I have a suspicion that some form of moral particularism is the most sensible moral theory. 10% confidence.
Moral particularism is the view that there are no moral principles and that moral judgement can be found only as one decides particular cases, either real or imagined. This stands in stark contrast to other prominent moral theories, such as deontology or utilitarianism. In the former, it is asserted that people have a set of duties (that are to be considered or respected); in the latter, people are to respect the happiness or the preferences of others in their actions. Particularism, to the contrary, asserts that there are no overriding principles that are applicable in every case, or that can be abstracted to apply to every case.
According to particularism, most notably defended by Jonathan Dancy, moral knowledge should be understood as knowledge of moral rules of thumb, which are not principles, and of particular solutions, which can be used by analogy in new cases.
Perhaps a workable restatement would be something like:
“Any attempt to formalize and extract our moral intuitions and judgements of how we should act in various situations will just produce a hopelessly complicated and inconsistent mess, whose judgements are very different from those of prescribed by any form of utilitarianism, deontology, or any other ethical theory that strives to be consistent. In most cases, any attempt of using a reflective equilibrium / extrapolated volition -type approach to clarify matters will leave things essentially unchanged, except for a small fraction of individuals whose moral intuitions are highly atypical (and who tend to be vastly overrepresented on this site).”
(I don’t actually know how well this describes the actual theories for particularism.)
I agree that your restatement is internally consistent.
I don’t see how such a theory would really be “sensible,” in terms of being helpful during moral dilemmas. If it turns out that moral intuitions are totally inconsistent, doesn’t “think it over and then trust your gut” give the same recommendations, fit the profile of being deontological, and have the advantage of being easy to remember?
I guess if you were interested in a purely descriptive theory of morality I could conceive of this being the best way to handle things for a long time, but it still flies in the face of the idea that morality was shaped by economic pressures and should therefore have an economic shape, which I find lots of support for, so my upvote remains with my credence being maybe .5%-1%, I think about 2 decibels lower than yours.
Irrationality game
I have a suspicion that some form of moral particularism is the most sensible moral theory. 10% confidence.
Upvoted for too low a probability.
What do you mean by the “most sensible moral theory”?
And what the hell does Dancy mean if he says that there are rules of thumb that aren’t principles?
I would weight this lower than .01% just because of my credence that it’s incoherent.
Perhaps a workable restatement would be something like:
“Any attempt to formalize and extract our moral intuitions and judgements of how we should act in various situations will just produce a hopelessly complicated and inconsistent mess, whose judgements are very different from those of prescribed by any form of utilitarianism, deontology, or any other ethical theory that strives to be consistent. In most cases, any attempt of using a reflective equilibrium / extrapolated volition -type approach to clarify matters will leave things essentially unchanged, except for a small fraction of individuals whose moral intuitions are highly atypical (and who tend to be vastly overrepresented on this site).”
(I don’t actually know how well this describes the actual theories for particularism.)
I agree that your restatement is internally consistent.
I don’t see how such a theory would really be “sensible,” in terms of being helpful during moral dilemmas. If it turns out that moral intuitions are totally inconsistent, doesn’t “think it over and then trust your gut” give the same recommendations, fit the profile of being deontological, and have the advantage of being easy to remember?
I guess if you were interested in a purely descriptive theory of morality I could conceive of this being the best way to handle things for a long time, but it still flies in the face of the idea that morality was shaped by economic pressures and should therefore have an economic shape, which I find lots of support for, so my upvote remains with my credence being maybe .5%-1%, I think about 2 decibels lower than yours.
In the turing machine sense, sure. In the “this is all you should know” sense, no way, have an upvote.