2 ms·

On the utilitarian front, I would prioritize my mother, but it would be because I care about her, not because I would be acting morally. I accept that I can't e

On the utilitarian front, I would prioritize my mother, but it would be because I care about her, not because I would be acting morally. I accept that I can't ever be a perfect utilitarian. Perfect is the enemy of good though. I don't have kids, it does make a lot of sense that that would affect a person's psyche. The bit about having to define what behavior is good or bad seems to me like you are working out your beliefs through others, which seems like a reasonable way to do things since you get to have an outside perspective on the effects of what you are internalizing. About debating morality though. That's exactly where principles become needed. It's great to say that we should be kind, but who are we kind to? It can't always be everyone at the same time. To bring things back to the trolley problem, I may save my mom, but it really is super unfair to the 20 people on the other track. This sort of thing is exactly why people consider nepotism to be wrong

cynicalpeace 2y ago
I would say it's crazy to debate the broad strokes of morality. The mother goose like stuff. Remember we started this discussion by saying: ""Healthy family relationships and rich circle of diverse friends" is an objectively better definition than "Money and companies with high stock prices"" Pretty broad principles we're comparing there. When you get into specific cases, that's where you really need the debate and often there's no right answer, depending on the case. This is why we want judges who have a strong moral compass. These values are bundled up in a person and they should even counterbalance each other. "Be Kind" should be balanced with "Be Strong". "Be Generous" should be balanced with "Be thrifty" and so on. The combination of these things is what we mean when we say someone has a moral compass. I would argue it's immoral in some sense to sacrifice your mother for 5 other strangers. But these are fantasy cases that almost never happen. A more realistic scenario is self defense or war.
- genrilz 2y ago
  Aren't the broad principles how we make the finer grained judgements in a fair and consistent manner though? Judges are at least supposed to use the outcomes of previous cases and the letter of the law to do this. The rest of us need something concrete too if we want to be consistent. I think that's worth arguing over.
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    If something is arguable, it's not concrete. We have concrete moral systems. That's why we teach it to our kids. Don't lie. Be fair. Be strong. Avoid violence. Defend the weak. Try your hardest. Don't be lazy. Etc. None of these things are arguable in the abstract. When you're confronted with a case where you sacrifice one, it's always for the sake of another.
    - genrilz 2y ago
      I think we are speaking past each other here. I'm talking in consequentialist terms and you are (I think, feel free to correct me if I am wrong) talking in virtue ethics terms. I'm assuming you aren't familiar with these terms and so am defining them. Forgive me if you already were familiar. Consequentialists think that the purpose of morality is to prevent "bad" consequences from happening. From a consequentialist perspective, one can very much argue about what makes a consequence "bad", and it makes a lot of sense to do so if we are trying to improve the human condition. Furthermore, I think consequentialists tend to care more about making their systems consistent, mainly so they are fair. As a side effect though, no principles have to be sacrificed when making a concrete decision, since none of them conflict. (That's what it means for a system to be consistent) Virtue ethicists think that the purpose of morality is to be a "good" person. I think you are correct that it's pretty hard to define what a "good" person is. There are also many different types of "good" people. Even if you had such a person with consistent principles, if you try and stuff everyones "good" principles into them, they would become inconsistent. It's hard for me to tell exactly what the point of being "good" is supposed to be if it is not connected to the consequences of one's actions, in which case one would just be a consequentialist, However, if the point was to improve the human condition, then I think it would take a lot of different types of "good" people, so it doesn't try and make sense to argue our way into choosing one of them. This isn't really an argument for a position as much as me trying to figure out where we disagree. Does that all sound correct to you?

cynicalpeace 2y ago

I would say it's crazy to debate the broad strokes of morality. The mother goose like stuff. Remember we started this discussion by saying: ""Healthy family relationships and rich circle of diverse friends" is an objectively better definition than "Money and companies with high stock prices"" Pretty broad principles we're comparing there. When you get into specific cases, that's where you really need the debate and often there's no right answer, depending on the case. This is why we want judges who have a strong moral compass. These values are bundled up in a person and they should even counterbalance each other. "Be Kind" should be balanced with "Be Strong". "Be Generous" should be balanced with "Be thrifty" and so on. The combination of these things is what we mean when we say someone has a moral compass. I would argue it's immoral in some sense to sacrifice your mother for 5 other strangers. But these are fantasy cases that almost never happen. A more realistic scenario is self defense or war.

genrilz 2y ago
Aren't the broad principles how we make the finer grained judgements in a fair and consistent manner though? Judges are at least supposed to use the outcomes of previous cases and the letter of the law to do this. The rest of us need something concrete too if we want to be consistent. I think that's worth arguing over.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  If something is arguable, it's not concrete. We have concrete moral systems. That's why we teach it to our kids. Don't lie. Be fair. Be strong. Avoid violence. Defend the weak. Try your hardest. Don't be lazy. Etc. None of these things are arguable in the abstract. When you're confronted with a case where you sacrifice one, it's always for the sake of another.
  - genrilz 2y ago
    I think we are speaking past each other here. I'm talking in consequentialist terms and you are (I think, feel free to correct me if I am wrong) talking in virtue ethics terms. I'm assuming you aren't familiar with these terms and so am defining them. Forgive me if you already were familiar. Consequentialists think that the purpose of morality is to prevent "bad" consequences from happening. From a consequentialist perspective, one can very much argue about what makes a consequence "bad", and it makes a lot of sense to do so if we are trying to improve the human condition. Furthermore, I think consequentialists tend to care more about making their systems consistent, mainly so they are fair. As a side effect though, no principles have to be sacrificed when making a concrete decision, since none of them conflict. (That's what it means for a system to be consistent) Virtue ethicists think that the purpose of morality is to be a "good" person. I think you are correct that it's pretty hard to define what a "good" person is. There are also many different types of "good" people. Even if you had such a person with consistent principles, if you try and stuff everyones "good" principles into them, they would become inconsistent. It's hard for me to tell exactly what the point of being "good" is supposed to be if it is not connected to the consequences of one's actions, in which case one would just be a consequentialist, However, if the point was to improve the human condition, then I think it would take a lot of different types of "good" people, so it doesn't try and make sense to argue our way into choosing one of them. This isn't really an argument for a position as much as me trying to figure out where we disagree. Does that all sound correct to you?