Semester Ethics Course condensed into 22mins (Part 1 of 2)

The good for a human being (for me in particular) is the good for everything (love, kindness, etc)

"Morally permissible". No. You mean Ethically permissible. Since ethics is more about the group not about how the individual morally thinks.

How can you talk about morals when it depends totally on each individual? I don't get it.

It seems Utilitarianism is spelled as Utlitariansim at 28 seconds. Idk if that's some kind of fun easter egg or something.. or maybe there's two spellings?

I feel about ethics, and all these theories, the same way Professor Kaplan looked at the end of the video. I'm exhausted! 🤣 Just be-do good, for heavens sake!!

Jeffrey Kaplan, GREAT PRESENTATION! However, sadly, these "Super Stars" of Ethical Theory are All Wrong. For example, e.g., Kant's Deontic or Duty Ethics does not adequately reveal the origins of Duty. When two people make an agreement they both have an obligation to fulfill their part of their agreement. They have an obligation. They each have a Duty to Fulfill their agreement. Without an Agreement there are no duties to fulfill. In closing, your work is admirable! I choose to Subscribe and Not hear anymore of Robert Sapolsky's inability to find a realistic, practical, working definition of Free Will. Thank You for your work.

Only thing I'm mindblown is how you wrote those in reverse, that's talent!

Total respect to this Greek guy

Proximity is most certainly a relevant difference because the cost of shipping is non-zero. And the transparency of these agencies is sometimes in question. In some cases they are suspected of doing the cheapest jobs possible and pocketing the rest.

The experience machine is an oxymoron. Can't have a true experience if you are not in control.

I’m definitely the youngest here lol

This guy is brilliant! Ironically, looks like Nicomachean Ethics written approx.. 350BC outshines all afterwards.

The problem with Singer’s argument is game theory, in that “charity begins at home.” Unless we ALL globally agree to contribute towards famine relief; when we ourselves face famine or hunger or destitution, if we have spent our resources, we cannot be assured they will come back to us in our time of need. So, we tend to wait until we are older, or when meeting our own needs is assured, to give to greater and less personal causes. Until then, we limit our generosity to those we know and trust to step up to help us if times become difficult. This is the reason generosity to the poor can be miserly-because they have few resources beyond their character, to return the favor if they are called on. (But can also be the most likely to step up if asked).

So basically everyone is trying to figure out how to get rid of God, and Aristotle is like "God is actually on to something, but ignore him I'm the clever one" 😂

I've met Singer as well. Good dude, but I fail to be impressed with his conclusion. I think his examples are an excellent way to introduce the concept of moral philosophy. So many people, including singer himself, think that philosophical ethics or moral reasoning are simply a quest to find out and declare what constitutes the "right" morality. Maybe it's because of my own personal interest in the phenomenological School a philosophy, but I think that just misses the point. The more interesting thing is to look at how these hypothetical situations and various thought experiments reveal the moral calculus that our minds use in order to make decisions. Ethics, after all, is merely the study of the process by which we adjudicate competing value claims within our thought process. What I like about ethics is that it combines our reasoning AND our emotional experience, what Heidegger would define as Sorge, or that we experience the capacity to "care", that the things that occupy our intentionality MATTER to our sense of our well-being.

...kinda like what Hume is talking about with moral sentiments.

Mind you, I'm not saying that that such an approach is a slippery slope to emotional solipsism,or moral relativism. I just think the more appropriate question is, within the broader context of the totality of the experience of Dasein, it behooves us to understand HOW we arrive at our conclusions about the nature of virtue. Too often, these philosophers are far too eager to jump to PRESCRIPTIVE claims, rather than less grandiose, but more phenomenologically rigorous claims.

The better question is " why does it feel obvious that we don't feel the same way about donating to Oxfam as we do about getting our jacket dirty?"

Challenge yourself.
In a given moment you can not change the way things are.
Making considered interaction with what we are aware of will alter the course of the future.
If you have financial debt and choose to buy a coffee from someone who turned up to make it for you, you still have less financial wealth than someone with only a cup of water to their name.

im here

I'm a Kantian but my maxim is to always make the utilitarian choice

Finally, finally after almost a year of exhausting internet searches I have found the philosophy professor I was looking for.... 🎉🎉🎉

So Nozick would say Reg Barclay was better off outside of the holodeck, where he felt safe, then in the real world where he could be barely function on a human level?

