Week 2, Unit1, Day1 Aristotle (384-322 BCE) = called by Dante as the Master of those who Know Aristotle's ethics

are teleolgical ethics, from telos which means end goal/purpose Jots on aristotle's firsts: -Made first university -classify disciplines of human knowledge -argument through logic -separate study of weather from astronomy -classify animals -founded psychology, psyche as separate study -first philosophers, the greeks -separate ethics from knowledge, focus on ethics -wrote over 400 works Note: in greek civ, humanity is more than just material, aristotle and plato believed they came from a realm of pure knowledge, trapped in the body. -life was not blank slate learning, it was uncovering what you already know, learned vs.uncovered, some people had natural ability, came easy to them, seems like uncovering it not learning. -one must determine an end goal and purpose, we strive for good, therefore the good is what we strive for -people who don't have purpose, or a goal, are governed by pleasure -the most successful people are those with the clearest idea where they are going Quote: pleasure is for cattle -animals cannot reason, they just want pleasure, as people, we want knowledge, more. -this distinguishes us from all other animals, don't reduce yourself to this -learn as much as you can to fulfill goals, humanity without purpose, people focus on pleasure. Quote 2: people achieve happiness in the polis, the community -we are social creatures, happiness is not found in isolation. -Humans cannot separate themselves from the community, what would you be without other people? -they would be nothing without others Plato believed you are what you know Aristotle believed you are what you do

=Empiricism: theory of knowledge that assertbs that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. -Aristotle believed that knowledge comes from experience, Plato believed in knowledge through thought -its about actions, human excellence is achieved by habit, you are what you do Happiness is found through moderation. Doing too much of one thing takes away from others Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Deontological ethics: act out of duty -lived in Age of Enlightenment, at time when things were not true unless verifiable -he tried to use this deduction and apply it ethical behavior -his ethics are deontological ethics, based on deon=duty -if ethics based on duty, know it right, rather than based on feelings which could change -he focuses on consistency, wanted to apply consistency to ethical behavior, base ethics on reason, like if 1+1=2, help others=good -he wrote the groundwork for metaphysics of morals and critique of pure reason Had 2 Maxims=rules: 1: categorical imperative, act not unless you will that become a universal law -related to golden rule, but more reasoning, makes people think 2: Do not treat people as a mean to an end, but a means and end -use people, but remember they are a person and not just a commodity 2 Types of Reason: Theoretical reason: the reason we use to come to know the world, laws of math, science. Practical reason: the reason we use to live in the world. 2 worlds: objective and subjective Objective: the world without our own perception Subjective: the world as we perceive it -He believed that the only good was an understanding of what you should do -believes that we cannot prove god but can reasonably believe in his existence based on our seemingly innate need for justice Humans need:

1: God: Someone to Judge 2: Freedom: We cannot be judged if not free 3: Immortality: Since justice does not happen here it needs to occur somewhere -Summon Bonum: Perfect world/heaven where we achieve justice -people have innate sense of fairness, we were created by god, god put that sense into us Levinas (1905-1995) -relational ethics, the grief of the face makes its appeal ethical -The good is found in uniqueness of people -cannot know god, incomprehensible, but find traces of him in others -to destroy another is to disconnect oneself from god Unit1,Day2 Levinas cont: An Ethics of the Face -Levinas is in search of the good, the good is interested in what is absolutely unique about each person or thing, these unique things and persons are traces of the Good and God. -We only ever encounter traces of God, god has moved on from this trace and has moved elsewhere, God, the infinite one is always a step ahead The Face as Witness of the good: -The face is the most naked part of the body, face to face experiences call forth a thrill of astonishment -This face is the other, you can never take away the uniqueness of this face, the face is an authority, holy highness and divine -The other's depth of misery or humility is what makes the command or appeal of the face ethical. -The face of the stranger demands that you recognize it and provide it hospitality -It suggests that there is another order of existence: the order of an incredible good calling to us to be responsible for the beggar with the bent and mumbling voice. Matthew's Quote: "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." Back to levinas, the face makes us responsible:

-This responsibility is our human vocation, our calling. His ethics does not bend us in his direction, but to the direction of our neighbor. -God touches us through the face of the other who begs us. -he leaves only a trace of himself in the other, Goodness for the infinite one translates into responsibility for the Other and it has no limit. The CCC says that the ethical is indispensable for human life: The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just Chapter One Quotes: Aristotle: As all knowledge and moral purpose aspires to some good, what is in our view the good at which the political science aims, and what is the highest of all practical goods? As to its name there is, I may say, a general disagreement. The masses and the cultured classes agree in calling it happiness, and conceive that "to live well" or to "do well" is the same thing as "to be happy." But as to the nature of happiness they do not agree, nor do the masses give the same account of it as the philosophers. Aristotle believed that we achieve happiness through purpose: Every art and every scientific inquiry, and similarly Chapter 2 people: Ludwig Wittgenstein- analytic philosopher, called logical positivists, for things to have meaning, they must be backed up by sensory experience. Focuses on hard facts, what we can see,smell touch, hear. But free will is intangible, he said, "if i raise my arm, my arm goes up, but what is left over if i subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that i lift my arm? Paul Ricoeur- french orphan in 1915, later taught philosophy to prisoners in second world war, wrote about peace, violence, power, communism, Pope John Paul II said of him that he was "a philosopher who is at the same time a man of faith, committed to the defense of human annd Christian values" Richard M Gula- "to speak of the human person as a subject is to say that the person is in charge of his or her own life. That is, the person is a moral agent with a certain degree of autonomy and self-direction empowered to act according to his or her conscience, in freedom and with knowledge." St.Thomas Acquinas- "An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention." CCC- "One may not do evil so that good can result from it"

