INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS, SPRING 2021

LECTURE NOTES #1

Week of Monday January 11

[1.] Philosophy, Ethics and Genuine Inquiry.

This course—“Introduction to Ethics”—is a course in philosophy (course number PHIL 2030). So the first thing you should know is exactly what philosophy and ethics are.

[1.1.] Philosophy.

The word “philosophy” derives from the Greek words for love (philo) and wisdom (sophia). For the ancient Greeks, the word “philosophy” literally meant love of wisdom.

But while this might give us the beginning of an idea of what philosophers do, we need to get much more specific to really understand what philosophy is today.

However, philosophers disagree among themselves about the best way to explain what philosophy is!

There are many philosophers living today, and most of them are professors and instructors who teach philosophy at colleges and universities (like UWG). And not all of them would agree with the following explanation of philosophy.

But we have to start somewhere, and this is the explanation of philosophy I would like you to know for this course.

First, philosophy is an area of investigation:

investigation (df.)*: an attempt to discover truths about the world, i.e., to discover how things really are [synonyms for “investigation” include “research” and “inquiry”].

*I use “df.” as an abbreviation of the word “definition.” There will be MANY definitions provided throughout this course, and you are expected to master all of them, so that you can answer Test questions about them and use them correctly in your Papers.

In this way, philosophy is like the physical sciences, the social sciences, historical research, investigative journalism, and detective work. They are all different ways in which humans seek the truth.

But philosophy is different than these other areas of investigation in the following way. The truths philosophy attempts to discover involve concepts that are more fundamental than those pursued by other kinds of investigation—concepts like God, knowledge, truth, the mind and consciousness, free will, and morality. So philosophy is investigation into some of the most fundamental issues that face all human beings.

philosophy (df.): investigation into fundamental topics that are of concern to all (or nearly all) human beings, such as: God, free will, the meaning of life, knowledge, truth, reality, the mind and consciousness, and morality.

Some of the central questions of philosophy are:

· Is there a God? If so, what is he (or she, or it) like? Is the existence of evil compatible with the existence of an all-caring, all-knowing, all-powerful God? Is belief in the existence of a personal God compatible with belief in evolution?

· Do people have free will? If so, what is free will? How can physical beings like us, who are subject to the same laws of physics as other physical things, exercise genuine freedom? Is the omniscience (all-knowingness) of God compatible with peoples’ free will?

· What is the meaning of life? Does life actually have any meaning?

· What is the mind, and what is the relationship between the mind and the brain?

· What is knowledge? How do we arrive at knowledge? Do we even know anything to begin with? Are there things about the world that humans are incapable of knowing?

· What is the difference between things that are real and things that aren’t? Are some real things more real than others, or is being real an all-or-nothing matter?

When philosophers ask these questions, they don’t just want any old answers to them. They don’t just want to know what people’s opinions are about these things. Instead, they want the correct answers. In other words, they want to know the truth about these things.

[1.2.] Ethics.

Ethics, which is the focus of this Introduction to Ethics class, is a branch or area of philosophy, like botany is a branch of biology, or like clinical psychology is a branch of psychology.

ethics (df.): the branch of philosophy that attempts to answer questions about morality, i.e., questions about right and wrong, good and bad, evil, etc. Ethics is sometimes called "moral philosophy." Examples of ethical questions are:

· What is it for an action or behavior to be morally good or morally bad?

· What is the morally best way for people to live?

· Does morality depend on God? Does it depend on society?

· Is abortion morally permissible? Or physician-assisted suicide? Or capital punishment?

· Is morality objective, or is it simply a matter of opinion?

Because ethics is an area of philosophy, it is an area of investigation, which means that it is a search for truth.

Ethics is not just an examination of what people think or feel about moral questions. It is an attempt to arrive at true answers to those questions.

Ethics is not a matter of simply saying what you believe or feel about a given issue. It depends on reasoning and evidence. In ethics, we test existing theories, and develop new ones, primarily by reasoning. We will see lots of examples of this soon.

[1.3.] Genuine Inquiry.

Sometimes what looks like investigation really isn't, especially when the topic under investigation is something about which people are very passionate.

When we’re dealing with these kinds of topics, it can be difficult to be genuine inquirers. In other words, it can be difficult to engage in genuine inquiry.

genuine inquiry (df.): inquiry (i.e., investigation; research) that is motivated by the desire to find the truth, no matter what that truth happens to be; this motivation is sometimes called "the scientific attitude."

Here is a dramatic example of someone engaged in genuine inquiry. The example involves Huntingdon’s Disease (HD):

Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited disorder that causes brain cells, called neurons, to die in various areas of the brain, including those that help to control voluntary (intentional) movement. Symptoms of the disease, which gets progressively worse, include uncontrolled movements (called chorea), abnormal body postures, and changes in behavior, emotion, judgment, and cognition. People with HD also develop impaired coordination, slurred speech, and difficulty feeding and swallowing. HD typically begins between ages 30 and 50. … More than 30,000 Americans have HD.[1]

There is currently no treatment or cure for HD, which inevitably ends in death.

