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If you consider that the purpose of ethics is to capture reality, then of course it can never be complete (and consequentialism in particular is trying to predi

If you consider that the purpose of ethics is to capture reality, then of course it can never be complete (and consequentialism in particular is trying to predict reality so it will never be). But deontological positions like the ten commandments are not trying to capture reality, yet they do try to be universal and accurate. Given that people keep coming up with ethical framworks (if even ad-hoc) and they try hard to refine them and remove internal contradictions, I don't think we're getting rid of this "nonsense" anytime soon. Except the nihilists. They already don't bother with it. But the postmodernism view of "ethics is incomplete" is an interesting one. Can a society where this is accepted exist and thrive, where two people with identical ethical frameworks can come to different conclusions? Would ethics even be worth having? I've only seen one situation where ethics stops making sense, but it was falling apart at really far-fetched edges which are not normally possible to encounter: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5iZTwGHv2tNfFmeDa/on-infinite-ethics https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5iZTwGHv2tNfFmeDa/on-infinit...

kstenerud 4y ago
Ethics are worth pursuing in the same way that mathematical models of the universe are worth pursuing. They can never be complete (and some are comically incomplete), but they can model certain parts of reality with sufficient accuracy to be useful as a tool (but not as an ironclad framework to live by). The Good Place [1] had a lot of fun playing with a light overview of these concepts and is a cute show as a result. Our laws are modeled after certain ethical frameworks, but with the tacit understanding that they cannot completely capture morality and justice, and that morality (and thus our ideas of valid ethics and justice) is temporal (i.e. it will naturally drift over time). That's why laws can be challenged and amended (with certain ethical and moral principles that we are pretty confident will never change codified into a constitution). It's fascinating to watch the moral evolution of humanity over time, seeing which ideas falter and which ones endure. Culture is the one living thing that evolves without dying (well, except in the case of genocide). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place
- rhn_mk1 4y ago
  I think the crux of my issue is that, as a meta-ethical anti-realist, I don't see any reason for ethics to try to model anything objective. So failing at modelling the world is not a problem. I don't even consider it a goal. Ethical rules demonstrably "fail" (as in the attached article) when they don't match someone's intuition about ethics (not about the world; the world at large doesn't care, unless you consider it a spiritual entity). So all ethics has to do is model someone's intuitions. Which is a completely different task than modelling the world. This is why I am susprised at your line of thinking. There's no nonsense or foolishness in trying to model one's own intuitions about justice, virtue, etc.

kstenerud 4y ago

Ethics are worth pursuing in the same way that mathematical models of the universe are worth pursuing. They can never be complete (and some are comically incomplete), but they can model certain parts of reality with sufficient accuracy to be useful as a tool (but not as an ironclad framework to live by). The Good Place [1] had a lot of fun playing with a light overview of these concepts and is a cute show as a result. Our laws are modeled after certain ethical frameworks, but with the tacit understanding that they cannot completely capture morality and justice, and that morality (and thus our ideas of valid ethics and justice) is temporal (i.e. it will naturally drift over time). That's why laws can be challenged and amended (with certain ethical and moral principles that we are pretty confident will never change codified into a constitution). It's fascinating to watch the moral evolution of humanity over time, seeing which ideas falter and which ones endure. Culture is the one living thing that evolves without dying (well, except in the case of genocide). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place

rhn_mk1 4y ago
I think the crux of my issue is that, as a meta-ethical anti-realist, I don't see any reason for ethics to try to model anything objective. So failing at modelling the world is not a problem. I don't even consider it a goal. Ethical rules demonstrably "fail" (as in the attached article) when they don't match someone's intuition about ethics (not about the world; the world at large doesn't care, unless you consider it a spiritual entity). So all ethics has to do is model someone's intuitions. Which is a completely different task than modelling the world. This is why I am susprised at your line of thinking. There's no nonsense or foolishness in trying to model one's own intuitions about justice, virtue, etc.