Philosophy and Debating

By Alexander Chen, IBP

Table of Contents Why does philosophy remain relevant in the

21st century? How we account for the qualitative differences

between types of arguments and questions State-citizen relationship and social contract

theory Different variations of principles of justice Moral philosophy, justification and

prescriptive morals Moral criticism, blame and responsibility

“The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason.”

– Bertrand Russell (Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1950)

Why is philosophy still important today? Some say that philosophy is farfetched and

outdated, representing a relic of the past– Many of things said by philosophers are

perceived as utter nonsense in contemporary contexts

– That is, indeed, the case, but philosophy has developed and changed over time

Philosophy has been and will remain relevant far out in the future, regardless of the success of scientific method

– Because there are qualitative differences between the type of questions that are addressed by natural/social sciences and philosophy

Type of Questions Empirical

– Where science has become the predominant method of enquiry Logical

– Concerned with valid reasoning, modes of inferences and the relationship between symbols and

– Logics can be traced to Ancient Greece● Non-contradiction: It is not the case that A and not-A

Conceptual– Examines the meanings of words and concepts

● Language of truth: All bachelors are unmarried

Normative– Value judgments about what is right or wrong, just or unjust,

beautiful or ugly– Very philosophical in nature, which cannot be explicitly

resolved through empirical enquiry

Categorization of arguments Descriptive arguments

– Often involves empirical data– With the purpose of accounting for the nature or definition of

objects or concepts Relational arguments

– Establishing a relation between various objects or concepts● This could be the causal relationship between the consumption of

alcohol and the amount of people dying from traffic accidents

Evaluative arguments– Determines whether something is X

● Where X is often associated with some abstract concept, such as fair, just, moral, good, harmful, etc.

– Requires you to define X● A decision is rational if the benefits exceeds the cost● The principle is the definition of the evaluator, and the evaluator is

rationality

The relation between the state and its subjects ”This house would” implies that the decision is made from the perspective of

the government/state– How does this shape the content of all debates?

Social contract theories– A world-view and a conception of the good

Thomas Hobbes– Man is irrational and only acts in his own interest. He will encroach upon the rights of

others whenever it is possible– The state, the Leviathan, has to be strong and all-powerful, holding the citizens in an

iron-grip John Locke

– Rational people, but people can occasionally encroach upon each other rights– The state has to protect the people’s liberties and should therefore be minimal

Jean-Jacques Rousseau– Republican world-view, akin towards the view of Aristotle. Man is a political animal.– It is a civic virtue for all citizens to participate and actively engage in political affairs

The state and its subjects - continued Political philosophy is centered around two claims,

though they are not entirely mutually exclusive– 1. Everyone’s life is equally important before the state

● Egalitarianism– Equalisandum - ”Specifies that which has to be equalised”

– 2. Everyone has his own life to live● Liberalism

– Rights and liberties of the individual

Liberalism is concerned with the rights of an individual that are not to be violated

Egalitarianism is concerned with the reallocation, or redress, of (equalisandum) to accommodate for, or mitigate, the inequalities of our society

Different principles of justice Rawls’ two principles

– First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

– Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that: (a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society, consistent with the just savings principle (the difference principle). (b) offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity

Luck egalitarianism by Dworkin and Cohen– Cohen: Justice requires equal access to advantages for all people– Dworkin: Equality of resources

Complex equality by Michael Walzer– Different social goods require different principles of distribution– Sensitive to culture and the social meaning of particular goods in particular

societies– Perfect equality is neither desirable or practicable

Justice ”Justice is the first virtue of social institutions,

as truth is of systems of thought” – John Rawls– Justice underpins the decisions made by the

state, if we assume that the state operates by valid principles of justice

Retributive– On punishment– Lex Talionis – The law of retaliation

Distributive– How we ideally distribute and allocate goods in

a society– ”THW lower the income tax on women”

Moral philosophy and justification Moral philosophy pertains to the study of what is

right and wrong– As religion is no longer a viable justification of moral

principles, other methods are required to determine what is right and wrong

”THW permit assisted suicide/euthanasia”– One feature concerns the morality of such policies– Q1: Is assisted suicide equivalent to murder?– Q2: Is murder wrong?– Q3: Is it morally wrong to allow assisted suicide?

– If assisted suicide is equivalent to murder, then assisted suicide must be wrong?

Prescriptive moral philosophy Utilitarianism

– Consequentialist● Concerned with the consequences of an act● The substantive reason for any moral decision is to maximize X and/or minimize Y● E.g. to maximize happiness or welfare

Categorical imperative– Deontology– The only thing that is good without qualification is good will– "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will

that it should become a universal law without contradiction.“ Virtue ethics

– Plato and Aristotle– Pertains to a man’s state of character– Teleological

● Means to an end– What is the chief purpose of a Man?

● Man is necessarily rational, but only a biped by chance (cf. Political animal)

Moral criticism, blame and responsibility When someone is ascribed blame, he or she

must be responsible– Responsibility reflects choice and ”judgment

sensitive attitudes” (Thomas Scanlon)– You cannot ”blame” someone for being too tall,

having a certain sexual orientation or a certain gender, as it does not reflect ”choice” as such – it is merely given in our nature

But even if we are held responsible, it does not necessarily mean that we should suffer from sanctions

Two types of responsibility– Responsibility as attribute– Substantive responsibility

Moral criticism, blame and responsibility – continued An example of responsibility as an attribute

– When someone takes a drug, he makes a free choice to consume the substance

● Arguably, since he made the choice himself, he has to suffer the consequences by himself – the state has no obligation to expend resources on his (wrong) choices

Substantive responsibility– Even if the decisions we make are attributable

to us, it does not necessarily reflect substantive responsibility

● Someone taking drugs does not reflect free choice, insofar as societal/cultural factors may have shaped/influenced our decisions

● We may have felt coerced (peer pressure) to take drugs, since everyone else in the local community did so