Chapter 2:

Introduction to Ethics

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Chapter Overview

• Introduction
• Review of nine ethical theories
• Comparing workable ethical theories
• Morality of breaking the law

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2.1 Introduction

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We Live in Communities
(London, England at night from space)

Courtesy of NASA

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The Ethical Point of View

• Almost everyone shares “core values”, desiring:

– Life
– Happiness
– Ability to accomplish goals
• Two ways to view world
– Selfish point of view: consider only your own self and
your core values
– Ethical point of view: respect other people and their
core values

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Defining Terms
• Society
– Association of people organized under a system of
rules
– Rules: advance the good of members over time
• Morality
– A society’s rules of conduct
– What people ought / ought not to do in various
situations
• Ethics
– Rational examination of morality
– Evaluation of people’s behavior
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Analogy for Difference between
Morality and Ethics

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Why Study Ethics?

• Ethics: a way to decide the best thing to do

• New problems accompany new
technologies
• “Common wisdom” may not exist for novel
situations brought about by new
technologies

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Scenario 1

• Did Alexis do anything wrong?

• Who benefited from Alexis’s course of action?
• Who was hurt by Alexis’s course of action?
• Did Alexis have an unfair advantage over her high school
classmates?
• Would any of your answers change if it turns out Alexis
did not win a college scholarship after all?
• Are there better ways Alexis could have achieved her
objective?
• What additional information, if any, would help you
answer the previous questions?
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Scenario 2

• Did the antispam organization do anything wrong?

• Did the ISPs that refused to accept email from the
blacklisted ISPs do anything wrong?
• Who benefited from the organization’s action?
• Who was hurt by the organization’s action?
• Could the organization have achieved its goals through a
better course of action?
• What additional information, if any, would help you
answer the previous questions?

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Scenario 3

• Did the East Dakota State Police do anything wrong?

• Who benefited from the actions of the EDSP?
• Who was harmed by the actions of the EDSP?
• What other courses of action could the EDSP have taken
to achieve its objectives?
• What additional information, if any, would help you
answer the previous questions?

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Scenario 4

• Should you recommend release of the product

next week?
• Who will benefit if the company follows your
recommendation?
• Who will be harmed if the company follows your
recommendation?
• Do you have an obligation to any group of people
that may be affected by your decision?
• What additional information, if any, would help
you answer the previous questions?
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More on Ethics

• Ethics: rational, systematic analysis

– “Doing ethics” means explaining conclusions
– Best explanations based on facts, shared values, logic
• Ethics focuses on people’s voluntary, moral
choices
• Workable ethical theory: produces explanations
that might be persuasive to a skeptical, yet open-
minded audience

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A Good Ethical Theory Supports
Persuasive, Logical Arguments

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2.2 Subjective Relativism

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What Is Relativism?

• Relativism
– No universal norms of right and wrong
– One person can say “X is right,” another
can say “X is wrong,” and both can be right
• Subjective relativism
– Each person decides right and wrong for
himself or herself
– “What’s right for you may not be right for
me”
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Case for Subjective Relativism

• Well-meaning and intelligent people

disagree on moral issues
• Ethical debates are disagreeable and
pointless

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Case Against Subjective Relativism

• Blurs line between doing what you think is

right and doing what you want to do
• Makes no moral distinction between the
actions of different people
• SR and tolerance are two different things
• Decisions may not be based on reason
• Not a workable ethical theory

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2.3 Cultural Relativism

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Cultural Relativism in a Nutshell

• What is “right” and “wrong” depends upon

a society’s actual moral guidelines
• These guidelines vary from place to place
and from time to time
• A particular action may be right in one
society at one time and wrong in other
society or at another time

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Case for Cultural Relativism

• Different social contexts demand different

moral guidelines
• It is arrogant for one society to judge
another

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Case Against Cultural Relativism

• Because two societies do have different moral views

doesn’t mean they ought to have different views
• It doesn’t explain how moral guidelines are determined
• What if there are no cultural norms?
• It doesn’t account for evolution of moral guidelines.
• It provides no way out for cultures in conflict
• Existence of many acceptable practices does not imply
all practices are acceptable (many/any fallacy)
• Societies do, in fact, share certain core values
• Only indirectly based on reason
• Not a workable ethical theory
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2.4 Divine Command Theory

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Overview of Divine Command Theory

• Good actions: those aligned with God’s

will
• Bad actions: those contrary to God’s will
• Holy books reveal God’s will
• We should use holy books as moral
decision-making guides

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Divine Command Theory in Action

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Case for Divine Command Theory

• We owe obedience to our Creator

• God is all-good and all-knowing
• God is the ultimate authority

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Case Against Divine Command Theory

