Introduction through Chapter 6
Numbers in parentheses refer to pages in Morality and the Human Goods. "GL" refers to Dr. Gomez-LoboI have discovered that page numbers below referring to the Introduction were about one page off. That error should have been fixed today. (8-26)
Introduction 1. What two important points does GL suggest that the Crito makes? What do you think the word "listens" means in the quote from Socrates? (xi)
2. What is the Crito's answer to the question "Who decides in moral matters?" If you give the two-word answer, explain what is meant. (xii)
3. Why are appeals to subjective feelings inadmissible? pronouncements based on the authority of the speaker? (xiii)
4. How is moral philosophy egalitarian? (xiii) Does the Crito contain a version of the Golden Rule? (xiii-xiv) Why does GL think it an acceptable move at this point in the conversation? (xiv)
5. Who is included in the activity of "moral philosophy"? excluded? What is the role of premises strictly based on religious faith? (xiv-xv)
6. Why is the notion of "moral agent" introduced at this point? How are children included in moral philosophy, according to GL? (xv)
7. What is GL's point at bottom p. xv-top p. xvi? Is there anything problematic about his lumping together the condition of the mentally handicapped person and that of the uneducated peasant in Bolivia? (xvi)
Chapter 1 1. Agreement on what point does GL think is essential in order to continue the conversation? (2) In the writings of Thomas Aquinas this is known as "the first principle of the natural law." What variety of meanings do "pursue" and "avoid" cover, respectively?
2. Is this principle a "moral principle"? Explain. Does it tell us to pursue every single good we might have within reach?
3. What does GL (like many other philosophers) mean by "practical"? by "practical reason"? Distinguish the latter from "productive reason" and "theoretical reason." (2-3)
4. Apart from the need for a premise in order to cooperate at some future point, why should we agree on something? What are empirical claims? (3)
5. Consider three arguments against the FP that might start from the following premises: (1) Washing dirty dishes is an awful job, but I am going to do them anyway. (2) Smoking cigarettes is obviously bad for your health but apparently intelligent people do it all the time. (3) Student A was overheard saying to student B, who had just told her a story "You [are] bad!" and I could see that A was clearly delighted with B's story. What ideas help us make sense of these cases? Is the FP still standing or has it been refuted? (compare GL pp. 4-5)
6. To what is the FP analogous? What makes it true? ("In virtue of" what is it true?) (5) Why does GL call it (merely) a forma principle? (5)
Chapter 2 1. What two obstacles to identifying goods does GL note? (6)
2. What is the Subjectivist Thesis? Why does it seem to preserve autonomy? (And "autonomy" means?) (7)
3. What reason seems to disprove the Subjectivist Thesis? (7)
4. What is meant by "criterion"? Why is Bentham briefly introduced here? (8)
5. What position does GL take on the issue of whether criteria of goodness are many or one? Why? (8)
6. What basic format will GL use to state his criteria? What method used to defend the FP will not be available in the case of these criteria? (9)
7. What is meant here by "life"? (10) What is P.1 and what considerations does GL introduce to persuade us to agree that it is true? (10-12)
8. How does GL respond to the objection that "some people regard their lives as bad"?
9. What is there about health that leads us to count it as a good? Why do you suppose GL does not assign it a "P" statement? (12-13; see p. 14 where he seems to regard health as a basic good) Keep this in mind when you see what other things he regards as basic goods.
10. What is P.2 and what sort of support does this criterion have? (14) GL includes sex and procreation as key ingredients of the corresponding good-are they on the same level in your mind as "love," which he also mentions?
11. What is P.3? What three ingredients does the good under consideration here have? (15) Is this good intrinsically good? instrumentally good? (Explain.)
Is this good compatible with justice between persons involved? Does the existence of justice between persons require this good? Explain. (15-16)
12. What two supposed goods does P.4 assert? Define each. What reasons can be given to show that the first is an intrinsic good? (It is not controversial that it is often an instrumental good.) (17-18)
13. The second of the supposed goods in P.4 is sometimes described as "recreation," perhaps because he recreates us as energetic beings ready to go back to serious work. That would make it an instrumental good. Can we defend the claim that it is also an intrinsic good? (18)
14. What is P.5 and how does GL try to persuade us of its truth? How does greater understanding enhance the experience of this supposed good? (19)
15. What is practical knowledge? theoretical knowledge? What justification is there for the claim that practical knowledge is an important good? that theoretical knowledge is? (20-21; see also the paragraph starting at bottom p. 22)
16. How does GL handle the objection that it is better not to know certain things? (22)
17. Why is the topic of individual and collective self-deception important in this connection? (22-23) Beyond the book: why is this important in connection with recent national and world events?
18. What is P.7 and what does GL mean by its first word? (23) How does it relate to practical knowledge? To self-respect? Is it desirable only as a means to these goods?
To what "social dividends" is this good related? Why does GL not include these "social dividends" themselves among the basic goods? (24) How do you think this good is related to goodness of character, what many philosophers call moral virtue?
19. John Finnis, a leading contemporary natural law ethicist, includes religion among the basic human goods. Why does GL avoid doing this in his book? (24-25)
Chapter 3 1. What is meant by external goods? Are they intrinsic or instrumental? (26) What types of instrumental goods is GL discussing at 26-27?
Does this section help explain why GL does not give health a "P" item in chapter 1? (Professor's note: the ancients typically included the external goods along with the internal physical and mental instrumental goods among the "goods of fortune." After all, money if it is a good is a good of fortune.)
