Subheadings taken from transcript on dash.harvard.edu 00:17 - introduction from Martha Nussbaum 08:58 - (1) Animals and the natural good 13:05 - (2) Human attitudes towards the other animals 15:30 - (3) Human and non-human good 24:28 - (4) A Kantian approach to our relationships with the other animals 32:26 - (5) Kant's views on the treatment of the other animals [ (6) The human difference] appears in text but not here. Includes thoughts on the different things philosophers mean by 'self-conscious', which is usually taken as the source of 'reason' 39:46 - (7) The reciprocity argument 49:05 - (8) Assessing the Reciprocity Argument 57:37 - (9) Interacting with animals (conclusion) 1:00:23 - Q&A
'The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology' by Christine Korsgaard book review is published in the Avello Publishing Journal.
Slightly off topic, but around the 21:00 mark she claims that recognizing human beings as more than just repositories of value entails dropping utilitarianism altogether. So utilitarian ethics are eternally wed to hedonism now? Another professor's apparent unfamiliarity with the _Preference_ _Utilitarianism_ catalog (plus the century & a half of progress utilitarian ethics have undergone by this stage). It's as though Bentham is the only utilitarian she's read.
I'm a bit late here, but... She was literally just referencing Peter Singer. The point is is that it is not the agent/being that matters, but that there is suffering (or whatever). That it is, for any being B such that B is suffering, it is not important, according to utilitarianism, that B is suffering, but rather that there is suffering happening. If A, C, D, ...N gain sufficient utility as a result of B's suffering, then that is not a problem. We could kill B, end their suffering, and then replace them with C--say C is a conspecific of B and, as in the example adopted from Singer suggests--and is just fine. We've removed suffering from the world, and added 'good x experiences' where x is the species of C and B. This applies as much to preference utilitarianism as it does to other forms, especially in the animal context, who presumably prefer a pleasurable, pain free life (again, she JUST discussed Singer). Utilitarianism does not value the agent/creature, but the experiences/disappointments/pleasures/satisfactions/preferences (etc) of the creature. The creature itself has no value in utilitarian system. If the creature needs to be sacrificed for some greater good, then so be it, according to utilitarianism. This is not controversial, and is generally sold as an advantage of utilitarianism...
I think instead you can criticize the notion that a utilitarian would have to argue in the first place that human beings are, as you say, 'more than repositories of value' if we are to accord them more consideration. That is, they may be able to experience 'higher values', or perhaps have 'higher preferences'. But that isn't Singer. He seems to suggest that human suffering is different in degree rather than kind. She is right that if the utilitarian would have to argue that humans are 'more' than experiencers of pain/pleasure or possessors of preferences and disappointments, then they would have to abandon utilitarianism. That is, they would have to abandon utilitarianism if they had to argue that (e.g.) my being disappointed is bad because it is bad for me, and it doesn't get any better if that disappointment leads to satisfaction for any number of other beings. That is, if they were to assert that (e.g.) I have an intrinsic value such that no amount of satisfaction for others can 'balance out' my disappointment, then yeah, they would be abandoning utilitarianism.
I'm not sure you know what you're saying. I've never heard generativity [sic] used as a term outside linguistics. Do you mean to say you think we should concern ourselves more with metaethics and less with normative ethics?
I just cannot understand how someone can be seriously do something such as Moral philosophy nowadays (as opposed to Moral generativism) - it seems so obsolete
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Subheadings taken from transcript on dash.harvard.edu
00:17 - introduction from Martha Nussbaum
08:58 - (1) Animals and the natural good
13:05 - (2) Human attitudes towards the other animals
15:30 - (3) Human and non-human good
24:28 - (4) A Kantian approach to our relationships with the other animals
32:26 - (5) Kant's views on the treatment of the other animals
[ (6) The human difference] appears in text but not here. Includes thoughts on the different things philosophers mean by 'self-conscious', which is usually taken as the source of 'reason'
39:46 - (7) The reciprocity argument
49:05 - (8) Assessing the Reciprocity Argument
57:37 - (9) Interacting with animals (conclusion)
1:00:23 - Q&A
'The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology' by Christine Korsgaard book review is published in the Avello Publishing Journal.
^ are you making an evaluative and hence moral claim.... self-destructive proposition, good job
Is Martha Nussbaum wearing an X Men suit?
Slightly off topic, but around the 21:00 mark she claims that recognizing human beings as more than just repositories of value entails dropping utilitarianism altogether. So utilitarian ethics are eternally wed to hedonism now? Another professor's apparent unfamiliarity with the _Preference_ _Utilitarianism_ catalog (plus the century & a half of progress utilitarian ethics have undergone by this stage). It's as though Bentham is the only utilitarian she's read.
I'm a bit late here, but... She was literally just referencing Peter Singer.
The point is is that it is not the agent/being that matters, but that there is suffering (or whatever). That it is, for any being B such that B is suffering, it is not important, according to utilitarianism, that B is suffering, but rather that there is suffering happening. If A, C, D, ...N gain sufficient utility as a result of B's suffering, then that is not a problem. We could kill B, end their suffering, and then replace them with C--say C is a conspecific of B and, as in the example adopted from Singer suggests--and is just fine. We've removed suffering from the world, and added 'good x experiences' where x is the species of C and B.
This applies as much to preference utilitarianism as it does to other forms, especially in the animal context, who presumably prefer a pleasurable, pain free life (again, she JUST discussed Singer). Utilitarianism does not value the agent/creature, but the experiences/disappointments/pleasures/satisfactions/preferences (etc) of the creature. The creature itself has no value in utilitarian system. If the creature needs to be sacrificed for some greater good, then so be it, according to utilitarianism. This is not controversial, and is generally sold as an advantage of utilitarianism...
I think instead you can criticize the notion that a utilitarian would have to argue in the first place that human beings are, as you say, 'more than repositories of value' if we are to accord them more consideration. That is, they may be able to experience 'higher values', or perhaps have 'higher preferences'. But that isn't Singer. He seems to suggest that human suffering is different in degree rather than kind.
She is right that if the utilitarian would have to argue that humans are 'more' than experiencers of pain/pleasure or possessors of preferences and disappointments, then they would have to abandon utilitarianism. That is, they would have to abandon utilitarianism if they had to argue that (e.g.) my being disappointed is bad because it is bad for me, and it doesn't get any better if that disappointment leads to satisfaction for any number of other beings. That is, if they were to assert that (e.g.) I have an intrinsic value such that no amount of satisfaction for others can 'balance out' my disappointment, then yeah, they would be abandoning utilitarianism.
I'm not sure you know what you're saying. I've never heard generativity [sic] used as a term outside linguistics. Do you mean to say you think we should concern ourselves more with metaethics and less with normative ethics?
I just cannot understand how someone can be seriously do something such as Moral philosophy nowadays (as opposed to Moral generativism) - it seems so obsolete