: a philosophy of non-being or Nothingness.

In short: for Western thinkers, the very first question of philosophy- the answer to which is the beginning of all other philosophy, is “what is being?” that is, what is the basic substratum of existence? What is the ‘thing’ behind existence? The Kyoto school philosophers, on the other hand, believed that the real ‘ground of being’ is Nothingness, an idea with its origins in Buddhist thought (although, as the Kyoto school thinkers knew, also occur in the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831) and the mystic Meister Eckhart [1260–c.1328]). The Kyoto school philosophers explicitly associated the idea of Nothingness with the Sanskrit term śûnyatâ, (kû in Japanese), which means ‘emptiness.’ Later Kyoto school thought preferred the Chinese term mu (“Nothingness”; wu in Chinese), the term that appears in Zen thought.

Nishitani considered the ‘question of nothing’ as the defining distinction between Western and Eastern thought. (Another distinction he made was between the ‘Logic of Things,’ and the Eastern “Logic of Heart- Mind” (kokoro). In the essay “ The Types of Culture of the Classical Periods of East and West Seen from a Metaphysical Perspective,” he wrote

How then are we to distinguish between the types of culture of the West and East from a metaphysical point of view? I think we can do this by dividing them into that [i.e. the culture of the West] which considers the ground of reality to be being, and that [i.e. the culture of the East] which considers this ground to be Nothingness.

Tanabe did not think of philosophy as being an open inquiry into ethics, law, science, or the nature of truth; he considered all true philosophy to be preoccupied with a single question:

All science needs to take some entity or other as its object of study. The point of contact is always in being, not in nothing. The discipline that has to do with Nothingness is philosophy.

Why this distinction is so crucial is not clearly addressed, however. Nishida’s own reasoning tends towards ancestor- veneration or perhaps even mysticism rather than philosophical analysis proper (a criticism that can be leveled at the entire Kyoto School tradition). As James Heisig puts it, the Kyoto school thinkers, unlike Western thinkers, lack “a clear delineation between philosophy and religion.” From the 1926 text From That Which Acts to That Which Sees, Nishida states:

It goes without saying that there is much to admire, and much to learn from, the impressive achievements of Western culture, which thought from being and the giving of form as good. However, does there not lie hidden at the base of our Eastern culture, preserved and passed down by our ancestors for several thousand years, something which sees the form of the formless and hears the voice of the voiceless? Our hearts and minds endlessly seek this something; and it is my wish to provide this quest with a philosophical foundation.

Yet, as Robert Carter notes, there is a real question “whether this insistence on nothingness as the primary and most basic focus in philosophy is intelligible and justified”. Three questions come to mind here: a). what does it mean to say that ‘nothingness is the ground of being?’ b). how do we know that ‘nothing is the ground of being?’ and c). insofar as this is a description of how things are, how does this relate to ethics, which is prescriptive? Put more simply: in all of the ethical discussions that we have had this semester, how relevant are questions of ‘fundamental ontology’ to these discussions?
The standard (‘Western’) philosophical assumption here is that the naturalistic fallacy has been committed. We will come to this question when we discuss the specific ethical ideas of the Kyoto school.

15.5 The Influence of Esoteric Buddhism on Japanese Modes of Thought
A second dominant theme in Japanese thought is the assumption that all parts (in particular the individuals of a society) constitute the whole, whereas Western thought tends to think of the whole as being the sum of its parts. This idea, arguably, originates in the Esoteric Buddhist thought that was introduced to Japan by Japan’s first true philosopher, Kūkai (空海) (or also known posthumously as Kōbō-Daishi (弘法大師). Thomas P. Kasulis outlines the significance of this idea for later Japanese thought:
[…] Esotericism has a distinctive view of the relation between part and whole. The whole is recursively manifest or reflected in the part. It is not that the parts constitute the whole nor that the whole is more than the sum of its parts; rather, since the part is what it is by virtue of the whole, if we truly understand the part, we find the whole imprinted on it. In Shingon [Buddhism’s] case [the sect founded by Kūkai], for example, since any individual thing is an expression of the cosmos as Dainichi, when we truly understand the part (the individual thing), we encounter the whole (Dainichi) [that is, the Universe] as well.

With this orientation as a cultural preposition, later Japanese philosophers would seldom endorse either atomistic analysis or individualism […] Individualism, with its attendant theories of social contract [that is, Hobbes, Rousseau etc.]. entered Japan via the West only in the late nineteenth century. Since it viewed the social whole as constituted by the parts, it ran counter to the esoteric assumption. Not surprisingly, individualism has never taken hold in Japan for social, ethical or political theory.

The writings of Kitaro Nishida, founder of the Kyoto School, also express this idea. His 1921 work Zen no Kenkyu (translated as An Enquiry into the Good), the first Kyoto School text, emphasizes the idea that subject and object are one, that God and the Universe is one entity, and that ethics is a matter of understanding ultimate reality: all ideas that can be traced back to Kukai.

15.6 The Kyoto School and The Greater East Asian War / World War II.

When we think about the relationship between philosophers and politics, it is important to keep in mind that philosophers do not exist in some other realm up in the clouds, separated off from the rest of humanity. Being a philosopher, as such, does not excuse one for the political implications of one’s ideas, unless one wishes to admit that their ideas are too obscure or too meaningless to have any persuasive force.
Philosophers frequently have quite a lot of popular respect and influence (though of course not all the time), and their opinions can often shape, or give legitimacy, to official policy or ideas that might otherwise appear merely foolish, brutal or immoral. When the Nazis used Nietzsche’s ideas they were appealing to the authority of a very famous and respected writer; when animal rights people argue their case they will point out the cogent arguments of Peter Singer. In the same way, The Kyoto School philosophers were hardly obscure writers, and as such had enough respect to be influential. Nishida, for example, gave well received public lectures; his 1940 text “The Problem of Japanese Culture” appeared it sold 40,000 copies. When his completed works appeared in 1947, people camped out all night long to receive the first copies.
The Kyoto School have been criticized for contributing to the political ideology of the Imperialist period (interestingly, the most important Western thinker for the school, Martin Heidegger, was also implicated in Nazism and was himself a member of the Nazi party). Some Japanese intellectuals (‘left wing’ Kyoto school members Jun Tosaka and Kiyoshi Miki, for example) were imprisoned and died in prison for their anti- militaristic stance; Mitsuo Taketani [1911-], a philosopher of science, was imprisoned for his anti- Fascist activities). The rest of the Kyoto school, however, cooperated with the authorities, applying what they termed “cooperative resistance” (hantaiseiteki kyôryoku). This cooperation is highly ambivalent, however (see Davis pp. 30-32 for discussion). On the one hand, the Kyoto School apparently opposed the war. They had discussions on how to avoid it, and, once the war had begun, had secret talks with the Imperial Navy to discuss ways of steering public opinion against the more aggressive Land Army. On the other, comments made by Kyoto School members suggest a certain complicity with the ideologies behind the war. Hajime Tanabe, for example, in his 1940 text Rekishiteki Genjitsu (Historical Reality), argued in favour of “training for death,” and inspired many students, including future Tokko (suicide) pilots, to go to war. Tetsuro Watsuji (who we will look at in more detail in the next lecture) argued for the superiority of Japanese theories of human nature and ethics, and argued for the negation of the self; views that were compatible with nationalist and militaristic ideologies.
In November 1941 Masaaki Kosaka, Keiji Nishitani. Iwao Koyama and Naritaka Suzuki participated in a round –table discussion entitled The World’ Historical Standpoint and Japan, organized by the staff of the philosophy journal Chūōkōron.
The discussions are interesting in that they express the Kyoto school’s preoccupation with the problem of modernity and of Japanese national identity, along with their thoughts on war, history and the role of philosophy. More troubling are, in particular, Nishitani’s views on the ‘moral energy’ of the Japanese, and the Japanese state’s obligation to control other nations. For Nishitani, the Japanese, a Herrenvolk (Master- Race), are morally obliged by historical necessity to assist in shaping the character of all East Asia.

I would like to return to the question of moral energy. The primary issue is the concrete form that the ethical or moral dimension (moral energy) takes in East Asia. This is fundamental, and is also, I think, tied to the resolution of the China incident. I mean, the most basic issue is the “China Consciousness” of the Chinese, the consciousness of always being the centre of East Asia, and of Japan as having been educated through the grace of Chinese culture. In such a situation, the main thing is somehow to make them see and to realize that Japan is now the leader in the construction of the Greater East Asia of today, and must be the leader as a matter of historical necessity…. […] [China] must call its people to an awareness of world history, to make them leave aside their Middle Kingdom consciousness and cooperate with Japan in the construction of Greater East Asia. This would make it possible to think of a kind of manifestation of moral energy in Greater East Asia. Because Japan’s contemporary role of leadership relies basically on Japan’s moral energy. It was Japan’s moral energy that prevented the colonization of China. (Chuokoron p. 26).

Hence the root of the ethics of the Greater East Asian sphere consists in transmitting Japan’s moral energy to each of the races, and elevating them to a high spiritual level where they can cooperate with Japan and where upright inter- racial relations can be constructed (ibid p. 34).

Nishitani goes on to argue that ‘race’ is in fact a moral concept (an idea adopted from historian Leopold Von Ranke, 1795-1886).

[…] for a race to be able to step anew into the midst of the established world order and assert the continuation [of] its own existence positively, it must have moral energy. Only then can a nation be shaped that is grounded on race as such. In such a race, nation can be said to signify the manifestation of the moral energy of the race itself. Thus, as bad as the terms racialism or nationalism sound to democracy, these terms really contain great moral significance. However, it is morality as moral energy, not formal morality as such. Furthermore, such a moral quality becomes visible only when it can uphold a nation within history. If it is grasped merely as a pure legal concept or in some other “academic” form, the moral energy is drained. (ibid p.29).

Nishitani’s 1940 text Shukyo to Bunka (Religion and Culture), another problematic work is also noteworthy. In a section entitled “Hittora undo no seishin” (“ The Spirit of the Hitler Movement”), Nishitani favorably compares Hitler’s ideology with that of Nietzsche (whom he had studied under Heidegger), and discusses Hitler’s rejection of egoism and his exhortations to individuals to sacrifice themselves for the good of the nation.

Ishikawa: Nishida Kitaro Museum of Philosophy

At left, a German edition of “Ethics as a Science of Man.” At right, Watsuji’s grave in Kamakura (Tokeiji Temple, near Kita Kamakura Station).

Keiji Nishitani. Nishida Kitarô, in Paris, 1940.

Tanabe Hajime, co- founder of the Kyoto School. At left: in 1930.

Lecture 16: Watsuji Tetsurô (和辻哲郎) (1889- 1960).

16.1 Preliminary Questions.
a). What is ethics?
b). What is the biggest problem with Utilitarianism?
c). Why is respect for the individual in law and ethics important, do you think?
d). Do you think that climate influences a culture’s ethics? If so, are there some basic ethical principles that ought to be universal, regardless of the climate?
e). What is the Naturalistic Fallacy? And why is it fallacious to use this argument?
f). What is argumentum ad Antiquitatem? Why is it a fallacy? Can you think of an example that relates to ethics?
g). What is argumentum ad populum? Why is it fallacious? Can you think of an example that relates to ethics?

16.1 Watsuji Tetsurô: Biographical Outline.
Tetsuro Watsuji was a moral philosopher, cultural historian, translator and historian of ideas. He was born in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture. When he was young he read Western literature and poetry. He discovered philosophy whilst at the First Higher School (later renamed Tokyo University), graduating in 1909, and in 1912 completed a thesis on Schopenhauer (his first thesis was on Nietzsche, but was rejected by the board as it was deemed unsuitable, Nietzsche deemed a mere ‘philosopher- poet.’). Both theses were later published, and Watsuji became instrumental in introducing the work of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard to Japan. After 1918 he experienced what commentators have called a reorientation (tenko), apparently inspired by the lectures of Natsumi Soseki. Watsuji turned against Western philosophy and culture, in particular what he felt to be an excessive emphasis on individualism, and its negative impact on Japanese life. (Nietzsche in particular is extremely individualistic, to the point of rejecting all Jewish and Christian morality). By contrast, ethics, according to Watsuji, should emphasize social interconnectedness. This turning away from the West led to Watsuji’s investigations into Japanese thought, in particular that of the mediaeval Zen Buddhist philosopher Dogen.
In 1925, after a number of less prestigious teaching posts, Watsuji became professor of ethics at Kyoto University. He went to Germany to study for fourteen months in 1927-1928, and upon return went back to Kyoto Imperial University. He received his PhD (for a thesis on Buddhism) in 1932, and moved to Tokyo Imperial University in 1934. He completed his key text Ethics as the Study of Man (Porisuteki Ningen no Rinrigaku) in 1935, followed by his three volume study on ethics, Rinrigaku, which appeared in three installments in 1937, 1942, and 1949, the year he retired.

16.2 Watsuji’s Philosophy: Introduction.
Watsuji’s earlier writings (in particular Climate and Culture/ Fudo Ningen- gakuteki kosatsu), concern the interrelatedness of environment on the development of culture, although it is not clear how such descriptions constitute or are relevant to an ethics.
Robert Carter sums up the link between ethics and culture as follows: “ Climate serves as the always present background to what becomes the foreground focus for Watsuji, the study of Japanese ethics in practice and in theory. Ethics is the study of the ways in which men and women, adults and children, the rulers and those ruled, have come to deal with each other in their specific climatic conditions. Ethics is the pattern of proper and effective social interaction.” This principle is called Fudo (‘climaticity’).

16.3 The Rinrigaku (1937-1949) (倫理学)
The Rinrigaku has been celebrated as “the definitive study of Japanese ethics” and “a study of Japanese ethical thought and practice that is still unequaled.” Kazuhiko Okuda, of the International University of Japan in Niigata, writes that The Rinrigaku “a major critique of and challenge to modern (Western) philosophical anthropology […] and continues to generate considerable interest and even controversy.” A partial English translation first appeared in 1996.

16.3.1 The Falsity of Individualism.
Watsuji asserts that a). individuality is central to every Western moral theory, and b). this assumption that people are individuals is essentially false. The Western idea of individuality (quoting Robert Carter) “loses touch with the vast network of interconnections that serves to make us human. We are individuals inescapably immersed in the space/ time world, together with others. Individual persons, if conceived of in isolation from their various social contexts, do not and cannot exist except as abstractions.” Philosophers who discuss the rights of the individual can do so, reasons Watsuji, because they ignore the ‘spaciality’ (in- space- ness) of the ningen (person).
Why does Watsuji think that individuals do not exist? He offers three arguments, which I will term a). the Robinson Crusoe Argument b). The argument from Etymology, and c). The argument from authenticity.

16.4 Ningen sonzai (人間存在)
16.4.1 The ‘Robinson Crusoe’ Argument.
Recall Hobbes’s description of the State of Nature: isolated individuals, without an overruling authority to maintain control, will have no choice but to compete with each other. According to Watsuji, this description of human nature is basically flawed. Watsuji holds that we are not naturally isolated and selfish; that we are born into social relationships, beginning with one’s immediate family. From the beginning of our lives we are shaped and influenced by our teachers, friends, and communities. Watsuji tries to illustrate this fact by referring to the story of Robinson Crusoe, from the Daniel Defoe novel of 1719. Crusoe, trapped on a deserted island, behaved as if he was around other people: he spoke in his own language, built a hut, and made food and clothes based on what others had taught him. Further, he always hoped that other people would come to rescue him. Therefore, Watsuji argues, the radically individual person is a myth.

16.4.2. The Argument from Etymology.
Watsuji insists that ethics is the study of the human person, in Japanese, ningen. Yet his study is not grounded on anthropological, psychological or sociological studies, but on etymology, that is, the study of the origin of words. As such, he analyses the origins of the word ningen to support his theory. He notes that the term ‘ningen’ is made up of two characters, ‘nin,’ meaning ‘person’ or ‘human being,’ and ‘gen,’ meaning ‘space’ or ‘between.’ As such, he argues that a person is not merely an individual but is connected with various social connections. Watsuji here presupposes that the Japanese language contains within its ideograms metaphysical truths about human nature. (Note also that Watsuji’s argument implies that only Japanese language carries this truth).

16.4.3. The Argument from Authenticity.
Writes Robert Carter,
One expresses one's individuality by negating the social group or by rebelling against various social expectations or requirements. To be an individual demands that one negate the supremacy of the group. On the other hand, to envision oneself as a member of a group is to negate one's individuality. But is this an instance of poor logic? One can remain an individual and as such join as many groups as one wishes. Or one can think of oneself as an individual and yet as a parent, a worker, an artist, a theatre goer, and so forth. Watsuji understood this, but his argument is that it is possible to think in such ways only if one has already granted logical priority to the individual qua individual. Whatever group one belongs to, one belongs to it as an individual, and this individuality is not quenchable, except through death, or inauthenticity. Nevertheless, Watsuji's conception of what he calls the ‘negation of negation’ has a quite different, and perhaps deeper emphasis. To extricate ourselves from one or another socio-cultural inheritance, perhaps the acceptance of the Shinto faith, one has to rebel against this socio-cultural form by affirming one's individuality in such a way as to negate its overt influence on oneself. This is to negate an aspect of one's history by affirming one's individuality. But the second negation occurs when one become a truly ethical human being, and one negates one's individual separateness by abandoning one's individual independence from others. What we have now is a forgetting of the self, as Dôgen urged (“to study the way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to become enlightened by all things”), which yields a ‘selfless’ morality. To be truly human is not the asserting of one's individuality, but an annihilation of self-centeredness such that one is now identified with others in a nondualistic merging of self and others. Benevolence or compassion results from this selfless identification. This is our authentic ‘home ground,’ and it rekindles our awareness of our true and original nature. This home ground he calls ‘nothingness,’ about which more will be said below.

Carter’s explanation here clarifies several points:
a). Watsuji presupposes a particular description of human nature, according to which our true nature is to be dependent on other people, and to have no self- centred nature. Yet Watsuji also argues that we should follow this ‘essential nature.’ But if being ego-less and dependent on others is our true nature, how could anyone stay from this ‘innate nature’? There is some sort of confusion of description and prescription here. That is, one cannot go from a description of people to an ethics explaining how they should be. Watsuji appears to be committing a naturalistic fallacy.
b). Note the contrast with Western thought. Western ethicists, in particular deontologists, assume that the individual cannot be used as a means to an end; that no individual can be sacrificed for the good of the community. Watsuji, on the other hand, argues that the community is prior to the individual, and that the individual’s sense of self should be annihilated.
c). Watsuji assumes that we must destroy our sense of being individuals (our ‘egoism’) in order to be good people, that is, to be compassionate. Is this necessarily true? Could the opposite not be true: that being truly ethical requires that we retain a sense of individuality?

16.5 Aidagara (間柄 ‘betweeness’) and Ningen sonzai (人間存在 ‘human existence’)
Watsuji traces the term ‘gen’ (space, or ‘betweenenss’) back to the term aidagara which refers to the location of people, in particular the space in which people interact with one another. Watsuji’s student Yuasa Yasuo puts this idea in the following terms:

This betweeness consists of the various human relationships of our life- world. To put it simply, it is the network which provides humanity with a social meaning, for example, one’s being an inhabitant of this or that town or a member of a certain business firm. To live as a person means… to exist in such betweeness.

Ethics is the study of these relational patterns between individuals. Watsuji uses the term Ningen sonzai (人間存在) to describe ‘human existence.’ I will quote again Carter’s summary of this position:
Watsuji usually writes of ningen sonzai, and sonzai (existence) is composed of two characters, son (which means to preserve, to sustain over time), and zai (to stay in place, and in this case, to persevere in one's relationships). Ningen sonzai, then, refers to human nature as individual yet social, private as well as public, with our coming together in relationship occurring in the betweenness between us, which relationships we preserve and nourish to the fullest. Ethics has to do with the ways in which we, as human beings, respect, preserve, and persevere in the vast complexity of interconnections which etch themselves upon us as individuals, thereby forming our natures as social selves, and providing the necessary foundation for the creation of cooperative and workable societies.
The Japanese word for ethics is rinri, which is composed of two characters, rin and ri. Rin means ‘fellows,’ ‘company,’ [nakama] and specifically refers to a system of relations guiding human association. Ri means ‘reason,’ or ‘principle,’ the rational ordering of human relationships. These principles are what make it possible for human beings to live in a cooperative community. Watsuji refers to the ancient Confucian patterns of human interaction as between parent and child, lord and vassal, husband and wife, young and old, and friend and friend. Presumably, one also acquires a sense of the appropriate and ethical in all other relationships as one grows to maturity in society. If enacted properly these relationships, which occur in the betweenness between us, serve as the oil which lubricates interaction with others in such a way as to minimize abrasive occurrences, and to maximize smooth and positive relationships. One can think of the betweenness between each of us as a basho, an empty space, in which we can either reach out to the other in order to create a relationship of positive value, or to shrink back, or to lash out, making a bad situation worse. The space is pure potential, and what we do with it depends on the degree to which we can encounter the other in a fruitful and appropriate manner in that betweenness. Nevertheless, every encounter is already etched with the cultural traditions of genuine encounter; ideally positive expectation, good will, open-heartedness, cheerfulness, sincerity, fellow-feeling, and availability. Ethics “consists of the laws of social existence” writes Watsuji (Watsuji 1996, 11).

