Week 11 · Ethics, Justice & the Good Life
Comparing consequentialist, deontological, and virtue-ethical approaches to the same decision.
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Different moral theories do not merely give different answers; they ask different questions. Consequentialism asks what follows, deontology what may be done, and virtue ethics what kind of person or practice is being formed. I use the same case for all three so their differences remain visible and cannot be explained away by changing examples. The aim is comparison, not a winner chosen by caricature.
Give each theory its strongest interpretation before criticizing it. A weak version teaches you little about either the theory or your own position.
What does your preferred theory reveal clearly, and what might it permit you to overlook?
Start with the aims and questions so the readings have a purpose.
Use the prompt under each source to produce notes, not highlights alone.
Test the ideas through observation, analysis, or a small intervention.
Save the deliverables and check your work against the completion criteria.
Define what you are trying to understand before deciding that you have understood it.
Read comparatively rather than competitively. For each theory, note what it makes visible and what it risks ignoring.
Core material
6 guided readings, in the order shown.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The family of ethical theories that assess actions by their consequences, including strengths and standard objections.
Read the introduction, sections 1-2, and objections. Write the strongest case for maximizing outcomes and the strongest objection.
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Duty-based approaches to ethics, including constraints, permissions, rights, and the relationship between action and outcome.
Read the introduction and sections on constraints, permissions, and rights. Create one example where the means matter independently of the outcome.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy contributors · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
An overview of virtue ethics, character, practical wisdom, flourishing, and major objections to character-based ethics.
Read the introduction and sections 1-2. List the traits, practices, and social conditions a virtue account would examine.
Aristotle · Hackett Publishing
Aristotle's account of happiness, virtue, habituation, practical wisdom, friendship, and the activities that constitute a flourishing life.
Read Books I, II, and VI selections. Track Aristotle's movement from happiness to activity, habituation, and practical wisdom.
Immanuel Kant · Cambridge University Press
Kant's foundational argument about good will, duty, autonomy, universal law, and treating humanity as an end.
Read Sections I and II. Extract the argument for the good will, duty, universal law, and humanity as an end.
John Stuart Mill · Oxford University Press
Mill's influential defence of utility, higher and lower pleasures, justice, and the moral importance of general happiness.
Read chapters 1-2 and 4. State Mill's principle, then identify where his defence depends on a claim about human motivation.
8 study actions turn the reading into observable work.
Optional resources for going further after the reading plan.
A map of moral reasoning, including theories of right action, good consequences, duties, and moral judgment.
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