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Hare uses the images of "the archangel" and "the prole" to help
us understand why humans need both kinds of thinking by
contrasting us with a being who would have no need for
intuitive level principles (the archangel) and one who would be
incapable of critical thinking (the prole).
i. hold paramount the health and safety of the public (cf. [a]
above: duty not to harm others),
ii. be honest (cf. [c] above: duty not to lie or cheat),
iii. be faithful agents of their employers (cf. [d] and [e]
above: duties to keep promises and not to interfere with
others' rational self-determination),
iv. etc.?
2. In common morality, priority is usually given to duties of non-
maleficence over duties of beneficence, and also "priority is
usually given to negative duties -- duties not to cause harm, not
to break promises, not to be dishonest, and so on" (34).
3. Common morality, personal morality, and professional ethics
are all "subject to criticism and change, but they may or may
not change at the same time or in the same way" (34).
4. The authors speculate that the reason for this wide-spread
agreement about the principles of common morality is that
humans have these features in common (32-33):
I would add:
Universalizability as described above is a basic logical feature of all
moral discourse. That is, in making a distinctively moral judgment,
you commit yourself to its universalizability. If in making a judgment
you refuse to recognize its universalizability, then you are actually
refusing to make a moral judgment.
But notice that although the fact that lying or bribery would be
involved seems obviously morally relevant, it may not be crystal clear
what counts as bribery.
The authors illustrate how we can get more clear about what facts
are relevant by analyzing key concepts, such as bribery. The aim is to
get more clear about how to define and apply them, and in the
process we get more clear about which facts of a case are morally
relevant.
Figure 2.3
Paradigm Case of Bribery with Features
Then they show how we can consider particular cases and score
them on a chart in terms of how well they match the paradigm and in
which respects.
Figure 2.4
Line-Drawing Test of Concepts
Victor's case is an ambiguous one. It isn't clearly bribery, but it shares
enough features with the paradigm cases to raise concerns.
For present purposes, however, the things to note about this exercise
are:
Here, for possible use during lecture, are two links regarding
baldness: a BBC News article on a treatment and a site with
information on various treatments and various kinds of baldness
And finally, note figures 2.2 on page 45 and 2.6 on page 56.
are's two-level utilitarianism, cont'd
Candidate
Data or
scientific
observations
theories
Ptolemaic
"fit" Planetary
<=====> motion
Copernican
Candidate
"Considered
ethical
intuitions"
theories
Virtue theories