The Compatibility Of Three Approachs To Ethics

[Edwardo Piet]

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.

source

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.”

source

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.

source



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

ETAWTPBNATPAAP (Edit To Add Within The Post But Not Actually To Post Any Additional Post):

My critique of this following bolded section of The Stanford Encylclopedia of Philosophy that I quoted earlier in this post follows after aforementioned following bolded section of aforementioned encyclopedia:

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.

(My bolding).

"Incompatible" is a little vague of them and "mutually exclusive" would be clearer... Act Consequentialism should not be being described as if it was identical to Act Utilitarianism but seen as they're talking about Act Utilitarianism anyway they ought to recognize that "the good" does not mean "the best" it means "the better". Better is still better even if it isn't ideal because good is relative. Or at the very least "the good" refers to "a superior option that also leads to a positive net value." They are being far too unreasonably perfectionistic and they're conflating a more general moral theory with a more specific one.

That's my conclusion and critique and I think why I was analysing this and feeling personally confused by what they said.

"They" being The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy.

Very abstract thought experiment to further demonstrate my point:

Let's say, for sake of argumentation, that there are hypothetically 1000 mutually exclusive but fully available acts somehow.
Lets say 998 of them lead to a negative net amount
And let's say the 999th one leads to an extremely positive net amount... but the 1000th one leads to an even more positive amount.
I think that the 1000th act would be the best but I think the 999th one would still very much be within the realms of the good.

What do you think?

@ EP You can although perhaps I shouldn't have and perhaps that was redundant. You can logically too because different senses of the same word can be used and it is possible for the different senses I used to be recognized so that I am not being fallaciously equivocal but instead am being helpful by way of rhetoric which is what makes me doubt that it was redundant of me and what makes me doubt that I ought to not have. Which is why I left it in (I already noticed it consciously).

Ultimately a moral consequence is a moral action that leads to moral consequences

I said "ultimately" and "is" instead of omitting "ultimately" and instead of saying "means" instead of "is" because I'm not defining a moral consequence: I'm instead adding details to an already intuitively fathomed and socially already established definition and saying that "ultimately this is what a moral consequence is about to me personally". I did not spell that out entirely clearly because I am using rhetoric as well as logic and in addition also because I personally intuit that the seeds can be planted subliminally by aforementioned rhetoric when they cannot be spelled out fully with logic alone.

@ Whatev I agree which is why I think that virtues are the best means to the best rules to the best consequences. Let us not dwell on consequences, rules or moral comparisons because ultimately the path to both is to be virtuous... compassion being one of the greatest virtues. And we do that by just being ourselves and living our life instead of philosophizing over shit too much.

[LostLocke]

To be honest, just based on the summaries I read here, it kinda starts to sound like a "Half a dozen of one, six of the other" sort of situation.

[abaris]

Maybe take it down to a lesser mirror jerk level and just say, all you have to do to be ethical is being a decent human being with some ability for compassion?

[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.

source

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.”

source

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.

source



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?

[Excited Penguin]

You can't include a word in its own definition. Try again.

[Whateverist]

I don't like to dwell on morality. There is a time and a place to focus on developing empathy and recognition of consequences. But amongst adults there is no way to enforce a should except through a justice system. I find moral comparisons odious. The effort that has been put into spelling out what act has the greatest moral value in any conceivable circumstance is a waste. Behavior so much anticipated and prescribed is no longer worth living. I say screw it. Trust yourself, be yourself and go on assessing how it all feels. Empathy will lead you to avoid harming others without encumbering you with a manual or keeping you busy with mental calculations and thus rendering you not present in the moment. Let others seek to win medals for exceptional goodness. Just don't look for any from me, I've got a life to live here and you're wasting my time.*


*[Not you, Hammy. Just the morally obsessed in general and thus many though not all xtians.]

[Edwardo Piet]

To be honest, just based on the summaries I read here, it kinda starts to sound like a "Half a dozen of one, six of the other" sort of situation.

Exactly.

[Edwardo Piet]

Maybe take it down to a lesser mirror jerk level

Meaning?

and just say,

Just say?

all you have to do to be ethical is being a decent human being with some ability for compassion?

Of course.

[abaris]

Nothing to add there, don't you think?

[Edwardo Piet]

We can only try, right?

I think:

We can either only try,

Or,

We can only try to, try to not, or not try to.

Or,

Or something completely different.