Concepts used in this course:
- Duty determinative - For some people concerning some issues they may only need to know ONE THING to know what they believe their duty to be; their moral posture on some subject. Example: Abortion. For some people all they need to know is that some procedure will kill the embryo or fetus to know that the procedure is morally unjustified.
- Incommensurable value - Value that cannot be expressed in an exchange rate... When we say human life is priceless, we don't mean the value is so high it is hard to count, we mean that it is a category mistake to think of human life as having a value translatable into currency at all...
- Psychological aversion - While we invariably have emotional reactions to controversial practices, those reactions are not arguments. "Yuck" is not an argument, its a reaction. I used the silly example of my aversion to bell pepper to make this point. My aversion has nothing to do with morality.
- Default narrative or default "identity mythology" - We constantly impress meaning onto our experience of the world. We are often unaware or only half-aware of the narratives or mythologies that we spin.
- Moral Dilemma - Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we must choose between alternatives which force us to violate one important moral commitment or another. The classic example can be found in the movie Sophie's Choice in which a mother is forced to decide which of her two children will be sent to gas chamber in Nazi controlled Germany during WWII. In bioethics an example can be found in Dax Case. We are committed to Dax's liberty. We are also committed to his well-being. What happens when these come into conflict?
- Categorical vs Hypothetical Imperative - A Kantian notion that distinguishes between the domains of morality and preference. A hypothetical imperative describes the situation in which the word "should" refers merely to what one "should" do IF they want one thing or another. "If you want to satisfy your hunger you SHOULD eat." A categorical imperative describes the situation in which the word "should" refers to what one should do irrespective of whether they want to or not, therefore a MORAL imperative. "You should do no intentional harm to others."
- Competency - This refers to the capacity we normally have to responsibly act on our own behalf. What we discovered is that there are many ways for competency to become attenuated, or compromised. Pain, drugs, mental illness, depression, shock, all may contribute to compromised competence.
- The manufacture of consent- a phrase popularized by Noam Chomsky. This refers to the idea that what may appear to be freely chosen courses of action may, in fact, be the result of many forces that those in roles of authority bring to bear - often in quite subtle ways - to bring about that free choice.
- Analogy. We all know what an analogy IS. Why it is important for us is that analogies are sometimes used in moral arguments in ways that cloud clear reasoning. When an analogy is posed, whether by a fellow student or prof. Marenco, the first question is (as it is with all factual claims), "is it relevant?" And the second question is... "what are the DISanalogies in the proposed juxtaposed pictures?
- K + P = R - a simple but useful principle describing the common (perhaps unconscious) criteria we use to judge ourselves and others. It means KNOWLEDGE PLUS POWER EQUALS RESPONSIBILITY. Example. In Dax Case we hear Dr. Baxter saying something like, "look... I'd be responsible for this man's death because... I have knowledge and the means to restore his health so.... let me do my job!"
- Noblesse Oblige - French phrase in some ways capturing the K + P = R idea. It means the special obligation of the nobility. That is we (yep... I literally do mean you and me here...) have a SPECIAL burden by virtue of knowledge and power we have relative to most other people on the planet.
- Naive Relativism - This is a VERY common idea to newcomers in philosophy. The idea that everything is just an opinion and therefore has no authority beyond the person holding it. Turns out that you can't do ANY moral thinking or take ANY moral stand (make any moral COMMITMENT) without that being a claim about the world, that is the way you BELIEVE the way the world SHOULD be; not just some statement about how you personally FEEL. "Abortion is wrong FOR ME, but I don't judge others...." That sounds right, but it isn't. Its a misuse of the phrase "wrong for."
- Teleological. This is the idea we derive largely from Aristotle that things, by their intrinsic nature have a trajectory or goal or purpose. Things fall or rise according to their nature. Some philosophers think that morality is rooted in some inner "telos" that we share as human beings. That is to BE a human being is to have purpose which involves moral commitments as the primary mechanism for disclosing that purpose.
- Death. An excellent example of something with which we are all familiar but is nevertheless amazingly difficult to DEFINE. Whether someone is dead or not is a factual question, but that question can't get off the ground until we settle on what the CONCEPT of death means. Is it a stopped heart? Is it a region of the brain that lacks any activity at all? Is it when a region of the brain we believe is responsible for a persons consciousness is irreversibly damaged? You think death is hard to define? Wait until we get to.... "life." :)
- The Conscription of Consent. A suggestion put forward by Hans Jonas that all efforts to gain consent have some element of "conscription" in them, that is a (sometimes) subtle form of manipulation.
- Meliorism. The belief derived from the impact of science in the 17th, 18th, and particularly the 19th century that through the use of science and technology the world will always progress and improve.
- Opacity of Consent. The idea put forward by Onora O'neill that all consent is partial consent because we cannot know ahead of time all the consequences of our choices.
- Transcendence. A capacity of rationality that allows us to simultaneously act in the world but also observe ourselves acting in the world. In ethics, the idea that in addition to all of our immediate aims and desires there is also a transcending "conscience," or mechanism for evaluating what one should do in addition to merely what one may have a desire to do.
- Golden Rule. Mentioned by Hans Jonas. While it finds expression in more than one religious tradition, it is most often associated with the New Testament. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
- Morally Connotative Expressions. Some terms appear to have a moral judgment, either good or bad, built into them. "Weed" for example (of the non-cannabis sort) is, by definition, "bad." Sometimes we use terms that connote moral judgement without explicitly making the case. For example we might say, "well its the natural way of doing it," as though something being "natural" guarantees that it is "good." In moral reasoning we would always need to defend why an act is good or bad independently of whether it is "natural." Other morally connotataive words are "manipulation" "paternalism," etc.
- Human.
- Human (b) - Any entity, or part of an entity, living or dead, that possesses a genome characteristic of the species homo sapien.
- Human (i) - Human in the idealized sense. All that we take to be of true value in being a person; the moral 'essence' of being a person. A kind of moral/aesthetic archetype.
- Human (p) - A rough synonym for person (a)
- Human Being
- Human Being (b) - Any living entity that is human (b) and also a complete organism we associate with being a person (a), either as developing toward being a person (a) or sustaining itself as a person (a).
- Human Being (i) - A rough synonym for human (i).
- Human Being (p) - A rough synonym for person (a)
- Soul
- Soul (l) - (life giving soul) That which gives to a human being (b) different kinds of life. Aristotle (and Aquinas) believed human beings were infused with three different kinds of souls leading to the final "rational soul" which characterizes human (p) life.
- Soul (p) - A rough synonym for person (a)
- Soul (i) - A synonym for human (i). What Dr. Faustus sold. What Jesus meant by, "don't be afraid of those who can destroy the body. Be afraid of those who can destroy the soul."
- Soul (s) - Immaterial substance. Soul (l) or soul (p) conceived as an immaterial substance added to or acting on the material body. Soul (s) need not be assumed in affirming something like soul (p) or soul (l).
- Person
- Person (a) - (autonomous in the Kantian sense) Any being (notice I do not write "human" being) that convincingly exhibits the characteristics rationality, ownership of moral concepts, a concept of "whoness," and a concept of the unconditional whole; a metaphysical subject with a perspective ON the world, and just in that sense outside the world.
- Person (e) - (emerging) Any being, anywhere along its developmental trajectory reasonably expected, if unimpeded, to become a person (a)