Ethics [Split from Hiroshima thread]

[Debaser11]

To those of you who justify the attacks in material terms, do any of you consider yourselves utilitarians?

I won't pretend to be some heavyweight philosophical thinker here, but to my mind the philosophy of utilitarianism has a few moral gaps in it (for lack of a better phrase). I feel like this instance in history may be one of the more blatant examples of its deficiencies.

[Psychonaut]

To those of you who justify the attacks in material terms, do any of you consider yourselves utilitarians?

I won't pretend to be some heavyweight philosophical thinker here, but to mind the philosophy of utilitarianism has a few moral gaps in it (for lack of a better phrase). I feel like this instance in history may be one of the more blatant examples of its deficiencies.

Utilitarian and pragmatist ethics only show gaps to those who would deem ethics to be absolute.

[Debaser11]

Utilitarian and pragmatist ethics only show gaps to those who would deem ethics to be absolute.

Right. I think that's what I mean. I know for many, it's a very unsatisfying system. The tendency many people have toward thinking in terms of some objective standard of morality (even if it is often not particularly deep) is difficult to simply dismiss.

[Eldritch]

Utilitarian and pragmatist ethics only show gaps to those who would deem ethics to be absolute.

:scratch:

There are people who do not consider ethics to be absolute?

[anonymaus]

:scratch:

There are people who do not consider ethics to be absolute?

Liberals and others with soft-boiled brains.

[Debaser11]

Liberals and others with soft-boiled brains.

Yes, the cultural relativists who are often the ones who utter the most obnoxious line to be heard in the latter half of the 20th century: "Who are YOU to judge THEIR culture?" Not that utilitarians on this board are necessarily cultural relativists.

[Troll's Puzzle]

Liberals and others with soft-boiled brains.

including me :)

relativism FTW

[Psychonaut]

:scratch:

There are people who do not consider ethics to be absolute?

Yep. :)

Most types of teleological (consequentialist) ethics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_ethics) are non-absolute in nature, whereas most deontological schemas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics) are absolutist. A good way to think about this would be lying. Do you think that the act of lying, regardless of the consequences of the lie being told, is inherently wrong? Or, would you permit us to view the act in a situational perspective where the outcome of the lie is taken into consideration alongside the untruth? The absolutist must, in this case, be prepared to answer why the soldier who lies to his captor is morally wrong, etc.

[Aemma]

:scratch:

There are people who do not consider ethics to be absolute?

Yep, a.k.a. in some circles as Situation Ethics:


Situational ethics, or situation ethics, is a Christian ethical theory that was principally developed in the 1960s by the Episcopal priest Joseph Fletcher. It basically states that sometimes other moral principles can be cast aside in certain situations if love is best served; as Paul Tillich once put it: "Love is the ultimate law". The moral principles Fletcher is specifically referring to are the moral codes of Christianity and the type of love he is specifically referring to is 'Agape' love. Agapē is a term which comes from Greek which means absolute, universal, unchanging and unconditional love for all people. Fletcher believed that in forming an ethical system based on love, he was best expressing the notion of "love thy neighbour", which Jesus Christ taught in the Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible. Through situational ethics, Fletcher attempted to find a "middle road" between legalistic and antinomian ethics. Fletcher developed situational ethics in his books: The Classic Treatment and Situation Ethics.

Fletcher believed that there are no absolute laws other than the law of Agapē love and all the other laws were laid down in order to achieve the greatest amount of this love. This means that all the other laws are only guidelines to how to achieve this love, and thus they may be broken if the other course of action would result in more love.

Situational ethics is a teleological, or consequential theory, in that it is concerned with the outcome or consequences of an action; the end, as opposed to an action being intrinsically wrong such as in deontological theories. In the case of situational ethics, the ends can justify the means.

More here. (http://www.answers.com/topic/situational-ethics)

On a basic and pragmatic level, we can look at the telling of a "white lie" as an example. A more traditional ethical stance would state that it is always wrong (or a sin, if you are Christian) to tell a lie--and absolutely and categorically so. In Situation Ethics, there is room for such things as "white lies" where the perceived greater good (sparing a person's feelings let's say by the telling of said white lie) far outweighs the 'wrong' action of the telling of a lie in and of itself. Of course Situation Ethics developed by Fletcher is very Christian based but there are other belief systems that do not believe in the wholesale categoricalness of "right" and "wrong" either.

[Loddfafner]

:scratch:

There are people who do not consider ethics to be absolute?

Belief in absolutes leads to highly unethical behavior. One can easily justify all kinds of situationally cruel acts in terms of a larger, illusory absolute. At the risk of sounding tautological, the good can only be defined in terms of itself, the good.

I am convinced that ethics are situational but that does not mean that they are arbitrary or merely relative. Honor is a key part of the formula. Honor is about striving for consistency and accountability across situations no matter how conflicting their demands on one's stance.

