Good luck. Nearly everything currently written on morality is horribly wrong. I took a few ethics classes, and they are mostly junk. Maybe things are better in proper philosophy, but I doubt it.
I have a hunch things are a good bit better in proper philosophy than you think. Admittedly, most intro and medium level courses regarding ethics are pretty terrible (this is obviously only from personal experience.) If I had to make a guess as to why that is, it'd probably be for the same reason I think most of the rest of philosophy courses could be better: too much focus on history.
In my intermediate level course, we barely talk about history at all. It is supposed to focus on "developments" in the last thirty years or so. The problem I have is that most profs think that philosophy is able to go about figuring out the truth without things like empirism, scientific study, neuroscience, probability and decision theory. Everything is very "intuitive" and I find that difficult to grasp.
For example, when discussing deontolgy, I asked why there should be absolute "requirements" as an argument against consequen...
Hi everyone,
If this has been covered before, I apologize for the clutter and ask to be redirected to the appropriate article or post.
I am increasingly confused about normative theories. I've read both Eliezer's and Luke's meta ethics sequences as well as some of nyan's posts, but I felt even more confused afterwards. Further, I happen to be a philosophy student right now, and I'm worried that the ideas presented in my ethics classes are misguided and "conceptually corrupt" that is, the focus seems to be on defining terms over and over again, as opposed to taking account of real effects of moral ideas in the actual world.
I am looking for two things: first, a guide as to which reductionist moral theories approximate what LW rationalists tend to think are correct. Second, how can I go about my ethics courses without going insane?
Sorry if this seems overly aggressive, I am perhaps wrongfully frustrated right now.
Jeremy