• The idea that universals (dog, horse, tree, yellow, cold) are not real existent things, but just words. 
• The real things are the concrete particulars, the individuals (this horse, that tree, that patch of yellow).
• David Hume
• Everything that exists is a determinate particular
• Universals are just lists of determinate particulars
• Occam's Razor prefers Hume's theory to Plato's

• Characteristics of conscious states
• Privacy
• No one can have access to my concious states
• Because of this, can't know for sure that other people have concious states (solipsism)
• Immediacy
• Incorrigibility
• Can't be wrong about your concious states, but can be wrong about the mode of a concious state
• Evanescence (come and go)
• Spatial oddness
• Do other species have concious states? How do we know what is dream and what is reality? 

• HUME AND NOMINALISM
• Enita non sunt multiplicanda praeter necassitatem
• "Entities are not to be multiplied beynd necessity"
• Keep it simple! If there is a simpler theory, believe that one.

• CARTESIAN DUALISM
• Concious states are not material or physical entities
• The idea that the universe contains two radically different kinds of thing -- minds and bodies -- is known as Dualism
• Bodily changes cause changes in mental states, and vice versa
• How can something nonmaterial, nonphysical, have casual interaction with something material?
• Three solutions:
• Interactionism
• Occasionalism
• Parallelism

• CARTESIAN DUALISM
• Descartes' solution to the MBP
• Mind and body can clearly interact
• More of an evasion than a solution to the problem

• CARTESIAN DUALISM
• Malebranche's solution to the MBP
• No direct link between bodily and mental events
• It all happens through the mediation of God
• This keeps God REALLY busy

• CARTESIAN DUALISM
• Leibniz's solution to the MBP
• Also known as pre-established harmony:
• The mind and the body are indepenent but follow their deterministic careers in such a way that they seem to be related
• No connection back and forth between bodily wants and mental events: only appears to be a connection

• CARTESIAN DUALISM
• Berkeley's answer to the MBP
• More radical
• Bodies are themselves just conscious states, not different from the mind
• All is mind

• John Watson, B.F. Skinner
• The only things that exist in the world are material things
• Identity theory
• Functionalism
• Eliminativism
• Folk psychology

• MATERIALISM
• Patricia and Paul Churchland
• All that exists is physical & material things
• We have no evidence that mental states exist
• Objections: folk psychology has predictive success, scientific psychology has success, and don't eliminativists believe that their theory is correct?

• MATERIALISM
• The natural capacity to predict the behaviour and mental states of others
• Uses common instead of scientific terms
• 'Stagnant research progress' - neuroscience will replace folk psychology
• Fails to illuminate important features of our mental lives
• Lacks evidential links with the sciences

• Descartes
• Human beings can think, and machines can't
• Humans have language and reason, where machines don't (adaptive creativity)
• Can machines think?
• The Turing Test

• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
• Alan Turing
• Can a digital computer do well at the "Imitation Game"?
• Can a person distinguish, by asking questions, which is the machine and which is the computer?
• Many machines can pass the test: intelligence
• Disturbing: will machines take over the world? Do souls exist?
• Disabilities objection: machines can't be kind, resourceful, friendly, beautiful, funny, make mistakes, fall in love, etc.
• Machine can't do anything 'original'; must be rule-governed

• QUALIA
• The idea that what really exists is matter and its properties
• Everything is based on matter
• Over the last 100 years, 3 of the 4 bastions against it have fallen: life itself, reasoning, purposive behviour
• The only thing that remains is conciousness itself
• Qualia

• When something reacts to its environment in appropriate ways
• Coordination of outputs and inputs? Or more than that?
• Watson plays Jeopardy
• The Chinese Room: John Searle

• John Searle
• Detailed instructions to write something in Chinese, but I have no knowledge of the language
• Get the input and give the right output
• But I don't understand the meaning of the Chinese characters
• Therefore a mind which understands has to be more that a machine which gives the right outputs for each input

• QUALIA
• A-conciousness: anything that reacts appropriately to its environment
• P-consciousness: private, internal states (qualia)
• Machines can a-think, but they can't p-think

