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?
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.