A quote from Watsuji clarifies this last point: Rin means nakama, which “signifies a body or a system of relations, which a definite group of persons have with respect to each other, and at the same time signifies individual persons as determined by this system.” He also takes these ideas to be peculiarly Japanese: “we Japanese have produced a distinctive conception of human being. According to it, ningen is the public and, at the same time, the individual human beings living in it.”

Again, we can make the following points:
a). Ethics is reduced to harmonious living with other people.
b). Ethics is defined as ‘the laws of social existence.’

Question: is anything missing from this definition of philosophy? That is, if Watsuji was teaching this course, would he teach it in the same way?

16.6. Nothingness.
Carter again:
The annihilation of the self, as the negation of negation “constitutes the basis of every selfless morality since ancient times,” asserts Watsuji (Watsuji 1996, 225). The negating of the group or society, and the emptying of the individual in Watsuji's sense of the negation of each by the other pole of ningen, makes evident that both are ultimately ‘empty,’ causing one to reflect upon that which is ultimate, and at the base of both one's individuality and the groups with which one associates. The losing of self is a returning to one's authenticity, to one's home ground as that source from which all things derive, and by which they are sustained. It is the abandonment of the self as independent which paves the way for the non-dual relation between the self and others that terminates in the activity of benevolence and compassion through a unification of minds. The ethics of benevolence is the development of the capacity to embrace others as oneself or, more precisely, to forget one's self such that the distinction between the self and other does not arise in this nondualistic awareness. One has now abandoned one's self, one's individuality, and become the authentic ground of the self and the other as the realization of absolute totality. Ethics is now a matter of spontaneous compassion, spontaneous caring, and concern for the whole.

Note the continuity between Watsuji’s thought and that of the Kyoto school philosophers: an absolute reality (as ‘Nothingness’) is prior to all other philosophy, including ethics. Also note the similarity with Esoteric Buddhistic thought: all dualities are in fact incorrect, and conceal from us the truth that all people are in fact one. Finally, note how radically anti- intellectual this doctrine is: ethics is not a matter of calculating utility (as for Utilitarianism) or using pure reason (as with Kant) but ‘spontaneous compassion.’ Whereas Western ethics emphasizes individual rights, for Watsuji, the individual does not exist: “Hence, individuality itself does not have an independent existence. Its essence is negation, that is, emptiness” (Rinrigaku: 80).

16.7 The State.
In the Rinrigaku, Watsuji Tetsuro explicitly rejects the individual’s role as a moral agent. One must abandon one’s independence in order to authentically unite with one’s social group. But in order to achieve ‘totality,’ moving beyond all of one’s specific groups, one must turn to the State. Watsuji refers to the State as the ethical community of all ethical communities. What he means by this is that the State eliminates all forms of egoism, something, he thinks, that other, smaller communities (families, clans, local communities etc.) cannot accomplish. As such, the State is the ultimate ethical community. By defining the State (in particular the Japanese Imperial State) as the ultimate ethical state, Watsuji sees it as transcendent, as above all communities, and the guarantor of the ethical character of all communities. As such, the State alone can define ethics, being both the source of morality and beyond morality. By definition, the Japanese Imperial State is the origin of morality. In the passage below, Carter outlines Watsuji’s thinking here.

In America's National Character (1944), [Watsuji] contrasted this willingness to an assumed selfishness or egocentrism found in the West, together with a utilitarian ethic of expediency, which he felt was rarely able to commit to self-surrender in aid of the state. What he saw as most exemplary in the Japanese way of life was the Bushido ideal of “the absolute negativity of the subject” (Odin 1996, 67), through which the totality of the whole is able to be achieved. There is no doubt that Watsuji's position could easily be interpreted as a totalitarian state ethics. Yet, insofar as Watsuji's analysis of Japanese ethics is an account of how the Japanese do actually act in the world, then it is little surprise that the Japanese errors of excess which culminated in the fascism of the Second World War period should be found somehow implicit and possible in Watsuji's acute presentation of Japanese cultural history. Perhaps the fault to be found lies not in his analysis per se, but rather in his all too sanguine collapsing of the descriptive and the prescriptive. That the Japanese way-in-the-world might include a totalitarian seed is something which demands a normative warning. Surely this is not what should be applauded as an aspect of the alleged superiority of Japanese culture, nor should Bushido in and of itself be taken as a blameless path to the highest of ethical achievements. The willingness to be loyal, whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation might be, in order to remain loyal to one's Lord, however evil or foolhardy he might be, is not an adequate or rational position, and it is surely not laudable ethically. It is, perhaps, the way the samurai saw themselves, as martial servants loyal to death. But the ‘is’ here is clearly not a moral ‘ought’.

In arguing that “the state subsumes within itself all […] forms of private life and continually turns them into the form of the public domain,” Writes Carter, “in attempting to move away from the selfishness of egoistic action, Watsuji has given primacy to the state over individual and group rights.” Wu’s summary is similar:
“In short, in Watsuji’s dialectic, moral goodness lies with the negation of the individual in selfless return to wholeness” (Wu: 99).
Morally worthless in and of itself, the individual functions as a formal category whose value is derived solely from its own negation. In this sense, value is externalized; the locus of value lies outside of the individual, who must relinquish the self to embrace what is outside of oneself. Watsuji’s individual, then, clearly lacks […] value autonomy…Morality compels the individual to embrace the whole, yet the latter is not bound by a similar ethical imperative.” (Wu: 100).
Wu adds:
“Since Watsuji’s idea of morality demands self- sacrifice, selves must exist, even if only to be sacrificed.” (Wu: 100).

Watsuji was not, argues Carter, necessarily arguing in favor of a fascist state. Yet Watsuji’s intentions here are not really relevant to assessment of his ethics or its underlying assumptions. Jeffrey Wu expresses the main problem: Watsuji’s philosophy is of a piece with the view that “ the nation is equated with value, not subject to any moral code that supercedes itself.”

16.8. The Philosophy of As- Is: Jeffrey Wu’s Objection

Jeffrey Wu puts the basic problem of the Rinrigaku in these terms: “The bulk of Watsuji’s ethical thought was composed during the Fifteen Year’s War [that is, Japan’s ‘long’ World War II] [volumes appearing in 1934, 1937, 1942, and 1949]. […] crucial here is the historical context of Watsuji’s ethical system. Was there anything in Watsuji’s ethical philosophy that would have sanctioned resistance against a state that was committing aggression and murder in the name of emperor and nation?” More generally, Wu notes that Watsuji’s schema prioritizes what is over what ought to be (Wu: 99). As such, he asks, “How, then, does one distinguish between the ethically good and the ethically bad?”

Discussion.
In his Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Watsuji, Robert Carter concludes with the following assessment:
By reintroducing a vivial sense of our communitarian interconnectedness, and our spatial and bodily place in the betweenness between us, where we meet, love, and strive to live ethical lives together, Watsuji provides an ethical and political theory which might well prove to be helpful both to non-Japanese societies, and to a modern Japan itself which is torn between what it was, and what it is becoming.

Jeffrey Wu, on the other hand, concludes with the following note:

All in all, the ethical choice that Watsuji offered was one of choosing what already exists as the social totality. The question is whether that is really a choice at all. (Wu: 101).

Discussion.

a). What is Watsuji’s theory, summarized in a few sentences?
b). Would such a theory be useful to “non- Japanese societies?” That is, does it contribute anything that we haven’t found in Western ethical theory so far?
c). Do you think Watsuji’s theory is relevant today, or is it simply an artifact of an earlier age?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
You need to be able to explain Tatsuro Watsuji’s ethical theory (if you don’t think it is really an ethical theory, you need to be able to explain why).
You should be able to articulate an answer to the following question: who has the more plausible assessment of Watsuji’s ethics: Jeffrey Wu, or Robert Carter? (To write an essay on this you should print off copies of both essays; the links are below).

16.x Bibliography

Thanks to Erik Schinkentanz (Department of Religious Studies, Tokyo University) for advice on Kyoto School references.

Carter, Robert. “Watsuji Tetsurô” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First
published 11 November 2004. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/watsuji-tetsuro/

www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal1/japan2.pdf

Davis, Bret W. “The Kyoto School” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
First published Mon 27 Feb, 2006 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/

Heisig, James W. “The Religious Philosophy of the Kyoto School.” Japanese Journal
of Religious Studies, 1990 17/1. Pp. 51- 81.
Hubbard, Jamie. Review: “James W. Heisig and John C. Maraldo, eds., Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (Spring 1996,23/1–2): 179-185. JSTOR link: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0095-6848(199724)23%3A1%3C214%3ARAZTKS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T
Heisig, James W. Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School (Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
Heisig, James W., ed. Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy. Nagoya: Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 2006.
Kasulis, Thomas P. (1998). “Japanese philosophy.” In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/G100
McGill University. The Kyoto School: Neglected Themes and Hidden Variations. Seminar Abstracts. March 9-10, 2007 McGill University”. Revised 4th August. http://ara.mcgill.ca/events/kyotoabstracts.pdf.

Mori, Tetsuro. “Nishitani Keiji and the Question of Nationalism,” in James W. Heisig and John C. Maraldo, eds Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism (Nanzen Studies in Religion and Culture) (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995) pp. 316- 332.http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/nlarc/pdf/Rude%20awakenings/Mori.pdf, Accessed August 2007.

Nishida, Kitaro. An Inquiry into the Good. Trans. Masao Abe and Christopher Ives.
New Haven and London: Yale University press, 1990.
Nishitani, Keiji et. al. The World’ Historical Standpoint and Japan.
Tokyo, Chūōkōronsha, 25 March 1943). Trans. J.W. Heisig, 1994. (draft)
http://www.nanzan- u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/nlarc/pdf/Rude%20awakenings/Chuokoron%20(Nishitani).pdf (accessed August 2007).

Nishitani, Keiji. The Self- Overcoming of Nihilism. Trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara. New York: State University of New York, 1990.

Okuda, Kazuhiko. “Watsuji Tetsuro’s Contributions to Political Philosophy.” (presented at the XVIIth World Congress of International Political Science Association (IPSA), Seoul, South Korea, August 17-1, 1997. International University of Japan Research Institute.
http://www.iuj.ac.jp/research/wpir001.htm (accessed August 2007).

Parkes, Graham. “The putative fascism of the Kyoto School and the political.” Philosophy East and West Vol. 47 No. 3(August 1997) Pp.305-336. http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/graham.htm
Tu, Xiaofei. “The Fascist Next Door? Nishitani Keiji and the Chūōkōron Discussions in Perspective” in Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 27 July 2006
http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/discussionpapers/2006/Tu.html

Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi. Modern Japanese Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Wargo, Robert J.J. The Logic of Nothingnesss: A Study of Nishida Kitaro. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.
Watsuji, Tetsuro, Watsuji Tetsuro’ Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan trans. Yamamoto
Seisaku, Robert Edgar Carter. (New York: State University of New York, 1996).
William, David. “In Defense of the Kyoto School: reflections on philosophy, the
Pacific War and the making of a post- White world.” Japan Forum. Volume 12,
Issue 2 (September 2000): 143-156.
Williams, David. Defending Japan’s Pacific War: The Kyoto Philosophers and Post-
White Power. London: Routledge, 2004.

Wu, Jeffrey. “The Philosophy of As- Is: The Ethics of Watsuji Tetsuro.” Stanford
Journal of East Asian Affairs. Spring 2001, Vol. 1: 96-102.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal1/japan2.pdf

Jones, Christopher S. “Ethics and Politics in the Early Nishida: Reconsidering "Zen
no Kenkyu. " Philosophy East and West, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 514-536.

Online Resources:
Nihon Testugaku http://www.japanese-philosophy.org/

New Topics for Fall Semester 2007

2007-05-20T19:56:00.000+09:00

New Ethics Syllabus

1 Introduction: Can Ethics be derived from religious belief?
2 Moral Relativism
3. Buddhist Ethics
4 Utilitarianism
5 Deontology, Kant
6 Hume: Moral Sentiments
7 Max Stirner and Ayn Rand : Egoism
8 Japanese Philosophy: Nishida Kitarô
9 Applied Ethics: Just War Theory
10: Applied Ethics: Eugenics and Obligations to Future Generations

Ethics Course Exam Questions

2007-01-05T18:43:00.000+09:00

Lakeland College Shinjuku

Ethics 212-1 First Test

Answer any TWO questions, ONLY ONE from each section. Time allowed: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Section 1.

Either

Question 1a). What is Kant’s Universalizability Test? Which of the criticisms to the test do you think is most serious, and why?

Question 1b). Discuss one counter- example to Kant’s claim that the Motive of Duty is necessary and sufficient to be a good person.

Section 2.

Either

Question 2a). What is Act Utilitarianism? Which of the criticisms of Act Utilitarianism is most serious, and why? How would a Utilitarian respond?

Question 2b). Discuss three differences between Utilitarianism and Kant’s Deontology

Section 3.

Either

Question 3a). What is the Argument from Tolerance? And what is its most serious objection?

Question 3b). What is the Cultural Differences Argument? And what is its most serious objection?

Section 4.

Either

Question 4a). What is Social Contract theory? And why is the Social Contract necessary, according to Hobbes? What is the most serious objection to the theory?

Question 4b). What is the difference between Kant’s conception of human nature, and that of Hobbes? And what, for both thinkers, is the relationship between reason and morality? Who has the more plausible view?

Lakeland College Shinjuku

Ethics 212-1 Second Test

Answer any TWO questions, ONLY ONE from each section. Time allowed: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Section 1. Virtue Ethics

Either

Question 1a). What is Aristotle’s conception of Virtue? And what is the connection with virtue, and the Good Life, for Aristotle?

Question 1b). Critically discuss the shortcomings of Virtue Ethics. How would a virtue ethicist respond?

Section 2. Nietzsche and Slave Morality

Either

Question 2a). What is the Genealogy of Morals, and how does it fit with Nietzsche’s criticism of Jewish/ Christian morality, including Kant and Utilitarianism? Are his arguments sound?

Question 2b). What are the implications of accepting Nietzsche’s ethics?

Section 3. Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide

Either

Question 3a). What is the difference between passive and active euthanasia? Why is it considered a morally relevant distinction in Japan and the USA? Is this a morally relevant distinction?

Question 3b). Give a critical discussion of AT LEAST TWO objections to the legalization of euthanasia.

Section 4. Punishment and the Death Penalty

Either

Question 4a). Give a critical discussion of AT LEAST TWO objections to the death penalty.

Question 4b). Should Japan abandon the death penalty?

Section 5. The Non- Medical Use of Drugs

Either

Question 5a). What do the terms paternalism and autonomy mean, and how are they relevant to the “War on Drugs”?

Question 5b). Should tobacco be banned in Japan? Critically discuss at least TWO objections.

Section 6. Race and Racism

Either

Question 6a). What does Kant say about Africans? Are his views incompatible with his theory of human nature and ethics, or incompatible? Does your answer undermine your estimation of Kant’s philosophy?

Question 6b). What is the difference between ‘extrinsic’ (empirical) and ‘intrinsic’ (racism

Lecture 22 Racism II: Kwame Anthony Appiah

2006-11-30T13:15:00.000+09:00

Lecture 22 Racism and Racialism:

Kwame Anthony Appiah

22.1 Introduction

Kwame Anthony Appiah’s essay in the Rachels anthology, “Racisms,” is a good example of the Principle of Charity. The principle is to formulate the strongest version of your opponent’s argument so that you can attack the best version of it. If you deliberately use a weak version of the argument, you are committing the straw man fallacy.

22.2 Problems in Defining Race

Race, as a coherent concept (whether as ethnic identity or biological category) is unsound, and race, as such, does not exist. Racism does exist, however. What does this tell us? The importance of an idea has nothing to do with how good it is. Bad ideas are lethal.

Ashley Montague defines race as a “group of human beings which exist in nature and are comprised of individuals that possess a certain aggregate of characters which individually and collectively serve to define the individuals in all other groups.” More recently, sociologists have defined race as “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests amongst different types of human bodies.” The Encyclopedia Britannica defines racism as “the theory or idea that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and certain traits of personality, intellect, or culture and, combined with it, the notion that some races are inherently superior to others.” (All cited on p. 21 B. Isaac The Invention of Race in Classical Antiquity).

Note that few racists would bother or be able to articulate what they actually mean by race. To critique racism (like other malignant ideologies) it is often necessary to define the terms ourselves. (But even anti- racist discourse can be confused. Many anti- racism advocates, for example, will insist that racial differences exist, yet will discuss particular ‘racial’ groupings). Benjamin Isaac writes:

A major, but misguided effort was made to define and explain race in nonracist terms by the UNESCO in its "statement on race."⁸⁴ It is misguided because its basic assumption is the existence of races.⁸⁵ Numerous modern authors do not believe in the reality of race themselves, but they still proceed from the assumption that race exists for racists, in the sense that racists are believed to respond to real physical traits of the targets of racism.⁸⁶ Here we are back to the serious consequences of an insufficiently lucid understanding of the essence of racism. I repeat once more, although it should be superfluous to say so, that racism is never caused by the physical characteristics of the other.⁸⁷

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7737.html

p.265: Affirmative Action (defn) Affirmative actionis a policy or a program whose stated goal is to redress past or present discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment

p.265. The methodology of this essay is reconstructivist; Appiah aims to give an account of racism as if racists were rational beings. “My claim is that these theoretical claims (of popular racism) are required to make sense of racism as the practice of reasoning human beings.”

22.3 Racism as a Cognitive Problem

p.266 Appiah concedes that racialism is a cognitive, rather than a moral problem.

(Discussion: are people responsible for any cognitive problems that they may have?)

22.4 Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Racism

Intrinsic racists are, according to Appiah,

…people who differentiate morally between members of different races because they believe that each race has a different moral status, quite independent of the moral characteristics entailed by its racial essence. Just as, for example, many people assume that they are biologically related to another person…. gives them a moral interest in that person, so an intrinsic racist holds that the bare fact of being of the same race is a reason for preferring one person to another. (TRTTD:267).

Call this the family model of racism.

Extrinsic racists, by contrast, point out to alleged racial differences to justify their beliefs in inferiority of other groups of people. Such beliefs require the attribution of characteristics to entire populations. Appiah discusses the family model at length on pages 276- 278.

He argues that it is a bad analogy.

A rational defense of the family ought to appeal to the causal responsibility of the biological parent and the common life of the domestic unit, and not to the brute fact of biological relatedness, even if the former pair of considerations defines groups that are often coextensive with the groups generated by the latter. For brute relatedness bears no necessary connection to the sorts of human purposes that seem likely to be relevant at the most basic level of ethical thought. (Appiah p. 277).

22.5 The Taste Analogy

Appiah considers the idea that racism is simply due to an innate cultural prejudice, like food preference. He gives this short shrift: “a proper analogy would be with someone who thought that we could continue to kill cattle for beef, even if cattle exercised all the complex cultural skills of human beings.” (Appiah p. 275).

22.5 Self- Serving Rationalizations

Many people who express extrinsic racist beliefs are beneficiaries of social orders that deliver advantages to them by virtue of their race…(Appiah p. 268)

Discussion: Could this be true of Aristotle? Hume? Kant?

22.6 Cognitive Incapacity, Narcissism, and Personal Responsibility

An inability to change your mind in the face of appropriate evidence is a cognitive incapacity; but it is one that all of us surely suffer from in some areas of belief: especially in areas where our own interests or self- images are at stake. Appiah p.269

The following is the one clearly moral problem in the essay (racism is not in itself a philosophical problem, for it is so obviously immoral):

we may wonder whether it is right to treat such people [racists] as morally responsible for the acts their racial prejudice motivates, or morally reprehensible for holding the views to which their prejudice leads them. It is a bad thing that such people exist; they are, in a certain sense, bad people. But it is not clear to me that they are responsible for the fact that they are bad. Racial prejudice, like prejudice generally, may threaten an agent’s autonomy, making it appropriate to treat or train rather than reason with them. (Appiah p. 271)

Discussion: Is this correct? Keep in mind that Appiah’s strongest argument against racism is Kantian.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

You should know the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic racism

You should know the distinction between empirical and essentialist theories of racism

DON’T PANIC

Lecture 21 Racism in the Age of Enlightenment

2006-11-28T10:52:00.000+09:00

Lecture 21

Race and Racism

21.1 References for these Lectures

Isaac Kramnick, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader (London: Penguin, 1995).

