DOCSLIB.ORG

Moral Philosophy 101 Warren J

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Moral Philosophy 101 Warren J What do we “owe” each other? Moral Philosophy 101 Warren J. The Caries Epidemic in Native American Communities The First Law Of Healthcare Improvement “Every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets” So If your results are consistent, but unsatisfactory, you need to redesign the system (…but first you have to realize you are in a “system”). Donald Berwick, Do we lack social cohesion? Collective efficacy is the glue that binds neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries together Keriana Carll cries in pain nearly every day. Her mouth hurts. She doesn't eat much. No dentist in Sarasota or Manatee County was willing to treat her. The only dentist her publicly funded Medicaid insurance company found who was willing to help the child is 50 miles north, in central Tampa. I have had a change of heart. I now believe that Democrats are entirely responsible for the mess that Medicare is in today. If the people crying for more free stuff would just shut up and get a job, and stop smoking cigarettes, using crack, wasting their money on chips and beer, they would have enough money to provide health care for their children Keriana Carll cries in pain nearly every day. Her mouth hurts. She doesn't eat much. No dentist in Sarasota or Manatee County was willing to treat her. The only dentist her publicly funded Medicaid insurance company found who was willing to help the child is 50 miles north, in central Tampa. If you have children there are expense and responsibilities, but in today's world those responsibilities are being transferred to the guy next door via government. Everyone has their hand out for a free ride. Its not that this child can't get free dental its that its inconvenient. TWO decades ago, Republicans and Democrats in Congress came together to make historic changes to our nation’s welfare program, working to strike the right balance between helping people in need while setting standards for personal responsibility. Our excessive emphasis on individualism at the expense of communalism has produced poverty, homelessness, untreated mental illness--all of which can be mitigated by learning from societies where extreme disparities between highest and lowest income groups do not exist. The overwhelming perception of poverty as a state caused by failure to take responsibility has always informed failed efforts to ameliorate it. Kasich's article, full of phrases like "personal accountability" reeks of the usual Republican MO - first gently tune the rhetoric to make poverty seem the result of a moral failing or characterological deficit, then withdraw real and necessary support in the name of restoring bootstraps. Then frame the dismal results as the consequence of above-mentioned personal qualities or even better, as the inevitable failure of government intervention of any sort ("bureaucracy "). Proper dental care should be a human right By Donald M. Berwick May 24, 2016 In Alaska, scores of tiny Alaska Native villages dot the landscape, some with only a few hundred inhabitants and many accessible only by bush planes. They may be short on some amenities, but many have superb dental care. That’s thanks to a program called Dental Health Aide Therapist…. Proper dental care is as much a human right and as smart an investment as is proper medical care. Calling dental care a human right does not make it so. It does not make more dentists appear from nothing. It does Another give away. Who's gonna pay for it? not make people get off their butts and go see a dentist. To Oh yes, a higher tax on millionaires. That's suggest that dental care is a right is just dumb and does not the solution. contribute to solving the problems that Berwick mentions. What does “moral (political) philosophy" say about healthcare? moral (political) philosophy More More More Liberty Utility Fairness Libertarian Utilitarian Social Justice (contractual) Robert Nozick Peter Singer John Rawls Ayn Rand Jeremy Bentham Thomas Hobbs Milton Friedman John Stuart Mill John Locke moral (political) philosophy Libertarianism Main value: Liberty Robert Nozick • Holdings justly acquired are just • Those with the holdings are under no obligation to distribute them to others Social Justice (contractual) LibertarianLibertarian moral (political) philosophy Peter Singer John Rawls More More Utilitarianism Social Justice (contractual) Utility Fairness Utilitarianism Main value: Utility Strategy: Reduce suffering in the most effective manner possible (at the social level) Peter Singer • avoiding pain • developing one's abilities, • satisfying basic needs for food and shelter Morality based on consequences But no universal application (no right to life) And engineering point of view Social Justice (Contractualism) Main Value: Justice is Fairness Strategy: Establish social contract • Original Position John Rawls • Veil of Ignorance Moral values are negotiated Distributed Justice Important Social Justice (contractual) Universal Application What are our obligations if we wish to live in a moral society? Utilitarianism Peter Singer Paul Farmer, MD Social Justice (Contractualism) "Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale" John Rawls Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow Social Justice (contractual) (1821 – 1902) Social Justice (Contractualism) "Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale" John Rawls Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow Social Justice (contractual) (1821 – 1902) Clinicians Public Health Policy Makers .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand Ayn
    Who Is Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand Few 20th century intellectuals have been as influential—and controversial— as the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. Her thinking still has a profound impact, particularly on those who come to it through her novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead—with their core messages of individualism, self-worth, and the right to live without the impositions of others. Although ignored or scorned by some academics, traditionalists, pro- gressives, and public intellectuals, her thought remains a major influence on Ayn Rand many of the world’s leading legislators, policy advisers, economists, entre- preneurs, and investors. INTRODUCTION AN Why does Rand’s work remain so influential? Ayn Rand: An Introduction illuminates Rand’s importance, detailing her understanding of reality and human nature, and explores the ongoing fascination with and debates about her conclusions on knowledge, morality, politics, economics, government, AN INTRODUCTION public issues, aesthetics and literature. The book also places these in the context of her life and times, showing how revolutionary they were, and how they have influenced and continue to impact public policy debates. EAMONN BUTLER is director of the Adam Smith Institute, a leading think tank in the UK. He holds degrees in economics and psychology, a PhD in philosophy, and an honorary DLitt. A former winner of the Freedom Medal of Freedom’s Foundation at Valley Forge and the UK National Free Enterprise Award, Eamonn is currently secretary of the Mont Pelerin Society. Butler is the author of many books, including introductions on the pioneering economists Eamonn Butler Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, F.
