3 ms·

> There you go, a time when you'll definitely lie and cheat! I don't think this is the win you think it is. Kantians and se deontologists will absolutely say t

> There you go, a time when you'll definitely lie and cheat! I don't think this is the win you think it is. Kantians and se deontologists will absolutely say that no, you cannot lie and cheat even in that scenario. You have a moral duty to not lie but also a moral duty to resist tyranny. You cannot sacrifice one to achieve the other, you must choose only options that fulfill both duties.

komali2 1y ago
Have you ever met in real life a person who wouldn't lie to the axe murderer, because of their Kantian values? If a Kantian can be put into a situation where their morals would require them to say the word that gives up Anne Frank, we can safely say it's a bad moral system.
- naasking 1y ago
  > If a Kantian can be put into a situation where their morals would require them to say the word that gives up Anne Frank, we can safely say it's a bad moral system. Not unless you can present some proof of this. Your implicit assumption that we should care about outcomes over principles has its own set of moral failures, like the repugnant conclusion.
  - komali2 1y ago
    Yes yes I'm sure smarter people than me have done lots of interesting logical things to philosophy over the last thousand years. And I maintain my simple point: if your ethical system doesn't allow the flexibility to not give up Anne Frank, it's a bad ethical system. Unless you believe giving up Anne Frank isn't wrong? Then you're a bad person and shouldn't be considered in conversations about ethics! Design it in a way to have good outcomes if you're worried about repugnant conclusions. Personally I believe putting it on paper is a fool's errand - vibes based ethics seems to work as good as one can get from an ethical system.
Nevermark 1y ago
> You have a moral duty to not lie but also a moral duty to resist tyranny. You cannot sacrifice one to achieve the other, you must choose only options that fulfill both duties. The universe doesn't respect that viewpoint. There is no mechanism in reality or life that prevents hard tradeoffs from having to be made.
- naasking 1y ago
  > The universe doesn't respect that viewpoint. There is no mechanism in reality or life that prevents hard tradeoffs from having to be made. What the universe does or doesn't respect has no bearing on what is or is not right / good.
  - Nevermark 1y ago
    Are you role playing in a fictional world? Where you can make up whatever ideals you want, and make them happen. Then I am for nobody ever suffering injustice. That would be good and right, indeed. Or, making actual choices in reality? Where there are limits to what we can do, but making hard choices well has positive impact. I am speaking to the latter.
    - naasking 1y ago
      > Or, making actual choices in reality? Where there are limits to what we can do, but making hard choices well has positive impact. Impact is irrelevant in Kantian ethics, deontological ethics [1] and virtue ethics [2]. A choice is good and right because it the nature of the choice itself in deontology, or because of how it defines one character in virtue ethics, not because of what effects it may or may not have on the world. Every novice approaching ethics naively assumes a framework of consequentialism [3], where every choice is judged by its consequences, but this framework is deeply problematic and we have literal proofs that not all ethic theories can be reformulated in terms of consequences [4]. The original post I replied to also naively assumed a consequentialist framing, and I replied that this framing is not universal and so his conclusion does not follow. You can continue to double down on "it's obvious that consequences matter for ethical choices", but that doesn't make it true, and thus, it does not support the original argument. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/ [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/ [3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ [4] https://philarchive.org/rec/BROCT https://philarchive.org/rec/BROCT

komali2 1y ago

Have you ever met in real life a person who wouldn't lie to the axe murderer, because of their Kantian values? If a Kantian can be put into a situation where their morals would require them to say the word that gives up Anne Frank, we can safely say it's a bad moral system.

naasking 1y ago
> If a Kantian can be put into a situation where their morals would require them to say the word that gives up Anne Frank, we can safely say it's a bad moral system. Not unless you can present some proof of this. Your implicit assumption that we should care about outcomes over principles has its own set of moral failures, like the repugnant conclusion.
- komali2 1y ago
  Yes yes I'm sure smarter people than me have done lots of interesting logical things to philosophy over the last thousand years. And I maintain my simple point: if your ethical system doesn't allow the flexibility to not give up Anne Frank, it's a bad ethical system. Unless you believe giving up Anne Frank isn't wrong? Then you're a bad person and shouldn't be considered in conversations about ethics! Design it in a way to have good outcomes if you're worried about repugnant conclusions. Personally I believe putting it on paper is a fool's errand - vibes based ethics seems to work as good as one can get from an ethical system.

Nevermark 1y ago

> You have a moral duty to not lie but also a moral duty to resist tyranny. You cannot sacrifice one to achieve the other, you must choose only options that fulfill both duties. The universe doesn't respect that viewpoint. There is no mechanism in reality or life that prevents hard tradeoffs from having to be made.

naasking 1y ago
> The universe doesn't respect that viewpoint. There is no mechanism in reality or life that prevents hard tradeoffs from having to be made. What the universe does or doesn't respect has no bearing on what is or is not right / good.
- Nevermark 1y ago
  Are you role playing in a fictional world? Where you can make up whatever ideals you want, and make them happen. Then I am for nobody ever suffering injustice. That would be good and right, indeed. Or, making actual choices in reality? Where there are limits to what we can do, but making hard choices well has positive impact. I am speaking to the latter.
  - naasking 1y ago
    > Or, making actual choices in reality? Where there are limits to what we can do, but making hard choices well has positive impact. Impact is irrelevant in Kantian ethics, deontological ethics [1] and virtue ethics [2]. A choice is good and right because it the nature of the choice itself in deontology, or because of how it defines one character in virtue ethics, not because of what effects it may or may not have on the world. Every novice approaching ethics naively assumes a framework of consequentialism [3], where every choice is judged by its consequences, but this framework is deeply problematic and we have literal proofs that not all ethic theories can be reformulated in terms of consequences [4]. The original post I replied to also naively assumed a consequentialist framing, and I replied that this framing is not universal and so his conclusion does not follow. You can continue to double down on "it's obvious that consequences matter for ethical choices", but that doesn't make it true, and thus, it does not support the original argument. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/ [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/ [3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ [4] https://philarchive.org/rec/BROCT https://philarchive.org/rec/BROCT