Philosophical Reasoning and Ethics: Toolbox and Applications

Toolbox Lessons

Telic vs. Atelic Activities; Instrumental vs. Non-Instrumental Value

Understanding the distinction between telic and atelic activities, as well as instrumental and non-instrumental value, is crucial for analyzing philosophical arguments about actions and their worth.

• Telic activities: Done for the sake of reaching an endpoint; value is exhausted when completed. Example: Writing an essay, paying a bill, running a race.

• Atelic activities: Done for their own ongoing sake; no clear endpoint; value persists beyond stopping. Example: Enjoying time with friends, walking, listening to music.

• Instrumental value: Valuable as a means to some other end. Example: Hammer, money.

• Non-instrumental (intrinsic) value: Valuable in itself. Example: Friendship, joy, beauty.

• Connections:

  • Telic often aligns with instrumental, and atelic with intrinsic, but not always.

  • Activities may be both telic/non-instrumental, noteworthy at a party (telic but intrinsically valuable).

• Exam tip: Be ready to classify things using these distinctions and prepare to discuss their overlap/misalignment.

Arguments: Structure and Evaluation

Arguments are evaluated based on their logical structure and the validity of their premises and conclusions.

• Basic structure: Premises (reasons) offered to support a conclusion.

• Valid argument: If premises are true, conclusion must be true.

• Sound argument: If premises are actually true.

• Practice: Distinguish premises from conclusions; reconstruct arguments clearly; identify hidden assumptions.

Fallacies

Fallacies are reasoning errors that weaken arguments, either formal or informal.

• Common examples:

  • Ad hominem: Attacking the person, not the argument.

  • StraW man: Misrepresenting an argument to refute it easily.

  • Slippery slope: Arguing one step leads inevitably to extreme consequences.

  • False dilemma: Presenting limited options when more exist.

  • Post hoc: Arguing that one thing caused another because one thing occurred before the other.

  • Ad populum: Arguing for a conclusion on the grounds that many people believe it.

• Consider the relevance:

  • Is the argument based on tradition to support meat eating—is this fallacious?

  • Meat-eating debates often involve slippery slopes ("If we stop eating meat, society collapses").

  • Fat stigma debates may involve false dilemmas ("Either we stigmatize or obesity skyrockets").

Philosophical Context by Week

Week 1: "The Conscientious Carnivore" (Roger Scruton)

Scruton’s key claim: Eating animals is not necessarily wrong if done "conscientiously"—make sure you know what he means by this.

• Conscientiousness: Animals lack a right to life because they lack the capacity for reason and autonomy, which is what grounds rights.

• Feeling in the base activity: Eating—How would you characterize the difference between these instincts?

• Remember the basic argument against eating meat:

  • Killing innocent beings is wrong.

  • Eating meat requires killing innocent animals.

  • Therefore, eating meat is wrong.

• Scruton’s Argument for Conscientious Carnivorism (contra premise 2 above):

  1. It is right that death and killing are bad, and wrong, but there are exceptions for farmed animals.

  2. Raising animals for food benefits animals.

  3. It gives them lives worth living that they otherwise would not have.

  4. Animals raised for food are well cared for and killed humanely.

  5. Raising supports food benefits humans.

  6. It supports virtues of responsibility, gratitude, family, and respect for life.

  7. Therefore, raising animals for food is morally permissible and can be a valuable, even meaningful, human practice, provided it is done conscientiously.

• Questions to consider:

  • Is tradition a valid justification for meat-eating?

  • Can conscientious meat-eating actually be practiced on a wide scale?

  • Does taste/cultural value outweigh animal suffering?

Week 2: Animal Equality and Singer’s Utilitarian Argument

Peter Singer’s utilitarian approach challenges traditional views on animal rights and argues for vegetarianism based on the principle of equal consideration.

• Question: Do animals have a right to life? Scruton says no, but Singer disagrees. We have to take their interests into account when we act, but Singer especially right in arguing that their interests are comparable to our own (particularly the right not to suffer).

• Equality of consideration: Not based on intelligence, reason, or language.

  • Humans lacking those traits are still moral equals—each creature matters.

