I’m very interested in your comment about how you can switch between two moral systems with the guide of a meta-moral system, but you only give an example of a situation where the two moral systems agree, so it is your justification of which system to use that changes. If I read that paragraph correctly, you can change between virtue ethics or utilitarianism based on what others around you will prefer. Now I’ll ask you something to explore the meta-system more deeply: what if others will prefer that you eat meat? Will you eat meat or remain utilitarian?
Or what about the trolley problem, where utilitarianism and virtue ethics give opposite answers?
No, it’s more so that I’m thinking in a way that does not have a place for what we commonly understand as morality to “live”. I have preferences, others have preferences, and what I might frame is the individual moral reasoning of a person is what happens when you flatten down their thinking to fit the assumption that there is some “correct” morality that is baked-in to the territory.
Whether or not I would eat meat because others prefer that I eat meat would depend on a lot on how they express that preference. If I lived in a society where I would be ostracized for not eating meat then I would likely eat meat because I prefer to be included in society for my own survival more than I care about the preferences of animals, but it’s hard to say for sure without being specific because it comes down to the specific tradeoffs I would have to make. The point is more that my reasoning may incidentally look like preference utilitarianism or virtue theory when viewed through the lens of the assumptions morality imposes.
I’m very interested in your comment about how you can switch between two moral systems with the guide of a meta-moral system, but you only give an example of a situation where the two moral systems agree, so it is your justification of which system to use that changes.
If I read that paragraph correctly, you can change between virtue ethics or utilitarianism based on what others around you will prefer. Now I’ll ask you something to explore the meta-system more deeply: what if others will prefer that you eat meat? Will you eat meat or remain utilitarian? Or what about the trolley problem, where utilitarianism and virtue ethics give opposite answers?
No, it’s more so that I’m thinking in a way that does not have a place for what we commonly understand as morality to “live”. I have preferences, others have preferences, and what I might frame is the individual moral reasoning of a person is what happens when you flatten down their thinking to fit the assumption that there is some “correct” morality that is baked-in to the territory.
Whether or not I would eat meat because others prefer that I eat meat would depend on a lot on how they express that preference. If I lived in a society where I would be ostracized for not eating meat then I would likely eat meat because I prefer to be included in society for my own survival more than I care about the preferences of animals, but it’s hard to say for sure without being specific because it comes down to the specific tradeoffs I would have to make. The point is more that my reasoning may incidentally look like preference utilitarianism or virtue theory when viewed through the lens of the assumptions morality imposes.