It's probably going a bit off-topic, but I wouldn't entirely agree with that. If one has very good reasons for thinking that God exists, then one has (in virtue of this) very good reasons for thinking that the existence of God is compatible with the existence of all the suffering that we see in history. That isn't necessarily just a refusal to accept what reason shows us - it may, on the contrary, be a rational weighing of one set of evidence (reasons to believe in God) against a rival set of evidence (reasons to suppose that God's existence is incompatible with the existence of suffering). Certainly there are plenty of people who have considered this very rationally indeed and concluded that God probably does exist and therefore probably does have some plan of the kind you mention. That's not to say that these people are right to think this, of course - just that to think this isn't necessarily irrational.
Fair enough. Nowadays there are more reasons not to believe in a personal God than to believe though.
Right. But one could then say that as long as those rules exist (in whatever sense of "exist" applies to rules) then that moral system exists. One might even say it has some kind of objectivity. Although presumably not the kind you're looking for.
The set of rules might be internally consistent but have no real relation to the real world and how things work there. It is like saying "x=x"; it might be true but it's not very interesting. In the real world all the moral systems seem to have serious defects, owing to at least the extreme complexity of the world (in that we haven't just figured out all the different kinks yet) or possibly also due to the fundamental non-objectivity of all morality.
I think that if a "true" set of moral rules exists, then there's no question why it should be followed. An objective morality, if it exists, is by definition normative. Say, for example, that it is an objective truth that it is wrong to murder. That fact, of and by itself, is a reason not to murder.
A system that would stifle human progress, no matter how 'right', wouldn't be all that snazzy imo. Practice rules over principles for the most part. I do hope that if an objective set of moral rules exists, it's best for all humans, as individuals and as a collective whole, to follow it at all times and they do it gladly and naturally. I'm not sure if that is
required of such a ruleset. I guess it would depend on what gives it its objectivity. I may be wrong though; I haven't really given this much thought.
Ah! So you think that there does exist a true and objective morality, then - namely utilitarianism, or some form thereof. You think that an act is right inasmuch as it maximises utility and wrong inasmuch as it minimises it (or something like that). But why's that?
Not necessarily a true and objective one - a
useful morality. Utilitarianism is its own justification, in that human progress - vaccines, star travel and whatnot - is generally considered groovy and "Oh Yeah!" within our species.
Why that is, well, I suppose it has more to do with emotions than sense. The Universe will cool down and all the stars will eventually die, so why do anything? Because many a fun and exciting thing can be experienced before that.
Ah, well this is where fundamental intuitions clash. To the virtue ethicist, it's just a basic fact that certain states are good or bad, because the goodness or badness of moral states is a function of whether they enable the person to flourish or not. And to the virtue ethicist, it is just fundamentally clear that someone who enjoys going around killing people has something wrong with them: that person is not flourishing, no matter how happy he or she may seem to be, just as a person with a chronic illness is not flourishing compared to a healthy person, no matter how well he or she copes with the illness or even likes having it in some perverse way. And the virtue ethicist will think that the enabling of human flourishing is the only way of "cashing out" moral claims that really makes any sense.
What
is 'flourishing', exactly? How come a murderer isn't flourishing when he murders - if he does it skillfully, is admired by many (deranged) persons, enjoys it greatly and even sees divine visions because of it? Perhaps it inspires him to great works of art that have a lasting value even after he's caught and disposed of? Not that there's many such murderers, but even one would do to challenge the notion of non-flourishing.
But you, it seems, think that utility is the only sensible way of "cashing out" moral claims, so you evaluate virtue ethics by that criterion and find it wanting. It looks like there's just a fundamental disagreement there.
I suppose so. I just think "flourishing" and "virtue" are unnecessary baggage words and that utility and feeling are where the beef of (useful) right and wrong's at.
No, the virtue ethicist won't suppose that virtues are individually tailored in that way. If something's a virtue, it's a virtue for everyone, and the same for vices. That's because we're all human and have all evolved to function in the same basic way. Something can't be a virtue for one person but a vice for another any more than an activity can be healthy for one person but unhealthy for another.
I wonder what Macchiavelli would say to that?
One could say that one of a good politician's virtues is skillful lying, in that if he doesn't lie the interests of the people he's serving might suffer.
