The previous episode that looked at deontology neglected to mention the philosopher who created it — Immanuel Kant. He lived from 1724 to 1804, and believed that there are necessary truths about empirical and moral reality, with the mind having innate, built-in structures and forms.

Kant’s ideas included the idea that our moral experience requires a faith in God; it is this belief in God that led him to build upon the idea of the Golden Rule — which is ‘do unto others as you would have others do unto you’. As a result, he created what he called the categorical imperative — which can be summed up as “I should never act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law”.

How practical this imperative, unconditional law is, is up for debate — and you can see more about duties and expectations in deontology in the previous episode — but the ideas that Kant proposed in regards to ethical behaviour in terms of expectations and duties to others.

The ‘trolley problem/trolley car problem is a thought experiment involving ethical decisions, that was first proposed by Philippa Foot in her article “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect” (1967). It has since that time been picked up by many other philosophers and ethical thinkers, as a great example of how we may think about our choices when it comes to life or death.

The situation starts simply enough — a trolley car (or tram) is running on some rails, with two paths it could take, according to how a switch is pulled.

However, the trolley car’s brakes are broken, and it is heading towards one track, where five people are crossing. On the other track, just one person is crossing. 

If you were able to pull the switch that could change the direction that the trolley car is taking — would you do so and save the five people — and just hit one person? Or, by doing nothing, allow the five people to be hit?

The reasons people give for their decision vary a great deal - and research has been done into whether career choice might correlate with certain choices. Another additional variation has the trolley car about to hit a group of people — unless you push a larger person into the path instead. Does that change the kind of decision you make, and why?

Deontology is duty-based ethics, the approach to issues and problems by concentrating not on the eventual outcome and whether or not it provides a greater good or greater bad for stakeholders, but whether the steps or actions taken towards the end are right in themselves.

Say, for example, you have the view that stealing is wrong. Whatever the circumstance, a deontologist will avoid stealing, even if the result was of benefit to themselves or others. The duty to keeping that ethical code is the most important thing.

This can, of course, cause conflicts — such as in the circumstance of a man who has the choice of stealing money to buy medication to save his wife’s life or risking her death. A deontological approach would be that his duty to not stealing is the most important thing. However, a conflicting duty, to protect his loved ones, could then challenge the choices he has.

While a deontological approach to ethics may seem problematic, the idea of having duties — such as to caring for the sick, protecting the young, to being a vegetarian and the like — is not an unusual one. While an absolute approach would be impossible to achieve, we can see how duties have a place in ethical reasoning.

There’s different ways that we can think about ethics, in terms of the particular thinkers, traditions and approaches we can take to problems and issues.

For example, ethics can take a look at practical applications, such as whether or not something is right or wrong. In addition, there’s the theoretical frameworks approach called normative ethics. This is where rules or principles apply to how you behave in an ethical manner, and it can rely on understanding certain theories, such as the consequentialist approach of utilitarianism, or duty-based, deontological theories, or virtue ethics. There’s other kinds such as intuitionism and emotivism, or investigating the concept of cultural relativity.

Whatever the approach you take to certain problems is, in many cases you can see that there’s underlying ideas and theories that might influence the final decision or action… even if you aren’t aware of it.

Previously in the series we discussed some aspects of one of the branches of philosophy called epistemology, looking at how we know what we know. another is the field of ethics.

Ethics is essentially philosophical inquiry into behaviour — what is good, what is bad; along with how to behave, the consequences of actions, and morality. 

Is there a right way to act in a situation, or are we faced with different choices that could all require different decisions depending on circumstances — and how do we judge which is best, or worst? 

Ethics involves questions such as what makes for a good character, if we have certain obligations or duties and why? Are there differences in how we should treat humans to animals, and animals to plants? 

In many ways, we can see how ethics has practical applications in the world, and it’s a subject that often overlaps with fields like law, science, politics, arts and so on.

If you’re a Patreon subscriber (at www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess), there’s more exercises, but here’s a few for revising over the fallacies that have been covered over the previous episodes.

Identify which of the following are examples of these fallacies: 

1) He says that he has parked his car, but I’ve heard from his mother that he’s a terrible driver, therefore it’ll be parked badly.

2) He says that he has parked his car, but no man from Leeds knows how to park his car downtown, so he’s probably not parked it.

3) You’re either going to vote for the Smith party or the Jones party. You can’t vote for the Smith party, as they are corrupt; so you’ll have to vote for the Jones party.

4) Everyone is voting for the Smith party, because they are so popular — after all, everyone is voting for them!

5) Aringarosa is not going to be a good person to vote for this election; the rain is going to be terrible during voting season after all.

If you head to the Patreon page, you’ll find the answers!

Today’s episode is a revision of the topics on resources involving logical fallacies — an additional worksheet on fallacies and questions on the topic will be made available to Patreon subscribers tomorrow.

You can subscribe for as little as $1 a month at www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess.

Music from Jukedeck - create your own at http://jukedeck.com.

Reductio ad absurdum means to reduce to absurdity — a method of argument that disproves the conclusion by demonstrating the universals can lead to absurdity.

The philosopher Plato used it within dialogues within The Republic to discuss how some definitions have limitations and should be considered to have contextual elements to make them relevant.

While this fallacy can be spotted in an argument, it is therefore very useful to undermine an opponents argument by demonstrating that it is possible to reduce a claim to absurdity. 

It can, therefore, encourage the opponent to clarify their meaning and improve on their original claim. One good example of this is ‘never say never’. If in the case of never saying it… then how could you possibly say it in the first place?

The no true Scotsman fallacy is an effort to dismiss an opponent’s stance by claiming that the opposition isn’t providing a relevant counter-argument. It can be done by asserting that you know everything about the situation, and that any counter evidence is just an anomaly, rather than useful proof.

The name of the fallacy itself is a clue to how it could be used — that only ‘true’ Scotsman would behave in certain ways, and that ‘no true Scotsman’ would then behave in the way that is being suggested.

One example could be that there’s a claim that the students from Jones College will pass the exam, and no Jones-educated student could fail it. If one did, then by saying that they’re not really a Jones-educated student, would be a way of using the fallacy to dismiss their failure. 

Begging the question is something that I previously discussed on Episode 279: Mailbag — Competitive Edition of the Talk the Talk podcast. It’s a fallacy that has moved into common parlance to the point that it can easily be confused with the literary concept / has moved into vernacular use, rather than strictly following the fallacy as it was initially meant.

It’s a fallacy that is logically inconsistent, and goes back to Aristotle’s Topics. “Asking for the initial thing / asking for the starting point”, or petitio principii. For example:

Or as Daniel Midgley said in that episode of the Talk the Talk podcast, “If you pray about this book and ask god if it is true, he will reveal it with the power of the holy ghost”.

To invite the question or dodge it is a new meaning of a phrase (‘it begs the question, what the hell are we doing here?’), and ambiguity has led to different interpretations. 

However you might feel about this, in terms of fallacies, begging the question means that you’re making a claim that is supported by the initial premise — we’re not given any more information that would genuinely support it.