PHIL103: Issues of Utilitarian Ethics | Saylor Academy

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In this video, the idea of Utilitarianism as increasing good and decreasing suffering is addressed. Then a variety of scenarios are described that show the limits of utilitarianism regarding justice and rights for individuals.

Source: Thunk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA2JwEhJss8
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Last modified: Thursday, 9 May 2024, 3:36 PM

COURSE INTRODUCTION

Course Syllabus

Unit 1: Murder, Morality, and the Value of Human Life

1.1: Metaethics, Normative Ethics, and Applied Ethics

Major Ethical Systems

1.2: Investigating Our Moral Intuitions

Ethics for Complete Beginners: Part 1

1.3: From Moral Intuitions to Moral Principles and Back Again

Reflective Equilibrium

1.4: Consequentialist Ethics and Bentham's Utilitarianism

Issues of Utilitarian Ethics

R v Dudley and Stephens

Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham: Of the Principle of Utility

Ethics for Complete Beginners: Part 6

1.5: Pitfalls of Consequentialist Ethics and Mill's Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism: The Greater Good

Ethics for Complete Beginners: Part 6 con't

John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

1.6: Alternatives to Consequentialist Ethics

Major Ethical Perspectives

Deontological Ethics

Joseph M. Magee's "St. Thomas Aquinas on the Natural Law"

Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica: Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae), Question 94, Articles 4-6

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham City Jail"

Unit 1 Assessment

Unit 1 Assessment

Unit 2: Rights, the State, and the Free Market

2.1: Individual and the State: Plato's Crito

Socratic Citizenship: Plato and Crito

Theory of Forms

Republic (Plato)

Plato's Republic

Plato: The State and the Soul

Plato: Education and the Value of Justice

2.2: Libertarianism as an Alternative Approach to the Question of Rights

Introduction to Adam Smith

Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman and Human Flourishing

Taxes in American History

Robert Nozick

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

2.3: John Locke and Fundamental Individual Rights

Excerpts from Locke's Second Treatise on Government

Democratic Values: Liberty, Equality, Justice

Locke: Social Order

John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government: Chapters 1-5

Why Do We Obey the Law?

John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government: "Chapters 8-11"

John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government: "Chapters 18 and 19"

Unit 2 Discussion

Unit 2 Discussion

Unit 2 Assessment

Unit 2 Assessment

Unit 3: Morality, Markets, and Immanuel Kant

3.1: The Morality of the Market

How Economists Helped End the Military Draft

Michael Sandel on Markets and Morals

3.2: The Morality of Surrogate Motherhood: The Case of Baby M

International Surrogacy Forum: The Free Market Approach

Kyle R. Wood's "In the Matter of Baby M., 109 N.J. 396 (1988)"

Baby M

3.3: Humans Organs as Commodities

Ethical Controversies in Organ Transplantation

3.4: Grounding Moral Action in Rational Principles: Immanuel Kant

Ethics for Complete Beginners: Part 5

Deontology

Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals: Preface and First Section

Kantian Ethics

3.5: Kant's Metaphysics of Morals

Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals: Second Section and Third Section

Lying to Ourselves

Immanuel Kant: The Duties of the Categorical Imperative

Unit 3 Discussion

Unit 3 Discussion

Unit 3 Discussion

Unit 3 Assessment

Unit 3 Assessment

Unit 4: John Rawls' Theory of Justice

Contract & Commonwealth: Thomas Hobbes