EDIT: The Hiroshima thread that spawned this discussion is here (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18051).

[Nodens]

The framing of the debate leaves a bit to be desired. The accusation:

"Who are YOU to judge THEIR culture?"
expresses both a relativist principle (that neither culture is in truth OBJECTIVELY superior to the other) and an absolutist principle (that judgments of SUBJECTIVE inferiority/superiority are inherently immoral/unethical).

Most practiced systems are not fully absolutist, relativist or subjectivist, but rather some combination of the aforementioned. In general, contemporary liberals tend to be the most virulently absolutist of the major factions, particularly in regard to their concept of 'human rights'.

[Equinox]

I was under the impression that cultural relativism and cultural preservation were explicitly linked.

1) Is there an argument to the contrary?
2) Ought universalists be on this board?

[Psychonaut]

I was under the impression that cultural relativism and cultural preservation were explicitly linked.

1) Is there an argument to the contrary?
2) Ought universalists be on this board?

If the former is excluded, the tendency of the result is less than optimal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_supremacism).

[Debaser11]

If the former is excluded, the tendency of the result is less than optimal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_supremacism).

The reverse (multiculturalism) is hardly desirable either.

[Aemma]

2) Ought universalists be on this board?

Do you specifically mean Heathens who are universalist or just universalists in general terms?

[Equinox]

If the former is excluded, the tendency of the result is less than optimal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_supremacism).

I am not sure that I follow.

If there are groups A, B and C, content with their own culture and methods of moral regulation, yet from within each are deviant elements A1, B1, C1, why not exclude them?

I would contend that the latter are more greatly defined by their universalism than they are to their proper group/culture. That the relationship between A1 and B1 is greater than that between A and A1.

A, B and C have more in common through their respective differences.



Do you specifically mean Heathens who are universalist or just universalists in general terms?

Aemma, just in a general umbrella term. Though this also applies to Heathens.

In keeping with the same example, it explains why most Heathens I have been associated with do not want to actively "convert".

When it comes to ethics, I believe that an English Heathen would see eye-to-eye better with a Celtic Heathen than he would his universalist countrymen.

I suppose it is a matter of perception.

[Psychonaut]

I am not sure that I follow.

I was meaning that a concern with preservation for one's own group taken out of the larger context of preservation in general allows ideas of self-importance to hypertrophy.

[Eldritch]

Well, as I already mentioned to Psy via rep comment, I have only the most cursory knowledge and understanding of philosophy, which of course rules me out of any serious debate on the issue. I've always avoided problematising everyday life desicions, and trusted that simple common sense, as well as, well, honor as mentioned by Lodd, or at least attempts at it, would carry me as far as I needed to go.

What's a bit ironic to me is that someone like myself, who has always preferred to concern himself with more hands-on, or pragmatic if you will, matters, seems to intuitively insist on a some kind of universal ethics, whereas the people who actually know something about the issue do not.

[Debaser11]

What's a bit ironic to me is that someone like myself, who has always preferred to concern himself with more hands-on, or pragmatic if you will, matters, seems to intuitively insist on a some kind of universal ethics, whereas the people who actually know something about the issue do not.


I don't think this is really true. There are a lot of great Christian scholars, for example, who tackle ethics from a universalist perspective. Some of them like N.T. Wright and the much cited Thomas Aquinas hardly demonstrate lightweight philosophical thought in their output.

[Psychonaut]

I don't think this is really true. There are a lot of great Christian scholars, for example, who tackle ethics from a universalist perspective. Some of them like N.T. Wright and the much cited Thomas Aquinas hardly demonstrate lightweight philosophical thought in their output.

The biggest problem with those types of schemas (aside from the above question of the lying soldier) is that they come with so much metaphysical baggage that invariably ends up some branch on the Parmenidean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides) tree. Teleological ethics, on the other hand, are espoused by those schools that are descended from Heraclitus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus) as well as Parmenides.

In case you were wondering, the Heraclitian/Parmenidean split is the oldest ontological divide in Western Philosophy—being one between flux and fixity.

[Debaser11]

The biggest problem with those types of schemas (aside from the above question of the lying soldier) is that they come with so much metaphysical baggage that invariably ends up some branch on the Parmenidean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides) tree. Teleological ethics, on the other hand, are espoused by those schools that are descended from Heraclitus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus) as well as Parmenides.

In case you were wondering, the Heraclitian/Parmenidean split is the oldest ontological divide in Western Philosophy—being one between flux and fixity.

I understand the fundamental split between the two but I nonetheless have some reading to do. Thanks.

I guess I'll just play out a feeble Devil's Advocate role as much as I can. (Again, I'm really out of my depth here.)

