People generally tend to have 2 ethical systems they follow either explicitly or implicitly without even knowing:
- Small scale like personal, immediate family and small community ethics.
- Large scale like direction of government or large community ethics.
There are many ethical schools of though and here’s a quick brief (very simplified):
Small scale ethics:
- Virtue ethics - cultivate good character, be just, honest, wise etc.
- Care ethics - all about close community and relationship building, your people first
- Deontological ethics - focus on rules and duties, never lie etc
- Egoism - me me me, I only have one life and that’s the most important thing.
- Existencialism - take full responsibility of your choices and persona, create your own meaning as it’s fit now.
And for large scale:
- Utilitarianism - the most common position. Greatest good for greatest amount of people. Save as many as you can by pulling the trolley switch
- Contractualism - society must be organized around rules we all agree on without knowing our place in it. i.e. poor and king have to agree without knowing who they are yet.
- Deontological Priority - free speech, bodily autonomy etc. All fundamental rights must be protected even when inconvenient.
- Communitarianism - focus on community, tradition over individual rights and freedoms
- Libertarianism - maximize individual liberty
- Marxist - prioritize equality and collective ownership
- Environmental - prioritize protecting our surroundings and all life even non human. Challenge human-centered ethics.
Most commonly people fall virtue or deontological at small scale and utilitarian or deontological at large scale without even knowing much about ethics. What about you?
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That… seems complicated.
My ethics are pretty simple: Try not to be an ass to others and “Fuck off, asshole”. I have so far not seen a need to go much beyond that.
“Try” is an issue. What if someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed and decided to burn off some steam by assaulting people?
Not thinking about ethics isn’t the same as not having an ethical framework you most closely adhere to
I’ve cultivated an incredibly rich and complicated system of morals that takes into account-
Just kidding. I would sell my own parents into slavery for a semblance of a decent life. So far every “moral” choice I’ve ever made has turned out to be detrimental to me personally, so I’m really starting to doubt the whole “Live & let live” thing. “Live & exploit” seems to be the only realistically viable alternative.
We’d all be able to work together if the people at the top weren’t fucking us all over so hard.
It’s almost as if the whole system is designed to stop this from happening
Sorry to hear that. Have you considered relocation? The world is quite big!
I live in the best country in the world by default. Not because it’s especially great in any regard, but because it backslid slower than all the neighboring nations. And the ones overseas.
The Moon?
There sure as hell isn’t any such thing as a best country in the world.
Laconian Empire
Best country in the world! (the only country in the world)
That’s why I added “by default”.
My parent are abusive as fuck and I’d snitch on them if I witness them committing a crime if I can get a large payout out of it. Every person for themselves lmao.
Interesting question. Virtue Ethics for my personal scale and Enlightenment Liberalism for my large scale, but with a dash of Butlerism thrown in as well: The idea that metahuman entities like corporations are mankind’s natural predators and any that act to harm humans must be opposed.
I think it’s hypocritical for people to absolve themselves of responsibilities they believe they are owed from larger organisations such as corporations or governments.
If you think climate change is bad you should put as much effort into reducing your personal impact as you think corporations should. If you think the housing crisis is bad you shouldn’t own investment properties. If you think political revolution is the only way to to bring about change you should be actively not following the law and revolting against your government. If you think Israel should be embargoed you should not be paying for any Israeli goods or services. I promise if you look through the list of isreali corporations or corporations that participate in their society, you will have a lot to change.
I feel a lot of people become aware of issues and care passionately about change being brought about but don’t consider themselves responsible. If you’re not interested in bettering yourself and changing your impact, I think less of you as a person.
I agree with you here and this common take in virtue ethics!
Though I think there are some bad actors at play here that heavily benefit from society that is defeatist. I’m reading the new Steven Pinker’s book on Common Knowledge and there’s one brilliant point there: common knowledge becomes a huge motivator and empowers people to take action. His context is protests and resistance but I think it can extend to your point as well - if we all agreed that taking personal responsibility is important and it was common knowledge society would be empowered to solve these problems directly instead of looking for scapegoats.
