One of the things I think virtue ethics gets right is that if you think, say, lying is wrong then you should have a visceral reaction to liars. You shouldn’t like liars. I don’t think this is irrational at all (the goal isn’t to be Mr. Spock). Having a visceral reaction to liars is part of how someone who thinks lying is wrong embodies that principle as much as not lying is. If somebody claims to follow a moral principle but fails to have a visceral reaction those who break it, that’s an important cue that something is wrong. That goes doubly for yourself. Purposefully breaking that connection by avoiding becoming indignant seems like throwing away important feedback.
Purposefully breaking that connection by avoiding becoming indignant seems like throwing away important feedback.
Feedback arrives in the form of a split-second impression of “this is wrong”. However long you spend being indignant after that, it won’t provide you with any new ethical insight. Indignance isn’t about ethics, it’s about verbally crushing your enemy while signalling virtue to onlookers.
Why do you think merely having a visceral reaction to lying (one’s own or others’; actual or hypothetical) isn’t enough?
Conditional on having that visceral reaction, what is the advantage of then becoming indignant? Or do you think that becoming indignant is identical to that visceral reaction?
Why must my personal understanding of right and wrong also apply to other people? What if I think something’s wrong for me to do, but I don’t care if other people do it (e.g. procrastination)?
Why must my personal understanding of right and wrong also apply to other people? What if I think something’s wrong for me to do, but I don’t care if other people do it (e.g. procrastination)?
Because you care about other people, and other people are relevantly similar to yourself. This applies to both instrumentally relevant details, like the character of a person you’re going to hire, and more personal concern, like whether your brother is living a good life.
I’m confused. With Sidgwick, I define ‘ethics’ as ‘the study of what one has most reason to do or to want’, and take ‘moral’ to in most cases be equivalent to ‘ethical’.
Then, ‘morality’ is indeed purely personal, but being very similar creatures we can build off each others’ moral successes.
I tend to think of ‘the things I have to do to be me’ as moral, and ‘the things I have to do to fit into society’ to be ethics. In a lot of cases when someone is calling someone else immoral, it seems to me that they’re saying that that person has done something that they couldn’t do and remain who they are.
Why not? (A somewhat quirky twist that seems to crop up is that of having a powerful moral intuition that people’s morals should be personal. It can sometimes get contradictory but morals are like that.)
Usual reasons...for one things, there are other ways of describing it, such as “personal code”. For another, it renders morality pretty meaningless if someone can say “murders’ OK for me”.
I think it makes sense in the negative sense, as things that aren’t OK. What’s wrong with holding oneself to a higher standard? What’s wrong with saying “It’d be immoral for ME to murder?”
for one things, there are other ways of describing it, such as “personal code”. For another, it renders morality pretty meaningless if someone can say “murders’ OK for me”.
And yet if the same neurological hardware is being engaged in order to make social moves of a similar form ‘morality’ still seems appropriate. Especially since morals like “people should not force their view of right and wrong on others” legitimate instances of moralizing even when the moralizer tends to take other actions which aren’t consistent with the ideal. Because, as I tend to say, morals are like that.
It really gets to me that when a bunch of people gather together under some banner then it suddenly becomes moral for them to do lots of things that would never be allowed if they were acting independently: the difference between war and murder...
The only morality I want is the kind where people stop doing terrible things and then saying “they were following orders”. Personal responsibility is the ONLY kind of responsibility.
One of the things I think virtue ethics gets right is that if you think, say, lying is wrong then you should have a visceral reaction to liars. You shouldn’t like liars. I don’t think this is irrational at all (the goal isn’t to be Mr. Spock). Having a visceral reaction to liars is part of how someone who thinks lying is wrong embodies that principle as much as not lying is. If somebody claims to follow a moral principle but fails to have a visceral reaction those who break it, that’s an important cue that something is wrong. That goes doubly for yourself. Purposefully breaking that connection by avoiding becoming indignant seems like throwing away important feedback.
Feedback arrives in the form of a split-second impression of “this is wrong”. However long you spend being indignant after that, it won’t provide you with any new ethical insight. Indignance isn’t about ethics, it’s about verbally crushing your enemy while signalling virtue to onlookers.
Why do you think merely having a visceral reaction to lying (one’s own or others’; actual or hypothetical) isn’t enough?
Conditional on having that visceral reaction, what is the advantage of then becoming indignant? Or do you think that becoming indignant is identical to that visceral reaction?
Why must my personal understanding of right and wrong also apply to other people? What if I think something’s wrong for me to do, but I don’t care if other people do it (e.g. procrastination)?
Because you care about other people, and other people are relevantly similar to yourself. This applies to both instrumentally relevant details, like the character of a person you’re going to hire, and more personal concern, like whether your brother is living a good life.
Principles derivable from game theory, maybe.
If it’s purely personal, why call it moral?
I’m confused. With Sidgwick, I define ‘ethics’ as ‘the study of what one has most reason to do or to want’, and take ‘moral’ to in most cases be equivalent to ‘ethical’.
Then, ‘morality’ is indeed purely personal, but being very similar creatures we can build off each others’ moral successes.
I tend to think of ‘the things I have to do to be me’ as moral, and ‘the things I have to do to fit into society’ to be ethics. In a lot of cases when someone is calling someone else immoral, it seems to me that they’re saying that that person has done something that they couldn’t do and remain who they are.
Edit—please disregard this post
Why not? (A somewhat quirky twist that seems to crop up is that of having a powerful moral intuition that people’s morals should be personal. It can sometimes get contradictory but morals are like that.)
Usual reasons...for one things, there are other ways of describing it, such as “personal code”. For another, it renders morality pretty meaningless if someone can say “murders’ OK for me”.
I think it makes sense in the negative sense, as things that aren’t OK. What’s wrong with holding oneself to a higher standard? What’s wrong with saying “It’d be immoral for ME to murder?”
And yet if the same neurological hardware is being engaged in order to make social moves of a similar form ‘morality’ still seems appropriate. Especially since morals like “people should not force their view of right and wrong on others” legitimate instances of moralizing even when the moralizer tends to take other actions which aren’t consistent with the ideal. Because, as I tend to say, morals are like that.
What about “war is OK for me”?
It really gets to me that when a bunch of people gather together under some banner then it suddenly becomes moral for them to do lots of things that would never be allowed if they were acting independently: the difference between war and murder...
The only morality I want is the kind where people stop doing terrible things and then saying “they were following orders”. Personal responsibility is the ONLY kind of responsibility.
This path leads to an argument about the meanings of words, so I’m not going there.