Mill    Utilitarianism    1806-1873

  I. The principle of utility (consequentialist)

 A. "The right action is the one that produces the most happiness overall." [happiness = pleasure (hedonistic utility)]  Not the greatest happiness for the greatest number

 B. Bentham
  1. scientific, quantify happiness (soon abandoned)
  2. had himself stuffed
 

 II. Possible criticisms

 A. selfish?

 B. A pig's P?

  1. It's the critic who thinks people are pigs.  There's a hierachy of values, lower and higher and someone who knows both won't sacrifice the higher even for perfect possession of the lower.
  2. Even if (contrary to fact) you really would be happier living the life of the    pig, you would not be producing the greatest happiness overall.
 

 C. Two selfless?  No.  Motive isn't what counts.

 D. Too difficult?  No.  We have all of human history to guide us.

THREE  BIG PROBLEMS

III.  Doesn't utilitarianism sometimes justify injustice?

 A. In the real world, the apparently unjust act will almost never maximize happiness.

 B. Bite the bullet.

IV. Doesn't utilitarianism entail that human beings have no intrinsic value?  Yes.  What's good is the pleasure and what's bad is the pain.

V.  There seems to be no motive to practice the principle of utility.

Political Ramifications

Intrusive?  Laws which will make us happy, e.g. smoking

  I. Anti-Paternalism (Restricting your freedom for your own good.)

 (stealing?  welfare?  laws against recreational drugs?  speed limits?  crash helmet laws?  food and drug regulatiations?)

 A. Argument:  Who cares more and knows more about your happiness, you or the government?

 B. Some qualifications -- applies to people capable of assessing information and making rational, fully-informed decisions.

  1. children
  2. insane
  3. undeveloped societies

 C. Criticism?

  1. Is there some paternalism we'd all agree to?  (If we agree, is it really paternalism?)
  2. Can all our actions be seen as other - regarding in one way or another?

 II. Rights (Free Speech):  Personal freedom in which others should not interfere.  Others have an obligation to stand back, e.g., free speech.

 A. Superficially it looks like the utilitarian wouldn't allow the idea. if leaving you alone produces happiness, do it, if not don't.  (Bentham - "Nonsense on stilts.")

 B. Rights will never be absolute, but...

 C. Certain personal freedoms ought to be protected - for everybody - on utilitarian grounds.

 D. Crucial to avoid the "tyranny of the majority"

 E. e.g. Free Speech:  I want to say something unpopular...

  1. At first looks like you ought to shut me up, but...
 

  The truth is useful, and

  2. I could be right or,
  3. I could have some of the truth, or
  4. I could be dead wrong, but you need to remember, from time to time, why you think what you think.

   [clear and present danger]

  5. not absolute...
 
 
Hegel 1770-1831

I. Some standard neoplatonic themes (Plotinus and, under his influence, some medieval neoplatonists)

A. The One and the Many

B. The One is a sort of nothing which "expresses" itself and BECOMES something when it produces the many. 

C. (For Christians) A mind above thinking which becomes when it thinks things into being. All that is is God and what He makes, so it's all God or His thought, a Christianized idealism.

D. There is a "return" from the lower to the higher. (Saw this in Plotinus) The human being thinks what is above it and returns up and up...

E. (For Christians) In using language about God: A triadic, dialectic approach. 

    1. Via positiva (thesis) -- God as cause, e.g. God is good or being.

    2. Via negativa (antithesis) -- God transcends concept as created, e.g. God is not-good, not-being.

    3. Via superlativa (synthesis) -- both positive and negative, positive grammatically to insist that God is this thing, but so far beyond what we can grasp....so bright it is as darkness to our eyes, e.g. God is super-good, super-being.

II. The critique of Kant -- remember the two problems Fichte mentioned

A. No reason to believe there is a noumenal world. What there is is the world as experienced.

B. Kant might respond -- But something has to cause our experiences! -- But that's contradictory!

III. Absolute Idealism -- It's all an Absolute Mind, expressing itself, thinking itself throughout history (HISTORY!!!) and becoming itself in the process.

IV. Why think this? As Parmenides had said, thought and being are the same. Logic reflects reality. So let's shut our eyes and THINK. The way we have to think is the way things have to be.

A. Most general concept is Being (Thesis). But Being at this most general level is indeterminate, i.e. ....

B. Not-being (Antithesis). But Being is not stuck at Non-being, there is a way for indetermintate being to be, through...

