= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Kaj_Sotala comments on Deontology for Consequentialists - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (247)
What has never stopped bewildering me is the question of why anyone should consider such a possible world relevant to their individual decision-making. I know Kant has some... tangled, Kantian argument regarding this, but does anyone who isn't a die-hard Kantian have any sensible reason on hand for considering the counterfactual "What if everyone did the same"?
Everyone doing X is not even a remotely likely consequence of me doing X. Maybe this is to beg the question of consequences mattering in the first place. But I suppose I have no idea what use deontology is if it doesn't boil down to consequentialism at some level... or, particularly, I have no idea what use it is if it makes appeals to impossibly unlikely consequences like "Everyone lying all the time," instead of likely ones.
I thought of one possible reason that would make deontology "justifiable" in consequentialist terms. Those classic "my decision has negligible effect by itself, but if everyone made the same decision, it would be good/bad" situations, like "should I bother voting" or "is okay if I shoplift". If everyone were consequentialists, each might individually decide that the effect of their action is negligible, and thus end up not voting or deciding that shoplifting was okay, with disastrous effects for society. In contrast, if more people were deontologists, they'd do the right thing even if the effect of their individual decision probably didn't change anything.