I tried to comment on your video about Peter Singer’s essay, and was disappointed to discover that some viewers had spoiled that opportunity for the rest of us. It took a couple of months and some additional reading before I could no longer accept the immorality of my relative affluence. I’m beginning to address that and I thank you Prof. Kaplan for introducing me to the ideas of Peter Singer. Watching your videos has increased my curiosity about philosophy. It might become my pastime of choice when I retire.

This video is awesome. You summerise everything wonderfully.

I dont even do the ethics course, I just came here to learn cause its interesting. But damn you are so fun to listen to. Keep up the good work, you seem like a great teacher.

Where can I buy an experience machine? 🤔 Sounds morally ideal to me! 🙂

Ammmmount!

Imagine having a course "The Study of Magic" and, only in the last section of the course, discussing whether magic actually exists.

If the experience machine perfectly simulates all and any pleasure, then it becomes the ultimate life in a sense. Making friends, doing things, and being kind, etc, are pleasurable to those who seek those pursuits. And by design, these activities will be even more enjoyable inside the experience machine. So, no, it is not rational to opt out of the experience machine if it's really all it's cranked up to be, no pun intended.

I would love to ask the spiritual members of the Supreme court if they feel responsible for making the police an immoral body? Since the supreme court ruled that Police in the US are not required to jump into that creek to save the drowning child they have ensured that police behave in an amoral manner.

Boy was I disappointed that comments were disabled on the Peter Singer video.
I'm new to your channel and happy to see you have more videos focusing on ethics.

I just wanted to drop this from the Immanuel Velikovsky archive.

from
The Psychoanalytic Papers

CHAPTER X
The Criterion for Ethical Values and Its Determination

What is evil? Evil means assimilation of the superior by the inferior.

Evil means a failure - Beethoven’s nephew, who sponged at the expense of genius.

Diseases are evil, as is the action of bacteria. Also death is evil.

Relative evil is the assimilation of something that could have been replaced by the inferior - that which has a lesser capability for the production of lasting values [these last being defined as] accumulated powers of assimilation.

Thus the eating of meat is relatively evil. The assimilation drive, in and of itself, is neither good nor evil: it becomes good when sublimation takes place, but when abasement occurs, it becomes evil.

Mean is the embezzlement of life from something that is meant to serve the assimilation only to a limited extent. It is mean, because the greater portion is thus condemned to go the contrary way of useless devaluation.

Thus the consumption of bird tongues, for which birds are killed, is meant mean, and relatively evil. Equally mean is the activity of bacteria who, for want of a small portion of the human substance which they need, destroy a whole organism -that is, diminish its assimilation capacity excessively.

The usurer who destroys the livelihood of a person for a few pennies, is just as mean.

If it is possible to calculate the energetic values of an introgenic event mathematically, also nothing stands in the way of determining ethical values in mathematical quantities.

........

The algorithm won't allow me to drop a link in the comments but if you post community I can send my own ethics writing (in comix PDF).

Professor your are superb. Why you not born in India. Amit kumar, Advocate, High Court Allahabad.

All people are evil, we all have evil in us, just as we have pettiness, greed, jealousy and so on, nothing new under the sun. Religious are the most evil and mean in our society. For your upload "Ordinary people are evil" which could not be commented on, why not by the way?

Very productive teaching, thank you

As an undergraduate studying Philosophy, I find this particularly interesting. Utilitarianism resonates with me as a system of government. I am a Marxist and a Democratic Socialist.

Appreciate this video! Just starting my ethics class and needed the knowledge before my first quiz 🥲 thanks so much!!

I should have gone into philosophy 😢 😭😭😭 I love this so much it makes me excited 😮

Those are the things that matter for an action to be morally good or bad

Good video. Unfortunately ethics sounds way more confused than anyone coming out of theology.

Imagine this: Should the mayor of a neighboring town, have sent firefighters and paramedics to Sodom and Gomorrah?