C. Becoming (Synthesis). 

D. We could actually start anywhere because everything is connected. No matter where you start, with yourself, with objects in nature, human activities and institutions, end up same place through dialectical processes.

V. Human being

A. Thinking about this is Absolute Mind thinking itself (the return!)-- art, religion, and philosophy, all saying the same thing, leading to the same end, but in progressively better ways.

B. Freedom = Rationality, most free when behaving most rationally i.e. for both private and public good. 

VI. The state -- just is the unity of people behaving rationally. This is the actual state. 

A. The state is an individual which can be concscious of itself, "...the state represents universal self-consciousness"...the unity of the self-consciousness of the individuals.  

B. The sovereign is the embodiment of universal self-consciousness. That's what justifies his authority. 

VII. World History : The expression of Absolute Mind becoming....

A. Is the history of nations.  

 B. At each epoch one nation is at the leading edge of history.  

C. Special world-historical people emerge as agents of the world spirit.  (Zeitgeist -- the spirit of the age, this time's manifestation of absolute mind.)

D. It's all good. Whatever is at the leading edge of history is the most perfect manifestation of A.M. to date. Right now -- says Hegel -- it happens to be the German people.

There's a storm coming. -- Reject Judeo-Christian morality as part of the past.

I. Nazis

A. Superiority of the German People as the most advanced

B. The Fuhrer prinzip -- the will of the people is manifested in the leader.

II. Marxists

A. Dialectical materialism -- Reject the notion that there is Spirit becoming in history. It's all matter.

B....but (for some bizarre reason) History is the story of struggle between oppressed and oppressor which must follow a dialectic pattern. 

C. Homo faber -- man is a maker who is a sort of nothing until he gets hold of material objects. He becomes something by his creative activity.

III. Atheist Existentialists -- existence precedes essence. (Each human being is sort of like Hegel's A.M.) There is no human nature. Each of us exists as a nothing, until he starts to choose, and whatever he chooses is good just because he chooses it.

Continental Philosophy -- rooted in Hegelianism, though at a considerable distance. Criticism of ability of human beings to access truth. We are historical creatures, bound to our roles at our point in history. In English-speaking circles mainly influential in English departments and Women's and Ethnic Studies programs.

IV. As an anglophone response -- Analytic Philosophy

A. The job of the philosopher is not to tell you what exists. Science does that. It's just to analyze language.

B. Logical positivism -- let's say that the only meaningful language is what can be empircially verified in the most radical way. No metaphysics!!!  

C. Logical positivism died the death long about the mid-70's

1. made science impossible.-- can't empirically verify any universal claims. Remember Hume.

2. self-refuting. "A proposition is meaningful only if it admits of empirical verification."

Now, in English-speaking circles, we're back to business as usual -- doing the sort of stuff that Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Descartes and Hume did..

Fascism, Marxism, other ...isms

  I. Reject past philosophical problems and method of doing philosophy - evidence - argument - reason - premises > conclusions.  Traditional enterprise suspicious. Also reject Judeo-Christian religious tradition.

 II. All human experience is to be viewed in light of sweeping historical theory in which human existence is essentially a struggle for power.

 Individual is mainly member of race, class, gender, etc.

 III. Revolutionary Critique of society, tradition.  Traditional political arrangements, morality and religion are instruments of power designed to maintain the status quo.

 IV. Utopian (overthrow oppressors)

 (Barbarians, Primitive Societies)
 

Nietzsche 1844 - 1900

  I. God is Dead!  i.e. There is no God.

 A. No evidence - no disproof of God.

 B. Just people beginning to give up on Christianity.
 

 II. No objective morality, [Aquinas 4th way!] No fundamental distinction between man and beast
 

III. Fundamental human nature

 Dionysian vs. Apollonian,  wild, frenzied life force vs. principle of control

 Dionysian more fundamental, needs Apollonian else would destroy self - art

 IV. Basic critique of the society: It's Christian...life-denying

 A. It's succumbed to the slave morality.

  will to power (we all have it)

 B. Naturally two kinds of people...2 moralities

  Masters - motivated by will to power, recognizes his own superiority, creates his own "morality," no "purpose", sees that "good" is cruelty, exploitation, conquest.  Barbarians, Vikings!  Life affirming!