• Different holy books disagree on certain

teachings
• Society is multicultural, secular
• Some modern moral problems not directly
addressed in scripture
• “The good” ≠ “God” (equivalence fallacy)
• Based on obedience, not reason
• Not a workable ethical theory for our purposes

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2.5 Ethical Egoism

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Definition of Ethical Egoism

• Each person should focus exclusively on

his or her self-interest
• Morally right action: that action that
provides self with maximum long-term
benefit
• Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead
and Atlas Shrugged, espoused a theory
akin to ethical egoism
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Case for Ethical Egoism

• It is practical since we are already inclined to do

what’s best for ourselves
• It is better to let other people take care of
themselves
• The community can benefit when individuals put
their well-being first
• Other moral principles are rooted in the principle
of self-interest

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Case Against Ethical Egoism

• An easy moral philosophy may not be the best moral

philosophy
• We know a lot about what is good for someone else
• Self-interest can lead to blatantly immoral behavior
• Other moral principles are superior to principle of self-
interest
• People who take the good of others into account lead
happier lives
• By definition, does not respect the ethical point of view
• Not a workable ethical theory
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2.6 Kantianism

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Critical Importance of Good Will

• Good will: the desire to do the right thing

• Immanuel Kant: Only thing in the world that
is good without qualification is a good will
• Reason should cultivate desire to do right
thing

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Categorical Imperative (1st Formulation)

Act only from moral rules that you can at the

same time will to be universal moral laws.

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Illustration of 1st Formulation
• Question: Can a person in dire straits make a promise
with the intention of breaking it later?
• Proposed rule: “I may make promises with the intention
of later breaking them.”
• The person in trouble wants his promise to be believed
so he can get what he needs.
• Universalize rule: Everyone may make & break
promises
• Everyone breaking promises would make promises
unbelievable, contradicting desire to have promise
believed
• The rule is flawed. The answer is “No.”
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A Quick Check

• When evaluating a proposed action,

reverse roles
• What would you think if that person did the
same thing to you?
• Negative reaction evidence that your
will to do that action violates the
Categorical Imperative

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Categorical Imperative (2nd Formulation)

Act so that you treat both yourself

and other people as ends in themselves
and never only as a means to an end.

This is usually an easier formulation to work

with than the first formulation of the
Categorical Imperative.

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Kant: Wrong to Use Another Person
Solely as a Means to an End

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Plagiarism Scenario

• Carla
– Single mother
– Works full time
– Takes two evening courses/semester
• History class
– Requires more work than normal
– Carla earning an “A” on all work so far
– Carla doesn’t have time to write final report
• Carla purchases report; submits it as her own work

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Kantian Evaluation (1st Formulation)

• Carla wants credit for plagiarized report

• Rule: “You may claim credit for work performed
by someone else”
• If rule universalized, reports would no longer be
credible indicator’s of student’s knowledge, and
professors would not give credit for reports
• Proposal moral rule is self-defeating
• It is wrong for Carla to turn in a purchased report

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Kantian Evaluation (2nd Formulation)

• Carla submitted another person’s work as

her own
• She attempted to deceive professor
• She treated professor as a means to an
end
– End: passing the course
– Means: manipulate professor
• What Carla did was wrong
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Case for Kantianism

• Aligns with common moral concern: “What

if everyone acted that way?”
• Produces universal moral guidelines
• Treats all persons as moral equals

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Perfect and Imperfect Duties

• Perfect duty: duty obliged to fulfill without

exception
– Example: Telling the truth
• Imperfect duty: duty obliged to fulfill in
general but not in every instance
– Example: Helping others

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Case Against Kantianism
• Sometimes no rule adequately characterizes an
action
• Sometimes there is no way to resolve a conflict
between rules
– In a conflict between a perfect duty and an imperfect
duty, perfect duty prevails
– In a conflict between two perfect duties, no solution
• Kantianism allows no exceptions to perfect
duties
• Despite weaknesses, a workable ethical theory
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2.7 Act Utilitarianism

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Principle of Utility
• Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
• An action is good if its benefits exceeds its harms
• An action is bad if its harms exceed its benefits
• Utility: tendency of an object to produce happiness or
prevent unhappiness for an individual or a community
• Happiness = advantage = benefit = good = pleasure
• Unhappiness = disadvantage = cost = evil = pain

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Principle of Utility
(Greatest Happiness Principle)

An action is right (or wrong) to the extent

that it increases (or decreases) the
total happiness of the affected parties.

