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 consequentialism, seeing that if it's true that the best consequences would be take these requiremesnts into consequentialist accounts of outcomes, then that is what a conequentialist would (should) say as well! The professor's answer and that of many students was: "That's just the way it is. Some things ought not be done, only because they must ought not be done". That is a hard pill for me to swallow. In this case I am much more comfortable with Eliezer's Ethical Injunctions.
(The prof was not necessarily promoting dentology but was arguing on it's behalf.)
Note that you could reverse this conversation: a deontologist could ask you why we should privilege the consequences so much, instead of just doing the right things regardless of the consequences. I would expect that your response would be pretty close to "that's just the way it is, it's the consequences that are the most important" - at least, I know that mine would be. And the deontologist would find this a very hard pill to swallow.
As Alicorn has pointed out, you can't understand deontology by requiring an explanation on consequentialism's ter...
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