Trolley Problem/Consistency in Ethics

[vulcanlogician]

@Vulcan, what are your opinions on ethical pluralism?  Perhaps c-ethics isn't the best way to approach either dilemma..but if so, which do you think might make more informative comments in either (or both) of those two hypotheticals?

I mentioned my stance on it to you when I first became a member: I am a pluralist because I find each of the monistic theories very compelling. The problem is they are all incomplete; they all miss something basic about ethics. That bothers me. Pluralism seems to offer a way to create some overlap between all the theories--where one fails, another can pick up. I find two theories to be head-and-shoulders above the rest: virtue ethics and hedonistic utilitarianism. These two might form a complete ethics if it were not for the fact that other theories (desire satisfaction, egoism, even natural law) didn't have something important to add--something that the "best" two theories utterly lack. There are also theories I reject (*cough* divine command) but on the whole, most of the theories discussed in my introduction to ethics course presented an indispensible facet of moral reality.

I find myself considering a heuristic of monistic theories, but that seems like a task that might run into problems once I start developing that line of thinking. Right off the bat: how the fuck do you prioritize them?

Side bar, assuming that some hypotheticals can;t be consistently approached with a singular ethics, could it be that having different people approach the same situation with seperate ethics gives us a more complete picture of all possible ethical ramifications of any given hypothetical?  Could this be qualitatively advantageous to us?

For example, where c-ethics (or c-ethicists) fail to produce the desired outcome or cannot be applied..perhaps d-ethics (or d-ethicists) pick up the slack and get us the rest of the way.  Or VV, ofc?  Not so much superseding each other, as collaborating.

That presents some advantages over my heuristic idea. A "collaboration" of monistic theories. But like many philosophers (Plato, Thoreau) I think individuals tend to be more worthy moral agents than groups tend to be (groups never seem to hold themselves accountable, and if they do, it's often because one or two people within spoke up-- not by consensus). But maybe I misunderstand your proposal. You may have not been referring to an actual group of people so much as a "group of deliberative bodies within one's own psyche." Regardless of what you actually meant, I find the idea of collaboration between monistic theories to be more compelling than a heuristic in numerous ways.

I would bring in deontological ethics in more, but its a bit of a weak spot as far as philosophical knowledge of it on my part. It has SOOOOOO many problems, I push it to the back of my study que. Compelling though. And I do have a rudimentary knowledge of it.

I have more to say on the matter, but let me end here so you can respond to what I've said so far.

PS: VV ethics? Don't think I'm familiar....