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Principle of Utility

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Act Utilitarianism

• Utilitarianism
– Morality of an action has nothing to do with intent
– Focuses on the consequences
– A consequentialist theory
• Act utilitarianism
– Add up change in happiness of all affected beings
– Sum > 0, action is good
– Sum < 0, action is bad
– Right action to take: one that maximizes the sum
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Bentham: Weighing Pleasure/Pain

• Intensity
• Duration
• Certainty
• Propinquity
• Fecundity
• Purity
• Extent
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Highway Routing Scenario

• State may replace a curvy stretch of

highway
• New highway segment 1 mile shorter
• 150 houses would have to be removed
• Some wildlife habitat would be destroyed

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Evaluation

• Costs
– $20 million to compensate homeowners
– $10 million to construct new highway
– Lost wildlife habitat worth $1 million
• Benefits
– $39 million savings in automobile driving costs
• Conclusion
– Benefits exceed costs
– Building highway a good action

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Case for Act Utilitarianism

• Focuses on happiness
• Down-to-earth (practical)
• Comprehensive

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Case Against Act Utilitarianism

• Unclear whom to include in calculations and how

far out into the future to consider
• Too much work
• Ignores our innate sense of duty
• We cannot predict consequences with certainty
• Susceptible to the problem of moral luck
• Overall, a workable ethical theory

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2.8 Rule Utilitarianism

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Applying Principle of Utility to Rules

• We ought to adopt moral rules which, if

followed by everyone, will lead to the
greatest increase in total happiness
• Act utilitarianism applies Principle of Utility
to individual actions
• Rule utilitarianism applies Principle of
Utility to moral rules

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Anti-Worm Scenario

• August 2003: Blaster worm infected thousands of

Windows computers
• Soon after, Nachi worm appeared
– Took control of vulnerable computer
– Located and destroyed copies of Blaster
– Downloaded software patch to fix security problem
– Used computer as launching pad to try to “infect” other
vulnerable PCs

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Evaluation using Rule Utilitarianism
• Proposed rule: If I can write a helpful worm that
removes a harmful worm from infected computers
and shields them from future attacks, I should do so
• Who would benefit
– People who do not keep their systems updated
• Who would be harmed
– People who use networks
– People who’s computers are invaded by buggy anti-
worms
– System administrators
• Conclusion: Harm outweighs benefits. Releasing
anti-worm is wrong.
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Case for Rule Utilitarianism

• Not every moral decision requires performing

utilitarian calculus
• Moral rules survive exceptional situations
• Avoids the problem of moral luck
• Reduces the problem of bias
• Appeals to a wide cross-section of society

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Case Against Utilitarianism in General

• All consequences must be measured on a single scale.

– All units must be the same in order to do the sum
– In certain circumstances utilitarians must quantify the value of a
human life
• Utilitarianism ignores the problem of an unjust distribution
of good consequences.
– Utilitarianism does not mean “the greatest good of the greatest
number”
– That requires a principle of justice
– What happens when a conflict arises between the Principle of
Utility and a principle of justice?
• Despite weaknesses, both act utilitarianism and rule
utilitarianism are workable ethical theories
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2.9 Social Contract Theory

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Basis of Social Contract Theory

• Thomas Hobbes
– In a “state of nature” our lives would be “solitary,
poore, nasty, brutish, and short”
– We implicitly accept a social contract
• Establishment of moral rules to govern relations among
citizens
• Government capable of enforcing these rules
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
– In ideal society, no one above rules
– That prevents society from enacting bad rules

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James Rachels’s Definition

“Morality consists in the set of rules,

governing how people are to
treat one another, that rational
people will agree to accept, for their
mutual benefit, on the condition that
others follow those rules as well.”

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Kinds of Rights

• Negative right: A right that another can

guarantee by leaving you alone
• Positive right: A right obligating others to
do something on your behalf
• Absolute right: A right guaranteed without
exception
• Limited right: A right that may be restricted
based on the circumstances
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Correlation between Types of Rights

• Positive rights tend to be more limited

• Negative rights tends to be more absolute

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John Rawls’s Principles of Justice

• Each person may claim a “fully adequate”

number of basic rights and liberties, so long as
these claims are consistent with everyone else
having a claim to the same rights and liberties
• Any social and economic inequalities must
– Be associated with positions that everyone has a fair
and equal opportunity to achieve
– Be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged
members of society (the difference principle)

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Rawls’s First Principle of Justice

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Rawls’s Difference Principle

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DVD Rental Scenario

• Bill owns chain of DVD rental stores

• Collects information about rentals from
customers
• Constructs profiles of customers
• Sells profiles to direct marketing firms
• Some customers happy to receive more
mail order catalogs; others unhappy at
increase in “junk mail”
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Evaluation (Social Contract Theory)
• Consider rights of Bill, customers, and mail order
companies.
• Does customer have right to expect name, address to
be kept confidential?
• If customer rents DVD from bill, who owns information
about transaction?
• If Bill and customer have equal rights to information,
Bill did nothing wrong to sell information.
• If customers have right to expect name and address
or transaction to be confidential without giving
permission, then Bill was wrong to sell information
without asking for permission.
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Case for Social Contract Theory

