The first is claiming (or at least, assuming) that ethics are “monolithics”, that either they come from willpower alone, or they don’t come from willpower at all. Willpower do play a role in ethics, every time your ethical system contradicts the instinct, or unconscious, part of your mind. Be it to resist the temptation of a beautiful member of the opposite (or same, depending of your tastes) sex, overcome the fear of spiders or withstand torture to not betray your friends. I would say that ethics require willpower, and that someone with weak willpower will act less ethically, even according to himself, because he’ll more easily let the subconscious part of his mind override the conscious one. But willpower will not define ethics. Someone with a strong willpower can be unethical, Hitler or Stalin probably had a very strong willpower. So willpower is required to act ethically, but is not enough to make us act ethically. That’s an important distinction.
The second point is that “choice” and “willpower” means different things. Choice is how an algorithm feels from inside. Choice is the mental process of examining what you could do, and deciding from that what you should do. It doesn’t necessarily involve willpower. It’ll only do so when the subconscious part of your mind really push one way, but your ethical system, in your conscious mind, says the opposite.
I do not need any willpower to answer when asked “what time is it” or give directions around. I do need a bit willpower to help a single woman carrying a stroller in stairs at the train station, because well, it’s heavy and it hurts a bit in my arms to do that (yeah, I’m not very strong physically...). I need much more willpower to act as human shield to protect an “illegal” immigrants from armed cops, and withstand the teargas, as I did once. But in none of those cases is willpower the source of my morality.
And sometimes it becomes a bit tricky : I need more willpower to not give a coin to a beggar than to give a coin to a beggar. But I don’t often give coins to beggars, because my constructed ethical system tells me it’s usually more efficient to give to a trusted charity than to give to a beggar (I may be wrong on that, but doesn’t matter here). So here I need willpower to not be ethical in a given situation, so I can be more ethical (or at I least I think so) later on. That does correspond to the end of the article with the old lady and the boy scouts.
I think there are two “mistakes” in the article.
The first is claiming (or at least, assuming) that ethics are “monolithics”, that either they come from willpower alone, or they don’t come from willpower at all. Willpower do play a role in ethics, every time your ethical system contradicts the instinct, or unconscious, part of your mind. Be it to resist the temptation of a beautiful member of the opposite (or same, depending of your tastes) sex, overcome the fear of spiders or withstand torture to not betray your friends. I would say that ethics require willpower, and that someone with weak willpower will act less ethically, even according to himself, because he’ll more easily let the subconscious part of his mind override the conscious one. But willpower will not define ethics. Someone with a strong willpower can be unethical, Hitler or Stalin probably had a very strong willpower. So willpower is required to act ethically, but is not enough to make us act ethically. That’s an important distinction.
The second point is that “choice” and “willpower” means different things. Choice is how an algorithm feels from inside. Choice is the mental process of examining what you could do, and deciding from that what you should do. It doesn’t necessarily involve willpower. It’ll only do so when the subconscious part of your mind really push one way, but your ethical system, in your conscious mind, says the opposite.
I do not need any willpower to answer when asked “what time is it” or give directions around. I do need a bit willpower to help a single woman carrying a stroller in stairs at the train station, because well, it’s heavy and it hurts a bit in my arms to do that (yeah, I’m not very strong physically...). I need much more willpower to act as human shield to protect an “illegal” immigrants from armed cops, and withstand the teargas, as I did once. But in none of those cases is willpower the source of my morality.
And sometimes it becomes a bit tricky : I need more willpower to not give a coin to a beggar than to give a coin to a beggar. But I don’t often give coins to beggars, because my constructed ethical system tells me it’s usually more efficient to give to a trusted charity than to give to a beggar (I may be wrong on that, but doesn’t matter here). So here I need willpower to not be ethical in a given situation, so I can be more ethical (or at I least I think so) later on. That does correspond to the end of the article with the old lady and the boy scouts.