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.

I have a rant on this subject that I've been meaning to write.

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

Consequence:Agents :: Deontology:People :: Virtue:Humans

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. A good agent does not make a good person, because a good agent is an unsympathetic sociopath, and not even sentient.

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.

To the extent that you are human, you are motivated by Virtue and ideas, because that's just how the meat happens to work.

If you were to have a rant, you might have to give more examples, or more thorough ones, because I'm not quite getting your explanation.

I'm just posting this because otherwise there would've been an inferential silence.

2wedrifid13y

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. [...] 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. [...] 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

1Shmi13y

You mean, by habits and instincts, right?