Friedrich Nietzsche The Will to Power trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale

(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967)

Frantz Fanon Black Skin White Masks trans. Charles Lam Markmann (Macgimmon and Kee)

James Rachels The Elements of Moral Philosophy 4^th Edition (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003).

Kwame Anthony Appiah “Racisms”, in James Rachels, ed. The Right Thing To Do (Boston:

McGraw Hill, 2003): 264- 281.

Richard H. Popkin “Eighteenth Century Racism,” in Richard H. Popkin, Ed. The Columbia History of Western Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 1999): 508- 515

Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (London: W.W.

Norton, 1997)

Michael Levin “Squaring the Circle” (review of Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel)

http://www.lrianc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/ml_ggs.html

Arudo Debito, “On Racism in Japan: Why one may be hopeful for the future,” presented at Meiji Gakuin University Symposium “International Studies of Our New Era: Immigrants, Refugees and Women,” Sunday, July 17^th, 2005.

www.debito.org/meijigakuin071705.html –

Chris Hogg “Japanese racism deep and profound,” BBC News, Monday 11^th July 2005

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4671687.stm

Professor N. Zack, course outline, PHIL 607 Philosophy of Race, Spring 2004

http://www.uoregon.edu/~uophil/faculty/nzack/zack607.htm

Benjamin Isaac: The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity, Princeton University Press, 2004

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7737.pdf

21.2 Pre- Lecture Discussion questions.

1). What is race?

2). What is racism?

3). What is a phenotype?

4). What is a human?

5). What is Kant’s conception of human nature?

6). Why, for Kant, are all humans morally important?

7). Are there any moral issues concerning race in Japan?

8) Can you name any cases of Japanese people as either the victims or perpetrators of

racism?

9) What, in your opinion, is the cause of racism?

10) What are the differences between the Japanese and the Korean people? And are

these differences intrinsic, or contingent (caused by cultural or environmental factors,

for example?).

21.3 Reading Questions.

We will look at three texts from the 18^th Century, written by three of the most important moral philosophers in history- David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Paine.

21.3 a). Reading David Hume Essays, Political and Philosophical (1742)

1). Why does Hume think that ‘Negroes’ (Africans) are naturally inferior to whites?

2). What counterexample to Kant’s opinion does he discuss?

3). Is his discussion of this counterexample adequate?

21.3 b). Reading Immanuel Kant The Difference Between the Races (1764)

1). What does Kant say about Chinese culture? Are these comments fair, do you think?

2). What does Kant say about the Japanese? Are these comments fair, do you think?

3). What does Kant say about African religion?

4). (p. 639). Kant reports on a black man who considered sexual equality foolish. Kant suggests that the black man had said something intelligent, then decides that he was, in fact, stupid. Why?

5). Do any of Kant’s comments on Blacks in this essay contradict his moral philosophy?

21.4 c). Reading Thomas Paine African Slavery in America (1775)

1). According to Paine, how many blacks were enslaved annually? How many were killed after one year of enslavement?

2). It was argued that slaves are simply property, and so their sale and purchase was therefore legal. How does Paine reply?

3). What is the argument from Biblical authority? And how does Paine respond?

4). What does Paine suggest be done with freed slaves? Are his suggestions ethical? Why, or why not?

21.5 Introduction: Rachels: Racism is an Expression of Ethical Egoism

A moral discussion on the topic of race is not a simple matter. This is because, as Rachels notes, there is no moral ambiguity or complexity: racism is clearly immoral and irrational. It is essentially arbitrary. It places moral significance on the morally trivial- that is, skin color. In Rachels’ Elements of Moral Complexity:

The requirement of impartiality… is at bottom nothing more than a proscription against arbitrariness in dealing with people. It is a rule that forbids us from treating one person differently from another when there is no good reason to do so (Rachels EMP: 14).

Later in the text, Rachels gives the following statement on Ethical Egoism, that is, the idea that it is morally correct to consider one’s own interests as more important than those of others.

There is a whole family of moral views that have this in common: they all involve dividing people into groups and saying that the interests of some groups count for more than the interests of other groups. Racism is the most conspicuous example; racism divides people into groups according to race and assigns greater importance to the interests of one race than to others. The practical result is that members of one race are treated better than others. Anti- Semitism works the same way, and so does nationalism (EMP: 88).

(Discussion: what is Nationalism, in this sense? Is a nationalistic attitude ever beneficial, rather than destructive? Note that Abe wants to make national pride a part of state education).

Rachels goes on to define morality in such a way as to define racism (and all other forms of arbitrariness) as immoral:

Morality is, at the very least, the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason- that is, to do what there are the best reasons for doing- while giving equal weight to the interests of each individual who will be affected by what one does. (Rachels EMP: 14).

Consequently,

Racism means counting the interests of the members of other races as less important than the interests of the members of one’s own race, despite the fact that there is no general difference between the races that would justify doing so. It is an offence against morality because it is first an offence against reason. Similar remarks could be made about other doctrines that provide humanity into the favored and disfavored, such as egoism, sexism, and nationalism. The upshot is that reason requires impartiality: We ought to act so as to promote the interests of everyone alike. (EMP: 193).

For Rachels, racism is nothing more than an aberration of correct moral thinking. Yet, as we know, many of the greatest moral philosophers were, by any definition, completely racist. Why is this? More centrally, was their racism consistent with, or in spite of, their moral theories?

21. 6 Race and Racism before the Enlightenment:

Racist and anti- Jewish (anti- Semitic) views were given religious justifications even before Christianity. Anti- Semitism existed in the Roman Empire, which imposed special taxes on Jews for not recognizing the Gods of Rome or for refusing to work on the Sabbath. In the Middle Ages, Jews were forced to convert to Christianity. Later generations of forced converts (who practiced their religion in secret) were then tortured and killed during the Spanish Inquisition. Jews were forced out of England in 1290, and France in 1390.

With the discovery of the Americas in the 1400’s, and the rise of slavery of Africans, it was widely argued that Africans and South Americans were not fully human and so were not entitled to their land or their freedom. Biblical explanations were offered to justify slavery and cultural destruction:

The accepted view at the time was that all people were descended from the survivors of Noah’s Ark. Europeans had found their origins as descendants of various grandchildren of Noah, dispersed after the building of the tower of Babel. Africans were assumed to be descendants of Ham and his son Canaan, whose skin was reported to have been darkened because they disgraced Noah. But where did the Native Americans come from? The Bible provided no clue. Various theories were proposed in order to grapple with the logistics of traveling from the Middle East to the Americas. Around 1600, some hardy souls suggested that the Indians had an origin separate from the biblical world. Such a view was heretical, since it denied that the Bible was the complete history of mankind. (Popkin p. 509).

This is not to say that Christianity was essentially racist: many early critics of racism were in fact members of the church. A few of the early priests in the Americas considered the Natives morally superior to the Europeans, and in 1537 Pope Paul declared that all the peoples of the world were human. This did nothing to slow the conquest of the Earth by Europeans, however.

21.7 Race and Racism at the Dawn of the Age of Reason: Count Buffon (1702- 1788) and Karl Linneaus (1707- 1778)

The Age of Enlightenment (also known as the ‘Age of Reason’) largely eliminated purely religious explanations for racial difference. Instead, natural, ‘scientific’ (or rather ‘pseudoscientific’) explanations were offered to account for racial difference. Count Buffon (1702-1788), widely considered the greatest biologist of all time, stated that all humans were members of the same species, Homo sapiens. Differences between racial groups were due, he thought, to climate and other factors. He believed that the original skin color was white. He thought that all children begin white, and gradually change color. “Due to climate, nutrition, and education, many people had degenerated from the natural condition to the varieties of mankind that we now find. If these people could be moved into a band of territory stretching from the Caucasus Mountains to northwestern Europe, fed French food, and given a French education, the differences among human beings would disappear. This assumed that all non- European qualities were due to degeneration and that the European person was the best. Buffon optimistically thought that in ten generations everyone would be transformed into Europeans, and then there would be no racial differences among people.” (Popkin: 511).

The Swedish biologist Linneaus (1707-1778) classified mankind into four permanent groups: American Indians, Asiatics, Africans, and Europeans. He defines the American Indians first: note, again, that the best qualities are attributed to the Europeans. (NB: how does his definition cohere with that of Kant? And how does this relate to Kant’s theory of human nature?)

[American Indians:] copper- colored, choleric, erect. hair black, straight, thick; nostrils wide; face harsh; beard scanty, obstinate, only content when free… regulated by customs. (2) Europeans, fair, sanguine, brawny. Hair yellow- brown, flowing; eyes blue, gentle, acute, inventive. Covered in close vestments. Governed by laws. (3). Asiatic. Sooty, melancholy, rigid. Hair black; eyes dark; severe, haughty, covetous. Covered with loose garments. Governed by opinion. (4). African. Black, phlegmatic, relaxed. Hair black, frizzled; skin silky, nose flat, lips tumid; crafty, indolent, negligent. Anoints himself with grease; governed by caprice. (Quoted in Popkin p. 510).

21. 7 David Hume: Empirical Racism

In David Hume and Immanuel Kant we see a distinction between two types of racism. Popkin calls these Empirical and Transcendental racism (Kwame Anthony Appiah, who we will read for the next lecture, calls these extrinsic and intrinsic racism). In his essay “Of National Characters,” Hume writes that

I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all of the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) [1] to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient GERMANS, the present TARTARS, have all still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are NEGROE slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity, tho’ low people without education will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly (in Popkin p.512).

As an empiricist, Hume claimed to be basing his argument on what could be directly observed. As such, he was inconsistent with the basic principle of his epistemology, as there were plenty of intelligent Africans around to contradict his assumptions. The Jamaican that Hume refers to was in fact Francis Williams, a graduate of Cambridge University, who ran a school and wrote poetry in Latin. In Hume’s day there were around ten thousand blacks in London, some of whom were professionals, one of whom was an employee of the writer Samuel Johnson. There were also at least two black professors of philosophy in Europe at the time as well: Anton Wilhelm Amo in Halle, and James Eliza Capitein in Leiden. Phillis Wheatley, an African- American poet, was in fact sent to England to disprove the likes of Hume. A French campaigner, abbé Henri Grégoire (1750-1831), published his book The Literature of Negroes in both English and French for the same reason. Yet for the following century, people would quote “the great philosopher Hume” in defending slavery and the belief that blacks are ‘sub- humans.’

21.8 Immanuel Kant: Transcendental Racism

From Popkin: “Perhaps the strongest philosophical statement of the theory of the natural and irremediable inferiority of blacks was offered by Immanuel Kant. During most of his academic life, Kant gave a course on anthropology in which he accepted much of the explorer and traveler literature uncritically” [recall that Kant never traveled in his life]. He developed a theory that what constituted the conception of humanity itself was based on feeling [and also, that what makes us human is our reason]. He thus declared that the “African has no feeling beyond the trifling,” and that therefore barely his character, is barely capable of moral action, and is a lesser human being. In his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, Kant stated:

Mr. Hume challenges anyone to cite a simple example in which a Negro has shown talents, and asserts that among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who are transported elsewhere from their countries, although many of them have been set free, still not a single one was ever found who presented anything great in art or science or any other praiseworthy quality; even among the whites some continually rise aloft from the lowest rabble, and through superior gifts earn respect in the world. So fundamental is the difference between the two races of men, and it appears to be as great in regard to mental capacities as in color. (In Popkin p. 513).

Kant goes on to reject the reasoning of a particular black man, as he was “quite black from head to foot.” (This is, of course, the Genetic Fallacy). As Popkin points out, Kant is offering, not an empirical, but a transcendental basis for the distinction between blacks and whites. The inferiority of the blacks is beyond any particular observable trait. The German philosopher Johann Gottleib Fichte (1762- 1814) (a follower of Kant), used similar (un)reasoning to explain the essential inferiority of German Jews from other Germans: a Jew can read German, a Jew can write German, but a Jew can never be German.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

You need to know that philosophers are generally amateurs on any subject other than pure philosophy

You should know what Kant and Hume have to say on the subject of race.

You should decide whether the racism of these four thinkers is contradictory, or consistent, with their own moral thought.

You should know the distinction between empirical and ‘transcendental’ theories of racism

Homework:

please read the Kwame Anthony Appiah article in the Rachels anthology.

[1] note: against Buffon, Hume describes non- Europeans as other species

What You Need to Know for the Second Test

2006-11-24T14:14:00.000+09:00

Lakeland College Shinjuku December 2006

Dr. Geoffrey Roche

Ethics 212-1

Format: Answer any TWO questions, ONLY ONE from each section. Time allowed: 1 hour 30 minutes.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR THE FINAL TEST

Section 1 Virtue Ethics (lectures 11 and 12)

You should be able to explain Aristotle’s notion of Telos (purpose), phronesis (practical reason), Eudaimonia (flourishing), and arête (excellence).

You should be able to explain some of the shortcomings of Virtue Ethics, in particular the incompleteness problem and the egoism problem.
You should be able to explain the question as to whether the wicked can flourish.

Section 2 Nietzsche and Slave Morality (lectures 14 and 15)

You should know what the Genealogy of Morals is

You should know why Nietzsche rejects all normative ethics, in particular Utilitarianism and Kant

You should know about Nietzsche’s morality.

You should know the basic flaws in Nietzsche’s ‘Genealogy of Morals’ theory.

You should think about the implications of accepting Nietzsche’s ethics.

Section 3 Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide (lectures 16 and 17)

You need to be able to give a definition of Voluntary Euthanasia
You need to be able to explain the difference between Voluntary Euthanasia and Non- Voluntary Euthanasia
You need to be able to explain the two main arguments in favor of VE: Utilitarianism (both Classical and Preference Utilitarianism) and Deontological (respect for rights).
You need to be able to explain Paternalism and Autonomy

You need to be able to explain the three STRONGEST objections to the legalization or (as in Japan) tolerance of Voluntary Euthanasia.
You should be able to explain the difference between Active and Passive Euthanasia
You should know what the Slippery Slope argument is.
You should know how the situation in Japan complicates the Euthanasia debate.

Section 4 Punishment and the Death Penalty (lectures 18 and 19)

You need to know what Retributivism means
You should know what the standard arguments in favour of the death penalty are
You should know the Utilitarian arguments both for and against the death penalty are
You should know what Rehabilitation is
You should know the ways in which Retributivism is inconsistent with Utilitarianism

You should know the strongest arguments for, and against, the death penalty.

You should know the counterarguments for these arguments.

You should be able to articulate a response to the question “should Japan retain the death penalty?”

Section 5 The Non- Medical Use of Drugs (lectures 20 and 21)
You need to know what the terms Autonomy and Paternalism are.
You need to know what the non- arbitrary distinction is between legal and illegal drugs is, or, if there isn’t one, why not, and what the distinction should be based on.
You need to know what Prohibition in the United States was, and why it failed.

You need to know the strongest arguments presented by Milton Friedman and Bob Bennett, and how each would reply. You need to be able to defend your view on dangerous drugs, whether legal or illegal. (This requires that you can cite and critically discuss AT LEAST THREE counterarguments).

Section 6 Race and Racism (lectures 22 and 23)

You should know the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic racism

You should know the distinction between empirical and essentialist theories of racism

You should know what Kant, Hume, Nietzsche and Aristotle have to say on the subject of race.

You should decide whether the racism of these four thinkers is contradictory, or consistent, with their own moral thought.

Preparation for Lectures 21 and 22: Philosophy and Race

2006-11-20T14:48:00.000+09:00

Preparation for Lectures 21 and 22: Philosophy and Race

Reference: Isaac Kramnick, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader (London: Penguin, 1995).

Discussion questions.

1). What is race?

2). What is racism?

3). What is a phenotype?

4). What is a human?

5). What is Kant’s conception of human nature?

6). Why, for Kant, are all humans morally important?

7). Are there any moral issues concerning race in Japan?

8) Can you name any cases of Japanese people as either the victims or perpetrators of

racism?

9) What, in your opinion, is the cause of racism?

10) What are the differences between the Japanese and the Korean people? And are

these differences intrinsic, or contingent (caused by cultural or environmental factors,

for example?).

Reading Questions.

We will look at three texts from the 18^th Century, written by three of the most important moral philosophers in history- David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Paine.

a). Reading David Hume Essays, Political and Philosophical (1742)

1). Why does Hume think that ‘Negroes’ (Africans) are naturally inferior to whites?

2). What counterexample to Kant’s opinion does he discuss?

3). Is his discussion of this counterexample adequate?

b). Reading Immanuel Kant The Difference Between the Races (1764)

1). What does Kant say about Chinese culture? Are these comments fair, do you think?

2). What does Kant say about the Japanese? Are these comments fair, do you think?

3). What does Kant say about African religion?

4). (p. 639). Kant reports on a black man who considered sexual equality foolish. Kant suggests that the black man had said something intelligent, then decides that he was, in fact, stupid. Why?

5). Do any of Kant’s comments on Blacks in this essay contradict his moral philosophy?

c). Reading Thomas Paine African Slavery in America (1775)

1). According to Paine, how many blacks were enslaved annually? How many were killed after one year of enslavement?

2). It was argued that slaves are simply property, and so their sale and purchase was therefore legal. How does Paine reply?

3). What is the argument from Biblical authority? And how does Paine respond?

4). What does Paine suggest be done with freed slaves? Are his suggestions ethical? Why, or why not?

Lecture 19: The Death Penalty II

2006-11-12T17:56:00.000+09:00

Lecture 19

Punishment and the Death Penalty II

19.1 References:

The handout today is from Victor Grassian Moral Reasoning: Ethical Theory and Some Contemporary Moral Problems (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1992). It is a little more complex than Rachels, but I think it is a much better book.

19.2 Preliminary questions

۞ Define the following terms: retributive justice, rehabilitation, lex talionis.

۞ What are the Utilitarian arguments in favour of the death penalty?

۞ What are the Utilitarian arguments against the death penalty?

۞ What, for Beccaria, is the purpose of the justice system?

۞ What, for Kant, is the purpose of the justice system?

19.3 Utilitarian Arguments for the Death Penalty: Analysis

19.4 The Death Penalty Saves Money

19.5The Self- Defense Argument

19.6 Arguments Against the Death Penalty

19.7 The Death Penalty is Inhumane and Anachronistic

19.8 The Death Penalty is Unjustified Retribution

19.9 The Death Penalty is Not a Deterrent

19.10 The Death Penalty is Internationally Reviled

19.11 The Death Penalty is Unfairly Applied

19.12 The Death Penalty is Irreversible, and Miscarriages of Justice are Morally Unacceptable

19.13 The Death Penalty is Barbaric

19.14 Response to 19.8: To reject the death penalty as ‘unjustified’ is a matter of faith

19.15 Response to 19.9: a). not clear either way b). biased sample fallacy? C). beside the point, if you are not a Utilitarian

19.16 Response to 19.11: Fairness is beside the point- the argument appears to presuppose that, ideally, the death penalty could be applied.

19.17 Response to 19.12: This is an acceptable loss

19.18 Response to 19.13: The Death Penalty is not all that degrading; in any case, being nice is less important than seeing Justice Served

19.3 Utilitarian Arguments for the Death Penalty: Analysis

Again, the basic idea of Utilitarianism is the maximization of happiness. Defenders of capital punishment argue that executions benefit society more than not executing them. Whether or not this is true is not a question for philosophers but for those that study society (sociologists or economists). There is no conclusive evidence either way. The question may even be too complex to be answered.

19.4 The Death Penalty Saves Money

It has been argued that the death penalty saves money, as the cost of the trial required is less than the cost of keeping someone in jail for decades. In the United States, at least, this is not the case- the cost of the trial is far greater than that of imprisonment. In countries without such a cautious legal system (China) this argument would not apply.