    [Show full text]
  • Rand, Hayek, and the Ethics of the Micro- and Macro-Cosmos Steven Horwitz
    Centenary Symposium, Part II Ayn Rand Among the Austrians Two Worlds at Once: Rand, Hayek, and the Ethics of the Micro- and Macro-cosmos Steven Horwitz Moreover, the structures of the extended order are made up not only of individuals but also of many, often overlapping, sub-orders within which old instinctual responses, such as solidarity and altruism, continue to retain some importance by assisting voluntary collaboration, even though they are incapable, by themselves, of creating a basis for the more extended order. Part of our present difficulty is that we must constantly adjust our lives, our thoughts and our emotions, in order to live simultaneously within different kinds of orders according to different rules. So we must learn to live in two sorts of worlds at once. — F. A. Hayek (1989, 18; emphasis added) Introduction A title that contains Rand, Hayek, and the ethics of anything might well raise a few eyebrows among the cognoscenti. After all, Ayn Rand was a champion of an objective ethics and railed against anyone who suggested that a meaningful ethics could be anything but objective in her sense. F. A. Hayek (1989, 10), by contrast, argued explicitly that “Ethics is the last fortress in which human pride must now bow in recognition of its origins. Such an evolutionary theory of morality is . neither instinctual nor a creation of reason.” Thus we are faced with two thinkers who have strongly opposed explanations for the source of ethical rules. However, despite those differences, both Rand and Hayek do wind up with some similar conclusions. For one, both argued that there was a strong link between ethics, political philosophy, and the role of the state.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Studies Philosophy?
    Who Studies Philosophy? Created with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundat ion Amer ican Philosophical lDAssociation Academia Sheila Bair, president of Washington College and former FDIC chair Noam Chomsky , professor , activist , author, and public intellectual Alice Domurat Dreger, professor , activist , and author Rev. John I. Jenkins, President, University of Notre Dame Aung San Suu Kyi Activism Stokely Carmichael Stokely Carmichael / Kwame lure, civil rights leader Angela Davis, social act ivist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Business Herbert Allison Jr., former Fannie Mae CEO Martin Luther King Jr. Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr Angela Davis Patrick Byrne, founder of Overstock.com Robert Greenhill, investment banker Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linked In Damon Horowitz, entrepreneur and in-house philosopher at Google Carl Icahn, investor and former CEO of TWA Airlines Gerald Levin, former CEO of Time Warner, Inc. John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods Market Stewart Butterfield Sheila Bair Lachlan Murdoch, media magnate and son of Rupert Murdoch Max Palevsky, co-founder of Intel and venture capitalist Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia George Soros, investor and ph ilanthropist Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal News and Journalism Barbara Amiel, Lady Black of Cross harbour, journalist and writer Juan Williams Larry Sanger John Chancellor, journal ist Chris Hayes, journalist, political commentator, and MSNBC host Tamara Keith, journalist and NPR White House correspondent Kathryn Jean Lopez, journalist and political commentator Stone Phillips, broadcaster George F. Will, journalist , author , and political commentator Juan Williams, journalist Kathryn Jean Lopez Photos pub lic do main o r Creati ve Com mons.
