Lecture 03: Ethical Explanation, Consequentialism, and Deontology

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From technical foundations to ethical foundations

Opening case: trusting a warning system

What ethics tries to explain

Why formulate moral principles?

The organ-transplant test case

Consequentialism: explain rightness through goodness

Utilitarianism: aggregate welfare

What counts as welfare?

Duties and rights: instrumental or intrinsic importance?

Deontology: constraints beyond maximizing the good

Doing harm versus allowing harm

Intending harm versus foreseeing harm

Comparison to carry forward