Discussing Ethics in the Movie House

Introduction to Ethics An Open Educational Resource, collected and edited by Noah Levin, 2019

Collected and edited by Noah Levin Table of Contents UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION 1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin) 2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba) 3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr) 4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin) 5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge) 6 The Ethics of our Digital Selves (Noah Levin) UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD” 7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas) 8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge) 9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis) 10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin) 11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) 12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS 13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar) 14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies) 15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman) 16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin) 17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar) 18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes) UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS 19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh) 20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill) 21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge) 22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin) 23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill) UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY 25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato) 26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley) 27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant) 28 The Virtues (Aristotle) 29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko)

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil, 2019

Rousseau’s interest in evil was—like his interest in most everything—practical rather than metaphysical. He wanted to understand where evil came from in order to understand how it could be overcome. His was not an etymological story; neither was it a metaphysical or linguistic analysis. It was something closer to a historical anthropology or a genealogy. It was a story about the origin of evil, intended ultimately to illustrate for people living in corrupt societies a time in which evil had not yet come into existence. Rousseau’s genealogy of evil had two purposes: first, to demonstrate that evil is not a constitutive element of human nature; and, second, to suggest the possibility of evading or transcending the evil that had become so pervasive in modern societies. Evil, Rousseau argued, is not inherent in the world but rather originates in us, which in turn gives us the power to overcome it. Evil has a history that can be traced, a history that can reveal an alternative to the corruption that is currently so prevalent, a history that can show us a time when we were not yet evil, a history that can point the way toward a future in which we renounce evil in favor of good.

The aim of this dissertation was to analyse the moral and ethical worlds within director Zack Snyder’s films and specifically discusses his comic book and graphic novel adaptations. Analysis of 300 (2007), Watchmen (2009) and Man of Steel (2013) highlights the various kinds of political philosophy and normative ethical theories that are present throughout Snyder’s films. Specific reference is made to notorious philosophical texts such as John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Utilitarianism, Plato’s The Republic and Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics. Each of these philosophical references is paralleled with the moral behaviour and ethical actions of characters within all three of Snyder’s adaptations discussed within the dissertation. Mill’s utilitarian principle of liberty and theory on individualism is discussed within the first two chapters and is compared to Plato’s collectivist philosophy. This is done to highlight various characters interpretations of an individual’s freedom within society. Consequentialist ethical theories such as classical utilitarianism and ethical egoism are also discussed in comparison with deontological ethics. The dissertation argues that characters throughout Snyder’s films adhere to these varying forms of normative ethical theories and that this predominately acts as the source of conflict within his films narratives. Snyder’s reoccurring use of long takes within his films is also discussed in regards to how the editing serves a purpose of emphasising a particular characters ethical stance through dialogue with a scene. In its conclusion the dissertation establishes that each of Snyder’s films involve characters adhering to contrasting ethical perspectives that defines their beliefs about how society should work.

Ethics|| Lectures || Engineering Works || Ms. Castillo

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2005

With respect to questions of fact, people use heuristics -mental short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that generally work well, but that also lead to systematic errors. People use moral heuristics too -moral short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that lead to mistaken and even absurd moral judgments. These judgments are highly relevant not only to morality, but to law and politics as well. Examples are given from a number of domains, including risk regulation, punishment, reproduction and sexuality, and the act/omission distinction.

Syllabus and lecture notes for an introductory course on the philosophy of nature and the environment.

Ethics|| Lectures || Engineering Works || Ms. Castillo