For the sake of the argument, consider two moral frameworks that are polar opposites: deontological and consequentialist ethics.
Deontological ethics views actions in themselves as either right or wrong, with Kant's "categorical imperative" being the most salient example of this.
Consequentialists, instead, are concerned with the outcomes of actions. Utilitarianism is a prominent consequentialist school of thought.
Unfortunately, this means FUCK ALL.
Following Kant's categorical imperative you can "universalise" an action based on its outcome, i.e. you might say "it's okay to lie if the purpose of the lie is to save somebody's life", even though lying is considered immoral. Now you're treating lying as a means to an end, rather than as an end itself.
Likewise, utilitarians have to constantly add exceptions to their rule of maximum happiness and the "greater good". They will try to find ways to respond to ridiculous conclusions that utilitarian ideals reach (like killing one innocent person to save the lives of two sick patients in a hospital).
Ultimately all ethical systems converge to a "common sense" middle ground, which makes the entire exercise a complete fucking waste of time.
John Cox
nvr forget lil peep
Nathaniel Diaz
>Ultimately all ethical systems converge to a "common sense" middle ground so virtue ethics was right all along, thanks for the insight you are only about 2400 years late to the game
Zachary Price
Thats a funny way of spelling Scientific Morality
Owen Cook
Virtue ethics is a trendy bunch of bullshit that has zero value in practice. Name one concrete application of virtue ethics in the real world.
Chase Garcia
>Harris argues that moral science does not imply an "Orwellian future" with "scientists at every door". Instead, Harris imagines data about normative moral issues being shared in the same way as other sciences (e.g. peer-reviewed journals on medicine).
Brody Price
name one concrete application of anything in the real world
Daniel Foster
>inb4 Just like be a cool dude and stuff :)
James Evans
An internal combustion engine is a concrete application of Newtonian mechanics. Ok now you
Chase Lewis
An internal combustion engine is made from steel, not from applications
Mason Johnson
Your whore of a mother probably raised you with virtue ethics
>"user, please have the courage to stop posting your half-based philosophical assertions online." >"user, please have the patience to get off that indonesian palm oil forum and read this book on medical/judicial ethics"
Cooper Clark
Heavy thinker over here
Zachary King
i'm thinner than you, fat-ass
Dominic Powell
>truisms and sentimental platitudes weren't very convincing arguments
Who wudda thunk it
Adam Gutierrez
Normative ethics doesn't exist.
Economic models are useful in making predictions and thus policy decisions.
Ethics is worthless in this regard. 90% of decisions made by people are based on how the choice is framed by marketing departments.
Wyatt Martin
Don't think you understand KAnt's categorical imperative stuff. If I want to lie to achieve some end, I can formulate my maxim as something like "I will tell a lying promise in order to achieve X". And you can't universalise that maxim. Kant scholars disagree about what kind of contradiction the universalisation of a maxim needs to lead to, but in the lying case you get something like the strongest kind of contradiction - the institution of lying requires a sort of convention of truth-telling in order to be effective, so in a world where everyone lied as a rule, and everyone knew this, there'd really be no such thing as lying - it's not just that lying would no longer be a sufficient means to achieve your end in such as a world (a "practical contradiction"), but that the notion of a lie would be incoherent (i think kantians call this a logical contradiction.) Lying requires "making an exception of yourself". So kantians generally say it's never ok to lie. But utilitarians (of certain stripes) think it's all right to lie sometimes if it leads to some sufficiently good outcome. In what sense do the two systems converge in any big way if they literally disagree about whether certain actions are permissible?
Tyler Sanchez
>hasn't read a book once >thinks his argument is something new and not a complete joke that only retards like you propose The picture of peep is perfectly matching, youre just as brain dead as him.
Thomas King
How about you start thinking for yourself you little shit? If I had prefaced my comments with "X believed so and so" where X was a famous philosopher, you'd actually respond to the point instead of namecalling, but as you have proven, all you care about is credentials, because you don't have the capabilities for original thought.
Parker Sanders
Another person incapable of thinking for himself. Once again, if I had told you this argument came from a prominent philosopher you couldn't have responded with a silly ad hominem. You are a peasant.
Grayson Butler
If you're going to shit on ethics, you might as well shit on any methodology that deals with right/wrong assertions. In which case, why should anyone take your opinion seriously at all?
Tyler Williams
>Kant scholars disagree Because he had to purposely be vague since his theory doesn't have any legs to stand on in practice.