• P-conscious state
• Subjective experiences: the whats-it-like-ness of something: smell of coffee, taste of asparagus, drone of a bagpipe (indefinable)
• Materialism can't capture qualia because:
• Conceviability argument (we can imagine brain-states without mind-states and vice versa)
• Knowledge argument (no amount of knowing about neurophysiology would allow you to know the correlated qualia)
• Explanatory gap (neurophysiology doesn't explain why the qualia are what they are)
• Qualia (or p-consciousness) are the remaining bastion against Materialism

• Fatalism = determinism
• Three questions:
• The existence of God
• The survival of the soul
• The freedom of the will
• Everything that happens in life is somehow fore-ordained; our futures are already determined; it's in the hands of the gods
• The Fates; Oedipus Rex
• Arguments for fatalism:
• God's omniscience
• Psychological determinism
• Physical determinism
• Neurophysiological determinism
• Free will is an illusion
• Hard determinism

• Coarse-grained determinism
• Major events in our lives are inescapable, but we can decide small things

• Our lives are determined down to the very last detail
• Every single act in our lives are fore-ordained

• Reason for believing in FATALISM/DETERMINISM
• If God exists, and if God is omniscient, then God knows the future
• If God knows what I will do tomorrow, then what happens is already set/fixed

• All our decisions are determined entirely by the motives, wishes and desires that play out in our minds
• Our desires are put there by history
• "We may do as we please, but we cannot please as we please!" - Bertrand Russell
• Baron d'Holbach

• Our actions are all, at base, events in the physical world
• Every physical thing that happens must happen, given the laws of physics and antecedent conditions
• The "Laplacean demon"
• A sufficiently powerful intelligence, if it knew the position and momentum of all particles in the universe at a given time & the laws of motion, could predict the future of the universe

• Since the brain is part of the physical world, and since every mind event is correlated with a brain-event
• Every mind event (decision) is casually determined by preceeding physical events in the brain

• The laws operating in the world mean that all our choices are pre-determined by forces beyond our control
• We think we have free will but we really don't
• If this is true, we should never be responsible for any of our actions: no praise or blame, reward or punishment

• Even if we're determined, we're still free
• John Stuart Mill
• Human will and actions are necessary and inevitable: we are predictable
• The feeling of freedom is not affected by our actual freedom
• Necessitarianism: necessarily, only one thing will happen
• We feel we are free because we act on our desires, it is our desires that are pre-determined

• DIRECTION OF TIME
• Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy increases with time
• Entropy is the extent to which the smoothing-out process has occured
• The smoothing-out process of time

• Could there be a part of the universe where the smoothing-out process (entropy) is going in the other direction? Where people are going through time in the opposite direction?
• Reculons
• If there are multiple ways that time flows, the universe would have to rigidly deterministic

• THE DIRECTION OF TIME
• People moving in the opposite direction of time to use
• Could we communicate with them? Could we communicate usefully? Could we have trade (unilocality and bilocality)? Could we play tennis?

• Ruth Fulton Benedict
• Morality is just socially approved customs: societies differ as to what customs they approve or disapprove
• Examples:
• Trances, catalepsies, pain-endurance
• Homosexuality
• Murder
• Benedict's Thesis:
• The arbitrary selection of which congenital forms of behaviour to honour and which to marginalize is that society's morality
• Morality is just historical habit
• A moral judgment is always made from a point of view; there is no view from nowhere (objectivity)
• Arguments against relativism:
• Relativity to what?
• We cannot adjudicate moral values among people
• What about moral disagreement within cultures?
• Moral progress cannot happen

• People disagree about what the truth is, but they agree that there is a truth
• Consider:
• Slavery
• Pederasty
• Honour Killings
• Moral absolutists believe that moral issues are only true or false in relevance to specific peoples
• Slavery was right for: ancient Athenians, 18th century Americans, etc.
• The difference between a relativist and an absolutist is really a metaphysical difference
• Arguments against:
• How can we have access to objective moral truth?
• Can we adjudicate between relativism and absolutism in morality? Is there any way of telling which is right?
• Absolutists are often moralizers
• Middle ground? Moral absolutism with humility.

