The Compatibility Of Three Approachs To Ethics

[chimp3]

I consider Act Consequentialism, Rule Consequentialism and Virtue Ethics to all be compatible.

For me it works like this:

To me personally at least: Ultimately a moral consequence is a moral action that leads to moral consequences. This is why I espouse Act Consequentialism.

Act consequentialism is the claim that an act is morally right if and only if that act maximizes the good, that is, if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total amount of bad for all is greater than this net amount for any incompatible act available to the agent on that occasion.

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To me personally at least: The most effective way to develop consistently moral actions that lead to consistently moral consequences is to develop moral habits through following rules that lead to moral actions that lead to moral consequences. This is why I further espouse Rule consequentialism.

The theory of morality we can call full rule-consequentialism selects rules solely in terms of the goodness of their consequences and then claims that these rules determine which kinds of acts are morally wrong. George Berkeley was arguably the first rule-consequentialist. He wrote, “In framing the general laws of nature, it is granted we must be entirely guided by the public good of mankind, but not in the ordinary moral actions of our lives. … The rule is framed with respect to the good of mankind; but our practice must be always shaped immediately by the rule.”

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To me personally at least: The most effective way to develop consistently moral rules is to develop moral principles that lead to moral rules that lead to moral habits that lead to moral actions. To me the most effective way to develop those principles is to cultivate certain virtues in oneself by sincerely caring about and valuing certain virtues (so sincerity is certainly a valuable virtue in itself IMO). This is why I even further espouse Virtue Ethics.

Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach which emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that which emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent.

Three of virtue ethics' central concepts, virtue, practical wisdom and eudaimonia are often misunderstood. Once they are distinguished from related but distinct concepts peculiar to modern philosophy, various objections to virtue ethics can be better assessed.

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So, in conclusion, these three approaches to ethical philosophy are all compatible to me personally at least.

Just my two cents. Comments welcome. Hope it interests some of the forum -- or at least anyone looking at the philosophy section of AF

We can only try, right?