# Ethics — How should one live? Canonical URL: https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-philosophy-ethics Raw viewer URL: https://content.shipslides.com/d/catalog-philosophy-ethics/raw Category: Philosophy Slides: 13 Updated: 2026-05-17T20:55:50.004Z Tags: catalog, philosophy, ethics ## Summary Five frameworks. One trolley. A persistent question. The brief atlas of moral philosophy. Key sections include: ETHICS / How should one live?; Three roads to the good.; Aristotle — excellence as habit.; Kant — duty before consequence.; Bentham & Mill — the felicific calculus.; Rawls & Scanlon — what could we all agree to?; Gilligan & Noddings — the ethics of relation.; One death to save five ?; New problems for old frameworks.; Beneath the frameworks, a deeper question.. ## Slide Outline 1. ETHICS / How should one live? 2. Three roads to the good. 3. Aristotle — excellence as habit. 4. Kant — duty before consequence. 5. Bentham & Mill — the felicific calculus. 6. Rawls & Scanlon — what could we all agree to? 7. Gilligan & Noddings — the ethics of relation. 8. One death to save five ? 9. New problems for old frameworks. 10. Beneath the frameworks, a deeper question. 11. Real moral life is messier than any rule. 12. Morality without God? 13. Where to continue. ## Slide Transcript ### Slide 1: ETHICS / How should one live? - Treatise No. 4◆How should one live? - A Field Guide in 13 Cards - Five frameworks. One trolley. A persistent question. The brief atlas of moral philosophy. ### Slide 2: Three roads to the good. - 02 / The Map◆Three Major Traditions - Western moral philosophy clusters around three ancient questions. They are less rivals than different lenses on the same fog. - Agent-centered - Virtue Ethics - What kind of person should I be? Focus on character, habits, and human flourishing. - II. - Act-centered - Deontology - What rules must I follow? Some acts are right or wrong regardless of outcome. - III. - Outcome-centered - Consequentialism - What results should I produce? An act is right if its consequences are best. ### Slide 3: Aristotle — excellence as habit. - 03 / Tradition I◆Virtue Ethics - No. 001 · Lyceum - Aristotle - 384–322 BC · Athens - “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Eudaimonia — flourishing — is the human end. Each virtue is a Golden Mean between extremes: courage between cowardice and recklessness, generosity between miserliness and waste. Character is forged through practice, not principle. - Verdict · Live Well ### Slide 4: Kant — duty before consequence. - 04 / Tradition II◆Deontology - No. 002 · Königsberg - Immanuel Kant - 1724–1804 · Prussia - “Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” - The Categorical Imperative: morality is reason’s law. Lying, breaking promises, treating persons as mere means — forbidden, full stop. People possess dignity, not price. The right is prior to the good. - Verdict · Do Your Duty ### Slide 5: Bentham & Mill — the felicific calculus. - 05 / Tradition III◆Utilitarianism - No. 003 - Jeremy Bentham - 1748–1832 - “The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” - Pleasure good, pain bad — sum it up across all sentient beings. Quantitative hedonism. - Verdict · Maximize Utility - No. 004 - John Stuart Mill - 1806–1873 - “Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” - Refines Bentham — not all pleasures equal. Higher (intellectual) pleasures rank above lower. Liberty matters as a precondition for utility. - Verdict · Quality Counts ### Slide 6: Rawls & Scanlon — what could we all agree to? - 06 / Tradition IV◆Contractualism - No. 005 - John Rawls - 1921–2002 - “Justice is fairness — the principles you would choose behind a veil of ignorance.” - Imagine designing society without knowing your race, talent, or wealth. You’d demand equal liberties and accept inequality only if it benefits the least advantaged. - Verdict · Fair Terms - No. 006 - T. M. Scanlon - b. 1940 - “An act is wrong if it could be reasonably rejected by anyone affected.” - Morality as justifiability to others. We owe each other reasons — principles no one could refuse on grounds of fairness. - Verdict · Justifiable ### Slide 7: Gilligan & Noddings — the ethics of relation. - 07 / Tradition V◆Care Ethics - No. 007 - Carol Gilligan - b. 1936 - “A different voice — one that hears responsibility before rules.” - Critiqued Kohlberg’s “justice” ladder for missing women’s reasoning: contextual, narrative, attentive to relationships. - Verdict · Listen - No. 008 - Nel Noddings - 1929–2022 - “Caring is the foundation: a face met, not a maxim applied.” - Moral life begins in concrete encounter — mother and child, friend and friend. Abstract universals come second, if at all. - Verdict · Stay Close ### Slide 8: One death to save five? - 08 / The Test◆The Trolley Problem - Framework - Pull the lever? - Why - Utilitarian - YES - Five lives outweigh one. Math is math. - Kantian - Using the one as a means to others’ ends violates dignity. - Virtue - IT DEPENDS - What would the person of practical wisdom do? - Care - SUSPEND - Refuses the abstraction; demands the actual relations. ### Slide 9: New problems for old frameworks. - 09 / The Frontier◆Contemporary Dilemmas - The toughest cases are those the founding theorists never imagined. - AI Ethics - Should an autonomous vehicle be a Kantian or a utilitarian? Who is responsible when no human acts? Can a system without consciousness bear moral weight? - Animal Rights - Singer extends utilitarianism: if suffering counts, species is irrelevant. Regan extends Kant: animals as ends in themselves. - Intergenerational Justice - What do we owe people not yet born? Discount their welfare? Rawls’ veil suggests treat them as equals. - Climate - Diffuse harm, distributed cause, distant victim. Every framework strains. Collective action where individual choice barely registers. ### Slide 10: Beneath the frameworks, a deeper question. - 10 / Metaethics◆Are Moral Facts Real? - Position I - Realism - Moral facts exist independently — like mathematical truths. Cruelty is wrong, full stop. - Position II - Anti-realism - No moral facts — only attitudes, emotions, projections. “Wrong” expresses disapproval. - Position III - Constructivism - Moral truths are made, not found — products of rational agreement among agents. ### Slide 11: Real moral life is messier than any rule. - 11 / Practice◆Phronesis - Rules underdetermine action. Two principles always conflict. Three values cannot all be honored. Wisdom is the faculty of knowing what this case demands.— The lesson of every applied ethicist - Particulars matter - The same act in different contexts is a different act. Lying to a friend, lying to a tyrant. - Frameworks as tools - Pluralists carry several frameworks the way a carpenter carries chisels. Each reveals what others hide. - Moral residue - Even right choices leave regret. Tragic dilemmas have no clean exit. The mature agent accepts this. ### Slide 12: Morality without God? - 12 / The Persistent Question◆Foundations - Dostoevsky’s worry: “If God is dead, all is permitted.” Most modern frameworks reply: no. Reason, consequence, contract, character — each grounds ethics elsewhere. - The Worry - If no commander, no command? - Divine command theory: right is what God wills. Without God, what binds? Why care about Kant’s reason or Mill’s utility? - Skeptic - The Reply - The Euthyphro returns. - Plato asked: is it good because the gods love it, or do they love it because it is good? If the latter — goodness stands on its own, regardless of any commander. - Verdict · Stands ### Slide 13: Where to continue. - 13 / Coda◆Further Reading - Books - Aristotle — Nicomachean EthicsThe original treatise on virtue and flourishing. - Kant — Groundwork of the Metaphysics of MoralsThe categorical imperative, in 80 dense pages. - Mill — UtilitarianismBrief, lucid, the case for consequences. - Rawls — A Theory of JusticeThe veil of ignorance, fully developed. - Williams — Ethics and the Limits of PhilosophyWhy theory may not save us. - Anscombe — Modern Moral PhilosophyThe essay that revived virtue ethics. - Lectures & Videos - YouTube · Search - The Trolley Problem — explainers - YouTube · Search - Michael Sandel — Justice (Harvard) - “The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates, in Plato’s Apology. The ethical life starts here: not with the right answer, but with the willingness to keep asking. ## Related Decks - [Ethics of Technology](https://shipslides.com/d/philosophy-ethics-of-technology) - [Ethics and Moral Philosophy](https://shipslides.com/d/philosophy-ethics) - [Aesthetics — What Makes a Thing Beautiful?](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-philosophy-aesthetics) - [Greek Philosophy — from Thales to the Stoics](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-philosophy-ancient-greek)