My counterpoint to Singer's ideas is that the human mind is too fragile to constantly ponder and take personal responsibility for the entirety of human suffering on a daily basis. Ordinary people attempting to do so would lead to mental breakdowns, burnout, and eventually hopelessness for the future. This will make ordinary contributing members to society stop contributing and potentially even becoming burdens on that society with substance abuse, crime, etc. After a few decades a first world society would collapse under such weight leading to more suffering and a less stable global society for humans. More over, monetary support is not the only way to contribute to those in need and things like your time, and the output of your lifes work can be just as, if not more powerful, despite enjoying your morning starbucks. Just look at Edward Jenner and his work on the smallpox vaccine as an example.

While the short term results of Singer's outlook may not break down under scrutiny, the long term results lead to a world more ripe for suffering and immorality. That's not to say people shouldn't do more, they should IMO, but denying the basic work/reward system for humans based on the success of the society we live in is just going to turn civilization back in time and make the world a more miserable place. Doing what you can, how you can, to help others in need and having that thought present in your mind most of the time is what makes you a moral and good person.

Awesome video tx!

You would refuse to be plugged into that pleasure machine because the prospect of such fool's paradise would strike you as unpleasant. As for the sheriff objection, we would object to framing innocent people to achieve some local utility maximum because we are aware that sacrificing truthfulness and justice would not maximise utility globally. All those deontological values that are supposed to undermine utilitarian moral theory eventually reduce to utility if they are to be values we hold dear at all. In other words, Kant would have to either concede that he is utilitarian or that he does not care if his moral theory is applied or not. We can ignore him either way.

"...experience machine giving you pleasure indistinguishable from real life..." almost describing the "social media"

Intro courses really don’t usually need to last a whole semester.

A simple response to the pleasure machine thing is that we don't mindlessly purse pleasure and avoid pain, we are capable of rational analysis and of feeling guilt and anger according to our different personalities, that simply means that there's pleasure and pain in the way that we purse pleasure and avoid pain, certain things can give us pleasure but in a way that brings us pain severe enough to interfere with that pleasure and so we avoid it.

Many people might not like giving up the "real world" because that idea brings them pain, pain that is severe enough to interfere with their expectation of pleasure and so they don't do it, because the act in the moment would bring them too much pain for too little expectation of pleasure.

Pleasure and pain are still the main forces here.

Part 2 link?

No one can figure out what the problem is with Singer’s argument? Well, first of all what is a “luxury”? Buying coffee at a coffee shop is a luxury? Ok, so suppose people were to begin acting on Singer’s mortality and so instead of frequenting their favorite coffee shop they start sending it to a charity organization which (supposedly) “efficiently” transfers money towards famine relief. What would happen to that coffee shop? It would go bankrupt and close down. The employees? Would lose their jobs and their incomes. No one is spending money on their goods/services anymore. Now what happens to every other “luxury” people spend money on? There would be a chain-reaction within the economy and a self-induced recession would occur. Now think about this - where were the coffee shops getting their coffee beans from? Perhaps it was from an area near the famine and it was one of the only sources of income for the locals. Now that the shops no longer exist to buy their beans their income dries up and they lose their farm or business.

So there are several problems with the argument. Its not as simple as dragging a drowning child out of water - that is a direct action that you know with a high degree of certainty will save the child which is why the vast majority would do it. Conversely it is not obvious that sending money to a charity organization will “efficiently” aid famine relief - just this morning before coming across this video I saw a video about a news story of a non-profit homeless organization and how they got millions of dollars of donations and grants and how they reported their expenses - over the course of several years the salaries they were paying ballooned and the amount spent on services and goods for the homeless became a minor percentage, and if that wasnt bad enough the organization was spending money on absurd things instead of focusing on things that are most essential and helpful for the homeless.

So there is a low degree of certainty that those suffering from famine would even benefit from it.

Aside from that, this is actually a question of economics. If people began spending money as Singer proposes they do the economy would dramatically shift in a cascading affect and who knows how that would turn out? It could easily make the entire world’s population much much much worse off and almost definitely would as the single greatest factor for eliminating hunger/ famine/ starvation has been the introduction of market economics to developing areas.