Ethics Cato Sluyts
ETHICS
Professor B. Pattyn; PHD N. Zetti
Lectures:
Assessment
- Final oral exam
o 80% of final grade
à other 20% from seminars
Seminars: (group 2)
Assessment
- Reading reports
o One per class
o Submit 1h before class
o 30% of seminar grade
à see syllabus for format
- Written essay
o 1200 words (excl.)
o May 30th
o 70% of seminar grade
à see syllabus for format
à Participation in class discussion is not assessed
Program
- Plato:
o Phaedo
- Aristotle:
o Excerpts from Nicomachean Ethics
- Grotius:
o Chapter from Stephen Darwell’s Modern Moral Philosophy
- Hume:
o Excerpts from Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning the
Principles of Morals
- Kant:
o Excerpts from Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of
Practical Reason, and Metaphysics of Morals (Doctrine of Virtue)
- Nietzsche:
o Excerpts from Daybreak, Gay Science, Genealogy of Morality, Twilight of
the Idols, and Ecce Homo
1
,Ethics Cato Sluyts
LECTURE INTRODUCTION – 10/02
We conceptualize an intuitive distinction with different oppositions (e.g., good and evil)
à we spontaneously refer it to our daily lives (feeling happy or mad) based on things
outside of us (someone’s behavior) or from within
The word ‘ethics’ comes from the Greek ‘ethos’ (= character)
à it has nothing to do with thinking but the style of an individual/group
Sometimes it is so self-evident we have certain reactions to certain feelings that in daily
life we don’t ask questions about it, but this is not always the case
à we then use ethics to ask the moral questions
So, you have ethics as the discipline as well as the reflection of something
Descriptive approach: make explicit what we implicitly already know
Normative approach: rational arguments around intuitions to find stronger ground
…
Once feelings play a part in an interaction, they become much more important (feeling
love versus saying “I love you”, whereas emotions are always a reaction to an
interaction and therefore always responded to (judged by social control)
à this leads us to subconsciously change our emotions (socially trained/socialization)
à these affinities are of course culturally- and time-bound
You cannot decide what you will feel, although you can condition yourself in a particular
way, but you can decide what you think about as it is closely related to talking
à language or conceptual things are used to think
…
‘Thought and language’ (actually ‘thought and speaking’) by Lev S. Vygotsky argues that
when little children start to think, they think out loud, a few words are enough to think of
more complex/extensive things
à the personal acquaintance we have with people (parents), which help us understand
what they mean to say with little words, we also have with ourselves
à to explain these things in such a way that a stranger can understand, we must
go the other way around and describe by transforming the condense idea back
into language (where it also comes from)
Hegel claims that immediacy is so immediate that we cannot say anything about it (it is
there), if you explain it, it is already a concept
By using a certain conceptual frame, we create a certain kind of reality
à proud of what someone has achieved or jealous of what they have could come from
the same original immediacy (we get to shape it into something)
2
,Ethics Cato Sluyts
The more defined a cognition system, the better you can follow someone’s train of
thought (same language, references, dynamics, multidimensions, etc.)
Ethics has a very chaotic history full of contradicting groups which go into discussions
with each other but do not reach a comprehensive coherent answer; thus, there is no
message of ethics for the general public
à we reach out to a descriptive approach, but the level of discourse and practice is not
… as there are no unframed concepts
à therefore, we need to find the theories behind the conceptual tools we use
and achieve knowledge of the background
3
, Ethics Cato Sluyts
LECTURE 1 – 14/01 SKIPPED CLASS
Ethics
- A common understanding
- In daily life
- Knowing what is appropriate & what is inappropriate
- A cosmic mission vs. a convention
- A discipline
- Academic reflection
- On the common understanding (descriptive)
- On the justification of what is appropriate & what is inappropriate (normative)
Historical introduction
- To know a phenomenon is:
o To know its history
o To understand how it developed
To begin with the beginning
- “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to
the end: then stop.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
To begin with the beginning
- two kinds of stories about the beginning:
o mythological/religious
§ cosmic importance of human beings
o scientific
§ ?