2. The section on freedom on pp. 27-28 will be problematic for many people today. GL argues that it is a good (27) but not a basic good (28) while insisting that merely being alive as a human being is a basic good. These philosophical stands help explain his position in later chapters on abortion and euthanasia.
For what is freedom a precondition? (27) In what way is life more fundamental than freedom? (27)
What does GL mean by "moral libertarianism"? From what does the idea that freedom is the ultimate value probably come? (28) Why does GL deny that freedom is the ultimate human goal? (28)
For perspectives that agree with GL that freedom is not identical to happiness but regard freedom as a morally basic value, see the chapters on Liberal Equality and Libertarianism in Kymlicka.
3. What two meanings of "dignity" does GL seem to distinguish? Which does he regard as basic?
How does he challenge the widespread idea that elderly incontinent persons are undergoing loss of dignity? (28-29) Is his challenge persuasive? (Explain.)
4. What view is called psychological hedonism? ethical hedonism? How does GL define pleasure? (30) How does he use the example of astronomers seeking knowledge to challenge psychological and ethical hedonism? (31)
5. What is odd about the example of the student who allegedly merely wants to "have fun"? What conclusion does GL draw from this in the next paragraph? (32)
6. Can we achieve pleasure without aiming at it? What does it mean to say that pleasure is a concomitant aspect of activity? (32) Is pleasure always this sort of thing? (Consult your own experience.)
7. How do hedonists explain away the apparent goodness of some pains? (33)
What point is GL trying to make with the example of the rapist? (We could also use recent disturbing examples of torturers who seem to delight in what they were doing.)
8. What "clinching" argument does GL give against including pleasure among the most basic goods? (top 34)
9. What instrumental value does physical pain sometimes have? What makes pain only a derivatively bad thing in GL's view? (34) He seems to admit that physicians do a real service when they can reduce the pain someone is suffering. Does it do justice to our experience of physical pain to say that it is at most merely derivatively bad? (GL's stand on this matter is related his view on euthanasia.) An alternate Aristotelian position might be that pain is sometimes a really bad thing, even if not the only or most important bad thing.
10. On pp. 35-37 GL tries to show that basic goods are good in "unqualified reflection" even if not always in a "qualified reflection." Water is good in the first way because, given its molecular structure, we need it for life, but water containing harmful bacteria is bad: "containing harmful bacteria" is the qualification. GL claims that health is good in "unqualified reflection" even if it may be in one's interest under specific circumstances to be ill. Is he persuasive when he tries to show that pleasure when it is good is always good in the qualified way and never in the unqualified way? Is it true that you cannot have pleasure without some kind of activity?
11. What does GL mean when he says the human goods are intelligible goods? (37) (Note he does not attempt to explain why, e.g., beauty, is a human good.)
12. How does the idea of "the good life" or "human flourishing" relate to the basic human goods? How does this idea of happiness differ from the common idea of happiness as subjective state as in the phrase "feel happy"? What conjecture is reasonable who people who seem to be leading a good life report a lot of pain and sadness? (38)
13. Do we sometimes have to choose among competing goods? Can we conceive basic goods in terms of units that it would make sense to maximize? Can we conceive of a common unit in terms of which all goods might be expressed? What Aristotelian doctrine does GL seem to resist? (39)
14. Does life in GL's view always take precedence over everything else? Explain. (40) What does it mean to say that "no human good is absolute"?
Chapter 4 1. What are two reasons why we need prudence or practical wisdom? (41)
2. What does GL mean by "vigilance"? "commitment"? (42)
3. What does GL mean by "inclusiveness"? Does the corresponding principle of prudence mean it would be unwise to have a single dominant end in one's life? Explain. (42-43)
4. What does GL mean by "detachment"? Why are the guidelines so far mentioned "purely prudential"? (43-44)
5. When, according to GL, does an imprudent action become immoral? (44)
6. Explain what GL means by "impartiality," "care," and "respect." Why does GL think we need "respect" in addition to "care"? (44-47)
7. GL claims that marital infidelity violates "respect" even when the unfaithful spouse does not want to harm his spouse. Is position consistent? Wouldn't it be possible to argue for the wrongness of marital infidelity by combining impartiality with care (as GL defines it) rather than inventing a third moral criterion?
Chapter 5 1. In moral inquiry what is meant by the term "agent"?
2. In discussing the two cases discussed on p. 49, GL seems to use the phrase "causally responsible" when he means "morally responsible." What principle does GL use to directly defend Jill's choice? (50) Does this oversimplify a complex choice? Does GL rely on this principle alone? (50)
3. What does GL mean by "the main immediate goal" of an action? Distinguish it from the immediate partial goals of an action, and relate this to the example of the person drawing a gun and the example of the surgeon. (51) How does it differ from the "more remote" goal of an action? Again, relate to the surgeon or the person drawing the gun. What would Jill be doing (main immediate goal) if she gave in to Jack's demand? (52)
4. How, according to GL, should actions be classified? How does this connect to moral judgment in his view? (52)
5. What sorts of consequences are of greatest relevance for evaluating action? (53) Does a physiologically and physically accurate description of intercourse with condom use explain impregnation? How would that complicate GL's discussion?
6. Do we intend immediate partial goals? the main immediate goals of action? Are we absolved of responsibility for nonaccidental consequences of intended actions? For accidental consequences according to GL? (53) But what would he probably say about the case mentioned in #5 (assume that condoms are 98% effective in preventing pregnancy)? For accidental consequences mediated by a third party? (53-54)
7. What is meant by "double effect"? Does the term refer to cases in which one does one thing knowingly but causes an unanticipated and unwanted effect simultaneously because of ignorance? If not, what sort of cases does it refer to? (54-55)