I’ve been wondering if it makes sense to think of ethical philosophies as different classes of modeling assumptions:
Any moral statement can be expressed using the language of consequentialism, deontology or virtue ethics. The statements can therefore be translated from one framework to another. In that sense, the frameworks are equivalent. However, some statements are much easier to express in a given language.
Sometimes, we make models of ethics to explore the underlying rules that make an ethical statement “true”. We try to predict whether an ethical statement is true using information from other, closely related ethical statements. However, ethical statements are multidimensional and therefore vary across many different axes. Two ethical statements can be closely related on one axis, and completely different from each other on another axis. In order to learn about the underlying rules, we have to specify which axis we are going to make modeling assumptions on. The choice will determine whether you call yourself a “consequentialist” or a “deontologist”.
Problems such as “the repugnant conclusion” and “being so honest that you tell a murderer where your children are” occur when we extrapolate too far along this axis, and end up way beyond the range of problems that the model is fit to.
I’ve been wondering if it makes sense to think of ethical philosophies as different classes of modeling assumptions:
Any moral statement can be expressed using the language of consequentialism, deontology or virtue ethics. The statements can therefore be translated from one framework to another. In that sense, the frameworks are equivalent. However, some statements are much easier to express in a given language.
Sometimes, we make models of ethics to explore the underlying rules that make an ethical statement “true”. We try to predict whether an ethical statement is true using information from other, closely related ethical statements. However, ethical statements are multidimensional and therefore vary across many different axes. Two ethical statements can be closely related on one axis, and completely different from each other on another axis. In order to learn about the underlying rules, we have to specify which axis we are going to make modeling assumptions on. The choice will determine whether you call yourself a “consequentialist” or a “deontologist”.
Problems such as “the repugnant conclusion” and “being so honest that you tell a murderer where your children are” occur when we extrapolate too far along this axis, and end up way beyond the range of problems that the model is fit to.