CCC- "Circumstances...contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral goodness or evil of human acts... They can also diminish or increase the agent's responsibility... [but] of themselves... Can make neither good nor right an action that is itself evil." Ted Peters- "Human culture is on a leash, a short leash, held by a genetic agenda.That agenda is the selfreplication of genes using the human species as its vehicle. Human culture is structured so as to encourage reproduction and, hence, the perpetuation of genes. Human religion and human morality, whether theologians know it or not, is reducible to the agenda of selfish genes." TP- "The focus will be on the concept of free will, because the assumption of the Western philosophy coming down to us from Augustine that underlies our understanding of law is that guilt can only be assigned to a human agent acting freely." TP- "And this will place us at a fork in he legal road: either we declare the person with a genetic disposition to crime innocent and set him or her free, or we declare him or her so constitutionally impaired as to justify incarceration and isolation from the rest of society. The first fork would be jeopardizing the welfare of society; the second fork would violate individual rights." John Searle- "We have only the foggiest idea of how it all works. By current estimation the human brain has over 100 billion neurons, and each neuron has synaptic connections with other neurons ranging in the number from a few hundred to msny tens of thousands. All of this enormously complex structure is massed together in a space smaller than a soccer ball." Amanda Sharkley: "You could model an aspect of intelligence but we dont have anything that is a whole intelligent system. And my hunch is that it is in principle impossible to go further." Freedom vs. Determinism: Why and How do human beings Act? Are we Free: Agents- A person who acts freely and knowingly and is self-directed - At the heart of ethics is the belief that Humans are free to choose... In this chapter we will examine those who believe this and those who believe we might to some extent be determined by different biological and social forces. Analytic Philosophy: -Belief held by logical positivists -They believed that for anything to have value it must be observable, tangibly verifiable through sight, sound, touch, etc. -it is an attempt to understand human behaviour in the same manner as understanding the natural world. Ludwig Wittgenstein:

-He argues that Analytic Philosophy does not account for human intention or the ability to direct matter. Free will is not something measurable but is real. -"when i raise my arm, my arm goes up" -lots of immeasurable things, beauty, etc have value but is not empirically verifiable Analyzing Ethics: -People auch as Paul Ricouer attempt to analyze and understand ethical decisions using a scientific methox Conceptual Framework of Action: -attempts to breakdown and analyze what goes into human actions -the morality of an action, how severe is stealing, for example, based on the conditions: Who? What? Why? How? With Whom or against Whom? Under What Circumstances? With What Outcome? Freedom: -As Catholics we believe that we are free -St.Augustine says: "we will when we will, but it is God that allows us to power the act" -God influences us but does not control us, this is called providence -She wrote during a time of the Plegians who believed Humanity was fully free and the Manicheans who believed we were not free whatsoever. CCC Freedom: -We attempt to define freedom in the CCC, -CCC 1744: Freedom is the power to act or not to act, we are most free when our actions are directed towards god -CCC 1745: Freedom as a result makes us responsible and accountable for what we do -CCC 1761: One may not do evil so thatbgood may result from it -CCC 1754: Circumstances continue to making an action more severe (aggravate) or less severe (mitigate). Determinism: -Three categories: scientific, social, religious Scientific: G.E Moore in Principa Ethica, discussed Naturalism -Naturalism sees the universe as a unified system operating under the laws of cause and effect -Naturalism attempts to reduce human behavior to bio/phys causes. -The human being is just a complex series of cause and effect -An example of naturalism is the Human Genome Project

-if Naturalism is true, Ethics would belong in the study of biology -If naturalism is true, then according to Ted Peters, "Human culture would be on a leash, a short leash controlles by a genetic agenda." Other consequences of naturalism: -If human behaviour is reducible they we can replicate it. -Alan Turing was the first to conceive of AI, but Mccarthy coined the term -Watson won jeopardy -Others like Huxley said the "brain is a machine like everything else." -Humans can be reduced and reconfigured, teleportation -Descartes, Aristotle, Plato believe that the mind is different from the brain. Social Determinists: -Freud, Addler, Jung, and Rank make up the Vienna Psychological Society. -Believes that human behaviour is a result of a multitude of causes. -Freud's theory of the unconscious We are ruled by 2 instincts: -Eros: Life instinct -Thanatos: Death Instinct Religious Determinists: Calvin- believed that Humans do not earn salvation, God had already chosen those who had been saved, this is Predestination -If we cant earn it, then why do good? -The life you live could be an indication of whether your saved, if you do good, your probably saved Puritans: -Humans all deserve hell, if saved, it is purely because of the grace of god Finale: -We believe that we are free and therefore accountable for what we do -We understand that we definitely are influenced by genetic and social factors but that we possess free will