Requesting clarification- On the Metaethics

Carinthium

My apologies if this doesn't deserve a Discussion post, but if this hasn't been addresed anywhere than it's clearly an important issue.

There have been many defences of consequentialism against deontology, including quite a few on this site. What I haven't seen, however, is any demonstration of how deontology is incompatible with the ideas in Elizier's Metaethics sequence- as far as I can tell, a deontologist could agree with just about everything in the Sequences.

Said deontologist would argue that, to the extent a human universial morality can exist through generalised moral instincts, said instincts tend to be deontological (as supported through scientific studies- a study of the trolley dilemna v.s the 'fat man' variant showed that people would divert the trolley but not push the fat man). This would be their argument against the consequentialist, who they could accuse of wanting a consequentialist system and ignoring the moral instincts at the basis of their own speculations.

I'm not completely sure about this, but figure it an important enough misunderstanding if I indeed misunderstood to deserve clearing up.

My apologies if this doesn't deserve a Discussion post, but if this hasn't been addresed anywhere than it's clearly an important issue.

I'm not completely sure about this, but figure it an important enough misunderstanding if I indeed misunderstood to deserve clearing up.

Deontology, Consequentialism, and Virtue ethics are not opposed, and people who argue about them have different assumptions. Basically:

Totally agree. In fact, I go as far as to declare that Deontologic value systems and Consequentialist systems can be converted between each other (so long as the system of representing consequentialist values is suitably versatile). This isn't to say such a conversion is always easy and it does rely on reflecting off an epistemic model but it can be done.

To the extent that you are an agent, you are concerned with the consequences of your actions, because you exist to have an effect on the actual world.

I'm not sure this is true. Why can't we can something that doesn't care about consequences an agent? Assuming, of course, that they are a suitably advanced and coherent person? Like take a human deontologist who stubbornly sticks to the deontological values and ignores consequences then dismiss as irrelevant that small part of them that feels sad about the consequences. That still seems to deserve being called an agent.

To the extent that you are a person (existing in a society), you should follow rules that forbid murder, lying, and leaving the toolbox in a mess, and compel politeness, helping others, and whatnot. A good person does not make a good agent, because what a person should do (for example, help an injured bird) often makes no sense from a consequentialist POV.

I'd actually say a person shouldn't help an injured bird. Usually it is better from both an efficiency standpoint and a humanitarian standpoint to just kill it and prevent short term suffering and negligible long term prospects of successfully recovering to functioning in the wild. But part of my intuitive experience here is that my intuitions for what makes a 'good person' has been corrupted by my consequentialist values to a greater extent that in has for some others. Sometimes my efforts at social influence and behaviour are governed somewhat more than average by my decision-theory intuitions. For example my 'should' advocates lying in some situations where others may say people 'shouldn't' lie (even if they themselves lie hypocritically).

I'm curious Nyan. You're someone who has developed an interesting philosophy regarding ethics in earlier posts and one that I essentially agree with. I am wondering to what extent your instantiation of 'should' makes no sense from a consequentialist POV. Mine mostly makes sense but only once 'ethical inhibitions' and consideration of second order and unexpected consequences are accounted for. Some of it also only makes sense in consequentialist frameworks where having a preference for negative consequences to occur in response to certain actions is accepted as a legitimate intrinsic value.

I can see how to convert a Consequentialist system into a series of Deontological rules with exceptions. However, not all Deontological systems can be converted to Consequentialist systems. Deontological systems usually contain Absolute Moral Wrongs which are not to be done no matter what, even if they will lead to even more Absolute Moral Wrongs.

2kalium13y

As for helping birds, it depends on the type of injury. If it's been mauled by a cat, you're probably right. But if it's concussed after flying into a wall or window---a very common bird injury---and isn't dead yet, apparently it has decent odds of full recovery if you discourage it from moving and keep predators away for an hour or few. (The way to discourage a bird from moving and possibly hurting itself is to keep it in a dark confined space such as a shoebox. My roommate used to transport pigeons this way and they really didn't seem to mind it.) Regarding the rest of the post, I'll have to think about it before coming up with a reply.