Trolley Problem/Consistency in Ethics

[vulcanlogician]

Since, in context here we may not discussing an inconsistency of a system, as your poll suggests, but a possible misapplication of an unsuitable system to a particular portion of any given hypothetical.  

Absolutely. I expected most to be inconsistent. My poll may have given the impression that inconsistency is to be avoided. This was not my intention. The inconsistency is to be examined. This inconsistency itself is a huge question mark. Not only does it bring consequentialism into question, but (in a more limited way) all of ethical monism. Morality obviously isn't a numbers game, but numbers have a place in it, and they deserve due consideration. To ignore utilitarianism as important to ethics is to miss the point that there is a precise difference between genocide and the murder of a single person.

We are morally blind if we ignore consequentialism. Let's examine two moral universes, identical in every way except: a murder occurs in the streets of New York in universe A -- In universe B, the murder in New York doesn't happen, but a genocide of 10,000 people occurs elsewhere. A moral theorist who pronounces both universes equally good is blind. A utilitarian is not blind in this regard and would correctly endorse moral actions which favor universe A over universe B. In other words, he would pull the trolley switch without blinking, and we need that in ethics. Otherwise we are morally blind. But (as we have figured out upon closer inspection) the numbers game is insufficient.

Virtue ethics is a good counterbalance. If any theory is not a numbers game, it's virtue ethics. It's not even a "rules" game. It's obvious to see how it utterly fails as a monistic theory though. In a world populated entirely by Adolf Hitlers, a virtue ethicist would be forced to choose Hitler as a moral exemplar. Utilitarianism doesn't suffer from this constraint, and would be of service to a world of Hitlers in a way virtue ethics never could. Taken as a monistic theory to be implemented all by itself, virtue ethics fails hard. But used in conjunction with other theories in pluralism, it bolsters all the others.

How would you prioritize, if you were looking to make suggestions?

Yeah that's the problem with prioritizing them. As soon as you prioritize one over another you ALSO prioritize its weaknesses. If there were a way to address a theory's weakness as they came up, you could just cook that into the monistic theory. I like your idea better than the heuristic.