For the sake of discussion, I'm gonna bring it down a few notches and try to ground some of this into the contemporary world (even though I realize this is meant to be a philosophical discussion and not a political one).
Individuals obviously don't live in vacuums. So given what we know about human nature from history, should that metaphysical element be so easily dismissed? The tired Nietzsche "God is dead" argument seems very prophetic when looking at the postmodern world. We see what's happening to the West when people discard the metaphysical backbone that binds society's common ethos together. We've seen in the latter half of the 20th century and into this century how the "define your own truth" worldview has shown itself to be utterly destructive. Today, the West is incapable of standing up to a relatively weak (but resolute) threat in the form of Islam.

The West (which has shown itself to be the most sympathetic toward and the most receptive of humanist values) didn't just arise out of nothing. Within a Judeo-Christian view of the world, this civilization gravitated toward a more humane society and "rediscovered" a love for the classics. But it seems that much of this admiration should be attributable to the underlying metaphysical "glue" holding certain boundaries in place. It seems we can't have it both ways. Now that that glue is basically gone today, we see the result-- a civilization that won't last.

[Psychonaut]

I understand the fundamental split between the two but I nonetheless have some reading to do. Thanks.

:thumb001:


So given what we know about human nature from history, should that metaphysical element be so easily dismissed?

I think we have a misunderstanding. :)

When I mentioned cautioning against the metaphysical baggage that necessarily comes with deontological ethics, this was not a statement against metaphysics as a whole. For indeed—no philosophical idea can exist in isolation the other branches of the philosophical tree. Ethics necessitates metaphysics, which in turn necessitates ontology, etc.

What I was implying was that in putting forth an absolutist ethic, many people don't think it through to the logical conclusion— not understanding what kinds of metaphysical conclusions must spring forth when this type of ethic is adopted. They, like most people, end up holding views that are mutually contradictory, which is the greatest of all philosophical sins. To be in contradiction with another can be admirable, but to be so with yourself is the classic sign of philosophical immaturity. So, for those of you who think you might be inclined towards deontological ethics, take the time to both identify which variant you think is true and then examine the rest of the accompanying system.

[Nodens]

So, for those of you who think you might be inclined towards deontological ethics, take the time to both identify which variant you think is true and then examine the rest of the accompanying system.

Dare I say, revaluate all values? :D

[Debaser11]

:thumb001:



I think we have a misunderstanding. :)

When I mentioned cautioning against the metaphysical baggage that necessarily comes with deontological ethics, this was not a statement against metaphysics as a whole. For indeed—no philosophical idea can exist in isolation the other branches of the philosophical tree. Ethics necessitates metaphysics, which in turn necessitates ontology, etc.

What I was implying was that in putting forth an absolutist ethic, many people don't think it through to the logical conclusion— not understanding what kinds of metaphysical conclusions must spring forth when this type of ethic is adopted. They, like most people, end up holding views that are mutually contradictory, which is the greatest of all philosophical sins. To be in contradiction with another can be admirable, but to be so with yourself is the classic sign of philosophical immaturity. So, for those of you who think you might be inclined towards deontological ethics, take the time to both identify which variant you think is true and then examine the rest of the accompanying system.

I see. Like you can have a case dealing with something like euthanasia where because killing is declared to be wrong in a universal sense, you let someone suffer despite their sincere pleas to be euthanized. Doesn't seem right. There are other examples going the other way that make utilitarian claims seem wrong, too. Have you heard the trolly argument that deals with fatal force? That's an interesting one. Moral OCD can be enough to make one pull their hair out!

It's all tough as far as I can tell.

[Psychonaut]

Have you heard the trolly argument that deals with fatal force? That's an interesting one.

I've not. Do share!

[Debaser11]

I've not. Do share!

Sorry for the delayed response. I couldn't think of the woman's name who came up with the argument. I figured it would be better to just link you a page rather than paraphrase her argument and possibly not do it justice.

The woman who came up with the 'trolly argument' is named Phillipa Foot. I'm really not familiar with any of her other work.

From Wiki:

"The problem is this[1]:

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?
A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to flip the switch. According to simple utilitarianism, flipping the switch would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the other option being no action at all).

While simple utilitarian calculus seeks to justify this course of action, some non-utilitarians may also accept the view. Often the problem is stated with a mad philosopher initiating the dilemma. Opponents might assert that, since moral wrongs are already in place in the situation, flipping the switch constitutes a participation in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when otherwise the mad philosopher would be the sole culprit. Additionally, opponents may point to the incommensurability of human lives.

It might also be justifiable to consider that simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this were the case, then deciding to do nothing would be considered an immoral act."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

There's plenty more reading of interest on just that page outside of what I pasted.

[Debaser11]

I just wanted to add this video which expands on the trolley question since this question was once again raised in another thread.

F3SMzJD8axY