    [Show full text]
  • From the Instructor
    From the Instructor Nicholas wrote this paper for my WR 150 course that surveys debates surrounding the free market. The second major paper in the course challenges students to contend with two uncompromising visions of the market’s virtues and evils: Karl Marx’s narrative of exploitation and estranged labor in The Communist Manifesto vs. John Galt’s forceful speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged, through which Ayn Rand asserts that competition alone can engender individual autonomy and national pros- perity. As a writer, the young Marx exemplifies many of the lessons that I teach my students. He provides an insightful and consistent framework for analysis—class relations—but does so through an elegant story with clear protagonists, antagonists, and a compelling narrative of historical struggle. Rand consciously inverts aspects of Marx’s narrative, contrasting “men of ability,” personified by Galt himself, with the weaker strata of society who seek shelter from the vicissitudes of struggle. Nicholas demonstrates in this paper his capacity to grasp the core points of contention between Rand and Marx, but also to elucidate the relevance of their grand visions for contemporary political debates in clear, insightful, and often clever prose. Nicholas frequently settled on a theme and argument from the first draft of his papers, and spent subsequent drafts developing those ideas further. He made good use of scholarly sources to substantiate his argument in this paper, especially when demon- strating that Rand, far from being a marginal twentieth-century thinker, has attained a mythical status for the contemporary American Right that is nearly on a par with the cult of Marxism in the scholarly and political movements of the past century.
    [Show full text]
  • David Hume Foundations of the Classical School of Economics
    Economic Insights FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF DALLAS VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1 David Hume Foundations of the Classical School of Economics Adam Smith is the founder of the nomic essays] are all clearly written classical school of economics, but eco- and often contain an excellent sum- nomic theorizing predates Smith. The mary and synthesis of the ideas of his philosophic foundations of classical eco- predecessors. In that respect, how- nomics are found in the work of the ever, Cantillon’s Essai sur la nature Scottish Enlightenment thinkers of the du commerce en général, published early to mid-18th century, centered in 1755, but written over twenty years David Hume is primarily known as around the University of Edinburgh. previously, is superior. a philosopher and chronicler of English Notable among these great thinkers and writers is David Hume. It is impossible to know whether history. Less well known is his work on eco- Hume was born in Edinburgh, Smith was more influenced by Can- nomic theory and several political econ- Scotland, on May 7, 1711. The extent to tillon’s book or by personal discussions which Hume influenced Smith, his close with Hume. Schumpeter (1954, 124) omy issues, some of which remain salient friend, has to be inferred from their argues that Hume did influence Smith, today. Studying his economic work respective writings, but the warmth and and Rothbard (1995, 430) suggests that depth of their relationship is incon- Hume was one of Smith’s mentors. enables us to see how he reshaped John testable. Smith said of Hume: O’Brien (1975) gives Hume a large role Locke’s quantity theory of money and how in the development of classical econom- Upon the whole, I have always con- ic thought because of his participation he influenced the great Adam Smith, sidered him, both in his lifetime and in spreading natural law philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Ayn Rand Vs. Ethics of Care: Capitalist Economics and Women on Welfare
    AYN RAND VS. ETHICS OF CARE: CAPITALIST ECONOMICS AND WOMEN ON WELFARE Kelsey L. Thompson WGS379H Women’s and Gender Studies Plan II Honors Program The University of Texas at Austin April 7, 2013 ________________________________________ Dana L. Cloud, Ph.D. Department of Communication Studies Supervising Professor __________________________________________ Christine L. Williams, Ph.D. Department of Sociology Second Reader 1 ABSTRACT Author: Kelsey Thompson Title: Ayn Rand vs. Ethics of Care: Capitalist Economics and Women on Welfare Supervising Professor: Dana L. Cloud, Ph.D. The objective of this thesis is to examine how the political ideology of capitalism that heavily permeates today’s culture and is so prominent within the popular novel Atlas Shrugged constructs our values in such a way as to marginalize women. I examine the ways in which freedom, independence, morality, and equality are thought about within liberalism and relate them to Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged to demonstrate how people who do not fit these values are considered less than citizens. I juxtapose this with a focus on how freedom, independence, morality and equality are constructed within a feminist ethics of care so as to more wholly include women within the realm of citizenship. I use this discussion to provide an alternative to the constructions of values that happen within capitalist political ideology and demonstrate ways in which these values can be envisioned without being marginalizing. I relate this to a discussion of women on welfare and how their testimonies provide a call to recognize the untruths and inequities of liberalism. These testimonies argue for a different societal construction of women on welfare that subverts the mainstream perception and aligns with a feminist ethics of care.