Now imagine someone who had a parent who died from HD. There is a 50% chance that she has inherited the disease herself. She is considering genetic testing to learn whether she has the HD gene. If the test shows that she has the HD gene, this will be terrible news: she will learn that she herself will die from HD (unless something else kills her first) and also that any child of hers will have a 50% chance of inheriting the gene.

Even though the outcome of this investigation is potentially heartbreaking, she decides that it is important to know the truth of the matter. Her motivation is to learn how things really are, even if knowing that truth might be devastating. This person is engaged in genuine inquiry.

[1.4.] Pseudo-Inquiry.

Genuine Inquiry is very different from what’s called pseudo-inquiry. The distinction between them has to do with what motive lies behind each one.[2]

pseudo-inquiry (df.): merely apparent inquiry that is motivated by the desire to defend a claim that you have already decided on independently of the evidence for or against it ("pseudo" means false).

There are at least two kinds of pseudo-inquiry: sham reasoning and fake reasoning.

[1.4.1.] Sham Reasoning.

sham reasoning (df.): the kind of pseudo-inquiry that occurs when you defend a claim that you really believe is true but your belief is immune to evidence or argument—no matter what the evidence shows, you will not change your mind about it.

Here is a real-life example of sham reasoning: “Pizzagate.”

· During the Presidential campaigns of 2016, John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign, had his email illegally hacked and stolen by agents of the Russian government. Those emails were then published online by Wikileaks in an effort by Russia to assist the Trump campaign.[3]

· The emails contained many references to pizza—Podesta and his staff would frequently discuss what they would be eating for lunch or dinner, and pizza was a common possibility.

· Some online “alt-right” commentators, including Mike Cernovich, developed a conspiracy theory according to which the emails’ references to pizza were actually a code that Podesta and his staff used to discuss a child sex slavery ring that he and Hillary Clinton were running. Cernovich and others alleged that the slavery ring was run out of a pizza shop—Comet Ping-Pong—in Washington, D.C., and his online followers believed this. One of them even drove to D.C. from his home in North Carolina and fired gunshots into the restaurant; more recently, another tried to set fire to the restaurant.[4] They continued to believe this even after it was shown beyond any doubt to be false.

· Given that Cernovich and the others who argued that this child sex slavery ring was real sincerely believed it, they were engaged in sham reasoning: they really believed that there was a conspiracy, and they were sincere in the arguments they were putting forward to try to prove that the conspiracy was real; but there is nothing anyone could do to change their minds about it.[5]

Another real-life example of sham reasoning: “Flat-earth truthers.” There are currently people who argue, on YouTube and elsewhere, that the earth is flat. They refuse to take seriously the evidence that shows that the earth is a sphere and continue to present reasons that they think show that the earth is flat. Given that they are sincere and that they really believe what they are saying, they are sham reasoners.[6]

[1.4.2.] Fake Reasoning.

fake reasoning (df.): the kind of pseudo-inquiry that occurs when you defend a claim, not because you have a sincere commitment to it (you don't really care whether the claim is true or false), but because you think doing so will somehow benefit you.

For example, a scientist fakes the results of his research in order to get more grant money, or to raise his profile within the research community, or to personally benefit in some other way.

Fake reasoning is not the same thing as simply lying.

· If you lie to your parents about what you did last weekend, that’s not fake reasoning—because it does not appear to be investigation.

· To be engaged in fake reasoning, one must be engaged in some activity that appears to be truth-seeking, e.g. the work of a scientific researcher, or a historian, or a police detective, etc.

A famous case of fake reasoning involved Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield is the now-disgraced British doctor who falsified data in a study that purported to show a causal link between childhood vaccines and autism. That 1998 study is the source of the idea that vaccines cause autism, and it has now been completely debunked. Years after it was published, it was discovered that Wakefield was being paid by an attorney who was preparing a lawsuit against a vaccine manufacturer and that Wakefield himself had applied for a patent for a new, competing vaccine.[7]

Wakefield’s fraud has influenced the anti-vaccine movement, which has contributed to a dramatic increase in the number of cases of measles and deaths by measles. The number of measles deaths rose from 90,000 in 2016 (an all-time low) to 140,000 in 2018.[8]

The anti-vaccine movement is now very widespread; it includes people in many different countries and from both sides of the political spectrum. And over the last year it is grown to include skepticism about SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) vaccination and has united with the anti-mask movement.[9]

[1.5.] Do Your Best to be a Genuine Inquirer.

As we go forward in this class, we will consider a number of issues that you might already have very strong opinions about, including

· morality’s relationship with religion;

· euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide;

· whether we have an obligation to help the poor and starving;

· how societies should respond to the SARS-CoV2 pandemic;

· capital punishment;

· abortion.

As we work through this material, try your best to be a genuine inquirer and not a pseudo-inquirer. This is easier said than done!

Pay careful attention to the reasons for and against the views that we study, and try to approach them impartially, remembering that your current beliefs could be mistaken.