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It seems like you follow a utilitarian morality system, treating morality as some big calculation, and are unable to conceive that not everybody does. Many peop

It seems like you follow a utilitarian morality system, treating morality as some big calculation, and are unable to conceive that not everybody does. Many people, especially in America, follow deontological moral systems, in which some things are inherently wrong. E.g. people who believe in a fundamental right to freedom of movement or bodily autonomy (or the right to bear arms) do not accept it's morally just to violate those rights in the name of some emergency.

bawolff 3y ago
This hardly seems like a deontology vs utilitarianism thing. You can justify both those positions and their opposites under both systems. E.g. i'm pretty sure every traditional rule system recognizes "inter arma enim silent leges" to some extent or another. I suspect those who claim they don't at all aren't really following a rule system so much as making things up as they go and doing whatever is convinent.
SantalBlush 3y ago
Do those people also believe in abolishing prisons, or arming murderers? We can find circumstances under which they'll make exceptions to their rules in the name of utility. I'm not convinced about this deontological vs. utilitarian binary you suggest.
pixl97 3y ago
At the end of the day everyone follows a utilitarian moral system... If your moral system gets you killed because of an impedance mismatch with reality.
atoav 3y ago
I totally can understand that not everybody has the good of humanity, their country, their friends or even their own family in mind. I would have to be either ignorant or naive to see this any different. You can read my post as a complaint about precisely that lack of utilitarian spirit and if you were to have a longer discussion with me I am convinced that you would see that I have rational reasons for why I think we all would fare better if didn't act under the illusion that we're all independent islands that have no overlap with others and our environment. Now you can also overshoot into the other direction and submit everything to the whole, which can produce great horrors, but so do moste mental frameworks if they are deiven to the extreme (e.g. like individualism in the US).
harimau777 3y ago
Even if someone believes that it is inherently wrong for the government to enforce some moral behavior, that still doesn't absolve them of the moral requirement to perform that moral behavior themselves. That is to say: it would be different if someone said "I think it's wrong for the government to force people to quarantine; however, I'm going to quarantine anyways because it is the right thing to do."

bawolff 3y ago

This hardly seems like a deontology vs utilitarianism thing. You can justify both those positions and their opposites under both systems. E.g. i'm pretty sure every traditional rule system recognizes "inter arma enim silent leges" to some extent or another. I suspect those who claim they don't at all aren't really following a rule system so much as making things up as they go and doing whatever is convinent.

SantalBlush 3y ago

Do those people also believe in abolishing prisons, or arming murderers? We can find circumstances under which they'll make exceptions to their rules in the name of utility. I'm not convinced about this deontological vs. utilitarian binary you suggest.

pixl97 3y ago

At the end of the day everyone follows a utilitarian moral system... If your moral system gets you killed because of an impedance mismatch with reality.

atoav 3y ago

I totally can understand that not everybody has the good of humanity, their country, their friends or even their own family in mind. I would have to be either ignorant or naive to see this any different. You can read my post as a complaint about precisely that lack of utilitarian spirit and if you were to have a longer discussion with me I am convinced that you would see that I have rational reasons for why I think we all would fare better if didn't act under the illusion that we're all independent islands that have no overlap with others and our environment. Now you can also overshoot into the other direction and submit everything to the whole, which can produce great horrors, but so do moste mental frameworks if they are deiven to the extreme (e.g. like individualism in the US).

harimau777 3y ago

Even if someone believes that it is inherently wrong for the government to enforce some moral behavior, that still doesn't absolve them of the moral requirement to perform that moral behavior themselves. That is to say: it would be different if someone said "I think it's wrong for the government to force people to quarantine; however, I'm going to quarantine anyways because it is the right thing to do."