In addition, though, as humans acquire more knowledge of and more power over their environment, the set of possible behaviors keeps changing (usually, by increasing in size). This presents a problem for the deontologist, who has to invent new maxims just to keep up (as well as convincing others to use the new maxims which, as you recall, are entirely arbitrary), as well as to possibly revise existing maxims (ditto). The consequentialist, on the other hand, can apply his existing utility function to the new behaviors, or plug the new data into it, in order to come up with a reasonable re-evaluation of the morality (or lack thereof) of each behavior.
Upvoted for this, and the excellent (if trivial) digital copying example.
I will add that progress in such cases may also sometimes be made by attempting to discern just what are the origins of our moral intuitions about the wrongness of theft, seeing if those intuitions may be decomposed, and whether they may be reconstructed to yield some concepts that are appropriate to the digital realm. (I’ve got an essay where I attempt to do just that for software piracy, which I may post online at some point...)
The general principle here is that since the basis of our consequentialism systems is the contents of our brains, we can refer to the source material for guidance (or attempt to, anyway). With deontology, since it doesn’t reduce to anything, that move is not open to us. (I think. I remain unclear about where the rules in a deontological system come from.)
Upvoted for this, and the excellent (if trivial) digital copying example.
I will add that progress in such cases may also sometimes be made by attempting to discern just what are the origins of our moral intuitions about the wrongness of theft, seeing if those intuitions may be decomposed, and whether they may be reconstructed to yield some concepts that are appropriate to the digital realm. (I’ve got an essay where I attempt to do just that for software piracy, which I may post online at some point...)
The general principle here is that since the basis of our consequentialism systems is the contents of our brains, we can refer to the source material for guidance (or attempt to, anyway). With deontology, since it doesn’t reduce to anything, that move is not open to us. (I think. I remain unclear about where the rules in a deontological system come from.)