The Glade 4.0 :: View topic - Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?

Vindicarre wrote:

In what way is utilitarianism a "reliable indicator for personal morality"?

Take the example of the Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens given in the lecture.

Without consequential ethics, everyone on the boat dies. Yet some people would have you believe they were wrong for their acts...that the only "moral" action would be the one that results in them all dying.

That's just stupid. If the majority of humanity really thought that way, we'd have been extinct a hundred thousand years ago. But despite what we like to think we would do, in reality, we're almost all consequentialist. People do what they have to do. And that's how it should be, if the species is to survive and prosper.

Or, to put it in "Vulcan" logic, for you trekkies, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

Author:	Mookhow [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:43 am ]
Post subject:	Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?
I found a YT series released by Harvard University called Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? (Apparently the right thing to do does not involve capitalizing titles correctly) It seem to be a series of lectures on philosophy and morality by Michael Sandel. I'm not sure if it's a normal class that they're recording or if it's a series of special lectures. I thought it was an interesting series. Kind of like Hellfire, but without the flaming. Episode 3 (I think) focuses on libertarianism.

Author:	Corolinth [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:47 am ]
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That's not a regular class - that's an auditorium, not a lecture hall.

Author:	Vindicarre [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:39 am ]
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I saw the series on PBS a couple (?) of years back, it looks like it's an online course open to everyone now. Pretty cool.

Author:	Corolinth [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:07 pm ]
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MIT has done something similar with its physics lectures. I believe they've opened up their undergraduate physics program and made all of the material freely available to anyone with an internet connection.

Author:	Hopwin [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:19 pm ]
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Most of the Ivy League schools offer at least part of their curriculum free online. If you are interested here are 800 some odd broken down by topic, course or school: http://freevideolectures.com/

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Author:	Talya [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:50 pm ]
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Huh. Interesting. These lectures leave me more out of touch with the mainstream than before. Utilitarian ethics just make more sense. The more of this that I watch, the more inclined I am to use a consequentialist approach to judge an act. It is simply more logical. You can use basic math to make your decision, rather than relying on opinion and metaphysical nonsense.

Author:	Vindicarre [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:00 pm ]
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Using consequentialism as your basis may seem fine for you to practice, not so much if everyone did it.

Author:	Elmarnieh [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:12 pm ]
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Murder is easy to justify in utilitarian ethics.

Author:	Diamondeye [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:09 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?
You can't use "basic math" to make ethical decisions at all. Ultimately, the quantification of any ethical choice is based on subjective assessment, so whatever your "math" tells you is what you wanted it to in the first place. This is where arguments inevitably simply devolve into talking about how bankrupt the other side is for not using your own weighting. Take, for example, a simple question of whether children should be required to wear bike helmets. Many on the left will simply weight highly the prevention of injury while handwaving away any concern over the damage to parental rights and responsibility, while many on the right will denounce government interference and the erosion of parental authority while poo-pooing the prevention of injury. There's objective harm and objective benefit in both choices, but since it's impossible to actually quanitfy how much is in either, and utilitarian argument, even if both sides agree utilitarianism is best, devolves into a shouting match and a contest to see who can better appeal to emotion.

Author:	Corolinth [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:49 pm ]
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Objection to a particular form of ethics generally arises when it clashes with one's favorite tautologically defined code of morals.

Author:	Diamondeye [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:57 pm ]
Post subject:	Re:
Corolinth wrote: Objection to a particular form of ethics generally arises when it clashes with one's favorite tautologically defined code of morals. Usually, yes, but this is not because most forms of ethics are flawless. Ultimately, all of them eventually create a situation where some absurdity is demanded simply for compliance with the ethical system for its own sake; in other words, one must do something aburd in order to be ethical because consistency is valued over all else. In the case of Utilitarian ethics, however, it's worse because utilitarian ethics can be used to vehemently support or object to almost any position. When one rejects utilitarian ethics, it's usually because the person really just objects to the assessment of relative benefit and harm, and does not realize that one does not need to necessarily agree with anyone else's subjective weighting. This is ultimately what makes the system so worthless; it does nothing but produce antagonistic ranting. In principle its a great idea, but it runs smack into the fact that it is utterly dependent on quantifying something that can't really be quantified except in very general terms.

Author:	Talya [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:49 pm ]
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Yes, there are still subjective elements. "Greatest good for the greatest number" should result in, on average, better results for more people, but there is at least two problems with it: (1) The aforementioned disagreements on qualitative elements, and (2) we are not all that great at predicting the greatest good for the greatest number. See, some would argue communism was designed to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. Maybe that was its intent, it's hard to say, however, it utterly failed in this regard. The poorest people of western society were better off economically than the average person behind the iron curtain. I'm not saying it's a good system of government. I'm saying it's about the only reliable indicator for personal morality. Everything else people are just making up as they go along.

Author:	Vindicarre [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:01 pm ]
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In what way is utilitarianism a "reliable indicator for personal morality"?