19.5 The Self- Defense Argument

It has been argued that society is justified in executing murderers in the name of self- defense. “The reasoning is that, in dangerous circumstances, the individual is justified in using deadly force through capital punishment. However, for this analogy to be successful, it must parallel the accepted principle that self- defense with deadly force is justified only when there is no alternative open to us (such as fleeing). This means we must see whether any alternative to capital punishment is open (such as long term imprisonment).” (Stanford Article, “Punishment”). In any case, the idea that stopping the death penalty will destroy a whole country is preposterous.

19.6 Arguments Against the Death Penalty

In the words of Justice Brennan (cited by Bedau), the death penalty is “uncivilized,”, “inhuman,” inconsistent with “human dignity” and with “the sanctity of life,” that it “treats members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be with toyed with and discarded,” that it is “uniquely degrading to human nature” and “by its very nature, [involves] a denial of the executed person’s humanity.” Let’s look at these arguments in detail.

19.7 The Death Penalty is Widely Considered Inhumane and Anachronistic

(Bedau, in Rachels RTTD: 240). Of all the democracies, Japan and the United States alone still have the death penalty. It was stopped in France in 1981; in the UK in 1971. Bedau argues that this fact alone makes it morally wrong. Bedau also argues that the death penalty is ‘old- fashioned.’

Discussion: Is this a sufficiently good reason to ban the practice?

19.8 The Death Penalty is Unjustified Retribution

Retribution does not alone justify the death sentence.

Bedau argues that, because all punishment is retributive anyway, a life sentence should be a sufficiently high punishment. (Rachels TRTTD: 238-239).

The Death Penalty is just Revenge

In the words of the Death Penalty Information Center website, “retribution is another word for revenge. Although our first instinct may be to inflict immediate pain on someone who wrongs us, the standards of a mature society demand a more measured response.” This is, as discussed in the Nietzsche lectures, the position of Nietzsche.

۞Is all retribution just revenge? According to this logic, even lifelong imprisonment for murderers is ‘just revenge.’ So should all retributive justice be scrapped?

۞ What exactly is the problem with revenge? (Is there a Utilitarian argument against revenge? What about a deontological argument against revenge? Could there be a Christian origin of this notion of love over revenge?).

۞What does ‘mature society’ mean? We practically inherited our entire Western legal system from the Romans- and they would have people killed for the fun of it.

Victor Grassian gives a sharper critique of this idea that justice is ‘just revenge.’

Those with liberal political leanings often dismiss retributivism as nothing but a rationalization for revenge. This is a mistake […] the retributive model may be the only protection a criminal can have against a Utilitarianism gone mad, for this model, unlike the utilitarian one, treats criminals as free agents who have rights protecting them from being completely at the mercy of someone else’s conception of the common good or of what it is to be an adequate human being. Grassian p.353.

That is, imagine someone who is imprisoned for stealing a sports car. The justice system thinks that ‘punishment’ is just ‘revenge,’ and so the court decides to treat the thief with a drug that makes the person, in effect, a different person. Note that this is totally different to the idea of ‘punishment.’ Is it better, or worse? (Anthony Burgess’s novel Clockwork Orange concerns this idea).

The death Penalty is Excessively Cruel

French philosopher Albert Camus[1] argued that execution is in fact a greater crime than the murder itself.

For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months.

In the same spirit, Bedau states that the Government should not use “premeditated, violent homicide as an instrument of social policy” (Rachels RTTD: 239).

Discussion:

a). Do you agree with Camus? Why, or why not?

b). Suppose that a sadistic killer imprisoned a victim, and told him or her that

they would be killed at dawn in exactly six months. Suppose also that the killer

did in fact kill their victim, and was later arrested and sentenced by a court.

According to Camus’s logic, would they deserve the death penalty?

c). Which is the worse fate? Being killed by a stranger on the street at night, without

even the opportunity to say goodbye to the people you love, or finish your projects,

or being killed by a prison system after several months of waiting?

d). Is there a moral difference between killing a stranger in the street for his wallet,

and the upcoming hanging of Shōkō Asahara? If so, what is it? Are Camus and

Bedau just wrong, then?

Van den Haag’s response: “The difference between murder and execution, or between kidnapping and imprisonment, is that the first is unlawful and undeserved, the second a lawful and deserved punishment for an unlawful act. The physical similarities of the punishment to the crime are irrelevant.” (RTTD:245).

The Families of the Victims Sometime Oppose the Death Penalty

Bedau makes this point (Rachels p.239). There are in fact societies of the families of murder victims who oppose the death penalty. But this is only a small group; in any case, in Japan and the United States many people (including the families of victims) are in favour of the death penalty.

19.9 The Death Penalty is Not a Deterrent

Bedau does not think that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. He gives two reasons.

a). A Punishment must be consistently and promptly employed

(Recall that Beccaria had made this point). Bedau notes that only 3 per cent of people sentenced for murder actually get executed. It also takes a long time to be executed, as capital trials are more expensive and complex. It is not possible to speed up the trial process without removing the safeguards necessary.

b). People who commit murder and other crimes do not premeditate their crimes.

Writes Bedau, “persons who commit murder and other crimes of personal violence either may or may not premeditate their crimes…

-When crime is planned, the criminal ordinarily concentrates on escaping detection, arrest and conviction.” Hence, the criminal thinks that he or she is too smart to get caught.

-Most crimes are committed in the heat of the moment. Bedau: “Most capital crimes are committed during moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking has been suspended.” Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox: “It is my own experience that those executed in Texas were not deterred by the existence of the death penalty law. I think in most cases you’ll find that the murder was committed under severe drug and alcohol abuse.”

c). Lifelong imprisonment appears to be just as good a deterrent.

The murder rate in the United States without the death penalty are actually lower than in states with the death penalty.

19.11 The Death Penalty is Unfairly Applied

Racism

See Rachels TRTTD: pp.233-235

It has been noted that the proportion of blacks (African Americans) executed in the United States is out of proportion to the total number of executed murderers. Notes Bedau, since the death penalty was reintroduced in the United States in the 1970’s, about half the people on death row have been black. He concedes [admits, without wanting to] that “the rate is not so obviously unfair if one considers that roughly 50 per cent of all those arrested for murder were also black.” Yet “when those under death sentence are examined more closely, it turns out that race is a decisive factor after all” (TRTTD: 235). He goes on to cite some striking examples of racism in the courts. According to some studies, one is four times more likely to be executed if one is black. Further, if the victim is white, the killer is more likely to be executed than if the victim was black (Rachels RTTD: 235). According to another set of statistics, since 1976, 202 black murderers have been executed for killing a white person, yet only 12 white murderers have been executed for killing a black victim.

Sexism

Women make up 15% of all criminal homicides, but only 1% of people on death row (Rachels RTTD: 235).

Economic Inequality

People on death row are typically poor and cannot afford a good legal defense. The corollary is that wealthy people (O.J. Simpson perhaps?) can get the best lawyers. According to Bedau, 90 per cent of people on death row could afford a lawyer, and not a single case exists of a wealthy person being executed for the crime of murder in the United States. A poorly defended murderer is far more likely to be sentenced to death.

Discussion: What is the real problem here: racism and poverty, or the death penalty? If the racism simply disappeared, and everyone could get a decent legal defense, could the death penalty be fair?

19.12 The Death Penalty is Irreversible, and Miscarriages of Justice are Morally Unacceptable

If someone is executed by a court, and the court has made a mistake, then obviously the mistake cannot be reversed. Bedau states that there have been about four innocent people per year convicted of murder. (He does not state that four people per year have been executed, however). Another source states that 121 people have been released from Death Row since 1973. During the same period, 982 people in the USA have been executed. As one commentator has concluded, that suggests that one executed person in eight was wrongly punished. With the emergence of DNA testing, a number of people have been released for crimes they apparently did not commit, although many people have been found to be innocent because of the work of journalists, not the justice system itself.

Bedau gives several reasons for erroneous judgments: “overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, faulty police work, coerced confessions, seemingly conclusive circumstantial evidence, and community pressure for a conviction [] (Rachels RTTD: 238).

See Rachels TRTTD: 236-237.

19.13 The Death Penalty is Barbaric

William Bowers of Northeastern University argues that the death penalty increases the murder rate, by ‘normalizing’ killing. (Beccaria had made this argument).

19.15 Response to 19.9: The Deterrence Argument

a). Biased Sample Fallacy

If there was a death sentence for smoking on the footpath in Shinjuku, chances are people would not smoke. So why do people think that the death penalty does not work as a deterrent? Victor Grassian criticizes this argument, noting that it may commit a Biased Sample Fallacy. Biased Sample fallacy is an erroneous argument where you base an argument on a sample size that is too small. Example: “ Can I have a cat for a pet?” “No.” “Why not?” “Tigers are cats, and lions are cats, and panthers are cats, and cheetahs are cats. All of these cats are dangerous. So you can’t have a cat, as all cats are dangerous.” The argument does not consider the cats that are not dangerous. Bedau and others who think that the death penalty is not a deterrent seem to make this argument. Murderers typically are either too sure of themselves, or too illogical, to consider the risks of getting caught at the moment of the crime. But what of everyone else? The non- deterrence argument only considers those criminals that were actually caught. Further, if we should stop using the death penalty, on the grounds that it does not work as a deterrent, why not stop using life imprisonment for killers? (See Grassian p.356). Using the same logic, we would stop all punishment, as clearly they did not work on the people that get arrested for those crimes. That’s just absurd.

b). Deterrence does seem to work on even crazy people, or people high on drugs

Grassian notes that deterrence apparently works even on insane people in psychiatric wards (Grassian p.356). As for being drunk, the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir made the following point: alcohol does not make you say or do bad thinks- it merely allows you to do or say what you wanted to say or do. Experiments with vodka have shown that merely thinking that you are drunk will make you more aggressive.[2] In any case, does one not morally responsible for getting inebriated in the first place? If the ‘drunkenness defense’ were universally accepted, if someone commits a crime, it would be advisable to get drunk immediately afterwards.

c). To emphasize the right to life of the murderer seems to neglect the importance of deterring other potential murderers.

Van den Haag makes this point.” Abolitionists appear to value the life of a convicted murderer or, at least, his non- execution, more highly than they value the lives of the innocent victims who might be spared by deterring prospective murderers…[] Sparing the lives of even a few prospective victims by deterring their murderers is more important than preserving the lives of convicted murderers because of the possibility, or even the probability, that executing them would not deter others” (TRTTD: 244)

19.16 Response to 19.11 (DP is not fair):

Fairness is beside the point-

Ernst van den Haag calls this the Distribution problem. He argues that it just is not relevant to the argument as to the fairness of how the death penalty is given. To make the argument at all presupposes that there could be an ideal, fair administration of the death sentence.

If capital punishment is immoral in se, no distribution among the guilty could make it moral. If capital punishment is moral, no distribution would make it moral. Improper distribution cannot affect the quality of what is distributed.” Van den Haag concludes that the ‘fairness argument’ is a Straw Man.’ (Straw Man fallacy is merely when a falsely bad version of the target argument is offered, for example “Darwin says our grandparents are monkeys!.” It is not really a straw man fallacy here, but a fallacy of relevance).

Only murderers are executed- the fact that not all murderers are in fact executed does not make executing some of them any less deserving. If the justice system was more fairly applied, the problem would not arise. That is, the argument appears to presuppose that, ideally, the death penalty could be fair. In the words of an Illinois black senator, himself black, who rejected pleas to stop using the death penalty: “I realize that most of those who face the death penalty are poor and black…I also realize that most of their victims are poor and black…and dead.” Cited in Grassian p. 384.

19.17 Response to 19.12: This is an acceptable loss

Ernst van den Haag bites the bullet on this one, even mentioning by name several people who may well have been executed in error. In the words of another commentator, “ we build bridges, knowing that statistically some builders will be killed during construction; we take great precautions to reduce the number of unintended fatalities. But wrongful executions are a preventable risk.” Van den Haag: “for those who think the death penalty just, miscarriages of justice are offset by the moral benefits and the usefulness of doing justice.” (Note that van den Haag combines Utilitarian and Deontological reasoning in a way that is not always clear- cut.

Discussion: Is this analogy valid?

19.18 Response to 19.13: The Death Penalty is not all that degrading; in any case, being nice is less important than seeing Justice Served

Arguably, (if one is a Kantian, of course), execution may be more dignified than being imprisoned for life, in particular if one has freely, rationally chosen to commit murder. Writes Van den Haag, “Does not life imprisonment violate human dignity more than execution, by keeping alive a prisoner deprived of all autonomy?” Of course the problem here is that this presupposes that the murderer is, in fact, rational. But admitting that murdering someone could in fact be rational ought to fly in the face of Kant’s whole scheme. If only drunken, violent idiots commit murder, on the other hand, why would we be respecting their ‘dignity? In killing them’? I have no idea which way to go on this.

19.19 Punishment and the Death Penalty in Japan

I strongly suggest that you look into how the death penalty is implemented in Japan if you are going to write an essay on it. Pure philosophy is pretty useless without some facts about what goes on in the world.

Amnesty International makes several observations concerning the implementation of the death penalty in Japan. 1). The actual implementation of the death penalty is in total secrecy, with not even family members told of when someone is actually killed. 2). The date of execution is not known to the prisoner, who can remain on death row for decades, only to be taken from their cell at a moments’ notice to be hung. This is enough to drive people insane. 3). Many Japanese on death row were apparently insane before the trial. 4). Death is by hanging, which is not typically instantaneous. The longest time to die between 1948 and 1952 was 37 minutes; the shortest was 4 and a half minutes. The average was 14 minutes. Accidental decapitation is not unknown. 4). The conditions for prisoners on death row are extremely harsh- solitary confinement, and nothing to do in a cell too small to lie down in.

Amnesty International report, “Will this day be my last? The Death Penalty in Japan.”

http://news.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA220062006?open&of=ENG-JPN

Amnesty International Report on Prison Abuse in Japan

http://news.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA220041998?open&of=ENG-JPN

Japan File

http://www.japanfile.com/culture_and_society/social_issues/death_penalty.shtml

Charles Lane “Why Japan Still Has the Death Penalty”, Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page B01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11306-2005Jan15.html

19.20 Filmography

The following films deal with issues covered in these lectures:

Stanley Kubrick, director, Clockwork Orange (discretion advised: this is difficult to watch, and is very violent).

Lars von Trier, director, Dogville (The final scene has a brilliant dialogue concerning retributive justice vs. pitying the criminal).

Marc Forster Monster’s Ball (2001)

Tim Robbins Dead Man Walking (1995)

Discussion Questions.

1). Do you think the death penalty is justified? Why?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

You should know the strongest arguments for, and against, the death penalty.

You should know the counterarguments for these arguments. ]

You should be able to articulate a response to the question “should Japan retain the death penalty?”

Homework: the Non- Medical Use of Drugs

Read the essays on the drug debate in the Rachels text, and identify the main arguments presented. Are they deontological, or Utilitarian? Or is another principle at play?

Also,

-What are some lethal, but fun activities?

-Which ones are illegal, and which ones are illegal, in Japan?

-Which ones do you think ought to be illegal, which aren’t, or vice versa?

-Which ones should have an age limit? And why would you place an age limit on them?

-Look up the terms ‘autonomy’ and ‘paternalism.’

-What does the word ‘drug’ mean?

-What is the distinction between legal and illegal recreational drugs (besides, obviously, being divided into ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’?)

[1] I hesitate to call Camus a real philosopher, but then I’d say this about a lot of French philosophers.

[2] Dr David Whitehouse 'Fake alcohol' can make you tipsy Tuesday, 1 July, 2003, 17:46 GMT 18:46 UK. BBC News Online science editor http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/3035442.stm

Lecture 17 Euthanasia II: Problems/ The Japanese Context

2006-11-06T13:20:00.001+09:00

Lecture 17
Arguments Against Euthanasia/ The Japanese Context

17.1 Objection: The Intrinsic Wrongness of Killing

Richard Doerflinger (in Rachels The Right Thing To Do, hereafter TRTTD, p.180-190, p.180) offers the standard Christian argument against euthanasia: “the deliberate killing of innocent people is always wrong.” Doerflinger goes on to state that this principle is “axiomatic” in both Christianity and Judaism.
Counterarguments:
a). Is the innocence of the people killed relevant? Sometimes a moral argument will be based on a principle that we all agree on (killing innocent people is wrong), but is used in an inappropriate way. I think that Doerflinger uses the notion of “killing the innocent” in such a way. (Recall that we can use a Deontological, Kantian argument to defend euthanasia- and yet Doerflinger himself is using the same moral principles. Is he permitted to do so?)
There is a definitional problem here: the people in question- those who want to die- are defined as “innocents.” This seems to imply that they are not deserving of punishment or death. But why is this an issue, if they are competent adults who have requested to die? That is, why is it relevant that they are innocent?

b). Is it even true that Judaism and Christianity have the axiom of not killing people?

Probably. But, as discussed in the last lecture, this is not as simple as it seems. There are a number of suicides in both Bibles, none of which is accompanied with an explicit condemnation. Judaism emphasizes the importance of this life over the next, unlike Christianity, but both have a more or less Utilitarian ethics of mercy. Further, both Judaism and Christianity traditionally allowed for killing people, for example criminals or enemies in war. Surely people who want to be dead are a special case?

c). Are the ethical axioms of the Jewish and Christian traditions relevant to non- Jews or Christians?

17.2. The Intrinsic Worth of Human Life

Doerflinger, and other Christians, hold that life has intrinsic worth. ‘Intrinsic’ is one of those flashy “philosophy’ words that sounds impressive, but we should think about what this means. It means ‘the essential nature of a thing’ or ‘inherent.’ It comes from the Latin word ‘inward.’ So it means the ‘inner properties.’ That doesn’t really explain much, so here’s an example.

The Hamburger Argument concerning Intrinsic Worth.

So what are the intrinsic properties of a good, tasty hamburger? The shape, the colors, the taste, the smell are all outer, extrinsic properties. So are the properties of making me feel full, or giving me calories. Three questions: how do we know if the burger is a good hamburger? By the intrinsic or the extrinsic properties? Secondly, how could we even know if the burger had any intrinsic properties? (Kant thought about this problem, and concluded that the inner reality of the universe is unknowable). Thirdly, how can the intrinsic properties of a burger have anything to do with whether it is a good hamburger? Is the concept of intrinsic worth even coherent?
If we ask the question “why is property x good?,” any possible answer will concern an extrinsic property. An intrinsic good has no other reason for being good. (Utilitarians think that happiness is an intrinsic good, so the question “why is happiness good?” is meaningless or absurd).
So, is life like a hamburger? That is, is it valuable because of its extrinsic properties (it is fun, it is challenging, it has a goal, etc) or is it valuable because of some strange, secret, metaphysical property independent of any extrinsic good?

Peter Singer: Life has No Intrinsic Worth

Peter Singer thinks that the value of continuing life is not intrinsic but extrinsic. He also thinks that it is not obvious that adequate respect for the sanctity of human life prohibits ending a life. In fact, Singer thinks that suicide/ voluntary euthanasia may be life- affirming if the only alternative is being reduced to a shadow of one’s former self (Cholbi “Kant and the Irrationality of Suicide,” 2002). Perhaps the worth of my life is eradicated as I am forced to watch my own body fall apart around me, and experience my own mind disintegrate.
So, the real statement that Doerflinger should be asserting is “Being Trapped in Hospital in Incredible Unending Pain with No Hope of Recovery and Wishing You Were Dead is Of Intrinsic Worth.”

17.3 Objection: Suicide/ Euthanasia is Contrary to Nature

Recall that Kant had argued that suicide is contrary to the ‘laws of nature,’ meaning the ‘laws of reason,’ as he understood them.
- Socrates had also argued that suicide contradicts the ‘law’ that all living things want to live. This claim would seem to have been disproved by every successful suicide (in any case, self destructive behaviour in animals is not so uncommon; octopuses suicide by eating their own limbs; male spiders and praying mantises suicide, in effect, when they get involved with the females of their kind. For an animal to truly suicide, it would have to understand the concept of death, such as monkeys or elephants). As for the idea that death is contrary to nature, this seems to be contradicted by the fact that all organisms eventually die naturally.

The following argument is from J.Gay-Williams, “The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia,” in White ed. Contemporary Moral Problems Pp.99-102).

Euthanasia does violence to this natural goal of survival. It is literally acting against nature because all the processes of nature are bent towards the end of bodily survival.

When one of our goals is survival, and actions are taken to eliminate that goal, then our natural dignity suffers. (White p.101).

-The Naturalistic fallacy seems to be committed here.

Another variant of naturalism in the euthanasia debate:

J.Gay – Williams: we cannot euthanise people in pain because “suffering is a natural part of life with values for the individual.” (in White p.102).