• Motivation by our own interests
• Blatant & subtle psychological egoism
• Ethical egoism

• We always act so as to do good to ourselves and harm to others, unless we are somehow restrained from this
• Plato's story of Gyges' ring
• If a man had the choice to not be caught (invisible ring), would he still be moral?

• All our actions are motivated by our own self-interests, even our most apparently altruistic actions
• What is your real motivation? To feel good about yourself? Heroism? Recognition?
• Pure selfless love and pure compassion does not exist
• Seemingly impossible to find an example of an action in which it is not plausible to suggest an egoistic motive
• Theory about the genesis of human action: only our own interests can motivate us
• Arguments against: mother's love for a child

• Motivation by the interests of others
• If there is a gene for altruism, how could it be selected for?
• Wild turkeys (?)

• If psychological egoism is true, how can there be ethical or moral behaviour?
• Ethical egoism: the idea that we should always be motivated by our own interests
• Subtle: the view that you should pursue your rational self-interest
• Blatant: the view that you simply should always be on the lookout for your own interests in a brutal and straightforward way
• Ethics as rational self-interest:
• You behave nicely to others so they will behave nicely to you
• You are kind in order to encourage the sort of society in which people are kind
• The self interest needs to be rational in order to be a basis for an ethical system

• Bernard de Mandeville - The Gambling Hive
• If everyone is greedy, it makes for a prosperous nation
• Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
• Promotes the virtues of independence
• Selfishness leads to public prosperity
• Altruism leads to poverty and asceticism
• Wall Street: "Greed is good"

• EGOISM & ALTRUISM
• James Rachel
• Altruistic behaviour may still be self-interested, it's just not selfish
• The psychological egoist knows that behaviour is self-interested, but sometimes what we want to do is help other people, which is unselfish
• Self-interest is a matter of motive
• Rachel says that there can be behaviour that is not motivated by self-interest: doesn't need to be pure self-interest

• Goodness consists in contribution to human happiness
• Comes at the heels of the enlightenment/scientific revolution (disbounds Divine Law)
• Regina v. Dudley and Stephens
• Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
• The morality of an act is measured against the Principle of Utility
• The morality of an action is measured against the Greatest Happiness Principle
• Consequentialism
• What is happiness? Intrinsic vs. instrumental good
• Hedonic calculus
• The Trolley Problem
• Problems:
• True happiness is unattainable, so it cannot be the foundation of moral reasoning
• Some people can do without happiness
• What about a "good" act done from a bad motive?

• UTILITARIANISM
  
• Sinking of the Mignonette
• Alone in a dinghy with little food and no water
• Richard Parker (youngest) drinks sea water & becomes deathly ill
• Dudley's moral dilemma: should one of the crew members die to supply nourisment to the other three?
• Dudley's decision: kill Richard Parker
• Will die anyways
• Can't wait for him to die of natural causes
• Remaining crewmembers have families
• Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens found guilty of murder

• The moral worth of an act is determined by its consequences
• The main consequentialist theory is UTILITARIANISM

• UTILITARIANISM
• The presence of pleasure and the absence of pain

• UTILITARIANISM
• Intrinsic: Pleasure, or happiness, is the only thing desirable as an end.
• Instrumental: All other desirable things are so desired for the pleasure that they produce. These other goods are simply means towards pleasure.

• Measurable dimensions of happiness
• Intensity of pain/pleasure
• Duration of pain/pleasure
• Certainty of pain/pleasure as consequence
• Spatial relation to pain/pleasure
• Action's ability to produce pain/pleasure
• Purity of pain/pleasure
• Extent of pain/pleasure

• How is happiness measured?
• For any act, determine the amount of pleasure it will immediately produce
• Then the amount of pain
• Then determine fecundity (reproductivity) of pleasure
• Then determine fecundity of pain
• Then sum the results for the individual
• Then consider the number of persons affected in this way

• Philippa Foot
• Do nothing (track B) or change to track A
• Some problems:
• How do we know the moral identity of the workers on the track?
• Are we talking about our own greatest happiness? Or overall greatest happiness?
• What if Albert Einstein were the lone person on track A?
• [image]

