Philosophy vs. ethics
the-tls.co.uk
the-tls.co.uk
If ethics is dependent on knowledge does that mean Aztec human sacrifices were a morally great deed when performed by the Aztecs under a misconception that the souls were going to heaven? What about Hitler's genocide under the misconceived belief that he was creating a better and more peaceful Europe?
Thats actually why I argue objectivism as being aligning better with what's possible within the field of ethics. The whole idea is you can only morally do what you want, without intentially removing others freedom, unless they pose a direct threat to your freedom. As a rule of thumb, this actually works exceptionally well.
Murder for example is wrong (morally), by that code of conduct. Traffic laws would be moral because it keeps others from removing your freedom by either not letting you access the road or accidentally killing you by being reckless. It also handles the Hitler argument, whereas some utilitarians my argue what Hitler did was moral.
The whole point of this philosophy is to maximize personal happiness, while minimizing conflict. Data has little to do with it, because respecting one another is the whole point. When you start discussing ethics in terms of "sociatial good" it starts requiring one to know the future. For this reason, I'd argue objectivism, when applied, provides the more useful form of ethics, where one only has to worry about their own happiness, while not intruding (too much), on others.
Another problem is whether it's OK to require a thirsty person in a desert to give up all their assets in exchange for water, and whether it's OK for the thirsty person to knock you out and take the water in response; most people would side with the thirsty guy for what I think are very good reasons in terms of the practical implications while objectivists would not.
To your other problem, I fully understand the practical implications. Knocking the guy out and stealing his water is pretty unethical. However, coming to equitable terms is fairly easy. More humans can think one step ahead and just gouging the guy for all his posetions means he won't help you in the future. Long term, that is bad for you, thus you'll likely not charge too outrageous
For instance, why is making noises infringing on your freedom from noise, but the requirement of silence is not an infringement on your freedom to make noises? Freedom from noise and freedom to make noises are both "freedoms" and one comes at the expense of the other. What is the way to weigh their relative importance which is universally applicable to other cases and not rooted in culture or personal preference?
"He excludes from the scope of ethical obligation not just the literally impossible, but also anything that is merely beyond the abilities of the normal person. Ethics cannot tell us to do what would require the impartiality of saints or the foresight of seers."
Superman is not ethically required to save the world from the giant meteor because the average man could not. I, as a professional programmer, am not required to make ethical choices when writing software because the average person cannot write code at all.
It's is as if the claim is someone shouldn't avoid doing harm that their above average abilities offer them?
The authors seems to be saying something dissimilar to that: people should't not be require to do more than average person, even if they have the capability to do so.
Programmers shouldn't be required to perform code for charity for their friends and family. Doctors shouldn't be required to save lifes.
Ultimately, the TLS didn't even claim a viewpoint. They merely presented a variety of opinions and critiqued them.
Maybe each Individual is capable of being just as good as they are capable to be bad. Would that even the score and make the problem disappear?
Then rises the question of "how do I not get fucked over in life?" as well. So it gets confusing.
Where to even beging, is good universal? Do the criteria that make "a good being" good constant, or does it mutate over time?
I there a single, or even multiple non-contradicting, right answer to this question? What is good?.
When he talks that philosophy never thought they are over intellectualizing ethics or making it too distant from the practical application, I have to assume he never heard of Strawson's critique or of phenomonology of ethics which both seem to tackle it.
Actually almost all of us are always already operating within an elaborate set of ethical beliefs, and there is no way we can escape believing them. What we instead do is try to improve them. It is somewhat like our perception of the physical world, from birth we perceive and believe in it, and through thought and experiences we expand and correct our cognition of it.
Ethics, though, has an exception in that there are some people, sociopaths, who lack this aspect of human experience. Philosophers often think they can construct a set of arguments that will persuade sociopaths to become moral people, but this is not possible.
Do you have an example or two of this? (I bet you don't)
The basic assumption behind much ethical philosopher is that human beings are naturally amoral and so they need to persuaded by a set of ironclad arguments as to what is good and that they should be good. Kant, for instance, argues we can't rely on our feelings so we need to have a set of absolutely clear moral principles to follow. Bernard Williams became famous for arguing this is not the case.