17.4 Objection: Suicide/ Euthanasia is against Human Dignity

Keep in mind that the dispute here is over Voluntary Euthanasia. The prior question to ask here is “what is dignity?” Christian critics typically refer to our dignity as beings created in God’s image, or some variant of naturalism- it is ‘undignified’ to want to die, as it is natural to want to live (as White argues above). Pro-euthanasia people also refer to dignity. So the debate is really over what this word means.

We may legitimately ask: why is merely being alive more dignified than being dead? We typically prevent prisoners from killing themselves. Why? Because we want them to complete their sentences. We want them to suffer. We don’t want to let them have the dignity of escaping. (Arguably).

17.5 Objection: Suicide/ Euthanasia is Contrary to God’s Will

This is simply the view that God does not want us to kill ourselves.

One objection that has not been addressed in the literature that I have read: God is going to kill us all anyway. So why should he care if we do it ourselves?

These arguments are from David Hume, and are taken from Michael Cholbi’s Stanford Encyclopedia article “Suicide”.

1). If by ‘divine order’ is meant the causal (that is, scientific) laws created by God, then it would always be wrong to contravene these laws for our own happiness. But we always
act to protect ourselves from disease or some other misfortune. So why would God allow us to disturb nature in some circumstances and not in others?
(Simple example: I look up and see a brick falling down towards me. If I step out of its way, I am contravening God’s decision to kill me).

2). What does ‘divine order’ mean?
a). Discerned by reason, or b). such that adherence will produce our happiness (or absence of sadness), then why should suicide not be consistent with such orders? (Recall Bentham: a benevolent God would simply accept voluntary euthanasia).
3). If God placed us on Earth as a ‘sentinel,’ surely God gives us consent to quit if he allows us to go through with the act of self- destruction.

Other Traditional Christian Arguments: Life is God’s Gift/ We are God’s Property

If we are God’s property, we are a very strange sort of property, as we were apparently also given free will. If we are free and rational beings, how can we be dominated in such a way?
-The argument presupposes that God does not wish his property to be destroyed (or rather, destroy itself). But how could our death harm an all- good, all powerful Creator? And how could such a deity be all- Loving? If something exists that causes me harm or extreme pain (such as my life), am I not justified in destroying it?
Michael Cholbi: If life is God’s gift, how is a painful life, lived out to the bitter end, a ‘gift’?

17.6 Objection: Suicide/ Euthanasia is a violation of one’s obligation to the
Community
Paul Henri Baron d’Holbach (1723- 1789) gives the following argument (note the combination of Utilitarianism and Social Contact theory here: we join the Contract for our happiness; if the Contract cannot make us happy, the contract is void.).

If the covenant which unites man to society be considered, it will be obvious that every contract is conditional, must be reciprocal; that is to say, supposes mutual advantages between the contacting parties, the citizens cannot be bound to his country, to his associates, but by the bounds of happiness. Are these bonds cut asunder? He is restored to liberty: Society, or those who represent it, do they use him with harshness, do they treat him with injustice, do they render his existence painful? Chagrin, remorse, melancholy, despair, have they disfigured to him the spectacle of the Universe? In short, whatever cause it may be, if he is not able to support his evils, let him quit a world which from henceforth is for him only a frightful desert. (my italics) (d’Holbach 1970: 136-137, in Cholbi p.11).

In plain English: Our obligation to the community is a reciprocal obligation, that is, a contract: if life is no longer worth living, the deal is off.

17.7 Objection: VE is not necessary; palliative and hospice care are sufficient
Robert Young: Neither palliative care not hospice care is a panacea (perfect cure). Young notes that even high- quality palliative care can involve side effects such as vomiting, nausea, incontinence, loss of awareness due to semi-permanent drowsiness, and so on.

The ‘rosy picture’ painted of hospice and palliative care is misleading, he argues: “for those who prefer to die on their own terms and in their own time, neither option may be attractive. For many dying patients, the major source of distress is having their autonomous wishes frustrated.” Young p.4

17.8 Objection: Competence Problem (The Rationality of Suicide)

a). The Incoherence Argument

Richard Doerflinger argues that suicide is always irrational, and that the “right to suicide” is the “ultimate contradiction.” He reasons as follows: a “free act that by destroying life, destroys all the individual’s future earthly freedom.” Hence, “society best serves freedom by discouraging rather than assisting self-destruction.” (Doerflinger TRTTD:182).
Is this really a contradiction?

b). Depression and Rationality

How do we know that the patient’s wish to die is truly “competent, enduring and genuinely voluntary” (in the wording of Euthanasia regulations)?
Cholbi: depression can “primitivize [make simple and basic] one’s intellectual processes,” leading to errors in estimating probabilities. Depressed people can focus on present agonies in an irrational way. So perhaps their decision to die is not sound (Cholbi p.12).
Replies: a). This does not concern every case (unless we bite the bullet and declare all
people who want to die to be ‘irrationally’ suicidal)
b). People could write a ‘living will’ beforehand.

17.9 Objection: Active vs. Passive Euthanasia

In both Japan and the USA, passive euthanasia is considered acceptable in some cases, but not active euthanasia, which is classified as murder.

Young argues that this distinction is morally arbitrary: “There is a widespread belief that passive (voluntary) euthanasia, in which life  sustaining or life  prolonging measures are withdrawn or withheld, is morally acceptable because steps are simply not taken which would preserve or prolong life (and so a patient is allowed to die), whereas active (voluntary) euthanasia is not, because it requires an act of killing.

Recall Aya Okubo’s objection from lecture 16: a) the doctor is supposed to intervene to help people, so it is not as if the doctor is morally innocent if he or she simply does nothing; b). the doctor has made a conscious decision to ‘do nothing.’

Young: The passive/ active distinction is more a matter of pragmatics than morality.

-The distinction is vague- what is the moral difference between pulling the plug on a machine, or neglecting to replace the oxygen tanks or the battery? Or walking slowly to a room after a request for urgent assistance? Are these acts or omissions? Passive euthanasia or active euthanasia? In any case, the intention is the same- to end the life of the patient.

Rachels: Cousin in the Bath Thought – Experiment

Rachels uses the following thought- experiment to illustrate what he things is the arbitrary distinction between passive and active euthanasia.

In the first [case], Smith stands to gain a large inheritance if anything [fatal] should happen to his six- year old cousin. One evening while the child is taking his bath, Smith sneaks into the bathroom and drowns the child, and then arranges things so that it will look like an accident.

In the second [case], Jones also stands to gain if anything should happen to his six- year old cousin. Like Smith, Jones sneaks in planning to drown the child in the bath. However, just as he enters the bathroom, Jones sees the child slip and hit his head, and fall face down in the water. Jones is delighted; he stands by, ready to push the child’s head back under if it is necessary, but it is not necessary. With only a little thrashing about, the child drowns all by himself, “accidentally,” as Jones watches and does nothing.

(In White p. 105).

Rachels continues: “if a doctor deliberately let a patient die who was suffering from a routinely curable illness, the doctor would certainly be to blame for what he had done…it would not be a defense at all for him to insist that he “didn’t do anything.” (in White p. 106).

Reply : Tom L. Beauchamp

Beauchamp uses a Utilitarian argument in favour of keeping the active/ passive distinction, for two reasons:

1). Patients wrongly diagnosed as hopeless, and who will survive even if a treatment is ceased (in order to allow a natural death),

2). Patients wrongly diagnosed as hopeless, and who will survive only if he treatment is not

ceased (in order to allow a natural death). (Beachamp, in White p.113).

Discussion: Are these arguments compelling? Or are the problems with maintaining the distinction (if it is indeed morally arbitrary) serious enough to override these considerations? What are the costs of maintaining the distinction?

17.10 Objection: The Doctrine of Double Effect
J.Gay-Williams argues that ‘passive euthanasia’ does not exist. If the life- saving treatment is ended, he argues, the patient is not killed:

“nor is the death of the person intended by the withholding of additional treatment…the aim may be to spare the person additional and unjustifiable pain, to save him from the indignities of hopeless manipulations…” (in White p.100).

Reply: Young:

..giving massive doses of morphine far beyond what is needed to control pain, or removing a respirator from a sufferer from motor neurone disease would seem… to amount to the intentional brining about of the death of the person being cared for… it is highly stilted to claim, as some doctors do, that the intention is anything other than the intention to bring about death” (Young p.6).

17.11 Objection: “pro-choice” arguments for euthanasia are not, in fact, pro- choice (Richard Doerflinger).
Deontologists who support voluntary euthanasia appeal to the Deontological principle to respect the choices of others. But Doerflinger argues that this is contradictory (the argument here is continuous with the ‘contradiction’ argument above).
He argues that the choice to die is analogous to the choice to sell oneself into slavery, as it negates the possibility of choosing. (Note the Kantian language here: the choice to die is a denial of one’s free, rational nature, as, once you’re dead, you are no longer free and rational).

“pro- choice” is not really “pro- choice” because a living patient is still capable of freedom of choice. Pro- voluntary euthanasia people are in fact inconsistent as they both respect and do not respect choices, Doerflinger argues, because ‘corpses do not have choices.’ “On this view, suicide is not the ultimate exercise of freedom but its ultimate self- contradiction: A free act that by destroying life, destroys all the individual’s future freedom.” (TRTTD:182).

A dying person capable of making a choice of that kind is also capable of making less monumental free choices regarding the assessment of his or her own past life and the resolution of his relationships with family and friends. (TRTTD:183)

What are we to make of this? How is the choice to have chicken instead of ham for lunch, or any other decision that the terminally ill may make, as significant as the wish to die? Keep in mind Doerflinger’s claim: that he, not the pro-Euthanasia people, truly respects people’s choices.
It appears that Doerflinger’s commitment to respect people’s decisions is in fact the commitment to respect people’s decisions that agree with his own Catholic Orthodoxy.

17.12 Objection: Pragmatic argument (some last-minute discovery may be made).
One of the requirements of the VE guidelines is that no last- minute discovery is likely to come about. In any case, it is not a compelling argument for all cases: a last- minute discovery is going to either be in the development or the experimental stage for a long time after its discovery.

17.13 Slippery Slope Argument

Doerflinger gives a number of clustered arguments which are essentially a slippery slope argument. That is, accepting euthanasia will lead to a corruption of society’s prohibition on murder.
“removing the taboo against assisted suicide will lead to destructive expansion of the right to kill the innocent.” (Rachels TRTTD: 181).
The Coercion Problem: “older people will feel like ‘useless burdens.’
Official acceptance of the rationality of death may lead to the belief amongst old people that they are just eccentric or selfish for wanting to stay alive.
The Will to Power Argument - Doctors will develop a ‘taste for killing’
Definition Shift: The definition of ‘terminally ill’ will become broader.

A similar argument, given by

Gay-Williams:

…euthanasia as a policy is a slippery slope. A person apparently hopelessly ill may be allowed to take his own life. Then he may be permitted to deputize others to do it for him should he no longer be able to act. The judgment of others then becomes the ruling factor. Already at this point euthanasia is not personal and voluntary, for others are acting “on behalf of” the patient as they see fit…it is only a short step to ….involuntary euthanasia conducted as part of a social policy….The category of the “hopelessly ill” provides the possibility of even worse abuse. Embedded in a social policy, it would give society or its representatives the authority to eliminate all those who might be considered too “ill” to function normally any longer. (in White p.102).

hence, accepting VE would lead to a Nazi- like mass murder. The same argument is offered by Doerflinger:

Robert jay Lifton has perceived differences between the German “mercy killings” of the 1930’s and the later campaign to annihilate the Jews of Europe [some 6 million innocent and for the most part healthy people] yet still says that “at the heart of the Nazi enterprise…is the destruction of the boundary between healing and killing.” (In Rachels TRTTD: 187).

And again, in Beauchamp:

…once killing is allowed, a firm line between justified and unjustified killing cannot be securely drawn. …it is…a matter of historical record that this is precisely what happened [during the ]Nazi era, where euthanasia began with the best intentions for horribly ill, non-Jewish Germans and gradually spread to anyone deemed an enemy of the people. (in White p.111).

The implication here is that allowing VE will lead inexorably (inevitably) to mass murder of innocent people who are perfectly healthy. This is bad history, bad logic and bad psychology.

(Note however that this is a weak version of the Slippery Slope argument).

17.14 Replies to the Slippery Slope Argument against VE

a). Rachels: Slippery Slope arguments are difficult to prove
“Because such arguments involve speculations about the future, they are notoriously hard to evaluate.” (Rachels EMP: 10). Rachels notes that, in 1978, when the first ‘test-tube’ baby was born, there were very dire predictions of all sorts of disasters that this technology would cause. The technology has since become routine.

b). The logic of the connection between VE and mass murder of handicapped people is implausible.

Firstly, consider Doerflinger’s argument that allowing VE will lead to doctors just killing handicapped people without consent. How are the arguments for allowing the terminally ill, in extreme pain, to die with professional assistance, if they want to die, in any way relevant to the issue of the rights of handicapped people to not be murdered?
Recall that the basic argument for VE is the argument from mercy. So how do we go from this decision:

Voluntary Euthanasia: value judgment: pain is bad

to this type of decision?

Involuntary ‘euthanasia’ of handicapped people who don’t want to
be dead: value judgment: people who are handicapped are useless
and should be killed.

Doerflinger thinks that the first decision will lead to people accepting the second. Is this plausible?

Young:

It is …difficult to see the alleged psychological inevitability of moving from voluntary to non- voluntary euthanasia. Why should it be supposed that those who value the autonomy of the individual and so support provision for voluntary euthanasia will, as a result, find it psychologically easier to kill patients who are not able competently to request assistance with dying? What reason is there to believe that they will, as a result of their support for voluntary euthanasia, be psychologically driven to practice non- voluntary euthanasia? (Young pp.6, 7)

c). Arguments based on Nazi policy are grossly inaccurate.

Young again:

There never was a policy in favor of, or a legal practice of, voluntary euthanasia in Germany in the 1920’s or 1940’s…There was, prior to Hitler coming to power, a clear practice of killing some disabled persons; but the justification was never suggested to be that their being killed was in their best interests…Hitler’s later revival of the practice and its widening to take in other groups such as Jews and Gypsies was part of a program of eugenics, not euthanasia. (Young p.7).

Concerning the idea that euthanasia will be more common if it is legalized, a). this argument presupposes that it is a bad thing, and b). there is no evidence (as in the Netherlands) that the rate will in fact increase. Young also notes that euthanasia is already practiced; so long as it is kept illegal, euthanasia will be secret and hence unregulated. Legalization will be better monitored if it is legal. (Young p.7).

17.15 The Relevance of Medical Costs

It has been argued that the costs of life- sustaining treatment is simply irrelevant to moral decision making. David Seedhouse, an avowed Kantian, has argued this.

This strikes me as naïve. If the treatment of a terminally ill person who wants to die is costing as much as the life- saving vaccination of thousands of young children, we have to consider the lives saved by ending the (futile) treatment of the terminally ill. As the costs of medical care for the terminally ill soar, and resources are limited, we may be forced into a life-raft situation.

17.16 The Situation in Japan
Several factors specific to the medical profession in Japan complicate the euthanasia debate. These are:

a). Legal and moral vagueness
b). A reluctance to openly discuss the issue

c). socioeconomic pressure to self-sacrifice

d). Paternalism within the Japanese health system

e). Inadequacy of nursing care in the Japanese health system

f). Underdeveloped hospice care.

a). Legal and Moral Vagueness

Misao Shirai, of the Japanese Society for Dying with Dignity, notes that there is no official standard or procedure to oversee euthanasia. As noted in Lecture 16, the guidelines in Japan were set in court, not by the Health Department itself. A related problem is the tradition of Ishin-Denshin, that is, of oral agreements concerning death and dying, rather than having anything official written down. Such arrangements as ‘living wills’ and multiple doctor and psychiatrist reports approving of euthanasia would be impossible without paperwork.

b). A reluctance to openly discuss the issue

Shirai adds: “We [Japanese] often shun or loathe death, and people don’t consider death as their own problem. I think that goes a long way to explain people’s attitude towards euthanasia.” Noritoshi Tanida, a doctor at the Yamaguchi University School of Medicine, notes that in 1996, during the Keihoku Hospital case, there was a public pretence that euthanasia in Japan did not exist and that nobody asked for it. Yet between 40 and 70 per cent of people surveyed the same year stated that they would be in favor of euthanasia.

Tanida notes: In a recent survey, it was found that only 15% of terminally ill patients’ requests for euthanasia were honored. Most were forced artificial nutrition until they died. If an unconscious, bedridden person get pneumonia, they are given antibiotics. Why? So that the doctor in question is not condemned as being a murderer (Tanida p.7). Tanida points to a Japanese tendency to scapegoat people, rather than deal with the real issues.

Reference: Shane Mcleod “Japanese doctor sparks euthanasia debate.” The World Today (Australian Broadcasting Company http://ww.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1605759.html).

c). Socio-Economic Pressure to Self- Sacrifice

Kenzo Hamano, a philosopher at Kwansei Gakuin University, notes that defending euthanasia in the name of autonomy is not so simple here. “In Japan, the concepts of self- determination and autonomy tend to be used to cover up the explicit and implicit socio- economic and political pressures upon individual’s decision making processes. With the actors pretending [that] these pressures do not exist; people’s decisions are then treated as if they are in fact free and autonomous ones” (Hamano p.2).

…”Not all seemingly autonomous decisions are in fact authentically autonomous; there are many features of contemporary pressures upon an individual to make a particular choice. In other words, these external pressures tend to make the other alternatives [appear] unrealistic or unacceptable.” He adds that the traditional “virtue of self- sacrifice” is not really a tradition at all, and is a consciously invented tradition dating from the Meiji period. He adds that it is not a virtue to will one’s own death in the name of the community but a “manifestation of the low quality of the Japanese attitude towards life.”

d). Paternalism

According to Rihito Kimura, there is a tradition of not explaining to terminally ill people the true nature of their condition, on the grounds that this is the most appropriate way to proceed. Yet a Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper poll in 1991 showed that 65% of people said that they would prefer to be given full diagnostic information even if they were terminally ill. Patients frequently do not have access to the information necessary to make their health care wishes known.

There is now only a gradual change from the traditional view that accept without question the decisions of their doctors.

e). Inadequate Care

Japanese doctors use less morphine (a standard opiate painkiller) than those of any other developed country. Japan uses 12.9 grams of morphine per person per day, compared to:

Australia 101.9g

Canada 92.8g

USA 64.2g

If doctors simply do not care about the welfare or happiness of the patients (which is a standard complaint by Japanese medical ethics experts), it is likely that patients are more likely to want to die. Euthanasia guidelines require that everything must be done to minimize the patient’s pain. Until the health system does this as a matter of course, discussion of legalizing euthanasia are premature.

The quality of nursing care in Japan is also inadequate. Nursing care work is underpaid, stressful, physically and mentally exhausting. There are no accurate figures on exactly how stressful it is, which itself suggests official negligence. The situation is so bad that there have been a number of murder- suicides- a nurse kills a patient (perhaps in euthanasia? Hamano is not clear), and then kills herself (or himself). Hence, the term “nursing- care hell” (kaigo-jigoku) is a common phrase in Japanese.

Hospice care is also inadequate. A hospice is basically a facility for caring for the terminally ill, expected to live about six more months, as comfortably as possible. There are about 126 million people in Japan, and each year, there are about 250,000 Japanese who are dying from cancer. In the whole country there are around 60 hospices and 1000 beds between them. Further, according to Hamano, most doctors do not understand the purpose of hospices.

Conclusion: A complete overhaul of the entire health system is required before the issue of euthanasia can be dealt with.

YOU NEED TO KNOW
You need to be able to explain the three STRONGEST objections to the legalization or (as in Japan) tolerance of Voluntary Euthanasia.
You should be able to explain the difference between Active and Passive Euthanasia
You should know what the Slippery Slope argument is.
You should know how the situation in Japan complicates the Euthanasia debate.