  • Singer’s principle: Equality is grounded in interests, especially pleasure and pain.

• Singer’s vegetarianism argument:

  1. Utilitarianism says we should act to minimize pain for all beings.

  2. Eating meat causes suffering to animals.

  3. Therefore, we should not eat meat.

• Critical questions:

  • Are pleasure and pain really the foundation of morality?

  • Can cultural traditions outweigh animal suffering?

  • Is causing suffering morally different from causing death?

  • Is the harm really "unnecessary"?

Week 3: Fat Stigma and the Application of Utilitarianism (Consequentialism) and Deontology

This week explores how stigma around eating and body image is connected to how we think about the beauty of our bodies.

• What is the connection between bodily beauty and health?

  • There are many counterexamples to the thesis that the image of beauty is the image of health.

  • Some bodies do not fit the image but are healthy; some that fit the image are not healthy.

  • We are embodied agents—why do we see bodily beauty in terms of health or vice versa?

• Consequentialist/Utilitarian view: (reconstructed argument)

  1. Stigma reduces obesity rates.

  2. Obesity causes suffering.

  3. Therefore, we should stigmatize fatness.

• Nath’s critique:

  • Empirical evidence does not clearly support premise 2.

  • Stigma creates stress and amplifies suffering.

  • Stigma causes a range of bad health outcomes, including weight gain.

  • Therefore, stigma is not effective as a public health campaign.

• Desert-based argument:

  • Weight results from individual choices about eating and exercise.

  • Therefore, people are responsible for their condition, so they deserve negative treatment in response.

• Nath’s reply:

  • People are responsible for being fat: Nath argues this is false or at least highly overstated.

  • Given the complexity, it is unfair to treat fatness as the simple result of voluntary choice.

  • Maintaining one’s weight is extremely difficult.

• Stigmatizing or shaming is a fitting way to hold people accountable:

  • Nath argues that stigma is not a fitting response because it is unfair and magnifies harm.

  • It has harmful side-effects (poor health, avoidance of care, psychological harm), and it makes inequality and discrimination worse.

Week 4: Death

This week examines philosophical questions about the nature of death, its badness, and how it relates to ethical arguments about eating animals.

• What makes death bad, when is it bad, for the one who dies?

  • Death is usually judged bad for the one who dies.

  • Being dead is different from dying; dying might be bad for the one who dies.

• Common sense says death is bad for the one who dies, but:

  • Death is bad if a person only if they experience it as bad.

  • Sometimes, death is not bad or experienceable.

• Nagel’s Deprivation Account of the Badness of Death:

  • Death is bad because it deprives us of the goods of living. Living is good because of the variety of experiences, activities, projects, and relationships it provides. Death cuts these off and is therefore bad.

  • This explains why youthful deaths are typically worse for the one who dies than elderly deaths.

  • Nagel also shows that the objections to this account of death’s badness do not succeed. In essence, he argues against premise (b) and (c) above, as well as against the experience argument.

• Apply the Deprivation Account to the deaths of domestic farm animals:

  • What makes the human, human-caused death of a mature farm animal bad, when it is?

  • Consider: Can Scruton argue, against Singer, that the human, human-caused death of a mature farm animal is not all that bad?

Key Comparative Frameworks to Consider

Scruton vs. Singer

• Exam tip: Be able to compare/contrast their arguments.

Consequentialism vs. Deontology

• Review for analysis on food ethics.

Likely Exam Focus Areas

• Reconstructing arguments (premise–conclusion form).

• Evaluating arguments (validity, soundness, hidden assumptions).

• Applying toolbox distinctions and concepts (telic/atelic; instrumental/non-instrumental; thought experiment).

• Identifying fallacies.

• Understanding and being able to critically discuss arguments from Scruton, Singer, Nath and Nagel.

• Comparing/contrasting utilitarian vs. deontological frameworks.

• Evaluating tradition- or culture-based defenses of meat-eating with impartial moral theorizing.

• Discussing whether stigma (re: fatness) can ever be morally justified.

• Thinking through the question of what makes death bad, what it is, and how your answer to that question affects how you should think about the morality of eating meat.