Inbox: - [The dualism of practical reason](https://www.academia.edu/22302490/The_dualism_of_practical_reason) - On iPad - Parfit on Love and Partiality (in Derek Parfit / Principles and Persons) - Cosmos of duty book on Sidgwick - [Sacrifice Regained: Morality and Self-Interest in British Moral Philosophy from Hobbes to Bentham](https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198840473.001.0001/oso-9780198840473) - # Hume on Virtue, Utility and Morality - [Taking Stock of Utilitarianism](https://www.academia.edu/30542153/Taking_Stock_of_Utilitarianism) - [Methods, Methodology, and Moral Judgement: Sidgwick on the Nature of Ethics](https://www.academia.edu/30541776/Methods_Methodology_and_Moral_Judgement_Sidgwick_on_the_Nature_of_Ethics) - [Sidgwick on Virtue](https://www.academia.edu/30541969/Sidgwick_on_Virtue) - [Sidgwick and Utilitarianism in the late Nineteenth Century](https://www.academia.edu/30541903/Sidgwick_and_Utilitarianism_in_the_late_Nineteenth_Century) - [Virtue ethics and virtue epistemology](https://www.academia.edu/25352924/Virtue_ethics_and_virtue_epistemology) - [Ethics without reasons?](https://www.academia.edu/24278218/Ethics_without_reasons) - Discussion of Jonathan Dancy's book Ethics Without Principles - [Values, reasons and the structure of justification: how to avoid passing the buck](https://www.academia.edu/23330580/Values_reasons_and_the_structure_of_justification_how_to_avoid_passing_the_buck) - [Utilitarianism and accomplishment](https://www.academia.edu/22996079/Utilitarianism_and_accomplishment) - [Hypocrisy and moral seriousness](https://www.academia.edu/22211269/Hypocrisy_and_moral_seriousness) - [Utilitarianism and the life of virtue](https://www.academia.edu/22185349/Utilitarianism_and_the_life_of_virtue) - [Sidgwick and self-interest](https://www.academia.edu/22184913/Sidgwick_and_self_interest) - [Mill on utilitarianism](https://www.academia.edu/700413/Mill_on_utilitarianism) - [Particularizing particularism](https://www.academia.edu/700415/Particularizing_particularism) - [Utilitarianism and the Life of Virtue](https://www.academia.edu/700419/Utilitarianism_and_the_Life_of_Virtue) - [Reasons and the good](https://www.academia.edu/700421/Reasons_and_the_good) - [Utilitarianism and accomplishment revisited](https://www.academia.edu/22996190/Utilitarianism_and_accomplishment_revisited) - Sacrifice Regained Book - Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Mill on Utilitarianism - https://oxford.academia.edu/RogerCrisp - [Motivation, Universality, and the Good -- Review of Dancy](https://www.academia.edu/30542444/Motivation_Universality_and_the_Good_Review_of_Dancy) - [A Third Method of Ethics?](https://www.academia.edu/30542268/A_Third_Method_of_Ethics) ## Philosophy Bites on Utilitarianism Util has two components: 1. Theory of utility (value) 2. Principles for how to act given (1), which involves a commitment to maximising (1) Mill was a rather cultured individual, unlike Bentham. Very interested in music and literature. Had a breakdown while editing Bentham's work. Reading Wordsworth helped him recover (compare the story told by [[=Elijah Millgram#New Books Network John Stuart Mill]]). He wanted to bring together the utilitarian strand with a more romantic strand from the continent. (Basically ~German romanticism?) Mill is saying there are some pleasures such that a finite amount of them is better than an infinite amount of some other pleasures. E.g. Socrates spends a few years doing philosophy. That was so good for Socrates that any number of years as a contented pig would not be as good. One problem with the hedonistic tradition is that pleasures are considered one by one. So you consider one pleasure against another and you say that this pleasure is higher than that. But actually that isn't the context in which we live our lives. We live in a situation in which there are many different activities and pleasures to be sought and pains to be avoided and the question is: what should we do in the **context of a life** rather than in a context where we are comparing one pleasure against another. Where I think Mill was wrong is that he did not take enough notice of the fact that the impartial point of view is not the point of view that most of us naturally take on our lives. And that each of us has only one life to live and that gives us special reasons to favour ourselves. By partiality to oneself I mean giving my own interests greater weight than the interests of other people. And **myself I think in the end the question is how to balance partiality towards oneself with impartiality**. After 2nd world war, most famous moral philosophers were attacking utilitarianism: Phillipa Foot, Williams, Alistair