References
Frances Howard-Snyder “Doing vs. Allowing Harm,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/
Robert Young “Voluntary Euthanasia” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/euthanasia-voluntary/
Rihito Kimura “Death and Dying in Japan,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Vol. 6
No.4, 1996 http://www.bioethics.jp/licht_biodying.html
Kenzo Hamano “Should Euthanasia be Legalized in Japan? The Importance of the
Attitude Towards Life” in Asian Bioethics in the 21st Century. Eubios Ethics Institute
(CD and online resource) 2006http://www2.unescobbk.org/eubios/ABC4/abc4110.htm
Norito Tanida “Implications of Japanese religious views towards life and death in
medicine”, in Asian Bioethics in the 21st Century. Eubios Ethics Institute (CD and
online resource) http://www2.unescobkk.org/eubios/ABC4/abc4288.htm.
Michael Hoffman “Hospital death spurs debate on euthanasia,” Japan Times April 9th
2006
Roy W. Perrett “Buddhism, euthanasia and the sanctity of life,” Journal of Medical
Ethics, Vol.22 No.5 October 1996
Michael Cholbi “Suicide” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy May 2004
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/
Ze'ev W. Falk “Jewish Perspectives on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1998 - 1999), pp. 379-384

The following texts are in the Lakeland Shinjuku library:

William Dudley, ed. Death and Dying: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven
Press, 1992)
Lisa Yount, ed. Euthanasia (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002).
Tom Beauchamp, ed. Intending Death: The Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia
(Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1996).

James E. White, ed. Contemporary Moral Problems 3rd Ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing
Company, 1991)

The White text contains the following essays:

J.Gay-Williams “The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia” in James E. White, ed. Contemporary Moral

Problems 3rd Ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1991):99-103

James Rachels “Active and Passive Euthanasia” in James E. White, ed. Contemporary Moral

Problems 3rd Ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1991):103- 107

Tom L. Beauchamp “A Reply to Rachels on Active and Passive Euthanasia,” in James E. White, ed.

Contemporary Moral Problems 3rd Ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1991):107-

115

Peter Singer “Justifying Voluntary Euthanasia,” in James E. White, ed. Contemporary Moral Problems 3rd Ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1991): 115-120

[1]Rihito Kimura “ Should Euthanasia be legalized in Japan?” p.4
[2] The Dalai Lama, “Letter to the Editor,” Asiaweek 1985 Nov 1: issue 73.
[3] Noritoshi Tameda “Implications of Japanese religious views towards life and death in medicine,” Ebios Ethics Institute http://www2.unescobkk.org/eubios/ABC4/abc4288.htm. Email: tanida@cilas.net
[4] Ze'ev W. Falk “Jewish Perspectives on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1998 - 1999), pp. 379-384doi: 10.2307/1051471

Lecture 16 Euthanasia I

2006-11-06T13:19:00.000+09:00

Lecture 16 Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Under existing laws people suffering unrelievable pain or distress from an incurable illness who ask their doctors to end their lives are asking their doctors to become murderers.

Peter Singer Practical Ethics (in White, ed. p.116).

Preliminary Discussion:
Hospital death spurs debate on euthanasia Japan Times April 9th 2006

1). What is the difference between ‘passive’ and ‘active’ euthanasia?
Do you think there is a moral difference between the two?
2). The unnamed chief surgeon in the story has disconnected seven respirators from terminally ill patients, killing them. Why did he do this? And what was his motivation?
a). Was his motivation ethical?
b). Even if it was ethical, was it the correct decision?
3). Masahiro Ishimaru criticizes the “50-year old surgeon” on trial for disconnecting respirators. He reasons: “A doctor’s motivation is rooted in an absolute commitment to saving life- that’s why I don’t feel comfortable with disconnecting respirators.” Do you agree?
4). According to Ishimaru, “liking people” means keeping them alive for as long as possible, no matter what. Is this correct, in all cases?
5). Do you agree with the view that Japanese law is too vague on this issue? If so, how could the law be made more exact?
6). What would the benefits be in making the law more explicit?

16.1 Definition of Voluntary Euthanasia
Robert Young defines euthanasia as follows:

When a person carries out an act of euthanasia, he brings about the death of another person because be believes the latter’s present existence is so bad that she would be better off dead, or believes that unless he intervenes and ends her life, it will become so bad that she would be better off dead. The motive of the person who commits an act of euthanasia is to benefit the one whose death is brought about. (Young Euthanasia: 1)

Voluntary euthanasia is defined as a case where the person who is killed volunteers to be killed. Non- voluntary euthanasia is defined as a case where the person killed does not give consent, because they are either not competent (as the case with very young children) or unable to. Involuntary euthanasia is where a competent person’s life is ended against the explicit wishes of the person killed. (One wonders if the latter is even logically possible, insofar as euthanasia means ‘good death.’)
In these lectures we will only be concerned with voluntary euthanasia, and whether it should be legal (or illegal).

16.2 Necessary Conditions for Candidacy for Voluntary Euthanasia
Advocates of voluntary euthanasia contend that if a person meets the following criteria, voluntary euthanasia should be legally permissible.

1). The person is suffering from a terminal illness

2). The person is unlikely to benefit from the discovery of a cure for that illness during what remains of his or her life expectancy

3). He or she is, as a direct result of their illness, either suffering intolerable pain, or will only have a life that is unacceptably burdensome (because the illness has to be treated in ways that lead to her being unacceptably dependant on others, or on life support machinery)

4). He or she has a strong, enduring and voluntary wish to die (or has already expressed such a wish, but has now lost the capacity to do so),

5). He or she is unable to commit suicide by themselves.

(After Young Euthanasia).

Japanese law tolerates active euthanasia, and has done so for some time. The Japanese Medical Association has approved of euthanasia if the following conditions are met (this follows the Yokohama District Court ruling of a 1995 mercy killing case at Tokai University Hospital). The Japanese Academy of Science and Art has also approved of these rules, so long as the euthanasia is passive euthanasia (defined below, 16.3).
Active euthanasia requires the following conditions to be met:

1). The patient’s death is inevitable and imminent
2). The patient is suffering from unbearable physical pain
3). The doctor has done everything possible to remove the pain
4). The wish of the patient has been made clear. [1]

16.3 Active vs. Passive Euthanasia
Active euthanasia involves a deliberate act which results in the patient’s death, such as giving a lethal injection. Passive euthanasia involves a deliberate omission, such as removing hydration (water), nutrition (food) or machines that maintain airflow. Many medical associations and laws make a moral distinction between the two, suggesting that active euthanasia is morally worse than passive euthanasia. We will discuss this debate in the next lecture.

16.4 Historical Background

Philosophical Discussion on Suicide and Euthanasia
The Classical World: The Greeks and Romans were fairly tolerant of voluntary death, and certainly did not believe that all human life is intrinsically sacred and valuable.
Socrates argues that suicide is always wrong as we are essentially relieving ourselves (that is, our souls) from a ‘guard post’ (that is, our bodies) that the Gods have given us as a punishment.
Plato held that suicide is not immoral in the following circumstances:
a). when one’s mind is morally corrupted
b). When the self- killing is by judicial order (as in the case of Socrates, who was ordered to kill himself)
c). When the self- killing is compelled by extreme and unavoidable personal misfortune
d). When self- killing results from the shame of having done some terrible injustice.
The Stoics and Epicureans thought that simply killing yourself because life is no longer valuable was not morally problematic. Seneca, a Roman philosopher, had this to say: “mere living is not a good, but living well.” He also stated that a wise person “lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can.”

16.5 Early Modern Period:
Euthanasia has been prohibited in Western medicine roughly since the 15th Century, with the introduction of the Hippocratic Oath (an early Greek ethical code for medical practitioners).
In the 16th Century, Thomas More, in his text Utopia, envisaged a community where those with lives that were merely burdensome due to ‘torturing and lingering pain’ could request euthanasia.

16.6 Later Modern Period: Nietzsche

Many die too late, and some die too early. yet strange sounds the precept: “Die at the right time!”
Die at the right time! So teach I, Zarathustra.
…My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me because I want it.
Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra

Discussion: Nietzsche cared for neither deontology nor Utilitarianism, so what is the basis for his apparent advocacy of voluntary death? Is it a good idea, or not?

16.7 The Current Legal Status of Euthanasia
One Australian state (Northern Territories, 1997) Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium have essentially legalized euthanasia. Japan tolerates euthanasia, as mentioned above (the situation in Japan will be discussed more thoroughly in the next lecture). U.S law still considers all euthanasia to be equivalent to murder. (Recall the case of Dr. Anna Pou, charged with murdering patients at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina). For further details of the history of euthanasia, and the current status of euthanasia laws around the world, see the Stanford article Voluntary Euthanasia by Robert Young.

16.8 Cultural Background: The Buddhist Approach
There is little explicit discussion of the ethics of either suicide or euthanasia, or indeed any bioethical issue, in the Buddhist texts. Most of the secondary literature on this topic is reconstructive or speculative (that is, scholars have to guess or ‘reconstruct’ what the practical implications of Buddhist concepts might be).
Does Buddhism condemn suicide? On the one hand, the Vinaya considers assisting a suicide as a breach of monastic discipline (that is, against the rules that monks must abide by), resulting in expulsion. Yet even in the Pali canon (amongst the oldest Buddhist writings) the suicide of monks, so long as it was done out of the correct motivation, was acceptable. In Japanese Buddhism, even the non-voluntary euthanasia of infants was traditionally accepted.
The Dalai Lama himself has given the following statement:

In the event a person is definitely going to die and he is either in great pain or has virtually become a vegetable, and prolonging his existence is only going to cause difficulties and suffering for others, the termination of his life may be permitted according to Mahayana Buddhist ethics.[2]

16.9 Cultural Background: Buddhism and Shinto in Japan

In Japan, Buddhist and Shinto groups are far more tolerant of euthanasia than are Christian groups. Both Buddhist and Shinto groups advocate “being natural” when medical treatment becomes futile for the terminally ill. (One assumes that this means accepting ‘passive euthanasia’). Some Buddhist groups take prolongation of life using artificial means to be a “disgraceful act against life”; others claim that the patient should cede all control to the doctors, whilst some Shinto groups are accepting of full active euthanasia. In one survey, at least one Zen Buddhist group held that it was up to the patient what the best decision was. In short, the literature on the subject suggests that there is no consensus in Japanese religion as to whether euthanasia should be
permissible. [3]
Question: What are the merits of the principle of ‘being natural?’

16.10 Cultural Background: The Jewish Approach

There are two suicides in the Torah/ Old Testament, and neither is condemned within the text for being a suicide. Suicide is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments as being a specific sin. The first explicit discussion of suicide in Jewish writings appeared in the Semachot, and is a clear condemnation. [4]
However, some Jewish religious experts think that if something hinders the departure of one's soul--for example, if the sound of a woodchopper can be heard close by the house, or if there is salt on the dying person's tongue--it is permitted to remove this noise or the salt. There is also a story in the Talmud (the Jewish law book) that has been interpreted as defending euthanasia. As a rabbi lay dying, his disciples gathered in prayer to prolong his life. Their prayers were unable to restore him to health, sufficing only to keep him alive in great pain and suffering. Seeing this, his maidservant climbed to the upper chamber of the house and tossed a glass vase to the ground. The crashing sound interrupted the praying, and Rabbi died. The Talmud’s authors do not condemn her action, implying approval of it.

16.11 Cultural Background: The Christian Approach

St. Augustine, in the text The City of God (5th Century) condemned suicide. His argument was based on an original reading of the Biblical commandment “thou shalt not kill.” The rest of his arguments were taken from Plato’s Phaedra.
-Many Christians believe in the sanctity of human life; that is, humans are created in the image of God, and that human life itself is the miraculous gift of a divine Creator. Therefore, they argue, they must not kill themselves.
-The standard modern Christian view is that one’s life is the property of God and that to destroy it is to go against God’s wishes. (We’ll discuss David Hume’s counterargument in the next lecture).

The Donatists: Ironically, some early Christians believed that dying as soon as possible was the right thing to do, and would frequently kill themselves or had themselves be killed for the sake of spiritual perfection. (They considered this ‘martyrdom’). The logic is simple enough: This World is corrupt, and the longer one lives, the more opportunity one has to sin. Further, Tertullian, an early Christian, thought that Jesus’s death was a suicide (so, to live the life of Jesus required having someone else kill you, in effect). The Donatist Church, which flourished in the 4th and 5th Centuries in Roman Africa, was such a group. Some have suggested that St. Augustine’s explicit ban on suicide in Christianity was as a result of the Donatist Heresy.
-For the record, many early Christians were famous for doing risky, self- destructive things in the name of their faith, so the condemnation on killing yourself seems a little peculiar, given the reasoning offered (ie. self destruction is against God’s wishes, or that human life is a divine gift, etc). Origen of Alexandria, a major Christian thinker, allegedly castrated himself; medieval penitents were famous for scouring themselves with whips.

General Problems with relying on Religious Traditions for Ethical Guidance:
All of the religious texts cited here- the Buddhist canon, the Torah, Talmud and New Testament- were written thousands of years ago, by people who had no idea of the ethical problems presented by new medical technologies. Even if we assume that the basic ethical principles of these traditions are still tenable, we still need to work out what those principles are, and how to best implement them. Shinto and Japanese Buddhism are extraordinarily vague on bioethical issues; the ethical principles of Judaism and Christianity (like the deontological approach that they inspired) can run into conflict. The more general problem: philosophy begins when we can no longer rely purely on received tradition to make important, sound decisions.

16.12 The Problem of New Technologies; Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Measures

a). The Problem of Progress in Medical Science
Euthanasia has become a much more pressing problem in recent decades because of massive advances in technology used to prolong life. Whereas, until the mid- 20th Century, the chronically ill would simply die, it is now possible to keep chronically ill people alive for years. Consequently, technology can now stretch out physical and intellectual suffering in the very ill to an unprecedented degree.

b). Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Treatment.
It is often argued that there is a relevant distinction between ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’ medical treatment. While it is always necessary to use ‘ordinary’ medicine to take care of people, it is morally permissible to remove ‘extraordinary’ treatments. Writes one Christian commentator:

The Church makes a distinction between “ordinary” and “extraordinary” medical treatment. We are required to administer all ordinary treatment because of the dignity of human life and the natural respect owed the person. When death is imminent, we may administer extraordinary treatment according to the wishes of the patient. Extraordinary treatments are those that offer little hope of benefit and are burdensome, such as procedures that are experimental or overly aggressive.

Discussion: Is this a morally relevant distinction? Or is it arbitrary?

16.13 The Utilitarian Argument for Euthanasia: The Argument from Mercy

No human being with a spark of pity would let a living thing suffer so, to no good end.

Stewart Alsop, (in Rachels TRTTD: 176).

According to Utilitarianism, one should maximize pleasure (or whatever absolute good), and minimize pain. Further, Utilitarianism requires that we make the choice with the optimum consequences. When a patient wants to die, due to incurable and unbearable pain, we should assist them. As Rachels puts it, “[t] erminally ill patients sometimes suffer pain so horrible that it is beyond the comprehension of those who have not actually experienced it.” (Rachels “The Morality of Euthanasia,” TRTTD: 175-179, p.175). It is worth reading pp.175-177 of the Rachels essay here just to get a sense of how horrible life may be for the terminally ill.
Rachels gives the following formulation of the Argument from Mercy:

1). Any action or social policy is morally right if it serves to increase the amount of happiness in the world or to decrease the amount of misery. Conversely, an action or social policy is morally wrong if it serves to decrease happiness or to increase misery.

2). The policy of killing, at their own request, hopelessly ill patients who are suffering great pain would decrease the amount of misery in the world.

3). Therefore, such a policy would be morally right. (Rachels TRTTD: 177).

Defenders of euthanasia, against their Christian opponents, make the following point: How could merciful euthanasia oppose the wishes of a benevolent, all- loving, merciful God? (more on this argument in the next lecture).

Note: This argument presupposes Classical Utilitarianism, that is, the reduction of all value down to pleasure- maximization and pain- minimization. Recall the criticisms we’ve already discussed concerning the limits of such a doctrine. Are these criticisms relevant to the Argument from Mercy?
Someone might say: -“Is happiness the only thing to be considered? What about other things, like knowledge, or achievement? Perhaps an unhappy life could still be good because of achievements or knowledge.” (James E. White Contemporary Moral Problems p.99)
-discussion: how is this problem relevant to this case? We are, after all, talking about Voluntary Euthanasia.

The Question of Fear.
Some argue that doctors will become more likely to kill patients without consent if euthanasia is legalized. This will lead, they argue, to fear and insecurity in hospitals.
Singer replies:

In fact, the argument from fear points in favour of voluntary euthanasia, for if voluntary euthanasia is not permitted we may, with good cause, be fearful that our deaths will be unnecessarily drawn- out and distressing.” (White, ed. p.117).

16.14 Euthanasia and Dignity

Given that the terminally ill may be bedridden, in extreme pain, and incapable of any sort of valuable life, it can be argued that euthanasia may be a more dignified death than merely wasting away. Rachels cites a description of one ‘Jack,’ a terminally ill cancer patient who was reduced to crying like a dog when his painkillers ran out; “always poor Jack’s whimpers and howls would become more loud and frequent until at last the blessed relief [the morphine] came.”

16.15 The Preference Utilitarianism Argument for Euthanasia/
Respect for Autonomy

A Preference Utilitarian may also argue that we should maximize people’s choices, including the choice to die, or to refuse medication. (Recall the standard objection to Preference Maximization: some people may just have incorrect preferences. Is this objection valid here?). This appears to be the view of Singer.

It is […] highly paternalistic to tell dying patients that they are now so well looked after they need not be offered the option of euthanasia. It would be more in keeping with respect with individual freedom and autonomy to legalize euthanasia and let patients decide whether their situation is bearable- let them… have the dignity of choosing their own endings. (in White, ed. p. 119).

Interestingly, the Deontological approach- the respect for autonomy, is very similar to the Preference- Maximization approach. Simply put: we must respect people’s autonomy, in particular their free, rational choice to end their own lives.

Writes Robert Young,

There is no single, objectively correct answer as to when, if at all, life becomes a burden and unwanted. But that simply points up the importance of individuals being able to decide autonomously for themselves whether their own lives retain sufficient quality and dignity to make life worth living. Given that a critically ill person is typically in a severely compromised and debilitated state, it is, other things being equal, the patient’s own judgment of whether continued life is a benefit that must carry the greatest weight… (Young Euthanasia p.3).

16.16 Broader issues: Paternalism vs. Autonomy

One of the more general problems behind this debate is the clash between paternalistic principles, and the principle of respecting autonomy. In simple terms, a paternalistic approach holds that people are simply not capable of deciding for themselves what is best for them, and so they need to be told what to do, or have certain products or choices taken away from them. To respect autonomy, on the other hand, is to accept and facilitate the decisions of the individual. Obviously, a blanket condemnation of voluntary euthanasia will be paternalistic; accepting the choices made by patients (including the decision to die) appears to be unambiguously pro- autonomy.
This issue will reappear when we discuss the drugs debate in Lectures 21 and 22.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
You need to be able to give a definition of Voluntary Euthanasia
You need to be able to explain the difference between Voluntary Euthanasia and Non- Voluntary Euthanasia
You need to be able to explain the two main arguments in favor of VE: Utilitarianism (both Classical and Preference Utilitarianism) and Deontological (respect for rights).
You need to be able to explain Paternalism and Autonomy

Reading Homework for Lecture 17.
Please try to read the two essays on euthanasia in Rachels The Right Thing to Do, “The Morality of Euthanasia” by James Rachels and “Assisted Suicide: Pro-Choice or Anti-Life?” by Richard Doerflinger.
-Identify and summarize the arguments
-Which arguments are the strongest?
-Which arguments are the weakest? Why are they weak? And how would you respond?

Lectures 20 and 21 The Non- Medical Use of Drugs, Paternalism and Autonomy

2006-11-03T14:08:00.000+09:00

Lecture 20
Autonomy, Paternalism, and the Non- Medical Use of Drugs I

In all things there is a poison, and there is nothing without a poison. It depends only on the dose whether a substance is poison or not.
Paracelsus

20.1 References for this lecture
Milton Friedman, “An Open Letter to Bill Bennett,” in The Wall Street Journal, September
7th, 1989, A14. In Rachels, ed. The Right Thing to Do pp.248-252
William J. Bennett, “A Response to Milton Friedman,” in The Wall Street Journal,
September 7th, 1989.
Gerald Dworkin “Paternalism,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism
John Christman “Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy,” in The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/autonomy-moral/
The World Health Organization
www.who.int/substance-abuse/facts/psychoactives/en/index.html
National Institute of Drug Abuse
http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/heroin.html
http://www.nida.nih.gov/PDF/Infofacts/Heroin06.pdf
National Institute on Drugs
http://www.drugabuse.gov/PDF/RRMarijuana.pdf
National Institute on Aging
http://www.niapublications.org/agepages/alcohol.asp
Geoffrey Stokes, Peter Chalk, Karen Gillen, eds. Drugs and Democracy: In Search of New
Directions Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000.
Roderick Seeman’s JapanLaw.info
http://www.japanlaw.info/law2003/2003_SEX_LAWS.html
Greater Dallas council on alcohol and drug use
http://www.gdcada.org/statistics/alcohol.htm
Narconon Southern California
http://www.gdcada.org/statistics/alcohol.htm
20.2 Preliminary Discussion Questions

1). What are some lethal, but enjoyable activities?
2). Which ones are legal, and which ones are illegal, in Japan?
3). Which ones, presently legal, do you think should be illegal?
4). Which ones have an age limit? Is the age limit appropriate, do you think? Or is it
too low?
5). What does the word ‘drug’ mean?
6). What is the non- legal distinction between legal and illegal drugs?