    [Show full text]
  • WHO STUDIES PHILOSOPHY? Created with Support from the Andrew W
    WHO STUDIES PHILOSOPHY? Created with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Activism Academia Religion Grace Lee Boggs, social activist and philosopher Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University Rabbi Michael Lerner, political activist and editor of Tikkun Stokely Carmichael / Kwame Ture, civil rights leader Noam Chomsky, professor, activist, author, and public intellectual Pope John Paul II Angela Davis, social activist John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University News and Journalism Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader Marjorie Hass, president of Rhodes College Barbara Amiel, Lady Black of Crossharbour, journalist and writer Robert Parris Moses, educator and civil rights activist Rev. John I. Jenkins, President, University of Notre Dame Chris Hayes, journalist, political commentator, and MSNBC host Angela Davis Doria Shafik, Egyptian feminist activist Carly Fiorina Business Tamara Keith, journalist and NPR White House correspondent Arts and Entertainment Herbert Allison Jr., former Fannie Mae CEO Kathryn Jean Lopez, journalist and political commentator Wes Anderson, filmmaker Sheila Bair, Washington College president and former FDIC chair Stone Phillips, broadcaster Ethan Coen, filmmaker (of the Coen Brothers) Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr George F. Will, journalist, author, and political commentator Stephen Colbert, comedian and TV host Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com Juan Williams, journalist Wes Craven, filmmaker Paul Draper, winemaker Sports Arthur Danto, art critic and philosopher
    [Show full text]
  • Kurt Keefner's Concrete Ethics: Killing Cool
    Reason Papers Vol. 37, no. 2 Living in Earnest: Kurt Keefner’s Concrete Ethics: Killing Cool: Fantasy vs. Reality in American Life. Wallkill Trail Books, 2014. Kurt Keefner’s Killing Cool: Fantasy vs. Reality in American Life often feels like three books in one: a positive ethics of the good life, wrapped inside a psychological analysis of some common deviations from reality, wrapped inside a searching criticism of current American culture. Cutting to the core, this review focuses on the philosophical essence of Keefner’s work, which he calls “concrete ethics” and characterizes as “an ethics that goes beyond general virtues and deals with the specific habits necessary to live the good life” (p. 5). Keefner sets the context for his concrete ethics by observing that what is needed today is a philosophy for living in a market-based society (pp. 138-39). Older and other ways of life such as that of the starving artist, aristocratic patron, or spiritual hermit have been dissolved by the market into economic roles such as that of the creative entrepreneur, venture philanthropist, and freelance counselor. At least in the developed world, in some sense we are all middle-class capitalists now. Unfortunately, traditional approaches to ethics provide little guidance for navigating this brave new world. At their best, they emphasize some of the virtues that are needed to live a good human life in any place and time. However, they were conceived before the centrality of one’s vocation was recognized or when it was actively frowned upon (as in classical Greece). Even relatively recent philosophers whom Keefner cites, such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand, might have extolled the value of work,1 but in their own lives were still lone writers with limited experience of the practical world.
    [Show full text]
  • Bruce Lee and the Perfection of Martial Arts (Studies): an Exercise in Alterdisciplinarity Kyle Barrowman
    Kyle Barrowman is an Adjunct Instructor of Film Studies at Columbia CONTRIBUTOR College Chicago and the College of Lake County. He received his PhD from the School of Journalism, Media, and Culture at Cardiff University. He has published widely on film history, aesthetics, and philosophy, and his research interests in martial arts studies include the genre of martial arts cinema and the sport of MMA. He also serves as an editorial assistant of Martial Arts Studies. BRUCE LEE AND THE PERFECTION OF MARTIAL ARTS (STUDIES): AN EXERCISE IN ALTERDISCIPLINARITY KYLE BARROWMAN DOI ABSTRACT 10.18573/mas.80 This essay builds from an analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of Bruce Lee’s jeet kune do to an analysis of the current state of academic scholarship generally and martial arts studies scholarship specifically. For the sake of a more comprehensive understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of jeet kune do, and in particular its affinities with a philosophical tradition traced by Stanley Cavell under the heading of KEYWORDs perfectionism, this essay brings the philosophical writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ayn Rand into contact with Lee’s writings Bruce Lee, jeet kune do, Ralph during the time that he spent formulating his martial arts philosophy. Waldo Emerson, Ayn Rand, Stanley Additionally, this essay uses the philosophical insights of Emerson, Cavell, Objectivism, Perfectionism, Rand, and Lee to challenge longstanding academic dogma vis-à-vis Poststructuralism, Alterdisciplinarity poststructuralist philosophy, the methods of academic intervention, and the nature of philosophical argumentation. Though pitched as a debate regarding the content and the status of Bruce Lee and his combative CITATION philosophy, this essay endeavors to inspire scholars to (re)examine their conceptions of Bruce Lee, martial arts, and martial arts studies.
