Moral Philosophy — Key Terms and Definitions

Utilitarianism

Utility: The usefulness of an action measured by the amount of happiness, pleasure, or preference-satisfaction it produces. In utilitarianism, the morally right action is the one that maximises utility — producing the greatest overall good.
Act utilitarianism: The view that the right action in any situation is the one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people affected. Each action is judged individually by its consequences, with no reference to rules.
Rule utilitarianism: The view that we should follow general rules whose widespread adoption would maximise overall happiness. An individual action is right if it conforms to a rule that, if generally followed, would produce the most utility.
Greatest happiness principle: The foundational principle of utilitarianism: actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, and wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness. Happiness is defined as pleasure and the absence of pain.
Bentham's quantitative hedonism: Bentham's view that the right action is the one that maximises pleasure, measured purely by quantity using the felicific calculus. All pleasures are of the same kind and differ only in measurable features such as intensity, duration, and certainty.
Felicific calculus: Bentham's method for calculating the total amount of pleasure and pain an action produces. It measures pleasure along seven dimensions: intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity (nearness), fecundity, purity, and extent.
Mill's qualitative hedonism: Mill's modification of utilitarianism holding that pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity. Higher pleasures (intellectual, aesthetic) are superior to lower pleasures (bodily, sensory). 'It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.'
Higher and lower pleasures: Mill's distinction between types of pleasure. Higher pleasures are intellectual or aesthetic (e.g. reading, art, conversation). Lower pleasures are bodily or sensory (e.g. eating, drinking). Those who have experienced both will always prefer the higher.
Preference utilitarianism: A form of utilitarianism that measures utility not by pleasure but by the satisfaction of preferences. The right action is the one that best satisfies the preferences of all those affected, whatever those preferences may be.
Consequentialism: The family of ethical theories that judge the morality of an action solely by its consequences or outcomes. Utilitarianism is the most prominent consequentialist theory. An action has no intrinsic moral value — only its results matter.
Hedonism: The view that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain the only intrinsic evil. In ethics, hedonistic utilitarianism holds that the right action is the one that maximises pleasure and minimises pain.

Kantian Deontological Ethics

Deontological ethics: Ethical theories that judge the morality of actions based on whether they conform to rules, duties, or obligations, rather than by their consequences. An action can be morally wrong even if it produces good outcomes. Kant's ethics is the most prominent example.
Good will: For Kant, the only thing that is good without qualification. A good will is one that acts from duty — out of respect for the moral law — rather than from inclination or self-interest. The moral worth of an action depends entirely on the will behind it.
Acting in accordance with duty: Performing the morally right action, but possibly for the wrong reason. For example, a shopkeeper who gives correct change only because it is good for business acts in accordance with duty but not from duty — so the action has no moral worth for Kant.
Acting from duty: Performing the right action because it is one's duty, motivated by respect for the moral law rather than by inclination or self-interest. For Kant, only actions done from duty have genuine moral worth.
Hypothetical imperative: A command of the form 'if you want X, then do Y'. It is conditional on having a particular desire or goal, and applies only to those who have that goal. For example, 'if you want to pass the exam, then revise'. It is not a moral command.
Categorical imperative: An unconditional moral command that applies to all rational beings regardless of their desires or goals. It takes the form 'do X' without any 'if'. Kant argues that all genuine moral duties are categorical imperatives.
Maxim: The subjective principle or rule on which a person acts. For example, 'I will lie when it suits me' is a maxim. Kant's first formulation tests morality by asking whether a maxim could be consistently universalised.
First formulation (universalisability): Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative: 'Act only according to that maxim which you can at the same time will to be a universal law.' A maxim is moral only if it could be consistently adopted by everyone without contradiction.
Contradiction in conception: A maxim that, if universalised, would be logically self-defeating — the universal practice would make the action itself impossible. For example, a universal law of lying would destroy trust and make lying impossible, since no one would believe anything.
Contradiction in will: A maxim that could be universalised without logical contradiction, but which no rational agent could consistently will. For example, a maxim of never helping others could be universalised, but no one could rationally will it since everyone sometimes needs help.
Second formulation (humanity): Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative: 'Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.' It forbids using people solely as tools for your own purposes.

Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

Eudaimonia: The highest human good, often translated as 'happiness', 'flourishing', or 'living well and doing well'. For Aristotle, eudaimonia is not a feeling but an activity — it is the final end (telos) of human life, desired for its own sake.
Telos (final end): The ultimate purpose or goal of something. For Aristotle, every kind of thing has a telos. The telos of human life is eudaimonia — flourishing through the exercise of reason and virtue. The telos of a knife is to cut well.
Function argument (ergon): Aristotle's argument that the good life for humans consists in fulfilling our distinctive function. Just as a good knife is one that cuts well, a good human is one who performs the distinctively human function — rational activity — well, i.e. in accordance with virtue.
Virtue (arete): A settled character trait or disposition that enables a person to act well and thereby achieve eudaimonia. Virtues are excellences of character — such as courage, temperance, and justice — that are developed through practice and habituation.
Vice: A settled character trait that is the opposite of a virtue — a disposition that leads a person away from eudaimonia. Vices come in pairs: an excess and a deficiency. For example, rashness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency) are the vices corresponding to courage.
Doctrine of the mean: Aristotle's view that each moral virtue is a mean (middle point) between two extremes — a vice of excess and a vice of deficiency. For example, courage is the mean between rashness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency). The mean is relative to the person and situation.
Practical wisdom (phronesis): The intellectual virtue of knowing the right thing to do in particular circumstances. It is the ability to deliberate well about what is good and beneficial, and to perceive the morally relevant features of a situation. It guides all other virtues.
Habituation: The process by which virtues are developed through repeated practice. Just as skills are learned by doing, virtues are acquired by performing virtuous actions until they become settled dispositions. We become courageous by doing courageous things.
Voluntary action: An action performed knowingly and without external compulsion — the agent chooses to act and understands what they are doing. For Aristotle, moral responsibility applies only to voluntary actions.
Involuntary action: An action performed under external compulsion or through genuine ignorance of relevant circumstances. The agent either had no choice or did not know what they were doing. Aristotle holds that agents are not morally responsible for involuntary actions.

Meta-Ethics

Cognitivism (in ethics): The view that moral statements are truth-apt — they express beliefs that can be true or false. When someone says 'murder is wrong', they are stating a fact about the world that is either true or false. Moral realism and error theory are both cognitivist.
Non-cognitivism: The view that moral statements are not truth-apt — they do not express beliefs and cannot be true or false. Instead, they express attitudes, emotions, or prescriptions. Emotivism and prescriptivism are non-cognitivist theories.
Moral realism: The view that there are objective moral facts and properties that exist independently of what anyone thinks or feels about them. Moral statements are true or false depending on whether they correctly describe these mind-independent moral facts.
Moral anti-realism: The view that there are no objective, mind-independent moral facts or properties. Moral claims do not describe an independent moral reality. Error theory, emotivism, and prescriptivism are all forms of moral anti-realism.
Moral naturalism: A form of moral realism holding that moral properties are natural properties that can be discovered through empirical investigation. For example, 'good' might mean 'that which promotes human flourishing' — a claim that can be tested scientifically.
Moral non-naturalism (intuitionism): A form of moral realism, associated with G.E. Moore, holding that moral properties are real but non-natural — they cannot be reduced to natural properties or discovered by science. We know moral truths through a special faculty of moral intuition.
Naturalistic fallacy: Moore's claim that it is a mistake to define 'good' in terms of any natural property such as pleasure, desire, or evolutionary fitness. 'Good' is a simple, indefinable property — any attempt to define it in natural terms commits this fallacy.
Open question argument: Moore's argument against moral naturalism: for any natural property N, it is always a meaningful open question to ask 'N is present, but is this thing good?' If 'good' meant N, this question would be trivially closed. Since it is not, 'good' does not mean N.
Error theory: Mackie's form of moral anti-realism: moral claims are cognitive (they attempt to state facts), but they are all systematically false because the moral properties they refer to do not exist. We speak as if there are moral facts, but there are none.
Emotivism: A non-cognitivist theory, associated with Ayer, holding that moral statements do not state facts but express the speaker's emotional attitudes. 'Murder is wrong' means something like 'murder — boo!' It expresses disapproval rather than describing a fact.
Prescriptivism: A non-cognitivist theory, associated with Hare, holding that moral statements are universal prescriptions — commands or instructions that apply to everyone in relevantly similar situations. 'Stealing is wrong' means 'do not steal, and no one else should either'.
Is-ought gap: Hume's principle that one cannot derive a moral conclusion (an 'ought') from purely factual premises (an 'is'). No amount of factual information about how the world is can tell us how it ought to be. Moral conclusions require moral premises.
Argument from queerness: Mackie's argument against moral realism: if objective moral facts existed, they would be metaphysically queer (unlike anything else in the universe) and epistemologically queer (requiring a special faculty to detect them). Since nothing this strange exists, moral facts do not exist.
Verification principle: The principle, associated with logical positivism and Ayer, that a statement is meaningful only if it is either analytically true (true by definition) or empirically verifiable (testable by observation). Moral and religious claims fail this test.

← Back to Dashboard

Moral Philosophy

Paper 1 — 46 Key Terms

Practice All Terms

46 terms across 4 topics — smart order

→

Practice

46 terms across 4 topics

Tap any term to reveal its definition — use Practice mode for active recall