  Slaves - herd of weak, oppressed > slave morality > helpful, humble, friendly, self-sacrificing

 C. Slaves want power - so enforce slave morality even on the masters.  Christianity - first Christians humble, poor etc.

  (Judaism, too) - Utilitarianism just a dolled up pseudo-scientific version of the slave morality.

  Reverse values

  V. Superman - totally free

 History is moving towards Him - Utopia when the masters free themselves from the slave morality.

 Replace religion with art

 Superman - Balance between Dionysian and Apollonian

 Controlled life-force pours forth as art

  (Hitler - failed painter, 3rd Reich is his masterpiece)
 

Marx  1818-1883

Enormously influential!

  I. Like Nietzsche

 A. Uninterested in past questions

 B. Central fact about human condition is this great historical struggle.
  Fundamental truth of human being in role in historical struggle.

 C. Utopian

 D. But it's a class struggle, not the life principle vs. slave morality business.
 

 II. Central insight:  fundamental factor which shapes human experience, underlies historical change is "economics," material condition of life.

 A. Certainly something to be said for this.  Air conditioning...computers...

 B.  ‘Dialectical materialism', determinism, ‘scientific'

 1. materialism: What there is and all there is is material things...no God, no souls    etc.

 2. Dialectical: thesis, antithesis, synthesis

    Thesis: Status quo.  Inevitably involves class struggle because there is SCARCITY.  Oppressed and oppressor.

    Antithesis: The response against the status quo

    Synthesis: The result of the struggle, becoming the new status quo.

  3. determinism: just like the rest of the corporeal universe, humanity operates in    response to inexorable laws of motion.  Empirically observable.  We can    come up with a genuine science of human behavior.  History is a ‘scientific'    enterprise.

III. Human life operates on 2 levels

 A.  [super structure], law, religion, ethics, beliefs, family

  [substructure]
  relations of production -> social relation that develops in response to....

  forces of production -> material resources and technology

 B. 1. You think what you think because of relations of production, where you are in the social system.  As a rule philosophy etc. is there to justify status quo.
  2. Search for objective truth is futile.

 C. 1. you'll believe what economics produces
  2. economic factors in substructure change from age to age

   Plato -> Augustine -> Locke
   "They might be right?"  No.

  [3.  Inherent contradiction at the outset.]

 IV. History:  social changes

 A. There are relations of production which will maximize forces of production most efficiently.

 B. Slavery -> Feudalism -> Capitalism

 C. F -> C because of industrial revolution

  Now machinery produces best and most with larger pool of laborers gathered together - large concentration of capital to organize, build the factories, direct production.

 D. 1. Each stage - struggle, oppresses and oppressed

  2. oppression not "evil" really, because social system is the inevitable product of forces of production.

  3. "revolution," change absolutely determined, unavoidable given changes in those forces.

  V. Capitalism:  Many workers who work for wages, profit goes to somebody else, factory owner.  A necessary step in the progress of world history.

 A. The Problem, Alienation:  separation from something to which you were previously related.

 B. Human essence = "homo faber", conscious creativity, vs. animals.
 
 

 C. Objectification -> We're nothing independent of the world - we're mere potential.  We become something when we make things in the world - pouring our powers into material reality.

 D. But in capitalist society because of private ownership of means of productions:  Alienation

  1. From your own labor - sell it, don't do what you want, hate work

  2. From product - don't make what you want, it's not yours.

  3. From other individuals - competition

   workers vs. capitalist
   workers vs. worker
   capitalist vs. capitalist

  4. From species - being - i.e., a human being is a social being who makes, all of that is taken from us - we're alienated from our own nature.

 VII. The solution

 A. Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction

  1. (inevitably) poor get poorer, more numerous, society divides into 2 classes,    the workers and the capitalists.

  2. But...because of the very nature of the system, the workers are now massed    around factories.   They are brought together and able to get better    organized.

 B. Violent revolution!  Overthrow the capitalists, get rid of private ownership of means of production.

 C. Socialist system:

  - dictatorship of the proletariat (public ownership and decision making)
  - full-automation
  - scarcity would be solved (no more competion)
  - "from each according to his ability to each according to his need."
 
 
 

  [Contrary to human nature?  -  No!]

  - consciousness, attitude, beliefs - all result from substructure, with abolution of private property, no scarcity - attitude will change to cooperative consciousness

 D. Communism:

  - Government will whither away - no need for force to maintain order because no classes, no struggle, no competition.  It's the end of history.  Human essence is restored - we can labor freely and express ourselves!