20.3 General Introduction: Drugs, Paternalism and Autonomy
We can speak of roughly two basic principles in public policy- the principles of paternalism and autonomy. Broadly speaking, a paternalistic approach to policy treats the populace as a father treats his children; the people are considered too uninformed or irrational to decide for themselves, and the State must decide for them what is acceptable or safe conduct. Legislation that respects autonomy, on the other hand, allows people to make their own decisions. Legislation concerning drugs, in most countries, are a mixture of the two approaches. Here we will consider the debate on drugs, which is largely intelligible in terms of paternalism vs. autonomy. In particular, we will consider Milton Friedman’s view that all drugs should be legalized, and William J. Bennet’s view that illegal drugs (note that he does not suggest banning tobacco or alcohol) should remain illegal.
As far as philosophy goes, there is not a lot of fancy debating to really do here. The problem is really down to questions of science (how dangerous are the drugs in question?), sociology (what are the social consequences of banning, or legalizing drugs?) and economics (what are the costs of banning, or legalizing, drugs?). The first lecture will go over a). the autonomy vs. paternalism divide, b). the basic facts relevant to the debate, and c). what the various moral positions and approaches (Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Social Contract, Paternalism, respect for Autonomy) imply concerning drug legislation. The second lecture will concern the specifics of the Friedman vs. Bennet debate (Rachels The Right Thing to Do: pp.248-254). This latter lecture will be mostly concerned with analysing arguments, rather than the debate in general.

20.4 Paternalism
“Paternalism is the interference of a state or an individual with another person, against their will, and justified by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected against harm.” (Gerald Dworkin, “Paternalism”). Examples of paternalism: seatbelt and crash- helmet laws, anti- drug legislation, and, in the medical context, withholding of relevant information about an illness or treatment, or forcing the patient to take some medication or accept some treatment against their will. People may be prevented from engaging in paid employment (pornography, prostitution, or being “thrown,” in the bizarre ‘sport’ of ‘dwarf- tossing’) that is considered degrading. The basic philosophical and political question is: what powers should the state have to coerce its citizens? And what are the limits of autonomy?
One of the implications of a paternalistic approach is that it is assumed that the subject is not rational. If the subject is not rational, then (assuming a Kantian approach) they are not morally responsible for doing stupid things, such as riding a motorcycle without a helmet, or taking dangerous drugs. On the contrary, a paternalistic approach would seem to require that drug- users are merely foolish, and should be helped to see the error of their decisions. Retributive punishment would appear to be inappropriate.

20.5 Autonomy

Individual autonomy is [the idea that one should have the capacity] to be one’s own person, to live one’s life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one’s own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces… to be autonomous is to be one’s own person, to be directed by considerations, desires, conditions, and characteristics that are not simply imposed on one, but are part of what can be somehow be considered one’s authentic self. (John Christman “Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy”)

Advocates of drug law reform argue, in the words of Bill Hicks, “it’s not a war on drugs. It’s a war on personal freedom.”

20.6 A Possible Reply: Using Dangerous Drugs is Similar to Selling Yourself into Slavery
…one might prevent people from taking mind-destroying drugs on the grounds that allowing them to do so destroys their autonomy and preventing them from doing so preserves it. This is essentially Mill’s argument [and Kant’s] against allowing people to contract [sell themselves] into slavery. (Dworkin. “Paternalism.”)

Discussion: To what extent do drugs (legal, or illegal) or other activities (gambling, computer games) impair autonomy? Can the state coherently respect autonomy by banning some activities that impair autonomy?

20.8 What does the term ‘drug’ mean?
A drug is any substance that is ingested for non- dietary (food) needs. That is, it is a substance that will cause some effect besides nourishing the organism, whether a mental or a physical effect. The body will produce its own bio- chemicals, such as hormones, that cause changes in the body and mind, so the distinction between drugs and internal chemicals is a little artificial. Insulin, if produced by the body, is a hormone, but if it is external to the body, it is a drug. Drugs used to alter consciousness, that is, psychoactive drugs, work because of this similarity between brain chemistry and the chemistry of the drug.

Why are psychoactive drugs philosophically interesting?

As such, psychoactive drugs are philosophically interesting in a deep way, as they appear to prove that materialism is true. That is, if a physical, chemical change in the body can alter consciousness, this proves that the mind is in a deep sense dependent on the body to exist. Philosophers and others interested in this subject: Jean- Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Henry James, Humphrey Osmond, Lewis Carroll, Aldus Huxley, Phillip K. Dick.
Here’s what Immanuel Kant has to say on the effects of tobacco:

There is [in our senses of smell and taste] …a susceptibility to certain objects of external sensations which are merely subjective and operate upon the organs of smelling and tasting by a stimulus which is neither smell nor taste…. Apart from any consideration of any medical benefit or injury, which may result from the secretion of fluid in the organs of both senses, this craving is, as a mere excitation of the sense- feeling, an oft- repeated stimulus recollecting attention to one’s own state of mind, which would otherwise lull to sleep or become boring through sameness and monotony. Instead, these means of stimulation always intensify the feeling of the senses as the doses are administered. This kind of familiarity of a man with himself takes the place of fellowship, because in place of conversation it fills an emptiness of time not with conversation but with continuous newly excited and quickly vanishing sensations that have to be renewed as stimuli time and again. (Immanuel Kant Anthropology form a Pragmatic Point of View, 49,7:160-1).

20.7 Prohibition in the United States:

Whisky and beer have their place, but their place is in hell.

Billy Sunday, Prohibitionist

Friedman and Bennett both mention the Prohibition Era, which is central to the current debate on drugs, but which neither author explains. What the Prohibition period was, why it happened, and why it was scrapped are important questions that shed some light on the argument in favour of decriminalizing illegal drugs.

a). What was Prohibition?
Prohibition (capital ‘P’) was the era in the United States when all alcohol sales were banned.
The first anti- alcohol laws were enacted in 1851. By 1893, political groups whose main agenda was to stamp out alcohol, had emerged. From 1920 until 1933, all alcohol was effectively banned from sale.

b). Why was it enacted?
The idea originated with predominantly middle- class Protestant Christian groups (the Catholics opposed the ban). The reasoning was straightforward welfare paternalism: society would be better off without ‘demon rum.’ Employers were concerned that their workers were too drunk. 33 states had banned alcohol sales completely by 1920.

c). Why did it fail?
Public Health
People obtained ‘medicinal’ alcohol (which was still legal) with forged prescriptions, or drank industrial alcohol that had had the poison removed. Illegal manufacturers produced “rotgut” alcohol, which was often toxic. In 1923 coroners reported that one hundred people had died from drinking poisonous, illegal alcohol.

The Creation of Organized Crime Syndicates

America’s Organized crime syndicates- the Mafia and so on, were created by the prohibition of alcohol. Illegal importers (‘bootleggers’) imported alcohol in from Canada and Mexico.

Because of the complexity of the operations, the bootleggers quickly organized themselves into alliances and cartels that could control their activities. Law and order began to break down as corruption spread virus-like into public life. In a famous trial in Indiana in 1923, it was revealed that protection monies were paid to: "the mayor, the sheriff, a judge of the city court, the prosecuting attorney for the county, a former sheriff, a former prosecuting attorney, a deputy sergeant, a justice of the peace, an influential lawyer, and former deputy sheriffs, detectives, policemen, petty lawyers, bartenders, cabaret singers and notorious women." As the cartels grew, and gang rivalry diminished, so the power and profits were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Al Capone's annual earnings were estimated at the time of his arrest to be $60 million. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, an elaborate syndicate of organized crime, built on the multi-million dollar bootlegging industry, had survived. The American Mafia branched out into narcotics, gambling, prostitution, loan sharking and extortion, concerns they still control today. How much power and influence, financial or political, this phenomenal industry now wields is unthinkable, and unknowable, except by those in charge.

http://www.ephidrina.org/alcohol/prohibition.html

The ban on alcohol was lifted because it was creating crime on a scale that was so vast, it posed a threat to law and order.

20.9 How destructive are drugs?
The entire debate on drugs is due to the fact that illegal drugs are extremely dangerous. They are dangerous in two ways. Firstly, illegal drugs can kill through causing diseases, or (in the case of heroin and AIDS) acting as a vector (‘pathway’) for a disease, through death outright (in an ‘overdose,’ or excessive dose), or in the case of psychedelic drugs, through causing irrational and delusional behaviour, psychosis, or, more subtly, causing sometimes extreme changes in personality and worldview. Suicides apparently caused by psychedelic drug use are known. On the outset, it seems to make good sense to keep such substances illegal. So why do people disagree?
There are two problems that should be clarified before we approach the Friedman- Bennett debate, as they are central to understanding their disagreement.
a). On what grounds should a state ban dangerous activities?
b). Some illegal drugs are less dangerous than some legal drugs. We have, argue many, an inconsistency problem.
Here are some basic facts on drugs, both illegal and legal.

Tobacco:
Diseases caused by:
Number of people killed: Tobacco kills half of all lifetime users. From the World Health Organization website: “Tobacco kills more than AIDS, legal drugs, illegal drugs, road accidents, murder, and suicide combined…of everyone alive today, 500,000,000 will die of tobacco.”
Psychological effects: Improves short term memory and relieves stress.

Heroin:
Diseases/ dangers: fatal overdose, collapsed veins, also risk of infection with another drug through needle- sharing (HIV/AIDS), hepatitis. Street heroin also is full of impurities which makes it far more dangerous than pure heroin. It does not actually cause any disease besides heroin addiction.
Psychological effects: Physical addiction causes extreme distress when the drug is not available. (This can begin only a few hours after the last injection). Withdrawal produces craving, restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, vomiting, diarrhea, cold flashes and goose bumps, an kicking movements. Sudden withdrawal by unhealthy addicts can be fatal. (Heroin withdrawal is considered less dangerous than barbiturate or alcohol withdrawal).
Number of users: 9 million worldwide. (4% of the world’s population).
1.2 million occasional users in the USA.
Cost of maintaining a heroin addiction in the US: 150-200$ a day. (that’s 23,568 yen- or 8,602,320 yen per year).
Number of heroin- induced deaths in the USA in 1999:4,820

Alcohol:
Psychological problems: Impairs judgment, coordination, and reaction time, increases the chances of accidents, including falls; adds to the risk of car crashes. Alcoholism can lead to conflicts with family, friends, coworkers, and strangers.
Medical problems: Heavy drinking can cause cancer, liver cirrhosis, immune system disorders, brain damage. Drinking can make older people forgetful and confused.
Number of people killed: (USA)
More than 100,000 U.S. deaths are caused by excessive alcohol consumption each year. Direct and indirect causes of death include drunk driving, cirrhosis of the liver, falls, cancer, and stroke
Traffic crashes are the greatest single cause of death for persons aged 6–33. About 45% of these fatalities are in alcohol-related crashes
Alcohol kills 6½ times more youth than all other illicit drugs combined

Marijuana:
Number of users world wide: 147 million people -2.5% of the world’s population.
An estimated 2.6 million Americans use marijuana for the first time each year. According to a 2003 national survey, 94 million Americans (40 per cent of the population) have used marijuana at least once.
Number of people killed, worldwide, in history, (estimate): 0.
It is not possible to overdose.
Psychological problems: Impairs cognitive (intellectual) development in younger people; impairs coordination for up to a day after smoking. Chronic use is thought to lead to addiction. It may also make schizophrenia worse.
Physical problems: chronic use can cause airway and lung damage. It is thought to perhaps be linked to cancer.
Medical applications: antidepressant, treatment of asthma and glaucoma, appetite stimulant, anticonvulsant, anti- spasmodic, alleviation of nausea.

Sources:
World Health Organization
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Discussion Questions:
Should tobacco products be banned in Japan?
a). What is a Utilitarian reason for such a ban?
b). What is a Utilitarian reason against such a ban?
c). What would a Social Contract theorist say, on this question?
d). What would a Kantian say, on this question?
e). What would a Virtue Ethicist say about the use of tobacco?
f). What would a Cultural Relativist say about the use of tobacco?
g). If people selling tobacco illegally (that is, after it is banned) are punished, what sort of
theory of punishment would be appropriate- retributive, or rehabilitative?
h). If people caught with tobacco for personal use were punished, what sort of theory
of punishment would be appropriate- retributive, or rehabilitative?
i). If tobacco were banned, would the penalties be as harsh as those for possessing
marijuana and heroin, or lighter? Or the same? Why?
.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
You need to know what the terms Autonomy and Paternalism are.
You need to know what the non- arbitrary distinction is between legal and illegal drugs is, or, if there isn’t one, why not.
You need to know what Prohibition in the United States was, and why it failed.

Homework:
Please decide which of the following topics you would like to cover in the last lecture.

Environmental Ethics
Just War Theory
Homosexuality
Animal Rights
Sexism
Racism

(These are all covered in the Rachels text).

Lecture 21
The Non-Medical Use of Drugs II
Friedman vs. Bennett

21.1 References for this lecture
This lecture will be largely concerned with analyzing the arguments in the letters written by Milton Friedman and William J. Bennett.

21.2 Preliminary discussion questions
21.3 James Rachels’ Gloss
In introducing the two letters by Friedman and Bennett, Rachels cites the following statistics:
1). The United States of America has a massive prison population, six times greater than that of any Western European nation. One in six Americans will serve jail time. Rachels notes that this is a direct consequence of the so- called “War on Drugs”: in 1999, 61% of those in jail are there due to drugs charges.
2). Rachels notes also that there is a particularly racial element to this incarceration: 28% of black men will be incarcerated at some point in their lives (he does not, however, say that those 28% will be in jail due to drugs charges).
3). Rachels notes that the “War on Drugs” cost 19.2 billion dollars in 1999, yet in the same year Americans spent 30 billion dollars on (assumedly) illegal drugs.

Discussion questions:
a). How are these figures relevant to the debate on legalizing drugs?
b). What type of moral philosophy is being assumed here?
c). What are some of the problems of this type of moral philosophy?
d). Are these problems (in your answer to question c). relevant to the drugs debate?

21.4 Milton Friedman: The Question of Personal Freedom
Friedman begins the letter with the following line:

The drug war cannot be won by those tactics without undermining the human liberty and individual freedom that you and I cherish. (RTTD:249).

Questions:
a). What tactics does Friedman mean?
b). Friedman evokes the principles of ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom.’ What sort of ethical theory is he presupposing, do you think?

21.5 “The War of Drugs is Making the Situation Worse” Argument.

Friedman makes the following claim (RTTD: 249).

The very measures you favor are a major source of the evils you deplore.

What does this mean? It means that the methods used in the United States to control drug use are in fact making the situation worse, and harming society. (Remember the divide between the criminology of Beccaria and Kant. For Beccaria, the justice system is simply a tool for making society happier. For Kant, the Justice System is merely a tool to punish bad people. Which side does Friedman support, do you think? )
How, according to Friedman, do the strategies used in the US to control drug use make the problem worse?

21.5a Illegality creates Profits
As mentioned above, the amount of money spent on fighting the drug problem is already very high, but cannot match the amount of money spent by people on illegal drugs. The better the police control of supply, the rarer the drugs, the higher the price. It is the same principle with rare paintings or coins. An article in The Economist last year put it in these terms: cocaine is so profitable that, were a drug dealer to buy a Learjet, use it to ship a load of cocaine, and then dump the jet, it would only take a 5% increase in the sale of the cocaine to cover the loss. (A secondhand Learjet costs between 500,000 and a million dollars U.S). Drug dealers are reportedly using submarines purchased from the Russians to make shipments.

21.5bi Profits increase organized crime
When Prohibition ended, organized crime dropped by half. Banning drugs creates enormous black markets, and criminal groups generate capital used in other crimes.

21.bi.i Profits create ‘Narco-terrorism’
(Not in Friedman). Heroin is frequently used by terrorist or guerilla groups to generate wealth quickly. Afghanistan is the world’s largest supplier of heroin and opium, and the economy is largely based on drug manufacture. So long as heroin is illegal, the profits will always be high enough for the terrorists/ liberators to buy more weapons to fight the Americans with.

21.5c The War on Drugs draws police resources away from ‘simpler’ (more serious?) crime prevention
“illegality monopolizes the efforts of honest law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight the simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault.” p.249.
To argue against this claim, we would have to bite the bullet and agree that smoking or selling marihuana is just as great a crime as robbery, theft, assault, or rape.

Punishment in Japan for illegal drug possession: 1-3 years with heavy labour, fine of up to 5,000,000 yen.
Punishment in Japan for assault: 1-2 years in prison; 100,000- 500,000 yen fine
Punishment in Japan for rape: 2 years maximum
Punishment in Japan for robbery: 5 years maximum

Discussion: What do you think?

21.5d The War on Drugs corrupts the police force

“Illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials” p.249.
Just one recent example-
CNN Law Center, “Drug Bust leads to Huge Police Corruption Probe.”
November 3rd, 2006.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/02/sheriff.indictment/index.html

21.5e Making Drugs Illegal makes them Glamorous and more attractive to young people
This argument has been used by others concerning the proposed ban on tobacco.
(Is this plausible, do you think?)
21.5f The Illegality of Drugs makes the drugs less pure, less reliable, and hence more dangerous
If you gave even a seasoned junkie (heroin addict) a syringe of pure heroin, they’d probably die. Why? Because the purity of heroin now is down to 5%. The impurities in street product make it far more dangerous than pure heroin, as pure heroin would be too powerful for the user to handle. Friedman notes that ‘crack’ cocaine was invented because it was more profitable and easier to smuggle than ordinary cocaine. Recall that this happened during prohibition in the US. Arguably, if tobacco was made illegal, the same thing would happen.

Note:
“drugs are a tragedy for addicts…” p. 250.

Friedrich Nietzsche Jean- Paul Sartre Sigmund Freud Aldous Huxley
Dennis Hopper Jack Nicholson Ken Kesey
Louis Blériot Lou Reed David Bowie Mati Klarwein
Phillip K. Dick John Lennon Paul McCartney George Harrison
Syd Barrett Eric Clapton Vincent Van Gogh Oscar Wilde Michel Foucault
Henry James Jimmy Hendrix Jim Morrison Graham Greene Bob Marley
Charles Baudelaire Ernst Fuchs Henri Michaux Bill Hicks Anais Nïn
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

21.6 What is the alternative to treating drugs as a criminal problem?

Holland, Mexico, and other countries treat drug use as a medical issue, rather than a criminal one. The World Health Organization notes that one dollar spent on education and prevention does the work of seven dollars spent on legal and punitive measures. This is Friedman’s suggestion.
…even if a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug usage and in the harm done to the users could be dramatic (TRTTD:250).

Discussion: What is the moral principle that Friedman is adhering to here?
Is the reasoning sound, do you think?

21.7 The War on Drugs: Critique of Methods Used.

A country in which shooting down unidentified planes “on suspicion” can be seriously considered as a drug- war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations (TRTTD: 251).

What is Friedman talking about?

When the Peruvian air force shot down a civilian Cessna last week, killing missionary Veronica Bowers and infant daughter Charity, it was the CIA-contracted crew of a U.S. surveillance plane who had tagged the tiny craft as a suspected drug carrier. This so-called "liberal shoot-down policy" would never be tolerated in this country, but it's been part of U.S. policy in Latin America for years. In fact, military forces there, aided by the U.S., have "forced down" over 120 planes suspected of transporting drugs, according to the 1999 congressional testimony of General Charles Wilhelm.
JoAnn Kawell “Drug Plane Shoot-Down Policy In Latin America,” International Relations Center
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0105shootdown.html

21.7 William J. Bennett: Counterarguments

Bennett understands Friedman to be making the following claim.

Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse.

There’s an interesting aspect to this debate: Friedman is an economist, and Bennett used to be a university philosopher. Yet Friedman has better arguments. In fact, Bennett uses some sneaky rhetoric.

