FYI, normative ethics tends to include a lot more than decision theory. It also includes Kantian reasoning based on so-called “principles of rational agency”. And, in practice, it includes moral reasoning based on the morals and values that human people and societies broadly agree on. The informal evaluation of “right versus right” that we do in order to solve disputes in everyday life (assuming that these do not turn into full-blown legal or political disputes) would also fall under normative ethics, since we do broadly agree on how such “balancing” should work in general, even though we’ll disagree about specific outcomes.
FWIW, I think the term “descriptive ethics” should be taboo-ed and deprecated, because it is mildly “Othering” and patronizing. Just call it morality. Nobody thinks they are doing “descriptive ethics” when they do everyday moral reasoning based on their peculiar values. But that’s what it gets called by moral philosophers/ethicists, since “describing” morals from an outside, supposedly objective POV is what their work involves.
Um, no? To me, ‘decision theory’ means a formal object such as CDT or UDT/TDT. These have little to do with ethics persay, even though TDT apparently does capture some features of ethical reasoning, such as the “reflective” character of the Kantian categorical imperative.
Fuzzy heuristics based ethical reasoning seems to involve some screening off of the space of possible decision theories the agent regards as valid to me.
After all, our work on decision theories is to get everything to add up to normality (in the “I don’t know what friendliness is, but I know it when I see it” sense)
Perhaps we have different ideas of what “ethics” involves. To me, ethical reasoning is at its core a way of informally solving disputes by compromising among value systems. This is what Kant seems to be getting at with his talk of different “principles of rational agency”. We also include common human values as a part of “normative ethics”, but strictly speaking that should perhaps be categorized as morality.
FYI, normative ethics tends to include a lot more than decision theory. It also includes Kantian reasoning based on so-called “principles of rational agency”. And, in practice, it includes moral reasoning based on the morals and values that human people and societies broadly agree on. The informal evaluation of “right versus right” that we do in order to solve disputes in everyday life (assuming that these do not turn into full-blown legal or political disputes) would also fall under normative ethics, since we do broadly agree on how such “balancing” should work in general, even though we’ll disagree about specific outcomes.
FWIW, I think the term “descriptive ethics” should be taboo-ed and deprecated, because it is mildly “Othering” and patronizing. Just call it morality. Nobody thinks they are doing “descriptive ethics” when they do everyday moral reasoning based on their peculiar values. But that’s what it gets called by moral philosophers/ethicists, since “describing” morals from an outside, supposedly objective POV is what their work involves.
those aren’t decision theories?
Um, no? To me, ‘decision theory’ means a formal object such as CDT or UDT/TDT. These have little to do with ethics persay, even though TDT apparently does capture some features of ethical reasoning, such as the “reflective” character of the Kantian categorical imperative.
Fuzzy heuristics based ethical reasoning seems to involve some screening off of the space of possible decision theories the agent regards as valid to me.
After all, our work on decision theories is to get everything to add up to normality (in the “I don’t know what friendliness is, but I know it when I see it” sense)
Perhaps we have different ideas of what “ethics” involves. To me, ethical reasoning is at its core a way of informally solving disputes by compromising among value systems. This is what Kant seems to be getting at with his talk of different “principles of rational agency”. We also include common human values as a part of “normative ethics”, but strictly speaking that should perhaps be categorized as morality.