MacIntyre, Stuart Hampshire, Charles Taylor. They often criticise a weak version of utilitarianism. ## Philosophy Bites on Virtue Virtue of the mean != always moderate response. Virtue of the mean = appropriate response to every situation. It's not just about feelings, it's also about actions. Generous person should give away the right amount, not too much, not too little, in particular situation. You can exhibit two opposing vices, e.g. prodigality and stinginess, in different situations. For Socrates and Plato, what matters is having the virtue. For Aristotle, you have to actually perform the virtuous actiion, you have to achieve virtuous things. So, luck plays a big role. Denies that virtues are just about knowledge. There is a non-cognitive element, your disposition to react in particular way. And this is something that comes through training and habituation. This is why there's much more of a story about moral education in Aristotle's Ethics than there is in the Platonic dialogues, where actually the question of how do we get these virtues fades away. Virtues are not purely non-cognitive though. You have to have practical wisdom (an intellectual virtue) in order to see what is called for in particular cases. **Reciprocity of the virtues**: they're all bounded by each other, if you're deficient in one it'll limit you in others. Compare Socrates: unity of virtues. Modern virtue ethicists tend to be common sense moralists. With a different list to Aristotle. Much closer to common sense than Aristotle was. [...] Kindness, in our post-Christian situation, is a central virtue. That is, of course, lacking in Aristotle. One way to see virtue ethics is as a formal structure into which you can slot local ethics. Modern virtue ethicists plug in a plural conception of virtue, while utilitarianst plug in a singular conception. Alistair MacIntyres' account of the virtues is tied up with a **complete account of rationality according to which rationality emerges from traditions and practices** and is in a sense relative to those traditions and practices because you cannot rise above those practices and survey them all from some Archimedian standpoint and say this one is better than that one, because you can only do that with some of the values that you have learned from being brought up in the tradition you've come from. So that's the old hermeneutic problem. Another strand, which you find in Phillipa Foot's book Natural Goodness, looks at humans from a biological POV, and you find that, for human beings to flourish perhaps in any kind of community, then need certain kinds of virtues and to avoid certain vices. Consequentialism / deontology / virtue ethics distinction is pretty inadequate once you get past philosophy 101. Aristotle was right to say that if you're going to give the proper account of character in ethics, you have to refer to actions. ## NDPR Cosmos of Duty book review https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-cosmos-of-duty-henry-sidgwicks-methods-of-ethics/ ## NDPR Sacrifice Regained book review https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/sacrifice-regained-morality-and-self-interest-in-british-moral-philosophy-from-hobbes-to-bentham/ *Highlight [page 1]:* Before Hume, everyone thinks that self-interest and morality never conflict, either because they are rational egoists, or because of facts about our world (such as the special pleasures attached to virtue) or about an afterlife. (There is a nice taxonomy of positions on 154-55.) *Underline [page 1]:* There is a nice taxonomy of positions on 154-55 *Highlight [page 1]:* Hume's innovation is simple -- he drops the afterlife *Highlight [page 1]:* The appeal of impartiality for Hutcheson is in part due to his ethical aestheticism: "Impartiality has a certain dignity or nobility, which can be explicated in analogy with architecture: 'the most perfect Rules of Architecture condemn an excessive Profusion of Ornament on one Part, above the Proportion of the Whole'" (116). *Highlight [page 1]:* What seems surprising is how quickly things changed after Sidgwick. Both egoist and dualist views largely disappeared. Crisp, I think, regrets this: he calls for a "return to the morality [vs. self-interest] question, *Highlight [page 1]:* This leaves the counter-intuitive verdicts of [7] egoism and veto egoism exposed. *Highlight [page 1]:* It also leaves at least utilitarian morality exposed to cases of large sacrifice to one for small gains to many (47-8 Inbox: - [The dualism of practical reason](https://www.academia.edu/22302490/The_dualism_of_practical_reason) - On iPad - [Taking Stock of Utilitarianism](https://www.academia.edu/30542153/Taking_Stock_of_Utilitarianism) - [Methods, Methodology, and