> Well, Plato tried to make Alcibiades into an ethical person.
Plato (probably didn't, but put that aside) used Alcibiades as a character in some dialogues. Does it go beyond that?
> Kant, for instance, argues we can't rely on our feelings so we need to have a set of absolutely clear moral principles to follow
That is quite a different claim. It doesn't follow that such a set of principles will be somehow persuasive to all.
However, I do think that many philosophers think that human psychology is by its nature ethically highly deficient, and the solution is philosophical argument. Take Plato and his allegory of the cave, for instance, or Kant's categorical imperative.
Morality and ethics are the same thing, in general/philosophical sense ("ethics" has a specific meaning in a government/political sense which is distinct from morality -- or perhaps rather a specific subset of morality -- but that's clearly not relevant here.)
> Morality is more individualistic whereas ethics are externally imposed rules from which one may derive their morality.
This is a creative distinction, but not one that is generally held as the definition of either term.
Part of the issue, I think, is the term "moral" often has religious/traditional/conservative connotations, whereas the word "ethical" often has more secular/progressive connotations. But, a difference in connotation does not require a difference in denotation. And many of the proposals to define these words differently rely on secularist assumptions, about a distinction between a "personal" or "private" and "public" sphere, which is a distinction which appeals to secular progressives but which many religious conservatives will question.
I realize that my previous comment made it sound like I'm an authority on the subject (I'm most definitely not), so please forgive me for being so brusque in dismissing an alternative definition.
By the way, this is general problem in philosophy, as compared with other fields. Many standard terms are inexact in their meanings, and used differently by different philosophers. So for instance, some philosophers use the term ontology to mean the same thing as metaphysics, and others make a strong distinction between the two. Heidegger even switched his meanings between his early and later career.
Indeed, there isn't even a standard definition for the term philosophy itself.
The article already begins by proposing that since ethics appears early in the life of a culture, without philosophers, their contribution of theory is unnecessary. This claim already builds a theory of what constitutes "good" contributions, which is a philosophical theory.
Many possible stances are combinations of three basic sorts of ethics.
Deontological. Follow the laws handed to us. Don't kill, don't steal, don't force people to incriminate themselves.
Utilitarian. Choose a path that yields the greatest good.
"Responsible". Choose a path that yields the greatest good, but excluding one's own welfare. "Nobody has greater love than to lay down his own life for his friends'" We make heroes of people who act on this stance.
When an abstract situation presents itself, most people I know go for the utilitarian stance. How can I drive the bus with the failed brakes to kill the fewest people? Fine. Big whoop.
But, when presented with a real situation, people gravitate to their deeper stances. "Dad's not going to regain consciousness. Should we ask the hospital to shut off the respirator?"
The deontological stance often says, "NO WAY! DAD DESERVES THE BEST CHANCE." In Judeochristian terms, this is translated "choose life."
The utilitarian stance might say, "that respirator is expensive. Could those resources be spent curing someone with a long life ahead of them?" Health insurance companies are 100% utilitarian, and that often comes across as offensively callous. It's not, really. It's just an ethical stance among many.
The "responsible" stance recognizes Dad's agency. It might try to ask what course of action is kindest to Dad, even if it's frightening to his children.
Obviously there are lots of nuances in these real situations. No actual situation comes out like a case study. In the work of practical ethics, it's important to work with people to help them discover and express their own deep ethical stances.
I said people have two stances, because peoples' stated, intellectual, stance is often not quite the same as their deeply held, operational, practical, stance. Both levels count, because people use their intellectual stances to unpack and grapple with their deep stances. That unpacking is some of the hardest work each of us will do in our lifetimes.
Is this all postmodernist relativist claptrap? Is it all age-of-uncertainty hogwash that ignores core human values? To many who hold strong deontological stances, the answer is yes. Can it justify genocide? Certainly not, because genocide necessarily denies the agency -- the ability to act upon their own stances -- of an entire group of people.
The philosophers of ethics do well when they help us tell the stories of our own stances in ways that help us do the hard work of confronting our own deep ethical stances when circumstances force us to do so.
I would venture that every single Current Era genocide has been deontological.