Collaborative Class Notes for PHL275: Introduction to Ethics

Week 2: What is ethics cont. & Subjectivism and relativism

Wednesday, July 10

Tips for the typer: Don’t try to write down everything. Instead, listen for key terms, authors, and
arguments. Don’t worry too much about spelling, grammar, etc. Use abbreviations as necessary. Make
note of places where you have questions or there are lingering confusions.

Tips for the editor: Don’t worry too much about spelling, grammar, etc. Add bullet points, bolding,
highlighting, or whatever else makes visual sense to you to help break up the text. Add examples to
help clarify abstract points. Try to answer the typer’s questions and clear up any confusions.

You will have 24 hours to clean up and finalize your notes before I post them to Quercus for the class.

Readings: Ch. 7: Right and Wrong, Thomas Nagel; Ch. 4: Subjectivism, Julia Driver; Argument
reconstruction assignment instructions (on Quercus)

Upcoming assignments: Argument reconstruction due Friday July 14 11:59 pm

Notes:

Housekeeping stuff:
● Collaborative class notes start today
● Virtual office hours changed to Tuesday 5-6PM
● Office hours (in-person) start today
● Tutorials start this Wednesday

Part 1: How to reconstruct an argument:

● Reconstruct an argument:
○ Break down the paper to most essential components.
○ Represent the components in a concise/charitable format
■ Charitable: Doing justice to original intent of author (aka: don’t misrepresent the
argument)
■ Represent it in the strongest, most forceful format.
● Pay attention to essential components of argument
○ Including: Conclusions (a concise statement of the overall view), premises (the
individual reasons that help the author support the conclusion)
■ Ex (from Oxford plagiarism quote on How to Reconstruct an Argument
document on Quercus): You should not plagiarize (Conclusion), passing off
another’s work as your own is not only poor scholarship (Premise 1)
○ A good idea to highlight the different components of the argument
■ Ex: Yellow for conclusion, green for premises etc.
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 ● To aid in reconstruction, use a premise-conclusion format
○ The premises in the beginning (ex: P1, P2, P3) and the conclusion at the end (ex: C1,
C2, C3 etc)
○ Note!! You should also discuss how the premises support the conclusion using
examples.
■ First paragraph should start off with the conclusions and the various premises
that support the conclusion
■ Later paragraphs may require you to define certain terms (ex: What does
unethical mean in Philosophy?)
■ Show the audience how exactly the premises work to support the conclusion
● In summary, here is what to do:
○ Translate the argument into premise-conclusion form (highlighting the premises and
conclusions really helps)
○ Use the translation and put it in your own words (makes argument more easily
accessible for other people)
○ Explain how the premises support the conclusion (define any terms non-Philosophy
students might not understand)
■ For definitions: If the author defines the term, use the author’s explanation. If
not, then use your own definition.
○ Give examples as needed to clarify

Part 2: Chapter 7- Thomas Nagel’s argument:

● Why should I care about other people? Why be moral?
○ Ex: Your friend tries to steal a book from Robarts and you see them while working at
the desk. What do you do? Most people would probably say something, but why?
○ Another example: Someone stole your umbrella, would you be upset? Most people
would say yes.
■ If you are persuaded by the umbrella case, then it is proof that you should not
steal the book. Because it causes harm to other people just as the person who
stole the umbrella caused harm to you.
■ Stealing the umbrella made me feel bad → anyone else in the same
circumstance could feel the same thing → it gives reason for no one else to
steal an umbrella.
○ If we have reason for other people to not harm us, then we would have no reason to
harm other people.
● Reconstructing Nagel’s argument
○ The argument is an appeal to rational consistency (page 50), the conclusion for the
argument is that to be consistent you have to care about others.
○ Argument in premise-conclusion format:
■ P1 - When you are wronged you feel resentment
● I’d resent it if someone wronged me (page 49)
■ P2 - This is a reason for others to not wrong you (page 49)

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 ● This claim might have some objections
■ P3 - This reason is general (applies to everyone, not unique to me) (page 50)
■ P4 - This is a reason not to wrong anyone (page 50)
■ C - In order to be rationally consistent, IF P1 THEN P4.
○ Often in arguments there are hidden premises.
■ Ex: For the umbrella argument to work, you would have to feel resentment when
someone takes your umbrella. Someone might also not have a strong sense of
property to feel resentment.
● Eventually when evaluating the argument, you can talk about how
persuasive the argument is
● Class evaluation of argument
○ Reasons in support of argument:
■ We can control our own actions
● That said, there are reasons to support or counter an action
■ Argument does go by a logical progression
■ A pretty general argument, applicable to everyone
■ On a psychological scale, this also does make sense
● Even if I only think about myself, creating negative conditions for
yourself does not lead to anything better
○ Objections to argument:
■ What each person values is very different
■ There is an appeal to rationality, but there may need to be more explanation
● Ex: from P1- P2, why is resentment the reason? Why should I care that
others are resentful?
■ Needs an additional premise to explain why resentment is bad
■ Are there reasons that defeat P1?
● Ex: The person is really struggling, the person needs the umbrella to
survive
■ Different people are upset by different things
● Ex: What about if the person having the umbrella stolen has a surplus and
doesn’t care? Is it ok to steal the umbrella?
○ Based upon intuition:
■ Is this reliable? How do we know if most people want to be treated well? What
does “being treated well” mean?

