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The issue with the morality of indulgence isn’t that it recognizes that different circumstances allow for different outcomes, it’s that it allows for immoral be
by kasey_junk 4y ago
The issue with the morality of indulgence isn’t that it recognizes that different circumstances allow for different outcomes, it’s that it allows for immoral behavior so long as the calculus works out.
Evade your taxes, no problem if you gave more away to charities than you owed!
Do a little light billion dollars fraud? So long as you saved the trillions of future humanity from an evil AI it’s fine.
Sacrifice your children to the fires of Kronos? Well if you hadn’t the Romans would have killed us all.
You can argue that literally anything is moral that way.
- rhn_mk1 4y agoYou say "allows for immoral behaviour", but no system of ethics allows for immoral behaviour by definition. What you're presenting are, for a consequentialist, the choices between two evils: - do I pay taxes or give away to charities? - do I do fraud or let evil AI go on a rampage? - do I sacrifice my children or let the Romans kill us? You can't argue for things that have no positive consequence: the child sacrifice sounds dumb to us because we see the alternatives as independent. If you only consider either/or choices, the number of things you can justify as a consequentialist becomes limited.