Philosophical discussion of ethics often seems to assume that we can take up some point outside it, and erect or discover a set of ideas that will build it up from nothing, and persuade all who are unethical.
Actually almost all of us are always already operating within an elaborate set of ethical beliefs, and there is no way we can escape believing them. What we instead do is try to improve them. It is somewhat like our perception of the physical world, from birth we perceive and believe in it, and through thought and experiences we expand and correct our cognition of it.
Ethics, though, has an exception in that there are some people, sociopaths, who lack this aspect of human experience. Philosophers often think they can construct a set of arguments that will persuade sociopaths to become moral people, but this is not possible.
So the TLS's answer to the categorical imperative is "be as good as you can be I guess. . ." That has the same problems that they find in utilitarianism, only even more so. It is even more vague and even less calculable than they claim utalitarianism is. How good is a person capable of being? How do we find out how good an individual is capable of being? Are psychopaths given special allowances? What about people with very little self control?
If ethics is dependent on knowledge does that mean Aztec human sacrifices were a morally great deed when performed by the Aztecs under a misconception that the souls were going to heaven? What about Hitler's genocide under the misconceived belief that he was creating a better and more peaceful Europe?
But if not knowledge then upon what is it based? Instinct? If so, then society would crumble into loose animalistic structures. Law? Then, to appeal to Hitler once more, would you still shelter a Jew against the ethics of the law? External supernatural force? We are then met with the old questions of "which one" along with the problem of interpretation (do we take Levitical restrictions on beard trimming literally, for example). It seems like knowledge is the only thing we can use to form good ethical structures...perhaps with enough data our ethics will become better.
> But if not knowledge then upon what is it based? Instinct? If so, then society would crumble into loose animalistic structures. Law? Then, to appeal to Hitler once more, would you still shelter a Jew against the ethics of the law?
Thats actually why I argue objectivism as being aligning better with what's possible within the field of ethics. The whole idea is you can only morally do what you want, without intentially removing others freedom, unless they pose a direct threat to your freedom. As a rule of thumb, this actually works exceptionally well.
Murder for example is wrong (morally), by that code of conduct. Traffic laws would be moral because it keeps others from removing your freedom by either not letting you access the road or accidentally killing you by being reckless. It also handles the Hitler argument, whereas some utilitarians my argue what Hitler did was moral.
The whole point of this philosophy is to maximize personal happiness, while minimizing conflict. Data has little to do with it, because respecting one another is the whole point. When you start discussing ethics in terms of "sociatial good" it starts requiring one to know the future. For this reason, I'd argue objectivism, when applied, provides the more useful form of ethics, where one only has to worry about their own happiness, while not intruding (too much), on others.
It seems to me the author incorrectly assumes morality is the same as ethics. Morality is more individualistic whereas ethics are externally imposed rules from which one may derive their morality. A Biblical absolutist for instance uses the ethics of the Bible as a foundation for their moral code, but that still does not determine that one will lead to the other. As a society it may indeed behoove us to follow an ethical structure such as utilitarianism (an argument I have made specifically for democracies in the past) but the personal morality of the individuals within that society may vary greatly.
Actually almost all of us are always already operating within an elaborate set of ethical beliefs, and there is no way we can escape believing them. What we instead do is try to improve them. It is somewhat like our perception of the physical world, from birth we perceive and believe in it, and through thought and experiences we expand and correct our cognition of it.
Ethics, though, has an exception in that there are some people, sociopaths, who lack this aspect of human experience. Philosophers often think they can construct a set of arguments that will persuade sociopaths to become moral people, but this is not possible.
reply