Now of course you'll say, ah, some activities can be healthy for one person but unhealthy for another. Eating high-calorie foods might be healthy for someone who is dangerously underweight, but unhealthy for someone who is dangerously overweight. But that is because those two people have different kinds of health problems, for which different treatments are appropriate: the end goal is the same, because health itself is the same for everyone. A virtue ethicist might say something similar about virtue. Say that generosity is a virtue. Someone who is very stingy should therefore perhaps make an effort to give more money away. But someone who is very profligate, and too free with his or her money, should perhaps make an effort to give away less. The end result - a "correct" amount of generosity, the amount that maximises flourishing - is the same for everyone.
I don't really understand the bolded. If I have nothing to give, must I make debt in order to give to charity? It probably means some percentage: but then rich people could well afford to give away 90% of their earnings, which would be catastrophic to the poor (if they gave away the same %, that is). And what's more - aren't different people, you know, different? What if someone feels satisfied with giving 10 dollars/month to the local bum's booze fund, and another still feels guilty and a human failure after giving away $ 10 million to orphan Africans? How does one even
know when he's 'flourishing' and what it takes to achieve that?
Thus Aristotle, the grand-daddy of virtue ethics, says that every virtue is actually a mean between two extremes, and the best life is the one that displays each kind of behaviour to the appropriate degree and in the appropriate ways.
Other than sometimes leading to mediocre boringness, those are good instructions. Sometimes a little William Blake is needed to spice things up I think. "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction"; "The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom", etc.
(Emotivism doesn't mean doing the things that you feel are right - it means the view that ethical statements are just expressions of emotions. So if you say "Murder is wrong" that is exactly the same as "Murder - ugh!" or something - you are not ascribing a property of wrongness to murder at all. So emotivism is a theory about the nature of moral language - a meta-ethical theory - not a theory about which actions are right or wrong.)
What is the correct term, then? For doing what I feel is right? Is it simply 'following conscience' - or something more formal?
This sort of thing is of course the bread and butter of ethical philosophers, and it's supposed to help work out what our basic intuitions are. Most people would say that killing the infant Hitler would be the right thing to do. That suggests that most people think that an act that is in itself wrong may be the right thing to do if it brings about sufficient good, which supports utilitarianism. However, change the example a little, so that by killing one baby you save not millions of lives but only two lives. Would it then be the right thing to do? I think most people would hesitate to say that. And that supports a non-utilitarian position.
However, utilitarianism has the resources to combat this sort of thing. For example, a utilitarian may say that although killing one person to save the lives of two people would, in itself, be the right thing to do, the consequences of adopting that rule would be bad overall, because it would make people too ready to go around killing people. A society in which people are prepared to kill one person to save the lives of two would be a society where people would just be too blase about killing in general, and the result of that would be more bad, overall, than good. So a utilitarian, even an act utilitarian, can accommodate this sort of thing and consistently say that a certain act which might seem to maximise utility actually wouldn't, and so should not be done after all.
What about a thousand people, though? Where does the line go between unacceptable and acceptable killing? Furthermore, how exactly would society suffer if all the children that are born disfigured/injured were reported as dead and never shown to the parents, thus (eventually) cutting down handsomely on healthcare and educational expenses? I am implying that one needs the heart as well as the head here. It may be irrational and even detrimental to follow one's feelings sometimes, but they are our most human quality, even more so than our intellect imo (I believe my heart in this matter too
). In many ways they are meant to temper each other.
That's an interesting claim which suggests that you're using the word "morality" to refer to the moral codes which are actually in place, rather than objective morality in the sense you gave before. Because if you think one can talk about what moral codes "should" be in place, then you evidently think that there is an objective morality of some kind, but it is distinct from the morality that people actually follow. So it seems to me anyway.
I *feel* that it should be so. Call me sentimental, irrational, etc, if you wish. There is the logical side to it, which I already mentioned - that progress is good in itself, and utilitarianism guarantees it. But even that is ultimately rooted in emotion.
Why should we progress? I
feel that we should. Most humans have felt the same way throughout history. Maybe this has something to do with flourishing? I wish that we humans progress on all fronts
and enjoy the fruits of our progress at the same time. Is that flourishing or does it need some 'extra ingredient'?
If we consider the future, it really all depends on human activity today. If we consciously decided to stop making pills to make a man larger (for those willing to pay for it) and instead focused on making vaccines and hospitals with current technology available to third world countries, we might create an overall happiness benefit. Unfortunately, there is a greater value assigned to "absolute progress" than to "humanity's progress."
Is your father a philosophy professor?
