/philosophy/ - Philosophy

Of course Ethics isn't consequentialist. Consequentialism is a type of ethic, how would anyone confuse it in reverse?

Virtue > all other pleb ethics.

>>803
I'm going to ignore the few grammatical errors or typos if you don't mind. Take the following points as commentary as opposed to criticism.

You seem to want to demonstrate that what some people call consequencialist ethics is, as seen in the rendition of the trolley problem, more an adherence of the intrinsic value of life. You do this by demonstrating that the consequences cannot be fully evaluated, and that any imperative guide to action is thus based on an assumption or speculation, and not on the actual consequence itself. Or in other words, you demonstrate that it is possible that what the Actor percieves to be the favourable result due to his application of consequentialism is not (necessarily) the best outcome.
If this summary captures the essence of your essay, I'd suggst a different title, seeing as it's currently misleading. Perhaps "Critique of Consequentialism" or "The unfeasibility of Consequentialism" or something of the sort would be more fitting.

That said, there are still a few things you might want to take note of.

First, though this is probably just me, "Normal Person" is supposed to mean "Average Person", so I would go with that rather than use the term "normal".

Second, the notion of a "mistake" in ethics, remains unexplored. For one, as you argue at the end, the formulaic application that "more saved lives > less saved lives" makes the outcome (provided it was not possible to save everyone) the correct one, regardless of the nature of those lives. You'd have a better point if one of the survivors were a killer, thus creating a conflict between saving a life that threatens other lives, but aside from that, there is no reason to call the decion made in your example "false".
You may disagree, but if you do so you are essentially interprting consequentialism in a specific way, like Utilitarianism. So in effect, the consequences were not the objectively best ones they could have been, because different applications of consequentialism contradict each other.

Now, you imply that the Average Person shares the same view of better consequences that the survivors do. Had they known who the individuals were, he might have decided differently. But this again presupposes a specific take on consequentialism, as well as introduces the problem of lacking knowledge that was a key issue for Bentham and Mill. The point of the trolley problem is to reduce any possible consideration to just "saving lives" and reveals that most people go by quantity. This is not unreasonable if no other information is given. And even if information is given after the fact, it cannot lessen the "correctness" behind the initial decision.

So perhaps the main issue I see with the essay is that "consequentialism" signifies an approach towards ethics, and does not offer a key or a set of moral values that must be considered with it. So your Average Person only serves as a representative of the possibility that ones perception of a moral action doesn't have to be the objectively best one to make. As such it exposes a flaw in pure consequentialism that wouldn't happen if there wasn't an additional moral stance (in this case "it is okay to kill people willing to die in order to save someone else").

Overall though, nice deconstruction of consquentialism and "intuitive" morality.

>>813

>>But this again presupposes a specific take on consequentialism

I am not sure why you think I am assuming a specific kind of consequentialism. Perhaps I should have elaborated more on this point.

The imperative 'avoid the loss of life' is not a statement about the goodness of outcomes. The imperative serves only to guide the Average Person. I was hoping to communicate a very general notion of consequentialist. As in, the consequences determine moral value, however, no explanation as to why one consequence is superior is given. Goodness is a property all on its own, and it can only be imperfectly anticipated.

>Now, you imply that the Average Person shares the same view of better consequences that the survivors do.

If I did imply that, I wasnt trying to. I didnt have it in mind, that they all shared the same view. Why do you think I implied that?

>So perhaps the main issue I see with the essay is that "consequentialism" signifies an approach towards ethics, and does not offer a key or a set of moral values that must be considered with it.

Well, what I was hoping was to show that everything that important in ethics, isnt consequentialist. If it all comes down to imperatives, and reasons to hold imperatives, consequentialism cant help us. Even if we seek good consequences, we must operate with rules, which are quite disconnected from consequences.

>

Thanks a lot for your feedback. I really appreciate it. Whatever I didnt reply to I found pretty useful. If I ever revise this, Ill incorporate the advice youve given me.

>>814
>The imperative 'avoid the loss of life' is not a statement about the goodness of outcomes
Indeed, but it is an imperative based on a consequentialist attitude. As such, it is a valid imperative for consequentialists who value life. But only for those consequentialists. There might be those who consider "potential" or the like more important, and would view sacrificing 10 average people for one Mozart as the better outcome and thus the one that should be worked towards. This is also consequentialism, but it clearly differs from the one you mention.
That's what I meant with "specific kind of consequentialism".