21.8 The Proposed Solution is No Solution
First example: the argument for legalizing illegal drugs has been “revived by a small number of journalists and academics who insist that the only solution is no solution at all.”
point 1. A “small number” of people advocate legalizing drugs.
- is this true? Just a small number?
-is it relevant that only a small number hold this view?

point 2. Bennett states that Friedman’s solution is “no solution at all.” Is that accurate?
(Clue: are there laws concerning legal drugs?)

21.9 Legal Availability leads to Mass Addiction
“Addiction is rampant in peasants involved in drug addiction.”
Is wine legal in France? Does Japan produce sake?

21.10 Legalizing drugs will cause harm

Drug legalization will lead to lost productivity, health insurance costs, hospitals “flooded” with overdoses, and more drug caused accidents.
Discussion:
a). What type of moral reasoning is being used here?
b). how many people each year in Japan are admitted into hospital due to overdoses on
marijuana?
c). Is this a good argument?
d). If this argument is sound, shouldn’t we make tobacco illegal?

21.11 Drug users will not seek treatment unless they are forced to.

Bennett writes:
But the simple fact remains that many drug users won’t enter treatment unless they are forced to- often by the very criminal justice system you think is the source of the problem. (p.253).

The argument is this: the laws against drugs are necessary, as they allow the courts to force drug users into therapy.

Question: Under the current laws, for which merely possessing heroin is a serious crime, what risks does a heroin addict face in going to a health clinic voluntarily?
Again, which is better- treating the heroin addict as a patient who needs help, or as a criminal?

21.12 Drug reform may reduce crime, but it will not disappear.

Your proposal might conceivably reduce the amount of gang- and dealer- related crime, but it is fanciful to suggest that it would make crime vanish. (p.253).

21.13 Drug reform would harm children and pregnant mothers

And as for the potential addicts, for the school children and for the pregnant mothers, all of whom would find drugs more accessible and legally condoned, your proposal would offer nothing at all.

What is the argument here?

21.14 Conclusion: more police and more prisons
Bennett concludes his letter by arguing for more police involvement and harsher measures, to “take drug users off the streets.” Why? “I believe drug use is wrong,” and “a true friend of freedom understands that government has a responsibility to craft and uphold laws that help educate citizens about right and wrong.”

-Do all immoral things have to be made illegal? Could there be examples where an immoral act is best not punished by the law? Why not?

-The conclusion is that “drug use is wrong.” Assuming that tobacco and alcohol are dangerous drugs, do you think that Bennett, to be consistent, should advocate prohibition all over again?
-Would that be a good idea? Why, or why not?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

You need to know the strongest arguments presented by Milton Friedman and Bob Bennett, and how each would reply. You need to be able to defend your view on dangerous drugs, whether legal or illegal.

Lectures 18 Capital Punishment I

2006-11-03T14:07:00.000+09:00

Lecture 18
Punishment and the Death Penalty I
Arguments Against the Death Penalty

Errata: Aya Akakubo, not Aya Okubo, should have been cited in Lecture 17

-start- any questions from previous lectures on euthanasia?

18.1 References for these lectures

Hugo Adam Bedau “The Case Against the Death Penalty,” in James Rachels, ed. The Right
Thing To Do 3rd Ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003): 231- 240
Earnest Van Den Haag “A Defense of the Death Penalty,” in James Rachels, ed. The Right
Thing To Do 3rd Ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003): 240- 247
Antony Duff “Legal Punishment,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-punishment/ (updated Jan 2001).
Hugo Adam Bedau “Punishment,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/punishment/
[no author cited] “Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty,” Death Penalty
Information Center http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/c/about/arguments/contents.htm
(accessed November 8th 2006).
[no author cited] “Cesare Beccaria,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,”
http://www.iep.utm.edu/b/beccaria.htm accessed Nov 6th 2006
Cecil Greek “Cesare Beccaria,” in lecture notes, Criminal Theory course, Florida State
University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice archives
http://criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/beccaria.htm

18.2 Review
1). The following arguments have been offered in favor of the death penalty. (Yeah yeah I know, we’ve already gone over these…)
a). The death penalty prevents future murders. (That is, the death penalty acts as
a deterrent).
b). In a fair society, if you kill someone, society should kill you.
Do you agree, or disagree? What do your colleagues think?
2). The following arguments have been offered against the death penalty.
c). If the court makes a mistake, an innocent person may be killed.
d). Sometimes the death penalty is used unfairly.
Do you agree, or disagree? Why?
3). Do you think that Japan should retain the death penalty? If so, for which crimes?
4). What do you think a Utilitarian would say about the death penalty, or about punishment in general?
5). What would a Kantian say about the death penalty, or about punishment in general?

Lecture Outline: Lecture 18
Introduction to the Topic
Historical Background
Retribution
Retribution and Kant
The Utilitarian Approach
The Utilitarian Approach: Beccharia
Other Arguments in favour of Punishment and Execution
Other Theories

Introduction

Capital Punishment, or the death penalty, is defined as the execution of a criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ‘Capital’ here means ‘head,’ so a ‘capital punishment’ is one that involves, literally or figuratively, the loss of your head.

What crimes are capital crimes?
murder, drug smuggling, sexual crimes (in Iran this can just mean having sex with someone of your own gender), insubordination or desertion (disobeying an order, or leaving the Military without permission during battle), or treason still carry the death penalty in various countries.
What countries still have the death penalty?
Sixty – nine countries still have the death penalty. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and the US are the only developed, democratic countries that still have the death penalty.

Where are children executed?
Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen.

How is it done?
Drawing and quartering used to be common. The guillotine was widely used in Europe since its invention in the 18th Century. Lethal injection and firing squad and electric chair are more modern methods. Hanging is still widely used. Death may not be instantaneous; the spinal chord can snap, but the punished person may remain conscious and simply bleed to death internally.

Retribution: (Lex talionis)

The traditional justification of punishment, and in particular the death penalty, is retribution. As Rachels puts it, this is simply the idea that we need to ‘pay back’ the harm caused by the murderer. As a ‘theory of punishment,’ the term used is Retributivism.
The earliest known retributive justice code was the Law of Hammurabi, written in the 18th Century BCE (that is, 38 centuries ago)-

If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. If it kills the son of the owner, then the son of that builder shall be put to death.

The most important expression of this code is in the Torah (Old Testament).

Exodus 21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Leviticus 24:17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.18 And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.21 And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.
Both Christianity and Judaism oppose execution, however, opposed by both Moses Miamonides (a 12th Century Jewish philosopher) and Jesus: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…”
Kant is the most important theorist of Retributivism.

When someone who delights in annoying and vexing peace- loving folk receives at last a right good beating, it is certainly an ill, but everyone approves of it and considers it as good in itself even if nothing further results in it. (in Rachels EMP:134).

Here’s Ernst Van den Haag, in Rachels RTTD:245

The punishment [the murderer] suffers is the punishment he voluntarily risked suffering and, therefore, it is no more unjust to him than any other event for which one knowingly volunteers to assume the risk. The death penalty cannot be unjust for the willing criminal.” (RTTD:245).

For a retributivist, the only justification for punishment is to give what the criminal deserves. Hence, it is neither Utilitarian nor consequentialist (as with Kant’s theory in General). Kant again:
Judicial punishment can never be administered merely as a means for promoting another good either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil society, but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime. (Rachels: EMP: 134).

The second principle of punishment for a retributivist is that the punishment must be proportional to the crime.

But what is the mode and measure of punishment which public justice takes as its principle and standard? It is just the principle of equality, by which the pointer of the scale of justice is made to incline no more to the one side than the other…Hence it may be said: “If you slander another, you slander yourself; if you steal from another, you steal from yourself; if you strike another, you strike yourself; if you kill another, you kill yourself.” This is…the only principle which… can definitely assign both the quality and the quantity of a just penalty. (in Rachels EMPp.137).

Kant went as far as to say that a society, even were it to disband, is morally required to execute whoever is in jail for murder, even if they had no means of escape (Rachels p.137).

Problem: how does one respect a criminal by executing them? Or even putting them in jail?
The attempt to rehabilitate (‘teach’) the criminal insults the dignity and intelligence of the criminal. Rachels: “it is a violation of their rights as an autonomous being to decide for themselves what sort of people they will be.”…”We do not have the right to violate their integrity by trying to manipulate their personalities” [a la Alex in Clockwork Orange, the novel by Anthony Burgess]. Rachels points out that we need to distinguish between two opposing principles here:

a). Treating someone as a responsible being
and b). Treating someone as a being who is not responsible for his conduct

To treat someone as just an animal or a fool, who needs to be coerced or re-educated, (like rubbing a dog’s nose in his excrement, to ‘teach’ him his mistake) is just insulting. We cannot hold imbeciles or dogs ‘accountable’ for their acts. They aren’t stupid; they knew what they were doing; now they must pay the price. (See Rachels p. 137). Kant’s specific twist here: (Rachels p.139). the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative is brought to bear:

…when a rational being decides to treat people in a certain way, he [decides] that this is how people are to be treated. Thus if we treat him the same way in return, we are doing nothing more than treating him as he has decided to be treated. If he treats others badly, and we treat him badly, we are complying with his own decision. (Rachels p.139).

Criticisms: Nietzsche

Nietzsche argued that the notion of retribution was merely a pious gloss over a very basic and natural human reaction- the taste for revenge, or vengeance. Nietzsche (and the 20th Century French philosopher Michel Foucault) think that we get satisfaction from inflicting pain onto others, even if the pleasure is disguised. Others will argue that this pleasure of punishment is merely a perversion of human nature, and that retribution is completely justified. Who is right? And even if punishment is just vengeance, so what? Is vengeance necessarily a bad thing?

Discussion:
1). What is the difference between the Law of Hammurabi and the Laws of Exodus? Or with Kant? Why are these differences important?
2). What are Kant’s assumptions concerning human nature?
3). What are those of Hobbes?
4). Who’s right? Or rather, who is closer to the truth? And what are the implications of the whole idea of ‘retribution?’
5). Is the principle of respecting the dignity and intelligence of the criminal really sound? And even if it were, are we really respecting the intelligence and innate freedom of a criminal by locking him or her up?
6). If a very clever criminal escapes from prison in a very intelligent way, and disappears for good, would we respect them for it?
7). is the principle of equal and opposite punishment without problems?
8). Rationality and Punishment. Kant’s notion of retribution only works for a
particular subset of crimes. Of those crimes punishable by death around the
world today, can retributive justice justify all of them?

The Utilitarian Approach
Note that Utilitarianism, per se, does not necessarily lead to either advocating or condemning the death penalty. The same goes for Kant. Utilitarianism simply endorses whichever option will maximize happiness. As such, there are Utilitarian arguments both opposing and defending the death penalty.

For a Utilitarian, punishment is justified if and only if it creates a greater balance of happiness over unhappiness. So, from the Utilitarian perspective, capital punishment is justified if it 1). prevents the criminal from repeating his crime, of 2). deters crime by discouraging would- be offenders.

a). Argument: the death penalty prevents future murders.

As murder is the greatest crime, then it requires the greatest penalty- the death sentence.
In 1973, one Isaac Ehrlich published a study showing that for every inmate who was executed, seven lives were saved through deterrence (that is, frightening people into not killing). Other studies have yielded similar results.
Ernst van den Haag, a professor of law at Fordham University, argues:

Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive, and perhaps cannot be, capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else. They fear most death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts. Whatever people fear most is likely to deter most. Hence, the threat of the death penalty may deter some murderers who otherwise might not have been deterred. And surely the death penalty is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence. Perhaps they will not be deterred. But they would certainly not be deterred by anything else. We owe all the protection we can give to law enforcers exposed to special risks.

Discussion:
a). Van den Haag assumes that people fear death more than anything else. Is this true? What about criminals?
b). Van den Haag argues for retaining the death penalty for the protection of a small group. Is this justified?

b). Rehabilitation, not Punishment

For the second half of the 20th Century, many have argued for a criminal justice system that would rehabilitate criminals. Criminals are frequently poorly educated, with emotional problems, and with poor work histories. So why not train them in jail to be better people, instead of punishing them? The implication of this view is that we should stop punishing criminals altogether, and instead treat them. As such, in many Anglo- American countries (Australia, New Zealand, the U.K, the U.S.A ) we no longer hear about prisons but correctional facilities, where correctional officers work. Criminals are not punished but corrected. As such, notes Rachels, in words at least, the Utilitarian Revolution is complete. Of course, it could just be Orwellian Newspeak. [1](See Rachels p.134-135).

Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794).

Cesare Beccaria, in 1764, was an Italian philosopher, wrote the most important book on crime and punishment ever written, On Crimes and Punishments. It was published anonymously (as innovative philosophy often was), but was soon embraced by the government of Milan. The text was a thorough and enlightened attack on the ills of the criminal justice system of 18th Century Italy, in particular the practice of using torture to obtain confessions, the arbitrary power of judges, the inconsistency and inequality of sentencing, using personal connections to get a lighter sentence, and so on. More generally, the primary thesis of the book is that the death sentence and torture are both unjust and futile. His two main philosophical approaches are Social Contract theory and Utilitarianism. He concludes with outlines for the ideal justice system and the ideal state. After reading it, Grand Duke Leopold II of Hapsburg, Emperor of Austria, become the first ruler to permanently end the death penalty. Insofar as his principles were adopted by, among others, the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, as well as all of Western Europe, he is perhaps one of the most important intellectuals in modern history.

Beccaria’s Theory
There are three main principles in Beccaria’s theory: Rationality, the Social Contact, and Utilitarianism. His theory of human nature is an interesting fusion of Kant and Hobbes. He assumes that all individuals have free will, rationality, and manipulability. Everyone makes free, rational choices (including the free, rational choice to commit crimes). Like Hobbes, Beccaria assumes that people will rationally look out for themselves, rather than consider the interests of others. Hence, crime is not in fact irrational. This requires that we have a social contract to prevent crimes. Crime occurs when personal and group interests conflict.
The third principle in Beccharia’s theory is that people are manipulable. People, because they are all rational, and self- interested, are predictable and controllable. We can make generalizations about how they will act in certain situations The job of the criminal justice system is to control all deviant acts that an individual with free will and rational thought might do in the pursuit of personal pleasure. The problem the criminal justice system has is finding the right punishment or threats. The basic principle is that the justice system is merely one of the tools used for the creation of a better society, rather than an instrument of vengeance.
Beccaria expresses not only the need for the criminal justice system, but also the government’s right to have laws and punishments. He believe in the social contract, or the idea that free will and rational individuals made a choice to live in a society instead of living alone. When one chooses to live in a society, then one chooses to give up some personal liberties in exchange for the safety and comfort of a society. Laws are designed as the framework of the society and the rules for which acts are encouraged or prohibited. Laws are the conditions of a society of free and rational individuals. There is a need to have some system set up in order to ensure that the individuals in the society are protected against any individual or groups that want to take back the personal liberties forfeited in the social contract and those who want to also harm the personal liberties of others in the society. In On Crimes and Punishments Beccaria states, "but merely to have established this deposit was not enough; it had to be defended against private usurpation by individuals each of whom always tries not only to withdraw his own share but also to usurp for himself that of others." So there is a need for and a right to have laws and a criminal justice system to ensure that all individuals in society obey or follow the social contract. Being an early Utilitarian, Beccaria held that the laws should be formulated for the maximization of happiness only.
Beccaria on the Death Penalty:
Beccaria rejects the death penalty on two grounds. Firstly, the state does not have the right to take lives. Secondly, capital punishment is neither a useful nor a necessary form of punishment. The death penalty, history showed, (he thought), did not deter criminals from killing. Lifelong imprisonment, he thought, would be sufficiently horrible to make people fear sentencing. (Note that, in Beccaria’s time, this would probably involve heavy labour). Far from reducing homicides, Beccaria felt that the death penalty simply brutalized a community. That is, it reduces a community’s sensitivity to suffering. It normalizes tyranny. He felt that it was simply a contradiction to punish a murderer by, in his view, murdering them: “it seems to me absurd that the laws, which are an expression of the public will, which detest and punish homicide, should themselves commit it, and that to deter citizens from murder they order a public one.” (cited in Greek, lecture notes Beccaria).
Broader proposals: Beccharia, reasoning that crime is committed by uneducated people, recommended that the state have universal and free education, which was a completely new concept in the 18th Century. he also argued in favour of the universal right to bear arms, so if you want to blame a particular thinker for that one, blame him. (Of course, in the 18th Century there were no M-16’s, and it took ten minutes to reload a pistol).

Discussion:
a). Most rehabilitation programs, in particular in California, are disastrous failures. Any ideas why?
b). Who had the better theory of punishment- Kant, or the Utilitarians?

Discussion:
The Deterrence Problem:
-How relevant is it that the death penalty is not a deterrent? Think of another example: Is it relevant whether lethal drunk driving is not premeditated, or that perpetrators think that they will not get caught? If drunk driving is not premeditated, should we just not punish it, because the punishments don’t work?

Eye for an Eye
If equal and opposite damage is ‘barbaric,’ what other standard should be applied to punishment? Maybe rapists should be thrown to the mercy of bullies in prison. What do you think?

Other theories of justice
(These have been included purely for the sake of completion)

Punishment as Communication
For some theorists, punishment is to communicate to offenders the condemnation that they deserve for their crimes. Like retributive justice, this ideal requires that the criminal is a rational and responsible agent who is capable of understanding the ‘message.’

Restorative Justice
On this view, crime must be dealt with through a process of reparation or restoration between the offender, the victim, and any other interested groups of people. On this view, the instrument of justice is not trial and punishment, but mediation or reconciliation programs to discuss what happened and how to deal with it collectively. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission could be such a case http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/.

What You Need to Know
You need to know what Retributivism means
You should know what the standard arguments in favour of the death penalty are
You should know the Utilitarian arguments both for and against the death penalty are
You should know what Rehabilitation is
You should know the ways in which Retributivism is inconsistent with Utilitarianism

Outline for Lecture 19.
Arguments against the death Penalty
1). The Death Penalty is not a deterrent (Murder is either not premeditated, or is committed by people who think they are too clever to be caught)
2). It is not fairly applied
3). Capital punishment is irreversible
4). Capital punishment is unjustified retribution
5). Capital punishment is widely viewed as inhumane and anachronistic
6). Capital punishment is brutal, and brutalizes a community
(‘Widely viewed’- is this sufficient? Why is this a good argument? Many people still believe that women are intrinsically inferior to men. Does that make it a good idea? In any case, in Japan the death penalty is still widely held to be a good idea).

Counterarguments to the Above Arguments
Problems in distribution are beside the point
Miscarriages of justice are rare and an acceptable cost
Deterrence- not conclusive either way
Brutalization- argument is simplistic
-Doing justice is more important than being nice
[1] Go read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty- Four.

Second Essay Questions (Updated)

2006-10-31T08:48:00.000+09:00

Second Essay

Due December 1st 7pm in the 2nd Floor Office
Penalty for lateness: 1 full grade per day

Original essay questions:

Question 1. Kant
Kant thinks that you must have ‘good will’ to be a good person. What does he mean by this? Do you agree with him? In your answer, discuss at least one of the possible counterexamples to Kant’s claim that the good will is necessary for being a good person ( i.e. the virtuous person, the self interested person, the person who always brings about good consequences or the naturally kind- hearted person).
Question 2. Virtue Ethics.In what ways is virtue ethics different from Kantianism or Utilitarianism? In your view, are these distinctive features advantages or disadvantages for a moral theory? In your answer, focus on no more than two features, and include a critical discussion of at least one objection to virtue ethics.

Supplementary essay questions:

Question 3. Nietzsche
What is ‘slave morality,’ and why does Nietzsche think it is detrimental to any sort of achievement or excellence (in particular artistic)? Is Nietzsche’s argument convincing? And do any of the philosophies discussed in the course provide a response?

Question 4. Euthanasia
Should people in Japan be granted the ‘right to die?’ If not, why not? Based on your conclusion, how should Japanese law be modified?

Question 5. Death Penalty
Critically discuss the two articles in the Rachels text, The right Thing to Do, “The Case Against the Death Penalty” by Hugo A. Bedau, and “In Defense of the Death Penalty” by Ernst van den Haag. What are Bedau’s two best arguments? And how could a pro-death penalty advocate respond? Finally, which side is the more convincing?

Special Option:
Formulate your own essay question. 1). The question must be philosophical, that is, it must be a particular theoretical question that cannot be answered in terms of mere facts, or a mere statement of opinion. 2). It must be based on topics covered in class. Possible topics: can the wicked flourish? Can there be a Virtue Ethics for politicians? Is Kant’s view on the death penalty consistent? etc. You MUST have the essay question approved before proceeding.