Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics

Barbora Řebíková2013

(rebbarbora@email.cz)

What is philosophy?

What is ethics?

etymology

• The word "philosophy" comes from the Ancient Greek φιλοσοφία (philosophia), which literally means "love of wisdom".

• The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and "philosophy" has been ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras.

• A "philosopher" was understood as a word which contrasted with "sophist". Traveling sophists or "wise men" were important in Classical Greece, often earning money as teachers, whereas philosophers are "lovers of wisdom" and not professionals

etylomogy

• Φιλο σοφία = "love of wisdom"

• Wisdom = σοφία and φρόνησις

• Sofia - translated as "theoretical wisdom"• Phronesis - often translated as "practical wisdom"

Phronesis

• „Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it.“

• (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1142 a)

philosophy

• To love wisdom and not to have it. To desire, want, struggle, try hard to achieve or whatever but not to have.

• ...but what does it mean?• This is a notoriously difficult question.• It is already a philosophical question.

What is philosophy?

• „One of the easiest ways of answering it is to say that philosophy is what philosophers do, and then point to the writing of Plato, Aristotle, Descarte, Hume, Kant, Russell, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and other famous philosophers.“

(Nigel Warburton, Philosophy, Routledge1995)

...what philosophers do?

• Philosophy is an activity: it is a way of thinking about certain sorts of question and searching for answers (similarly to science)

• ...but not all answers are philosophical answers (or scientific ones)

• Its distinctive feature is its use of logos – logical arguments.

• (Mythos x logos)

Logos x mythos

• What does it mean to use λόγος? What did we use before?

• Discovery of logos is connected with the very beginning of philosophy and science.

mythology

• Before philosophy• Mythos = word• Logos = word

• What is the difference between word mythos and word logos?

• Different explanations of the same reality

fire

mythos

logos

C2H5OH + 3 O2 --------------> 3 H2O + 2 CO2

love

mythos

logos

war

Mythos

logos

Before philosophy

• was mythology• First myths about creation of the world• „In the begining there was only chaos. Then out

of the void appeared Erebus, the unknowable place where death dwells, and Night. All else was empty, silent, endless, darkness. Then somehow Love was born bringing a start of order. From Love came Light and Day. Once there was Light and Day, Gaea, the earth appeared.“

When does philosophy begin?

• When mythos was overcame by logos – logical arguments.

• ...but is mythos really dead?• Have you ever heard about „searching for the

other half“? That‘s one of the oldest myths ever.

Why do we search for the other half?

• According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with 4 arms, 4 legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives, searching for the other half.

Why do we search for the other half?

• Then Zeus thought hard and says, 'In my own opinion,' he said, 'I have a device whereby human beings would continue to exist and at the same time, having become weaker, would stop their immorality. I shall now cut each of them in two,' he said; 'and they will be both weaker and more useful to us through the increase in their numbers. And they will walk up- fight on two legs. But if they are thought to behave bad still, and are unwilling to keep quiet, then I shall cut them in two,' he said, 'so that they will go hopping on one leg.' As soon as he said this he began to cut human beings in two, just like those who cut sorb-apples in preparation for pickling.

The end of mythology• Mythology was at the heart of everyday life in

Ancient Greece. Greeks regarded mythology as a part of their history. They used myth to explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities and friendships. It was a source of pride.

• But after the rise of philosophy, history, prose and rationalism in the late 5th century BC, the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythological genealogies gave place to a conception of history which tried to exclude the supernatural.

philosophy

• Philosophy is an activity: it is a way of thinking about certain sorts of question and searching for answers (similarly to science)

• Examples of these questions might be:

...• What is? • Why is there something rather than nothing? • Why is the world the way it is? • Where does it all come from? • Where do we come from? • Who are we? • Where are we going to? • What is the purpose of it all? • Is there a God?

...• What is good and what is evil? • What is knowledge? • What is truth? • What is consciousness? • Do we have a "free will"? • How should we act? • How can we be happy? • Why cannot we live forever? • What is the meaning of life?

Why is philosophy important?

• Nowadays we can see a victory of science. We live in era of science.

...• „Science has allowed us to send people to the moon,

to cure tubelculosis, to invent the atom bomb, the motor car, the aeroplane, television, computers, and numerous other devices which have changed the nature o our everyday life. Scientific method is generally recognised as the most effective way we have of finding out about and predictin the behaviour of the natural world. Not all scientific inventions have been beneficial to human beings – obviously scientific developments have been used to destroy as well as improve human life.“

• (Nigel Warburton, Philosophy, p. 109.)

...

• Can science give us answers on all questions?