Part 3: Chapter 4 - Subjectivism:

● Relativism: a broad category of views that states that truth is relative to
individuals/subjects/groups
● Moral relativism states that what is right/wrong is not a universal principle, but is relative to the
subject/group/individual themselves
○ Subjectivism is focused on the individual.

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 ■ Can be a more general group (ex: cultural subjectivism) which is focused on a
group.
○ Why does this theory work?
■ Empirically it makes sense. Some people would agree that plagiarism is wrong
while others disagree.
■ Suggests that we are tolerant, we don’t push our opinions on others.
● Ex: I think plagiarism is wrong, you might think otherwise.
● Ex: I think death penalty is wrong, you think it is right
■ It seems intuitive, and makes a lot of sense initially.
● Julia Driver (author) argues that Subjectivism is not the correct way to think about moral
statements
● Subjectivist argument:
○ When you make a moral statement like “Plagiarism is wrong/right”, what you mean is “I
(*name*) think plagiarism is wrong” or “I (*name) disagree and think plagiarism is
right”
■ It is an expression of your own opinion in this case.
○ By making these statements, there is no conflict as it is only just an expression of your
own opinion
■ No one can disagree that you hold a certain opinion, Ex: it would be strange to
say “I disagree that you think that plagiarism is wrong”
■ Sounds weird given that this is a disagreement over if plagiarism is right or
wrong.
● Driver’s argument against subjectivism:
○ Driver thinks that this makes subjectivism implausible. Ethical disagreement is not
subjective
■ Ex: Ask a mass murderer if killing is wrong. They would say no. But anyone
else would say yes, killing is wrong.
○ Driver argues that moral statements are like statements of facts.
■ When we make a moral claim, we are not merely stating this as our opinion on
the matter, we are arguing that this is an objectively true statement
● Ex: When I say “plagiarism is wrong,” I’m not saying “I think plagiarism
is wrong,” I am making the claim that objectively, plagiarism is wrong
■ Saying “plagiarism is wrong” is like saying “wombat is a mammal.” this is a
statement that purports to be a fact, not an opinion
○ What about Math?
■ There is a fact-of-the-matter in this case.
○ The use of language? What about people who use vague language without taking a
certain side?
■ Ethics aims to make explicit the language used.
● Class evaluation of Driver’s argument against Subjectivism
○ Not effective:
■ Forcing subjective opinions as objective facts

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 ● How can we say that there are objective moral facts
■ Primarily talking about one form of subjectivism (the subjectivism that argues
that all moral claims are expressions of our opinions).
● There are other arguments for subjectivism that talk about values
■ There are circumstances that make people more sensitive about certain kinds of
moral actions.
● Subjectivism seems to honour these differences between people
■ How do we place more emphasis on one opinion over the other?
● Who are we to prioritize one over the other
■ Can we both be wrong about something?
● If there are objective ethical facts, how do we know about them? This is
not like a wombat situation
■ People have different values. Ex: you can value education as important, and
believe that not everyone has to go to university.
● However, is value the same as morality? Maybe the opinion is that
people ought to have autonomy and values.
○ Effective:
■ If moral statements are subjective, but there is a common opinion, there must be
a reason for the common opinion to be common. (Cohesion)
● So there is reason for believing in certain things, these reasons are
objective facts
■ What about contexts? Could that give us more insights? If I accidentally hit
someone while playing a sport then it was not due to malicious intent.
■ There is a need for certain truths.
● When is it permissible/impermissible and for whom is it allowed/not
allowed.
● There is nuance in the truths

Part 4: Reconstructing Argument Assignment:

● Assignment due this Friday as an argument reconstruction like what we did with Nagel’s
argument from Chapter 7.
● Task:
○ Reconstruct the argument by Driver (Chapter 4) or the argument by Rachel (Chapter 6)
○ Identify the conclusion the author argues for
○ Describe the reasons for why the author agrees this conclusion
○ Explain why these reasons support the conclusion.
■ Define key terms, give examples as needed.
○ No need for the skeleton premise-conclusion, just the actual paper.
● Be concise, be targeted (word count: ~500, a bit more than 1 page)
● Citations!!
○ Cite which individual statements from the textbook are the premises and conclusion.
○ Citations should be done through footnote

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○ Now what about page numbers?
■ Either the individual page number and author last name or copy the specific
sentence from the text (ideally pretty short sentences) and author last name.
■ For the second option for citations, you can just paraphrase the sentence you are
citing