>I was hoping to communicate a very general notion of consequentialism
There isn't really a "general notion" though. I think you might mean "generally accepted notion" or "intuitive notion". Which is fine, though you use two different "intuitions" in the essay, the first being the "more lives saved = better" one, the second being "people willingly sacrificing themselves for fewer others = better" one.

>Why do you think I implied that?
Because you make the statement that the choice made by the Average Person was wrong. It was wrong, because he realised that the two people he saved would've rather died in place of the one person he killed/let die. This implies that the Average Person agrees with the assessment of the survivors that the alternative outcome was preferable. And that means that his imperative was wrong or misguided, and that he actually shares the one of the survivors (because lives have relative, not absolute, meaning).
If you didn't mean to imply that, you might want to reformulate the sentence
>his belief that the death of the sole individual was a better consequence was wrong
by making note that it WAS the best consequence under HIS assessment of the best consequence, but that this does not mean that everyone else intrisically agrees. If you don't add this, you are implying that the definition for "best consequences" for the Average Person has changed after hearing the position of the suvivor.

>Even if we seek good consequences, we must operate with rules, which are quite disconnected from consequences.
This is very true, and a good point to make. I fear I was just confused about the different ethical standards and premises that were somewhat unexplained.
Again, John Stuart Mill had a very similar problem when justifying utilitarianism, his solution being the introduction of rules that are generally expected to yield the results utilitarianism would support.

Anyway, you're welcome. Glad you could use some of it.

>>815

>it is an imperative based on a consequentialist attitude

I think its important that the concept of the imperative be ethical theory 'neutral'. If different ethicists are going to disagree about the basis of our obligations, they cannot also disagree about what an obligation even is.

My concept is pretty simple. An imperative directly specifies one must take. One complies with the imperative when they take the action specified by it.

If we, as moral agents, have imperatives, whatever consequentialist reasoning we might make cannot get between us and our imperatives. It is for that reason, that I discount the possibility of imperatives being consequentialist at all.

>John Stuart Mill had a very similar problem when justifying utilitarianism

Do you know what piece he talked about this in? Im curious to read it.

I remember hearing Peter Singer talk about rule utilitarianism. I remember he said its not really in a dichotomy with regular utilitarianism as was once thought, since all rules in utilitarianism can only be justified by consequential utility. This suggests to me, that the merits are rule utilitarianism are not really philosophical, but practical The construction of rules is actually necessary to any ethical theorys application, but philosophically there is no difference.

>>816

Im awful with these typos

specifies one must take >> * specifies what action one must take

>>816
>the concept of the imperative be ethical theory 'neutral'
I'm not sure I follow. Simply having an imperative, i.e. a guide for action, can indeed be viewed as ethically neutral, but the necessity of imperatives in order to act ethically is also a position of Ethics itself. So taking an ethical imperative JUST as a "call to action", completely stripped of any ethical content, seems slightly rash to me. Especially in this case, where the imperative is unambiguously inspired by an ethical conviction, ergo quite literally the expression of a judgement made before the imperative is made. This is the dynamic present in your essay. If you mean to regard only imperatives, then you shouldn't even have to bring up consequentialism.

>If we, as moral agents, have imperatives, whatever consequentialist reasoning we might make cannot get between us and our imperatives
My point was that the consequentialist reasoning comes before the imperative. The only thing that's problematic here is that there can be many different imperatives that one and the same consequentialist attitude can result in. But you don't even mention that problem, since in your case, the conflict arises from the same application of different interpretations of better consequences (it is implied that both agree that consequences are what's important but they would, due to different degree of knowledge and differet assessment, disagree in the ethical imperative applied).
Though if you mean that the moment imperatives are set and followed they have to stand on their own, then I think I can follow. Though I'd still value the ethic justification for said imperative.

>Do you know what piece he talked about this in?
I'm only familiar with "Utilitarianism" so it must be in there somewhere. I'm afraid that's all I can recall.

>its not really in a dichotomy with regular utilitarianism as was once thought
Interesting, I never considered there to be a dichotomy. I completely agree with Singer though. Utilitarianism is a very practical approach to ethics.

>>842

Why do you think Utilitarianism is very practical? I have heard this a lot, I dont understand it.

Putting aside that what qualifies as pleasure isnt at all clear, nor how pleasure can be aggregated across people, time and space, it simply isnt instructive to what you should actually do. Within any practice, the keys to determine what you should do will always be esoteric knowledge related to the practice.