Science x philosophy

• science investigates what is

• Philosophy (ethics) investigates what ought to be

Embryo science

tells us what the embryos are and when they begin

Embryo technologies

represent the abilities of researchers to do things to or with embryos they can make embryos in lab, by IVF or by cloning they can keep embryos alive in the lab whether in

culture, or indefinitely by freezing they can destroy these embryos

Philosophy – „Embryo ethics“

are such manipulation morally right? it is not uncommon to hear embryo

researchers claim that only science should have a say what science does, and that ethics, religion and politics have no business in the concerns of science

it is true that moral philosophy cannot say what embryo is nor has anything to say about what can be done with an embryo

…

• but science has nothing to say about what we ought to do, even in the domain of science

Questionsphilosophical or scientific?

• Should stem-cell scientists destroy even early-stage human embryos in order to advance medicine?

• When does human life begin? At conception? At implantation? When the heart starts to beat at 22 days? When the embryo takes on a human form?

An Extremely Prominent Question

• One of the biggest changes in modern science has been in our ability to alter the course of human development.

• We can plan the sex of our children• We can test for the presence or absence of

certain genes and abort embryos that are not „good“

• We can isolate human stem cells that can generate nearly any tissue in the body

...

• We are able to clone human cell nuclei to produce stem cells that are genetically identical to the patients who might need them.

• We can do a lot of things nowadays• The question is..

should we do such things?

To make informed jugments about such issues,one must have some background in bothbiology and philosophy (ethics).

Ethics – right and wrong

• What makes an action right or wrong? What do we mean when we say that someone ought or ought not to do something? How should we live? How should we treat other people?

• If we cannot say why such things as torture, murder, cruelty, slavery, rape, and theft are wrong, what justification can we have for preventing them?

• Is morality simply a matter of prejudice or can we give good reasons for our moral beliefs?

Ethics - philosophical discipline

What is ethics?• Etymology: the word ethos is connected with animals and means "place of

pasture or stable, and the way of life and behavior." When applied to the human ethos means place for living. Mores, course of action, attitudes and mentality of people. Habit.

• Latin mos, from which is derived the word morality 'means originally, will'. mos finally, as ethos, it is also a personal way of life, beliefs, character and moral behavior. "Czech word comes from the word nrav, which was something that is „generally like and what is appropriate."

Is ethics a set of standards (set of prepared sentences of what should be and what ought not to be)?

• The ethics is often consider as a set of standards, or statements about what should be and what ought not be.

• ...but we don‘t know this set. Every situation is different.

• We have to find a set of rules, which we could follow

• Preliminary definition: ethics is a discussion about what should be

Technical vs. ethical

• Both , technical ethical questions, are aimed to "what to do".

• Technical - "what to do„ - how to stop bleeding, how to bake bread, build a house, rob a bank, etc.

• Ethical - "what to do„ - when, if ever, is possible to take a gift from a patient? Is it permissible to lie to a patient if it is for his or her good? (what does it mean good?)

What is the difference between them?

Both are aimed at achieving the goal.

• For technical considerations is target unproblematic. No examining whether this goal is really what "should be„.

• It focuses primarily on the means and not the target.• For ethical reasoning is the goal problematic and it is always

measured by a higher aim, which is "good in itself" (does not need to be further justified)

• Ethics is: debate about what should be, motivated by concern for the highest good and not clearly defined set of (technical) instructions.

...

• Ethics is not set of standards, but worries and aspirations on doing good.

• it is a debate about what should be, motivated by concern for the highest good.

The question is, what is this "highest good"?

• It is the same for a member of a terrorist organization, spiritual leader, patient, prisoner, a member of the Ursuline order in Jiřetín pod Jedlovou, a member of the anti-government rebels in Syria?

• The concept of goodness can be influenced by interests and ideologies. It is therefore always necessary to purify our conception of good from the interests, ideologies, cultural influences, the influence of family, religion, school, friends, political parties, etc.

• Philosophical concept of goodness requires critical examination and great mental effort.

• Ethics is a constant search for the correct answers, searching for what "should be". The constant change of naive thinking on critical thinking.

Courage to ethics

• Changing our own positions (which are sometimes considered as unshakable and well justified) requires the courage to change your mind, open to other ideas, willingness to critical thinking, to look at things not for our own sake, but for the sake of goodness.

History of Medical Ethicsorigin in shock

...

Intelligence x wisdom

...

...• The impulse for the establishment of medical ethics as a

discipline and the subject of education, was shocking findings about the behavior of Nazi doctors during World War II.

• Doctors performed experiments on prisoners of concentration camps. "From the methodological point of view this was a rational research projects, for example, monitoring the reactions of the organism to extraordinary physical and toxic effects. Some results of these experiments have become even practical benefits (eg hibernation in surgery)

Nuremberg Tribunal

• self-defense of physicians : the maximum benefit for the most people. The experimental results will benefit generations yet!

• European culture (with its moral pluralism, in which pallets are also moral utilitarianism among other-isms) was shaken.

The four principles of medical ethics

• This shock led to the establishment of the four basic principles of medical ethics:

• 1. nonmaleficence, 2. beneficence, 3. autonomy 4. justice

…

Thank you for your attention

Barbora Řebíková

(rebbarbora@email.cz)