>In what sense do the two systems converge in any big way if they literally disagree about whether certain actions are permissible? Most Kantians allow for rules in the form of "you can do X as long as it's for Y", while most utilitarians have to define utilitarianism in a very convoluted manner to avoid absurd pitfalls like "it's okay for a 1000 sadists to torture an innocent person".
Tyler Evans
OP here forgot to say, religion (Christianity and Islam) are the worst offenders.
Thye LITERALLY don't make any explicit remarks on ethics other than "don't eat pork", i.e. shit that you can't argue either way "because God wills it". when it actually comes to difficult problems, religion has no answers.
Jordan Torres
>[Ethical position] is convoluted which means it is wrong
William Morris
Negative utilitarianism is the entirely consistent though.
Maximising positive utilitity/pleasure/happiness is ambivalent and vague and not easy to do, but there is an easy way to do away with suffering by doing away with sentience.
Mason Stewart
imagine being this retarded and having to live in the world
Joseph Lee
that's just the devil's position, no need to make it sound so fancy
Jose Hughes
I thought the devil was a trouble maker instead of the saviour.
Leo Morales
That's not what I said. Imagine if I called myself a socialist then said "wait, actually, let's privatise healthcare", you can no longer call me a socialist.
Negative utilitarianism is the same as traditional utilitarianism. In practice, when applied to real world problems, nothing changes, since pain and pleasure are on the same spectrum.
Let me give you a tip retard: no argument = admitting you're wrong. You deluded sack of shit. Hope you grow up.
Matthew Clark
>Negative utilitarianism is the same as traditional utilitarianism. In practice, when applied to real world problems, nothing changes, since pain and pleasure are on the same spectrum. There is an important difference. Conventional utilitarians can think it is a net positive to bring a new being into the world while negative utilitarians do not because spawning more beings will always increase suffering regardless of any possible positive experiences that come along with it.
Negative utilitarianism if actually followed would lead to a last generation of ascetic celibate or sterilised vegans with the means of painless euthanasia made available to all, and maybe a program to try to eliminate wild animal suffering, although that's very hard to do.
Kevin Lopez
Deontology and consequentialism are NORMATIVE ethical systems. They try to argue for how people ought to act for the world to be a better place. Whether they are accurate or whether they defy common-sense doesn't matter. No one is saying that they are an accurate reflection of morality. People are arguing that they OUGHT TO BE, not that they are.
Really your whole post is saying "but, mommy these normative systems are not descriptive!!!!". No shit they aren't, that's why we made a distinction.
The fact that you can think of certain situations in which utilitarianism gives counter-intuitive solutions (Like killing an innocent guy so you can use his organs to save 2 guys), is really only saying that utilitarianism is not very descriptive. But the real question is whether the world would be better if everyone followed it irregardless of our feelings towards it.
Gavin Perry
>makes substantial meta-ethical position >evidence: here's two outdated theories from normative ethics that I don't understand but they're like kind of similar and shit if you really squint so yeah i'm right for some reason
Kayden Baker
it would be difficult to accept a normative system if it (like utilitarianism) dramatically opposed our intuitions on the matter
Gabriel Campbell
Males repress their intuitions of raping females every single day because we know we ought not to irregardless of whether we want to.
But even if your point was true that it is difficult to accept something counter-intuitive. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, given that the counter-intuitive system does indeed give better outcomes than our own intuitions.
Dylan Sanders
Civilisation itself is counter-intuitive.
Zachary Roberts
>thinks he knows me When are you going to stop embarrassing yourself, also why do you think philosophers are not trashed all the time? I know why you think so, because you have never read a book.
Colton Cook
Ethics is not a field of invidiual thought. It makes much more sense to see it as a discussion between subjects entwined in the World.
Benjamin Peterson
You could always go for the egoist route and say ethics are a human construct
James Reed
ethics are a meme, only morals are real, you alredy know inside you that killing, stealing and lying are bad, you don't need rationalism to figure that out.
Gavin Flores
this thread is an embarassment the ironic peep avi designed to shame and annoy “uptight” literati is extremely fucking gay. you’re so dumb you should’ve been aborted, i have no interest in your response. Im saging and reporting the thread and not going to look at what you said because not only am i above you spiritually and mentally, but physically i am also superior to you and the sensation of your presence is the same as a chandala coughing up cholera all over my collar
Aaron Reyes
name one good lil peep song
soundcloud rappers produce nothing of worth
Jaxson Jackson
Wow so deep
Cooper Clark
This is actually one of the most empirically and metaphysically correct assertions i've ever read in Veeky Forums.