Author:	Talya [ Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:13 pm ]
Post subject:	Re:
Vindicarre wrote: In what way is utilitarianism a "reliable indicator for personal morality"? Take the example of the Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens given in the lecture. Without consequential ethics, everyone on the boat dies. Yet some people would have you believe they were wrong for their acts...that the only "moral" action would be the one that results in them all dying. That's just stupid. If the majority of humanity really thought that way, we'd have been extinct a hundred thousand years ago. But despite what we like to think we would do, in reality, we're almost all consequentialist. People do what they have to do. And that's how it should be, if the species is to survive and prosper. Or, to put it in "Vulcan" logic, for you trekkies, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

Author:	Vindicarre [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:28 am ]
Post subject:	Re:
Mookhow wrote: It's hard to "get" Kant. In such a limited time as allowed by a couple of lectures, yes, it is.

Author:	Talya [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 2:34 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Re:
1) A human can generally only live 3 days without freshwater. you can stretch it by drinking too little, but not very far. Their choices were, "Murder and live, or die." 2&3) The reliable indicator is that people must do what they need to do to ensure that they and their own survive. Ultimately, if you expect someone to lie there and give up and die, or let their child die, just to respect the lives or property of others, well, you're not being realistic. There is no virtue in accepting your fate and allowing some ill-conceived moral code decide your fate. It is the natural duty of a parent in most species of mammals to protect the lives of their children at all costs. Humans are no different - it is ingrained into every instinct we have. Any parent who wouldn't do anything at all to provide for their children, out of absolute dire necessity, is ultimately not willing to fulfill the responsibility of their charge. Does that mean that their potential victims should just roll over and let them? Of course not. They have their own duties. But I will not morally judge a person for necessity. What must be done, must be done. The only priorities that matter are the results you favor, not some nebulous concept of "right and wrong." So those results end up becoming the definition of right and wrong.

Author:	Vindicarre [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:14 pm ]
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Taly, 1) No their chioices were not to kill or die. Humans have lived for multiples of 3 days without water. They had water. They were rescued 4-5 days later. You're attempting to fashion this into a false dichotomy, which, in your mind, better suits your argument. The facts don't support what you are attempting to argue. 2) The system you are describing is not utilitarianism.

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Author:	Elmarnieh [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:09 am ]
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Nope Taly - the most likely outcome would be that one person would die of natural causes and then the rest would eat them. This is the major issue with utilitarian approaches - one must assume an outcome when the actual outcomes can vary widely.

Author:	Mookhow [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:21 am ]
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It's hard to "get" Kant.

Author:	Vindicarre [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:27 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Re:
Talya wrote: Vindicarre wrote: In what way is utilitarianism a "reliable indicator for personal morality"? Take the example of the Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens given in the lecture. Without consequential ethics, everyone on the boat dies. Yet some people would have you believe they were wrong for their acts...that the only "moral" action would be the one that results in them all dying. That's just stupid. If the majority of humanity really thought that way, we'd have been extinct a hundred thousand years ago. But despite what we like to think we would do, in reality, we're almost all consequentialist. People do what they have to do. And that's how it should be, if the species is to survive and prosper. Or, to put it in "Vulcan" logic, for you trekkies, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. 1) It cannot be said that they would all have died without taking the life of Parker. They caught rainwater, and were rescued 4-5 days after killing Parker. 2) What "reliable indicator for personal morality" was shown by the actions of Dudley, Stephens and Brooks? What "reliable indicator for personal morality" is shown by "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"? 3) If it can be said that necessity is a defense against a charge of murder, who is to say that the necessity of my child having food tonight isn't worth my killing whomever has money for me to buy food for my child? or a car so I can go to work? or a new dress for my wife?

Author:	Elmarnieh [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:16 pm ]
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We aren't talking about what people do in reality Taly - we are talking about philosophy - what is the RIGHT thing to do.

Author:	Talya [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re:
Elmarnieh wrote: We aren't talking about what people do in reality Taly - we are talking about philosophy - what is the RIGHT thing to do. You're not talking about reality, you're talking about fantasy. Because the entire concept of an ideological "RIGHT thing to do" is just that. The right thing to do is always ultimately determined by the results.

Author:	Elmarnieh [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:18 pm ]
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The system Taly describes requires no thought of one's own actions for whatever one chooses is obviously right by the fact that it was chosen. It's about as robust as a line of reasoning from a 3rd grader.

Author:	Vindicarre [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:21 pm ]
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Which is why I made my initial statement: "Using consequentialism as your basis may seem fine for you to practice, not so much if everyone did it."

Author:	Xequecal [ Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:24 pm ]
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I would have to agree that utilitarian ethics is the only way to go. For example, the US propping up fascist dictators during the Cold War is certainly incredibly immoral on any kind of black and white ethics system, we helped them massacre people. Hell, we even overthrew legitimately democratically-elected governments when it suited us. But how many people, especially conservatives who are much more likely to espouse black-and-white ethics, are going to say we shouldn't have done any of that? The fact is we did it because it would have been worse for us if we hadn't, and everyone else can get ****.