• Framed in language of rights

• Explains why people act in self-interest in
absence of common agreement
• Provides clear analysis of certain
citizen/government problems
– Why okay for government to deprive criminals of
certain rights
– Why civil obedience can be morally right action
• Workable ethical theory
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Case Against Social Contract Theory

• No one signed social contract

• Some actions have multiple characterizations
• Conflicting rights problem
• May unjustly treat people incapable of upholding
contract
• Despite weaknesses, a workable theory

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2.10 Virtue Ethics

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Critique of Enlightenment Theories

• Kantianism, utilitarianism, social contract theory

ignore important moral considerations
– moral education
– moral wisdom
– family and social relationships
– role of emotions
• Virtue ethics
– arete, virtue, excellence: reaching highest potential
– Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)
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Virtues and Vices

• Two types of virtue

– intellectual virtues: virtues associated with reasoning
and truth
– moral virtues: virtues of character (e.g., honesty)
• Moral virtues
– developed by habitually performing right action
– deep-seated character traits
– disposition to act in a certain way and feel in a certain
way

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Aristotle: Happiness derives from
living a life of virtue.

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Summary of Virtue Ethics

A right action is an action that a virtuous

person, acting in character, would do in
the same circumstances.

A virtuous person is a person who

possesses and lives out the virtues.

The virtues are those character traits

human beings needs in order to flourish
and be truly happy.

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Vices

• Vices are opposite of virtues

• Vice: a character trait that prevents a
human being from flourishing or being truly
happy
• Often, a virtue situated between two vices
– Courage between cowardliness and rashness
– Generosity between stinginess and prodigality

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Case for Virtue Ethics

• It often makes more sense to focus on virtues than

obligations, rights, or consequences
• Personal relationships can be morally relevant to decision
making
• Our moral decision-making skills develop over time
• With this theory there are no irresolvable moral dilemmas
• Emotions play an important role in living a moral life

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Case Against Virtue Ethics

• Reasonable people may disagree on character

traits needed for human flourishing
• Cannot use virtue ethics to guide government
policy
• Virtue ethics undermines attempts to hold people
responsible for their bad actions
• Despite weaknesses, virtue ethics a workable
theory

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2.11 Comparing Workable Ethical
Theories

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Objectivism vs. Relativism

• Objectivism: Morality has an existence

outside the human mind
• Relativism: Morality is a human invention
• Divine command theory, ethical egoism,
Kantianism, utilitarianism, social contract
theory, and virtue ethics examples of
objectivism

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Workable Ethical Theories

• We seek theories with these characteristics:

– Based on the ethical point of view
– Objective moral principles developed using logical
reasoning based on facts and commonly held values
• Workable ethical theories
– Kantianism
– Act and rule utilitarianism
– Social contract theory
– Virtue ethics
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Comparing Workable Ethical Theories

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2.12 Morality of Breaking the Law

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Social Contract Theory Perspective

• Everyone in society bears certain burdens

in order to receive certain benefits
• Legal system supposed to guarantee
people’s rights are protected
• Everything else being equal, we should be
law-abiding
• Should only break law if compelled to follow
a higher-order moral obligation
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Social Contract: A Prima Facie
Obligation to Obey the Law

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Kantian Perspective

• Everyone wants to be treated justly

• Imagine rule: “I may break a law I believe to
be unjust”
• If everyone acted according to this rule,
then laws would be subverted
• Contradiction: Cannot both wish to be
treated justly and allow laws to be
subverted
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Rule Utilitarian Perspective

• What would be consequences of people ignoring

laws they felt to be unjust?
• Beneficial consequence: Happiness of people
who are doing what they please
• Harmful consequences: Harm to people directly
affected by lawless actions, general loss of
respect for laws, increased burden on criminal
justice system
• Harms greater than benefits
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Act Utilitarian Perspective
• Possible to conceive of situations where benefits of
breaking law exceed harms
• Suppose give penniless, bedridden friend copy of CD
• Friend benefits by $15 (value of CD)
• I benefit by $10 (satisfaction of helping friend)
• Harms of $0 (no lost sale, no police involvement)
• With $25 of benefit and $0 of harm, action is determined
to be good

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Summary

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Insights Offered by Various Theories

• Kantianism: Every person is equally valuable, and when

you interact with other people you should always respect
them as rational beings.
• Utilitarianism: You should consider the consequences of
an action before deciding whether it’s right or wrong.
• Social contract theory: We should collectively promote
human rights, such as the rights to life, liberty, and
property.
• Virtue ethics: You can count on a good person to do the
right thing at the right time in the right way.

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It’s Up to You

• You can consider duties and rights and

consequences and virtues when making moral
decisions
• Ultimately, you have to decide:
– What kind of person do I want to be?
– What kind of world do I want to live in?

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