    [Show full text]
  • Capitalism and Morality ______
    Capitalism and Morality _________________________ AYN RAND AND MURRAY ROTHBARD: CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? Shawn Stottlemyer Shawn is a junior (class of 2008) Political and Economic Philosophy at WJU. Many scholars who recognize that the Austrian School of Economics and the Philosophy of Objectivism have so many great things in common with one another have begun to build bridges between the two schools of thought. The similarities arise in their preferred outcomes of little or no government and the best way for society to operate economically and socially. Laissez-faire economics provides the best and only moral way for individual human beings to flourish in society. Both the Austrian School and Objectivism promote the idea that human beings act of their own free will and conscience and that this is what drives society. The two ideas were first brought together by Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard in the late 1950’s. After a few encounters however, Rand and Rothbard had a falling out and the two were at odds for the remainder of their lives. Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard are both well known for their love of individual freedom and liberty. Rand and Rothbard shared many of the same ideas relating to economics. The most important and fundamental idea shared by the two was individual freedom. Rothbard’s Influence Rothbard was a student of Ludwig von Mises and The Austrian School of Economics. The school rejected statistics as the avenue at which to arrive at economic laws and instead was philosophical in the approach to economics. The Austrians (Rothbard included) thought that economics were the product of human action and therefore unpredictable by mathematics.
    [Show full text]
  • Meets Expectations
    Course: ELA Grade Level: 11-12 Type: Informational/Explanatory Structure: Analysis Teaching Task 21: What is Freedom? After reading Anthem by Ayn Rand and excerpts by the Transcendental writers Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, write an essay that addresses the question and analyzes the meaning of the word “Freedom” from the authors’ perspectives, providing examples to clarify your analysis. What conclusion or implications can you draw? A bibliography is required. (L2): In your discussion, address the credibility and origin of sources in view of your research topic. (L3): Identify any gaps or unanswered questions. Performance Level: Meets Expectations Freedom: One Word, Different Meanings Jim Morrison, the late lead singer of The Doors, argued, "The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. [.. ..]There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first." Ayn Rand, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson would agree with Jim Morrison's view on freedom, with some minuscule differences. Ayn Rand's view on freedom is greatly influenced by her early life in Communist Russia while Thoreau's and Emerson's perspectives on freedom are mainly inspired by their strong Transcendentalist beliefs and morals. Rand, Thoreau, and Emerson can all agree that freedom includes individuality, personal time, and hard work. Although this trio shares many similarities concerning their views on freedom, they do differ from one another and all three fail to acknowledge some aspects in their arguments. In their works, Rand, Thoreau, and Emerson all express that freedom includes the needs and the wants of the individual.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Syllabus [PDF]
    Economics 3490 Ethical, Moral and Philosophical Foundations of Capitalism FALL 2018 MILLER HALL 1309 TTh 2:00 – 3:15 Dr. Adrian Austin 1315 Business Building Phone: (678) 839-4773 E-mail: Use CourseDen Office Hours: TTh 9:00 – 11:30 Note: All official school communication goes to your school email account. Course Website: Main page is on CourseDen. Tentative Course Schedule: The instructor reserves the right to change the syllabus and assigned readings in consultation with the students; however this outline and list of readings represents a good example of the scope of the readings that would be required from class participants. Class Description: This course is designed to explore the moral, ethical, and economic foundations of a capitalist system. The vehicle we will use for this pilgrimage is Ayn Rand’s fictional novel, “Atlas Shrugged.” Ms Rand was the founder of objectivist philosophy and a strong proponent of laissez faire capitalism. In “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand stakes her position that capitalism is the only economic system that leads to a moral and just society. As we work our way through the novel we will use additional materials to give you both supporting and contrasting viewpoints. These additional materials will include addresses, speeches, interviews, video documentaries, guest speakers, and various readings. Many of the interviews, speeches and addresses are available on YouTube. The idea is to expose you to as broad a view as possible while keeping your workload to a manageable level. Learning Goals and Objectives 1) Students will make effective presentations to the class. (LO 1.2) 2) Students will have a basic understanding of the ethical foundations of economic decision making.
    [Show full text]