3 ms·

I believe you are missing my point: I am not a virtue-based ethics. Edit: Forgive me if I'm missing your point. I am a Bible-based ethicist, the Bible originat

I believe you are missing my point: I am not a virtue-based ethics. Edit: Forgive me if I'm missing your point. I am a Bible-based ethicist, the Bible originated with God, Who never changes; ergo, His morals (or ethics, as you wish) are immutable. Those ethics have been revealed to us via the Bible and our consciences. That's where my ethics originate. (That doesn't mean or imply my execution of them is perfect.) Call it deo-ethics, if you will, but it doesn't fall into virtue-based ethics (as defined by the Wikipedia article, if you want another definition, please provide it).

derefr 16y ago
Virtue ethics and consequentialism form a one-dimensional spectrum; all ethical beliefs exist at some point along it (not to imply that ethical beliefs don't have other dimensions—just that this is one of them.) Pure virtue ethics mean, basically, "I am doing things for reasons." Even if the the reasons don't help you to get what you want, they're still your beliefs. Pure consequentialist ethics is the classic "the ends justify the means"; that it is the results that are important, and any reason you believe is simply a proxy that increases your likelihood of obtaining the result. Whether a system of ethics is deontologically derived is orthogonal to this: you can take your beliefs from God as an a-priori fact about yourself (like in Descartes' argument for the existence of God), and therefore have them be virtue-based; or you can act so that god will reward you, or won't punish you, or so that your peer-group of religious people will identify with you, etc. Morality, in the classic definition, refers to an objectively-true ethics—e.g., one where people who don't believe those ethics are wrong for doing so. As far as I am aware, there is no modern religion that actually still supports moral, rather than ethical reasoning, at least when it comes to prescribing the actions of others, rather than our own internal deisions. This is what "tolerance" truly means: the sacrifice of a belief in the existence of objective morality for the consequence of cultural co-operation and empathy. Of course, there is another, more modern definition of morality, which people think of as "personal morality"—the way you believe the world should be, whether or not anyone else believes it. Rather than overloading the word like that, it's easier to just use a piece of economics jargon to refer to this: this is your utility function (a combination of what could be called "conscience" and what could also be called "desire"—it is simply the part of your mind that tells you whether or not a given thing is "good", for any definition of the term.) One of the most useful things to come into a discussion with is a set of clearly-defined terms; they're like sharp chisels for chipping off useless argument and getting to the point where you can say something that's provably true. :)
- elliotanderson 16y ago
  That is amazingly well reasoned
- mkramlich 16y ago
  > One of the most useful things to come into a discussion with is a set of clearly-defined terms Agreed. And it is why in part I dislike talking about philosophy or religion with most people, especially in a live face-to-face exchange. Because most of the problem is going to be from having each person use a different definition for each important word being tossed around (love, hate, good, evil, "God", free will, etc.)

derefr 16y ago

Virtue ethics and consequentialism form a one-dimensional spectrum; all ethical beliefs exist at some point along it (not to imply that ethical beliefs don't have other dimensions—just that this is one of them.) Pure virtue ethics mean, basically, "I am doing things for reasons." Even if the the reasons don't help you to get what you want, they're still your beliefs. Pure consequentialist ethics is the classic "the ends justify the means"; that it is the results that are important, and any reason you believe is simply a proxy that increases your likelihood of obtaining the result. Whether a system of ethics is deontologically derived is orthogonal to this: you can take your beliefs from God as an a-priori fact about yourself (like in Descartes' argument for the existence of God), and therefore have them be virtue-based; or you can act so that god will reward you, or won't punish you, or so that your peer-group of religious people will identify with you, etc. Morality, in the classic definition, refers to an objectively-true ethics—e.g., one where people who don't believe those ethics are wrong for doing so. As far as I am aware, there is no modern religion that actually still supports moral, rather than ethical reasoning, at least when it comes to prescribing the actions of others, rather than our own internal deisions. This is what "tolerance" truly means: the sacrifice of a belief in the existence of objective morality for the consequence of cultural co-operation and empathy. Of course, there is another, more modern definition of morality, which people think of as "personal morality"—the way you believe the world should be, whether or not anyone else believes it. Rather than overloading the word like that, it's easier to just use a piece of economics jargon to refer to this: this is your utility function (a combination of what could be called "conscience" and what could also be called "desire"—it is simply the part of your mind that tells you whether or not a given thing is "good", for any definition of the term.) One of the most useful things to come into a discussion with is a set of clearly-defined terms; they're like sharp chisels for chipping off useless argument and getting to the point where you can say something that's provably true. :)

elliotanderson 16y ago
That is amazingly well reasoned
mkramlich 16y ago
> One of the most useful things to come into a discussion with is a set of clearly-defined terms Agreed. And it is why in part I dislike talking about philosophy or religion with most people, especially in a live face-to-face exchange. Because most of the problem is going to be from having each person use a different definition for each important word being tossed around (love, hate, good, evil, "God", free will, etc.)