It’s trivial to put any act-based moral theory in simple deontological terms. Simply see what act the theory would recommend, and then insist that all must follow the rule “Subject S must take action A at time T”.
As was helpfully alluded to at the end of the second paper, virtue ethics can’t necessarily be consequentialized. In particular, some virtue/character ethics proponents suggest that acts are not the proper purview of ethics—those variations of virtue ethics do not necessarily provide any concrete recommendations as to whether one action is preferred to another, in general or in a particular situation. Rather, on some views, virtue ethics tries to answer “What is a good man?” or “What is the good life?”—questions that simply are not addressed by an act-based ethics.
Hm. I can certainly see how “Everyone must take those actions that they most expect to improve the state of the world” can be treated as a restatement of certain kinds of nominally non-rule-based moral systems in terms of rules. But trying to restate that principle as a set of rules governing what specific acts specific individuals must perform at specific times strikes me as far from trivial.
It’s trivial to put any act-based moral theory in simple deontological terms. Simply see what act the theory would recommend, and then insist that all must follow the rule “Subject S must take action A at time T”.
As was helpfully alluded to at the end of the second paper, virtue ethics can’t necessarily be consequentialized. In particular, some virtue/character ethics proponents suggest that acts are not the proper purview of ethics—those variations of virtue ethics do not necessarily provide any concrete recommendations as to whether one action is preferred to another, in general or in a particular situation. Rather, on some views, virtue ethics tries to answer “What is a good man?” or “What is the good life?”—questions that simply are not addressed by an act-based ethics.
Hm.
I can certainly see how “Everyone must take those actions that they most expect to improve the state of the world” can be treated as a restatement of certain kinds of nominally non-rule-based moral systems in terms of rules.
But trying to restate that principle as a set of rules governing what specific acts specific individuals must perform at specific times strikes me as far from trivial.
Trivial at one end, very involved at the other. I’m not sure the various methods of consequentializing that were suggested fare significantly better.
That bit was introduced in the same spirit as:
Q:”Bungee jumping is so safe, how could someone die doing it?”
A:”I could drink poison while bungee jumping.”
At which point “Why the hell would you want to do that?!” might be an appropriate response.