I would primarily describe my view as Virtue ethics, but…
- I believe that cultivating virtues is necessary to be able to take responsibility for your choices etc: existentialism - and this is what I aim to do
- I definitely consider that prioritising the natural environment is essential - at the large and small scale
- In areas where I am aware that I am not sufficiently developed, I will adopt a deontological approach as a fallback
- I would certainly consider the promotion of equality and the development of local community as virtuous, although not to the exclusion of individual autonomy or rights - within that community or without.
On the larger scale, I seek to promote the development of individual virtues and equality within society but, acknowledging that this is always likely to be an aspiration rather than a achieved state then, again, I would look to a deontological approach as a fallback.
I am deeply suspicious of utilitarian arguments in most circumstances, simply through experience of those who tend to promote them. Both egoism and libertarianism seem short-sighted to me.
I very much agree with your view and to defend utilitarianism a bit here - contemporary utilitarianiasm is more nuanced than people think. The way I see it, utilitarianism encapsulates the virtue of justice in the sense of “what is the most just way to steer this big ship we’re all on”?
While traditional utilitarians would measure only clearly apparent outcomes like “we’re all mostly white so it would be inefficient to protect minorities” contemporary utilitarians include invisible outcomes like emotions and need for statistical diversity i.e. “living in single race world would be unjust and lack of statistical diversity hedging” and “psychological pain of few oppressed minorities would outweigh net value of more simple single race society”.
The reason why I like it because it’s highly plastic, the utilitarian calculation entirely depends on the medium it’s performed in and can quickly self correct given change like new technology or scientific discovery.
All right, nerd. You want to learn something? I’ll teach you something. I’m gonna teach you the meaning of life. How do you like them apples?
Now, over the last 2,500 years, Western philosophers have formed three main theories on how to live an ethical life.
Now, first off, there’s virtue ethics. Aristotle believed that there were certain virtues of mind and character, like courage or generosity, and you should try to develop yourself in accordance with those virtues.
Next, there’s consequentialism. The basis for judgment about whether something is right or wrong stems from the consequences of that action. How much utility, or good, did it accomplish versus how much pain, or bad.
And finally, there’s deontology, the school of thought that there are strict rules and duties that everyone must adhere to in a functioning society. Being ethical is simply identifying and obeying those duties and following those rules.
But here’s the thing, my little chili babies, all three of those theories are hot, stinky cat dookie. The true meaning of life, the actual ethical system that you should all follow is nihilism. The world is empty. There is no point to anything, and you’re just gonna die.
fair point
If this isn’t a weird copypasta, I struggle to understand what it is. Nah I’m good on nihilism.
Ya basic!
( Its The Good Place lol, you need to watch it :P )
Nihilism is actually much more interesting than DeathByBigSad implies here (jokingly or not) and I recommend this very cool video by Kurzgesagt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14
You either continue positively to society or you get excluded from it. Scale does barely matter.
For me virtue ethics plays the biggest role at small personal level but care ethics is becoming more and more important to me as I age and value existing intimate connections more.
For large scale I’ve always been a strong contemporary utilitarian (one that includes invisible benefits in the calculations) and I really don’t see that ever changing - I really do think there’s the most optimal path forward for the society at all times and it can change on existing conditions.
That which is justified by reasons (in the what do we owe to each other sense).
Care for others. Care for the self. Empathy for others. Empathy for the self. Education of others. Education of the self. Empowering of others. Empowering of the self.
If one cannot explain their reasons, one cannot know if one’s actions are good or evil.
That’s not true. Most moral decisions are subconscious, they feel right to you or come as intuition.
To apply logic first you need some axioms or principles, and that decision can’t be done by logic as it falls outside of it.
You are correct about the selection of Axioms must occur outside of logic.
But there is a difference between what we feel is right and correct versus what we can reasonably justify as right and correct.
And we also have the fun topic of compatible axioms versus incompatible axioms and what actually are the axioms that one holds (and how to deal with intentional and self deception of axioms )
If you can’t use logic to justify it, then it’s the same as to just having a feeling for it
My morality doesn’t require me to justify my axioms to anyone and likewise I don’t require anyone to justify their axioms to me.
But trust does require coming to understand what others have as their axioms.
And a general recommendation for others is don’t accept the premises of assholes. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T38pZ9pFXA0
