This all seems to have more to do with rule consequentialism than deontology. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and rule consequentialism has indeed been considered a halfway point between deontology and act consequentialism, but it’s worth noting.
Some heuristics for identifying areas in which many thoughts are likely to have already been thought, in the form of questions: is this area of thought old? Is it important? Does it seem plausible that many smart people have thought about it before? Taking the outside view, am I in a position, whether because of historical circumstance or unusual credentials, to reasonably expect not to have the same thoughts about this issue than other smart people have had?
(Failure to use these heuristics is one way to become a crackpot.)
I sympathize. One of my professors jokes about having discovered a new optical illusion, then going to the literature and having the incredible good luck that for once nobody else discovered it first.
The thing is, to deal with any real problem, one has to work out the details. In practical application, consequentialists will have to deal with all the same facts of reality that deontologist do, and vice versa. From our last go around, I was increasingly wondering whether the difference between consequentialists and deontologists go to zero in application, and whether they’re just arguing over structural commitments in their language model.
I am aware that they often come to different and stereotyped conclusions, but that could have more to do with differences in underlying moral preferences, and a failure to truly drive home to the details. My guess is we all have a bit of each in us, but prefer one or the other according to how well it facilitates our preferred conclusions.
Rule consequentliasm becomes the natural way for someone insisting on consequentialism to try to take care of deontological concerns.
They get farther by recognizing that acts are events too. What is a consequence, but an event? If you can have preferences over events, you can have preferences over acts, and you can get to have all the preferences a deontologist does, and still call yourself a consequentialist.
To reverse your last point, Sam Harris (The Moral Landscape) defends RC on the grounds that only that which is experienced can be morally significant. While agreeing, I would reply that the motivation of acts is experienced, as well as the consequences. EG: Should you vote if you live in a safe seat? You could argue that the rule “vote anyway” has beneficial consequences, but then, so does the rule “vote, except in safe seats”. RC doesn’t actually invent the rules, it only tells you how to evaluate them once invented! However, I would vote anyway because I wish to be the sort of person who does. (NB, I didn’t say “become”). That’s an example of a D-ish argument that is based on conscious experience and, it seems to me, is a valid supplement to a generally RC-based outlook.
By my understanding, rule consequentialism means choosing rules according to the utility of the expected consequences, whereas deontology argues for a duty to follow a rule for reasons which may have nothing to do with the consequences. Kant’s “treat another person as an end in him/herself, not as a means to an end” doesn’t mention consequences and the argument for it isn’t based on assessment of consequences. Admittedly both sorts of rule may lead to the same outcome in most cases, but in totally unprecedented moral dilemmas it helps to have an idea where the rule comes from. My prejudice is that rule consequentialism is the best basis for public policy, but deontology sometimes better captures the essence of what matters in cases of private morality.
This all seems to have more to do with rule consequentialism than deontology. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and rule consequentialism has indeed been considered a halfway point between deontology and act consequentialism, but it’s worth noting.
Note to self: it’s much more difficult to have original thought than I think it is.
Some heuristics for identifying areas in which many thoughts are likely to have already been thought, in the form of questions: is this area of thought old? Is it important? Does it seem plausible that many smart people have thought about it before? Taking the outside view, am I in a position, whether because of historical circumstance or unusual credentials, to reasonably expect not to have the same thoughts about this issue than other smart people have had?
(Failure to use these heuristics is one way to become a crackpot.)
I sympathize. One of my professors jokes about having discovered a new optical illusion, then going to the literature and having the incredible good luck that for once nobody else discovered it first.
The thing is, to deal with any real problem, one has to work out the details. In practical application, consequentialists will have to deal with all the same facts of reality that deontologist do, and vice versa. From our last go around, I was increasingly wondering whether the difference between consequentialists and deontologists go to zero in application, and whether they’re just arguing over structural commitments in their language model.
I am aware that they often come to different and stereotyped conclusions, but that could have more to do with differences in underlying moral preferences, and a failure to truly drive home to the details. My guess is we all have a bit of each in us, but prefer one or the other according to how well it facilitates our preferred conclusions.
Rule consequentliasm becomes the natural way for someone insisting on consequentialism to try to take care of deontological concerns.
They get farther by recognizing that acts are events too. What is a consequence, but an event? If you can have preferences over events, you can have preferences over acts, and you can get to have all the preferences a deontologist does, and still call yourself a consequentialist.
To reverse your last point, Sam Harris (The Moral Landscape) defends RC on the grounds that only that which is experienced can be morally significant. While agreeing, I would reply that the motivation of acts is experienced, as well as the consequences. EG: Should you vote if you live in a safe seat? You could argue that the rule “vote anyway” has beneficial consequences, but then, so does the rule “vote, except in safe seats”. RC doesn’t actually invent the rules, it only tells you how to evaluate them once invented! However, I would vote anyway because I wish to be the sort of person who does. (NB, I didn’t say “become”). That’s an example of a D-ish argument that is based on conscious experience and, it seems to me, is a valid supplement to a generally RC-based outlook.
By my understanding, rule consequentialism means choosing rules according to the utility of the expected consequences, whereas deontology argues for a duty to follow a rule for reasons which may have nothing to do with the consequences. Kant’s “treat another person as an end in him/herself, not as a means to an end” doesn’t mention consequences and the argument for it isn’t based on assessment of consequences. Admittedly both sorts of rule may lead to the same outcome in most cases, but in totally unprecedented moral dilemmas it helps to have an idea where the rule comes from. My prejudice is that rule consequentialism is the best basis for public policy, but deontology sometimes better captures the essence of what matters in cases of private morality.