To begin with the beginning
- different presuppositions about:
o time
§ time in the ‘mythological WORLD’
§ time in the modern WORLD
4
ETHICS
Professor B. Pattyn; PHD N. Zetti
Lectures:
Assessment
- Final oral exam
o 80% of final grade
à other 20% from seminars
Seminars: (group 2)
Assessment
- Reading reports
o One per class
o Submit 1h before class
o 30% of seminar grade
à see syllabus for format
- Written essay
o 1200 words (excl.)
o May 30th
o 70% of seminar grade
à see syllabus for format
à Participation in class discussion is not assessed
Program
- Plato:
o Phaedo
- Aristotle:
o Excerpts from Nicomachean Ethics
- Grotius:
o Chapter from Stephen Darwell’s Modern Moral Philosophy
- Hume:
o Excerpts from Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning the
Principles of Morals
- Kant:
o Excerpts from Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of
Practical Reason, and Metaphysics of Morals (Doctrine of Virtue)
- Nietzsche:
o Excerpts from Daybreak, Gay Science, Genealogy of Morality, Twilight of
the Idols, and Ecce Homo
1
,Ethics Cato Sluyts
LECTURE INTRODUCTION – 10/02
We conceptualize an intuitive distinction with different oppositions (e.g., good and evil)
à we spontaneously refer it to our daily lives (feeling happy or mad) based on things
outside of us (someone’s behavior) or from within
The word ‘ethics’ comes from the Greek ‘ethos’ (= character)
à it has nothing to do with thinking but the style of an individual/group
Sometimes it is so self-evident we have certain reactions to certain feelings that in daily
life we don’t ask questions about it, but this is not always the case
à we then use ethics to ask the moral questions
So, you have ethics as the discipline as well as the reflection of something
Descriptive approach: make explicit what we implicitly already know
Normative approach: rational arguments around intuitions to find stronger ground
…
Once feelings play a part in an interaction, they become much more important (feeling
love versus saying “I love you”, whereas emotions are always a reaction to an
interaction and therefore always responded to (judged by social control)
à this leads us to subconsciously change our emotions (socially trained/socialization)
à these affinities are of course culturally- and time-bound
You cannot decide what you will feel, although you can condition yourself in a particular
way, but you can decide what you think about as it is closely related to talking
à language or conceptual things are used to think
…
‘Thought and language’ (actually ‘thought and speaking’) by Lev S. Vygotsky argues that
when little children start to think, they think out loud, a few words are enough to think of
more complex/extensive things
à the personal acquaintance we have with people (parents), which help us understand
what they mean to say with little words, we also have with ourselves
à to explain these things in such a way that a stranger can understand, we must
go the other way around and describe by transforming the condense idea back
into language (where it also comes from)
Hegel claims that immediacy is so immediate that we cannot say anything about it (it is
there), if you explain it, it is already a concept
By using a certain conceptual frame, we create a certain kind of reality
à proud of what someone has achieved or jealous of what they have could come from
the same original immediacy (we get to shape it into something)
2
,Ethics Cato Sluyts
The more defined a cognition system, the better you can follow someone’s train of
thought (same language, references, dynamics, multidimensions, etc.)
Ethics has a very chaotic history full of contradicting groups which go into discussions
with each other but do not reach a comprehensive coherent answer; thus, there is no
message of ethics for the general public
à we reach out to a descriptive approach, but the level of discourse and practice is not
… as there are no unframed concepts
à therefore, we need to find the theories behind the conceptual tools we use
and achieve knowledge of the background
3
, Ethics Cato Sluyts
LECTURE 1 – 14/01 SKIPPED CLASS
Ethics
- A common understanding
- In daily life
- Knowing what is appropriate & what is inappropriate
- A cosmic mission vs. a convention
- A discipline
- Academic reflection
- On the common understanding (descriptive)
- On the justification of what is appropriate & what is inappropriate (normative)
Historical introduction
- To know a phenomenon is:
o To know its history
o To understand how it developed
To begin with the beginning
- “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to
the end: then stop.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
To begin with the beginning
- two kinds of stories about the beginning:
o mythological/religious
§ cosmic importance of human beings
o scientific
§ ?
To begin with the beginning
- different presuppositions about:
o time
§ time in the ‘mythological WORLD’
§ time in the modern WORLD
4
