Professor: Michael sandel
Class 1: the moral side of murder
First question: What is the right thing to do? Kill one instead of five?
Backgrounds: Suppo that you are a trolley（电车） driver, your breaks don’t work, you still could control the steering wheel, and there are two tracks in front of you
One opinion: go straight
Second one: turn around to the track where only one people standing
Principle: better to save five lives even if it means to sacrificing one
第一种观点：转弯牺牲一个人的做法和极权主义和种族主义
（genocide and totalitarianism）的出发点一致
第二种观点：你不能做出杀死五个人而放弃牺牲一个人就能救五人性命的选择。（多数选择）
场景转换：你变成了一个onlooker（旁观者）在桥上看着轨道，身边有一个胖子探出身子再看，你会把他推下桥从而救五个人的命吗？
不会（多数选择）:推人是主观行动而且是你可控制的行为，而电车的情况你无法控制
Moral principle: 1 what you should do depends on the conquences that will result from your actions. (conquentialist moral reasoning 结果主义道德伦理 locates morality in the conquence of an act) related to utilitarianism(功利主义)
2 categorical moral reasoning 绝对主义道德伦理 locates morality in certain duties and rights
Philosophy estranges us from the familiar by inviting and provoking us a new way of eing哲学使得熟悉的事物变得陌生通过引进和启发我们一个看待事物的新方式
Once the familiar turns strange is never quite same again
Immanuel kant skepticism is a resting place for human reason
One of the most important and influential versions of conquentialist moral theory: philosophy of utilitarianism, Jeremy bentham,english philosopher first gave this concept
Utilitarianism : Jeremy bentham idea is maximize the utility(效益最大化)，utility: Pleasure over pain, the slogan of it “the greatest good for the greatest number”
故事：19世纪的英国法律案件，在所在帆船被风浪击毁，超过二十天在救生艇上飘荡的四名英国船员，三人因为生存的需要杀了他们奄奄一息的同伴并以他的血和肉生存下来并且最终得救，回到英国三人面临抹杀罪名的审判，他们的行为在道德上能否被接受？
It still unaccepted to killing one for survival (vast majority): you don’t own this power to decide others’ fates
Class two: putting a price tag on life
Utility logic :cost-benefit analysis(成本收益分析)，placing a value to stand for utility on cost and benefits of various proposals
A cost-benefit analysis of smoking on Czech by Philip morris study
costs | benefits |
Incread in health care costs | Tax revenue from cigarette sales |
| 万智牌游戏 Health care savings(early death) |
| Pension savings |
刷牙歌歌词 | Savings on housing costs |
五年级上册作文 | |
Conclusion: Czech government net gain $147 million dollar if citizens smoke
Savings from premature deaths $1227 per person
Repairing the ford pinto(斑马)(a flawed car produced by ford who have already known this problem)
Costs | Benefits |
$11 per part *12.5 million cars =$137 million for improving safety | 180 deaths*$200.000 +180 injuries*67.000 +2000 vehicles*$700 $49.5 million 介绍一位名人 |
| |
团支部活动方案
Objections to utilitarianism:
1 fails to respect individual/minority rights
2 not possible to aggregate(合计) all values into $
-using a single measure like $
-isn’t there is a distinction between higher and lower pleasure
Bentham says :“pushpin(图钉游戏) is as good as poetry”，which shows he just address the duration and intensity of pleasure
Who to say their pleasures are higher、wealthier and nobler than others
Any want or satisfaction which exists exists in some account and therefore measurable
A latter-day(近代) utilitarian John Stuart mill try to humanize utilitarianism accommodate humanitarian concerns(纳入人道关怀)
The only test for distinguish higher and lower pleasure is whether someone who has experienced both would prefer it.
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than be a pig satisfied .” said by mill, becau we would prefer higher pleasure that we know it can engages our higher human
faculties(系，才能),and for receiving the higher pleasure need education、cultivation(培养)、appreciation.
Bentham(who died in 1832) provided his body be prerved in embalmed and displayed in university of London where he still wore his actual clothes with waxed head in a glass ca. He fulfills his concept of philosophy to maximize a body of a dead people.
Class three: free to choo
Question one: are there theories of the good life that can provide independent moral standards for the worthy of pleasure, if so, what do they look like?
Strong theories of rights say that individuals matter not just as instruments to be ud for a lager social purpo or for the sake of the utility, individuals are parate beings with parate lives worthy of respect. And it is a mistake according to the strong theories that think about justice or law just by adding up preferences and values, which we talk about now is libertarianism (自由意志论)，it think the fundamental individual right is the right to 对联广告
be liberty. Provided we respect others” have the same right to choo freely and live our lives as plea.青色的英文
