Eugine_Nier comments on Are Deontological Moral Judgments Rationalizations? - Less Wrong

37 Post author: lukeprog 16 August 2011 04:40PM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 19 August 2011 05:12:13AM 2 points [-]

Why not trust that people only directly dealing with numbers are normal when they implement cold-blooded utilitarianism? Why not have many important decisions made abstractly by such people? Is wanting to make decisions this way, remote from the consequences and up a few meta-levels, a barbaric thing to advocate?

During the 20th century some societies have attempted to implement more-or-less that policy. The results certainly justify the adjective barbaric.

Comment author: lessdazed 19 August 2011 11:17:01AM -1 points [-]

But most of the people remained relatively normal throughout. So virtue ethics needs a huge patch to approximate consequentialism.

You are providing a consequentialist argument for a base of virtue ethics plus making sure no one makes abstract decisions, but I don't see how preventing people from making abstract decisions emerges naturally from virtue ethics at all.

I agree with your comment in one sense and was trying to imply it, as the bad results are not prevented by virtue ethics alone. On the other hand, you have provided a consequentialist argument that I think valid and was hinting towards.