## Notes What do I want out of an ethical theory? A story about how to live, which will inform my approach to things and which people whose judgements I trust will find admirable. There's a personal component and a social component. It's easy for the personal component to get a bit swamped by the social one. I try to keep the following distinction top of mind: - [[Ethics is about how to live well]] - [[Morality is about what we owe to each other]] And then say: ethics is not just about what we owe to each other. It's also about becoming the kind of person you want to be. It's not the case that ethical theory removes the need for difficult-to-explain-or-justify judgement calls. It's not obvious that a neat ethical theory is possible. People like [[=Bernard Williams]] argue that ethical life is too untidy to be captured in a systematic theory. ### From Thinking Through Utilitarianism Ethical properties: - Normative properties - Deontic: being permissible, impermissible, optional, or required. - Reason: being a reason, weak strong or decisively in favour or against. - Evaluative properties: goodness of a state of affairs The nonethical domain trades in Descriptive Properties, whereas the ethical domain trades in Normative and Evaluative Properties. An ethical theory gives an account of how Normative and Evaluative Properties relate to one another and how they link up to Descriptive Properties. Put in more familiar (but less precise) terminology, we might say that an ethical theory gives an account of the right and the good, their connection, and explains how each maps on to the natural world. Imagine possible actions as a set of doors you could walk through. If an action is permissible but optional, there must be several such options. If there is only one door with a green light, that option is required. All actions are either permissible or impermissible. Permissible actions are further categorized as optional or required. A permissible action is optional when there are other permissible actions available. A permissible action is required when there are no other permissible actions available. Intrincisc and instrumental reasons. Tug of war analogy: think of reasons as pulling in different directions. Value: intrinsic and instrumental. Value-for You: Some fact is good-for you or bad-for you if and only if it is personally good or bad. Value-Simpliciter: Some fact is good-simpliciter or bad-simpliciter if and only if it is impersonally good or bad.