Moral Judgement: Sidgwick on the Nature of Ethics](https://www.academia.edu/30541776/Methods_Methodology_and_Moral_Judgement_Sidgwick_on_the_Nature_of_Ethics) - [Sidgwick on Virtue](https://www.academia.edu/30541969/Sidgwick_on_Virtue) - [Sidgwick and Utilitarianism in the late Nineteenth Century](https://www.academia.edu/30541903/Sidgwick_and_Utilitarianism_in_the_late_Nineteenth_Century) - [Virtue ethics and virtue epistemology](https://www.academia.edu/25352924/Virtue_ethics_and_virtue_epistemology) - [Ethics without reasons?](https://www.academia.edu/24278218/Ethics_without_reasons) - discussion of Jonathan Dancy's book Ethics Without Principles - [Values, reasons and the structure of justification: how to avoid passing the buck](https://www.academia.edu/23330580/Values_reasons_and_the_structure_of_justification_how_to_avoid_passing_the_buck) - [Utilitarianism and accomplishment](https://www.academia.edu/22996079/Utilitarianism_and_accomplishment) - [Hypocrisy and moral seriousness](https://www.academia.edu/22211269/Hypocrisy_and_moral_seriousness) - [Utilitarianism and the life of virtue](https://www.academia.edu/22185349/Utilitarianism_and_the_life_of_virtue) - [Sidgwick and self-interest](https://www.academia.edu/22184913/Sidgwick_and_self_interest) - [Mill on utilitarianism](https://www.academia.edu/700413/Mill_on_utilitarianism) - [Particularizing particularism](https://www.academia.edu/700415/Particularizing_particularism) - [Utilitarianism and the Life of Virtue](https://www.academia.edu/700419/Utilitarianism_and_the_Life_of_Virtue) - [Reasons and the good](https://www.academia.edu/700421/Reasons_and_the_good) - [Utilitarianism and accomplishment revisited](https://www.academia.edu/22996190/Utilitarianism_and_accomplishment_revisited) - Sacrifice Regained Book - # Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Mill on Utilitarianism - https://oxford.academia.edu/RogerCrisp - [Motivation, Universality, and the Good -- Review of Dancy](https://www.academia.edu/30542444/Motivation_Universality_and_the_Good_Review_of_Dancy) - [A Third Method of Ethics?](https://www.academia.edu/30542268/A_Third_Method_of_Ethics) ## Philosophy Bites on Utilitarianism Util has two components: 1. Theory of utility (value) 2. Principles for how to act given (1), which involves a commitment to maximising (1) Mill was a rather cultured individual, unlike Bentham. Very interested in music and literature. Had a breakdown while editing Bentham's work. Reading Wordsworth helped him recover (compare the story told by [[=Elijah Millgram#New Books Network John Stuart Mill]]). He wanted to bring together the utilitarian strand with a more romantic strand from the continent. (Basically ~German romanticism?) Mill is saying there are some pleasures such that a finite amount of them is better than an infinite amount of some other pleasures. E.g. Socrates spends a few years doing philosophy. That was so good for Socrates that any number of years as a contented pig would not be as good. One problem with the hedonistic tradition is that pleasures are considered one by one. So you consider one pleasure against another and you say that this pleasure is higher than that. But actually that isn't the context in which we live our lives. We live in a situation in which there are many different activities and pleasures to be sought and pains to be avoided and the question is: what should we do in the **context of a life** rather than in a context where we are comparing one pleasure against another. Where I think Mill was wrong is that he did not take enough notice of the fact that the impartial point of view is not the point of view that most of us naturally take on our lives. And that each of us has only one life to live and that gives us special reasons to favour ourselves. By partiality to oneself I mean giving my own interests greater weight than the interests of other people. And myself I think in the end the question is how to balance partiality towards oneself with impartiality. After 2nd world war, most famous moral philosophers were attacking utilitarianism: Phillipa Foot, Williams, Alistair MacIntyre, Stuart Hampshire, Charles Taylor. They often criticise a weak version of utilitarianism. ## Philosophy Bites on Virtue Virtue of the mean != always moderate response. Virtue of the mean = appropriate response to every situation. It's not just about feelings, it's also about actions. Generous person should give away the right amount, not too much, not too little, in particular situation. You can exhibit two opposing vices, e.g. prodigality and stinginess, in different situations. For Socrates and Plato, what matters is having the virtue. For