• Quality of pleasure; levels of pleasure
• Aggregation of happiness: the greatest amount of happiness altogether
• Good of the many outweigh the good of the few

• Immanuel Kant
• Acts/intentions: the only appropriate mode for evaluation is a person's will
• Morally required, morally permissible, morally forbidden, (morally supererogatory)
• Natural Law
• Maxims
• Hypothetical vs. categorical imperatives

• Fundamental basis of morality is respect for one's self and others
• People have equal and absolute moral worth and dignity
• Natural, inalienable rights
• Disrespect is immoral
• All being exist as ends in themselves, not merely as means to other ends
• Friendship valued intrinsically
• Money valued instrumentally
• Maxims
•  Hypothetical and categorcal imperatives
• UNIVERSAL LAW
• Why take Kantian Ethics seriously?
• Premised on respect for all humans (HUMAN RIGHTS)
• Treats everyone equally
• Prevents abuse, coercion, manipulation, etc.
• Gives us guidance on how to act
• Kant’s Table of Ethical Duties

• Duties to Oneself		Duties to Others
  perfect (narrow – strict prohibitions)	•       no suicide •       no lying •       no servility	duties of respect (narrow – strict prohibitions)	•       no lying •       no murdering
  imperfect (wide – can use discretion)	•       educate oneself •       strive for good bodily health •       strive to be a better person	duties of love (wide – can use discretion)	•       beneficence •       gratitude •       sympathetic participation

• DEONTOLOGY
• Some moral laws are objectively true: how things should be

• DEONTOLOGY
• The maxim of an act = the description under which it is willed
• A maxim is the "subject principle of volition": what we can will
• Kant locates moral value in the maxim of an act

• Hypothetical: Conditional (if, then): "if you want to achieve x, you should do y"
• Not a necessary prescription
• Categorical Imperative: Necessary prescriptions: "you should do y"
• Willing the end itself
• True moral law is of this kind

Universal Law & Formula of Humanity

(Formulations of the Categorical Imperative)

• DEONTOLOGY
• Formula of Universal Law: Act only on that maxim that one can at the same time will to become a universal law
• Formula of Humanity: act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in any other person, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means

1. That we ought to act for the sake of duty seems wrong
2. The categorical imperative is too strict
3. Kant ethics give us empty formalism: it does not provide specific advice about what actions are moral
4. Emotions, in and of themselves, do not have value; Kant focuses too heavily on rationality

• Aristotle
• The idea that the moral worth of an act resides in the moral worth of the person performing it
• The object of moral education is to form good people (people of 'virtue')
• The ultimate bearer of moral worth is the source of the action, the character of the person
• Eudaimonia
• Arete
• Virtue, for Aristotle, is a mean (middle of two extremes/vices)
• Criticism:
• Leaves out of account ethical considerations such as cruelty, abuse, extortion, murder, etc.
• Supererogatory goodness
• Doesn't have anything to say about hot-button issues
• Virtues and vices are habits of action
• The virtuous person is moderate in all things
• Act as though you are virtuous and eventually it will become habit

• VIRTUE ETHICS
• Greek for "happiness" (indirect translation)
• Eudaimonia is an objective rather than subjective state
• "blessedness" (but not religious)
• Admired and praised by others: entitled to great self-satisfaction
• Empirical enquiry: what sorts of people do we generally admire/what are the virtues we admire in people?

• VIRTUE ETHICS
• Better translated 'excellence'; a less-prudish way of saying 'virtue'
• Greek

• FEMINIST ETHICS
• We doubt them the least
• Part of the background unconscious setting of our inquiry
• Often, major advances occur when pre-suppositions are overturned

• Virginia Held
• Ethics rests on presuppositions that relegate the ethical experience of women to the sidelines
• Three presuppositions of classical ethics:
• Reason and Emotion (emotions should be restrained by reason) (VH says that reason should cultivate emotion instead)
• Public and Private Spheres (women should be sheltered in the "private sphere") (but mothering is actually cultural...should the model be the private sphere or public sphere?)
• The Concept of Self (egoistic self vs. universal all) (But what about particular others?)