VIII. Problems with Marxism
 

Beliefs function of economic situation?

   a. Why do P?  It's part of the superstructure.  Inevitably driven by what happens in the substructure. Can't reach objective truth!
    Why believe Marx?  Doesn't he say what he says because he's mid-nineteenth century middle class German of ethnically Jewish descent?

    b. Marx responds, I'm different because my claims are Scientific!

    c. Well, is Marxism good science?

        1. Predictive power

            a. revolution in industrialized nations?

            b. violent revolution necessary to improve workers conditions?

            c."Marxist" governments - impoverish their countries, genocidal, repressive, totalitarian

            d. Defenders say,  revolution hasn't been tried -still shows failed predictions

    d.. Why exempt science from the rest of the human condition in which  everything is determined by the forces of production?

.
 

Pragmatism
 

I. Only indigenous American philosophy (fits the stereotype).

II. Peirce 1839-1914 (Founder - trouble publishing)

 James 1842-1910 (Popularizer - without negative connotation)

 Dewey 1859-1952 (Influence on American education)

---------Critique of earlier philosophy-------

The wrong view...

l. Task of P is to find out what's the case

2. True belief is one that copies things

The right view....

III. The point of philosophy and of thinking in general is to solve problems: real problems that really concern us as actors in the world.  "Do not doubt in philosophy what you do not doubt in your heart." (Descartes' question about the external world?)

IV. The test of whether or not a theory ought to be accepted is whether or not it works i.e. does it help us accomplish whatever it is we're trying to do?

 A. Language and concepts grow out of our action in the world.
  Clock, not a ‘copy' view...computer
  Hard and Soft

 B. "Truth" = what's useful

 C.   aim should be to achieve a belief that really helps get the job done, ‘subjective satisfaction' - looking for some abstract "truth" beyond a theory that works is futile in any case, but it's also pointless in that it doesn't really help.
 

V. Pragmatism is more of a method than a world view.  Not saying this or that is the case  about the universe.

 A. Method involves a community effort...meanings of words do not arise in a private,   but in a public context.

 B.  Special approval of science...the rules governing the scientific community involve   freedom from dogma and openness to experiment.

 C. Dewey on education: Goal is to remold society through the schools.  Do away   with traditional and religious perspectives.  Experimental method: teach how to   think, not what to think.  Replace traditional values with new pragmatic values   ...the good is what works!...discoverable through science.

----A Standard Criticism: Is the distinction between knowing the truth and finding a belief that's useful a false dichotemy?-----

VI. Pragmatic solutions to P problems (2 examples)

 A. Is there truth? (i.e. is human reason capable of coming up with good solutions?)

  1. Logically you can't prove it without begging the question, but ...

  2. You have to assume it to get anywhere

 B. Free Will

  1. Options, indeterminism v. determinism - 2 competing faiths.

  2. Look to consequences and see what we can live with.

  3. Indeterminism - chance

   a. Destruction of laws of nature, chaos?

   b. No.  Here's what indeterminism looks life...
    Divinity Ave. vs. Oxford St.

  4. Determinism - whatever happens, has to happen. Nothing else could possibly have happened

   a. Judgments of regret

   b. Radical pessimism about entire universe

   c. Escape with fatuous optism?

   d. But then we ought not make the judgment of regret (And we're back with pessimism)
      either way universe stinks!

    No praise or blame, no point in effort

  5.   Opt for indeterminism
 
 

Analytic Philosophy
(Logical Positivism) A.J. Ayer

Rejecting of traditional P at least as radical as Nietzsche and Marx

I. The job of philosophy is just to analyze language.  Science tells us what's the case.
  e.g. the free will debate
 

II. Two kinds of propositions

 Analytic (necessarily true and just about how we use words, not about any objective  facts in the world) 2+2 = 4, All bachelors are unmarried men

 Synthetic (empirically testable) The train will be by any time now.
 

III. Verification theory of meaning
 synthetic statements

 "A proposition is a meaningful statement of fact only if it can be empirically verified, at least in principle."

 i.e. we must be able to point to some sense experience  - debt to Hume

 A. The box is blue

 B. There is a planet outside the orbit of Pluto
  (in principle - some sense data)

IV. Examples
 metaphysics

 A. There is a God.  There is not a God.  I have an immortal soul.  I do not...
    just nonsense!

 B. propositions about mental states.
  I have a headache.
  I'm imagining a yellow daffodil

  [But we say this sort of thing all the time!]