Aristotle, you have to actually perform the virtuous actiion, you have to achieve virtuous things. So, luck plays a big role. Denies that virtues are just about knowledge. There is a non-cognitive element, your disposition to react in particular way. And this is something that comes through training and habituation. This is why there's much more of a story about moral education in Aristotle's Ethics than there is in the Platonic dialogues, where actually the question of how do we get these virtues fades away. Virtues are not purely non-cognitive though. You have to have practical wisdom (an intellectual virtue) in order to see what is called for in particular cases. **Reciprocity of the virtues**: they're all bounded by each other, if you're deficient in one it'll limit you in others. Compare Socrates: unity of virtues. Modern virtue ethicists tend to be common sense moralists. With a different list to Aristotle. Much closer to common sense than Aristotle was. [...] Kindness, in our post-Christian situation, is a central virtue. That is, of course, lacking in Aristotle. One way to see virtue ethics is as a formal structure into which you can slot local ethics. Modern virtue ethicists plug in a plural conception of virtue, while utilitarianst plug in a singular conception. Alistair MacIntyres' account of the virtues is tied up with a **complete account of rationality according to which rationality emerges from traditions and practices** and is in a sense relative to those traditions and practices because you cannot rise above those practices and survey them all from some Archimedian standpoint and say this one is better than that one, because you can only do that with some of the values that you have learned from being brought up in the tradition you've come from. So that's the old hermeneutic problem. Another strand, which you find in Phillipa Foot's book Natural Goodness, looks at humans from a biological POV, and you find that, for human beings to flourish perhaps in any kind of community, then need certain kinds of virtues and to avoid certain vices. Consequentialism / deontology / virtue ethics distinction is pretty inadequate once you get past philosophy 101. Aristotle was right to say that if you're going to give the proper account of character in ethics, you have to refer to actions. ## NDPR Cosmos of Duty book review https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-cosmos-of-duty-henry-sidgwicks-methods-of-ethics/ ## NDPR Sacrifice Regained book review https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/sacrifice-regained-morality-and-self-interest-in-british-moral-philosophy-from-hobbes-to-bentham/ *Highlight [page 1]:* Before Hume, everyone thinks that self-interest and morality never conflict, either because they are rational egoists, or because of facts about our world (such as the special pleasures attached to virtue) or about an afterlife. (There is a nice taxonomy of positions on 154-55.) *Underline [page 1]:* There is a nice taxonomy of positions on 154-55 *Highlight [page 1]:* Hume's innovation is simple -- he drops the afterlife *Highlight [page 1]:* The appeal of impartiality for Hutcheson is in part due to his ethical aestheticism: "Impartiality has a certain dignity or nobility, which can be explicated in analogy with architecture: 'the most perfect Rules of Architecture condemn an excessive Profusion of Ornament on one Part, above the Proportion of the Whole'" (116). *Highlight [page 1]:* What seems surprising is how quickly things changed after Sidgwick. Both egoist and dualist views largely disappeared. Crisp, I think, regrets this: he calls for a "return to the morality [vs. self-interest] question, *Highlight [page 1]:* This leaves the counter-intuitive verdicts of [7] egoism and veto egoism exposed. *Highlight [page 1]:* It also leaves at least utilitarian morality exposed to cases of large sacrifice to one for small gains to many (47-8 ## Toby Buckle interview Universal benevolence would be a better name for utilitarianism. David Ross pointed out that it's a bit misleading to think of hedonism as a monistic theory: pleasure and pain are différent, so it ends up with two principles: maximise pleasure, minimise pain. Tries to establish an exchange rate so we can get it down to a single pleasure of Try to maximise the balance. Haydn and the oyster Imagine you could choose one of two lives: 1. Life of a composer, Joseph Haydn. 2. Life of an oyster-a life of faint pleasure, like a warm bath. Let's say we extend the lifespan of the oyster a million or a billion years, or as long as you want. Is there any point at which you'd choose (2)? Not just the mere quantity of pleasure. It's also its quality, where it comes from.