  What I really mean is - I am going to behave a certain way

 C. ethical language

  1.  Could it be that good and bad are empirically observable?

  a. utilitarianism - not contradictory to say "X produces most happiness but is wrong."  "good" does not equal "produces most happiness"
 

  b. subjectivism - "good" means "I like X".
   same problem
 
 
 
 
 

 NOPE!  So what can we say about ethical language?  We talk about good and bad   all the time.  We must mean something!

  4. EMOTIVISM - ethical language does not state facts of any kind!

    a. expresses emotion
    b. attempts to instill emotion in others

   "It's wrong to torture small children for fun"=
   Boo!  Torturing small children!

   Funny consequence - no possibility of disputing about values.  "It's a value judgment."

   Absolute abandoning all moral principles!

V. Problems

 A. Does it (log. pos.) give an adequate account of language?  God?  Headache?  Ethics!

 B. Morally absurd!

 C. V.P. renders scientific language meaningless!

   water boils at 212 F

  1. Can you verify that?  i.e. prove it true or false - No!  It's supposed to be a universal law - i.e. it's supposed to hold true tomorrow.  The futue will be like the past.  No empirical evidence!
 

 D. The V.P. seems to render itself meaningless!

  1. It can't be empirically verified!  Tee hee!

  2. It's just a heuristic device, a tool which we choose to adopt to help us in our quest to analyze language.

   a. Why should I adopt it?
    Duh!
 
 
 
 

Sartre 1905-1980

- French, atheist, existentialism
- Reject traditional P, focus on human experience, actor in world, but not as part of historical struggle, focus is on individual, radical freedom.

I. Existence precedes essence (define)
 chair, - essence preceeds existence
 [God - human nature]
  Aquinas - everybody shares basic goods...primitive man, modern middle class   person
  Sartre finds this implausible
  Man is nothing - no kind of thing - until he acts and chooses

II. A. No objective, transcendent values

  We must give things, actions, institutions, value by choosing them
  "We can never choose evil"

 B. Our choices are not determined (by heredity, environment, subconscious...)

  1. "science" of psychology totally wrong-headed.  Freud, B.F. Skinner, Marx...
  2. The paradigm example - knife, waterfall - We're literally free to do whatever we are physically capable of doing.
  3. I and I alone am totally responsible for my actions - I can't blame them on anything outside myself.

III. anguish: When I choose I choose for all mankind i.e. with no external values or rules, we all create, invent rules, we're providing the examples which others may choose to follow.  We're saying - this is a good way to do!

 Enormous responsibility - What do I know?  How can I set myself up as the example?

 forlornness - As Dostoyevsky said, without God everything is permissible.  No guide for choosing.  Just choose.  The choice has value because it's chosen.  You give it value.  Sartre's student - What if he said I just can't make a decision.  "Condemmed to be free"
 lost

 despair - Can never have certainty.  What happens depends on everybody's choices, but everybody is radically free.  Cause that you worked so hard for today may be totally abandoned tomorrow.
 (I'm working for socialism, others may choose fascism)

IV. Why people don't like it.

 A. quietism?  If one state of affairs is not objectively better than another, why should I bother?  "No reality except in actions."

 B. horrifies some people because of insistence upon responsibility- What if you're a failure.  " I could have done this great thing, but circumstances were against me...I'm really a great P, etc."
  existentialism insists that what you do is what you are

 C. subjectivity (vs. objectivity - objective values, objective meanings)
  (If all good is in the eye of the beholder then doesn't anything go?

  What if young Frenchman is Jeffrey Daumer?

  Why is socialism to be preferred to Fascism?
 

Answer: [Rogers: To the extent that it really responds to the criticism of subjectivity it repudiates much, most of what he said earlier.  Result would be an ethic not totally different from Mill or Kant or even Aquinas.]

I. We won't talk in terms of good and evil, but in terms of truth and falsehood.  One ought to recognize the truth.

II. Truth is we're radically free - there is a universal human condition - to hide this truth from ourselves is to live inauthentically (e.g. + -, I have to do it, great actress)...
 that's wrong

III. We can construct an ethical system: We ought to choose truth, i.e. freedom for ourselves and for everyone - don't interfere with freedom of other individuals, work towards freedom for all

 Freedom - ability to make your own choices, do what you want

 Axe murder mother?
 Fascism?