New answers tagged ethics
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Are social medias unethical on the basis that they are too addictive?
Social media platforms, like TikTok and Instagram, indeed have a significant impact on our time and attention. They are designed to be addictive, with algorithms that keep us engaged for longer ...
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Was 'life' inherently/objectively good in Nietzsche's philosophy? How to overcome Nihilism?
"one has to live life and was kind of an advocate for stoicism"
Stoicism?
Stoicism?
Nietzsche was an advocate of freedom. And joy and dance, the opposite of gravity. He destroyed God and ...
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A basic question about morality in the present day
First, allow me to point out that human intelligence is a spectrum. There always has been (and always will be) a variance in capacity for analytic thought; that's just normal. I'd even argue that ...
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A basic question about morality in the present day
Excellent point.
First, what are morals? Morals are the set of rules that a human group agrees to in order to interact constructively. In other words, it is a set of rules that enable (or at least ...
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The action matters if intention its to just take good action and not action itself?
If I may rephrase your question to understand it better (please comment if I misunderstood you):
If I perform an action that I think is a good action (i.e. the best possible action for others) ...
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A basic question about morality in the present day
Clearly yes.
One of my most brilliant teachers — top of mensa — said to me:
All my life I've tried to make the creme de la creme (in CS). Microsoft beat me to it: Now everyone uses a computer.
And ...
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A basic question about morality in the present day
There is a phenomenon you have noticed, and it is a widespread decline in trust in "reasoning".
For several hundred years, the Enlightenment values promoted reasoning as a method to achieve ...
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What does Levinas' encounter with the Other mean/imply?
Levinas is a bit hard to read, but you've already anticipated a connection between Levinas and Descartes regarding the idea of the infinite (though Levinas treats this in a different way), so you aren'...
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How does Kant's philosophy answer the "fleshy object" objection?
This is a tricky issue because of Kant's position that his empirical realism and transcendental idealism are two sides of the same doctrine (A edition of the CPR). Let me examine your question closely:...
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The action matters if intention its to just take good action and not action itself?
A precept in Buddhism:
Do good, avoid evil.
The Doctrine (Principle) of Double Effect:
SEP Article - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/
The doctrine (or principle) of double effect ...
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The action matters if intention its to just take good action and not action itself?
You ask: Is it enough to do good actions even if sometimes they result from a selfish will?
Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals starts
Nothing in the world - or out of it - can possibly ...
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A basic question about morality in the present day
My friend once told me a vision he had called The Golden Frog. He was sitting by a pond in the Northeast when a golden frog appeared on sunny rock. The frog said, "I live in two worlds". ...
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What is that phenomenon when to defend an ideal one has to do the opposite of that ideal?
Per the comments, the overall phenomenon is given via enough of an umbrella phrase that it's variously satisfied by e.g. "opportunism" or "hypocrisy." Now those two uses are close ...
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What role can guilt play in Bentham's utilitarianism?
You can factor guilt into the calculation, but the conclusion that this would lead to naturally behaving morally does not follow.
Take, for example, the classic example of the trolley problem. Let's ...
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Were the common people in Germany ("good germans") morally co-responsible of the war crimes of their government?
Giubilini and Levy[18] argue that much of what passes for collective responsibility is actually individual responsibility from a peculiar vantage, saying that the collective kind proper belongs to ...
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Were the common people in Germany ("good germans") morally co-responsible of the war crimes of their government?
Speaking about “the common people” is always a problematic task.
It seems that there is a whole spectrum of cases concerning the own
co-responsibility for the war-crimes of one’s government.
The ...
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Is ethics anything other than hand waving and sophistry?
I'd like to point out a number of things, and suggest a few things that might change your mind, if you're interested. But, to answer your question: yes, ethics is far more than just sophistry and hand-...
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Is ethics anything other than hand waving and sophistry?
Ethics is normative, not descriptive. Hence persons do not discover
what IS right or wrong. They determine what
SHOULD BE right or wrong within their society.
The content of the stipulations may ...
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Is ethics anything other than hand waving and sophistry?
Philosophy in its current acedemic form does not deal with universals. Philosophy is the endeavour of creating, arranging and making the critique of concepts, which are tools who use to organise our ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
One tried and true method for resolving such conflict is violence. Slapping the person can "knock some sense into them" (i.e. tell their body) when they're stuck in their head with ideas ...
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What is an overview of utilitarian arguments in support of exclusive relationships?
I think it's relevant to look at the anthropology and history, in terms of thinkng about the greatest good for the greatest number.
"A molecular genetic study of global human genetic diversity ...
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What is an overview of utilitarian arguments in support of exclusive relationships?
There are an important distinctions between:
What you do yourself
What you advocate that others do
What you (via the government) provide legal accommodations for (e.g. marriage)
What you make illegal ...
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What is an overview of utilitarian arguments in support of exclusive relationships?
This article covers some of Bentham's views on the defensibility of marriage along utilitarian lines and this article does the same with Mill, each reference source texts and others' arguments. (I ...
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What is an overview of utilitarian arguments in support of exclusive relationships?
According to utilitarian.org:
What is the utilitarian position on monogamy vs. polygamy, marriage and adultery, capitalism vs. socialism, the legalisation of cannabis etc?
It is a common mistake to ...
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Is exclusivity optimal from a utilitarian perspective? What's wrong with being non-exclusive?
"A eliminates the possibility of B, B is bad, therefore A is good" does not follow.
If drinking bleach eliminates the possibility of bad breath, and given that bad breath is usually ...
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Is exclusivity optimal from a utilitarian perspective? What's wrong with being non-exclusive?
I am answering the first version of this question.
Nothing is inherently wrong under a utilitarian framework. Utilitarian judgments are contingent judgments.
You have omitted in the utilitarian ...
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Can the conflict between morality and amorality be resolved?
This question suggests that moral rules are absolute (e.g. that moral rules are written in the sky, and all systems that don't comply with such absolute rule must change to fit with it).
Moral rules ...
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Can the conflict between morality and amorality be resolved?
Can we objectively say that either of these propositions is better? sounder? more truthful?
Neither more truthful or sounder can be objectively claimed by humans, such claims are subjective (though ...
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Can the conflict between morality and amorality be resolved?
It depends which view of morality you subscribe to. I can't purport to be a definitive source on which view is correct (though I certainly have my views), but we can apply each view to this specific ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
Moral disagreements need not be settled. Various situations of coexistence of multiple positions within the same society are thinkable, with plenty of precedent in human history.
Often, a pragmatic ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
There is no guarantee that moral disagreements across disparate value systems can be objectively settled. Where they can be it's only because the parties are able to agree on what the relevant facts ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
Moral disagreements can be resolved by developing better understanding through debate and discussion. Moral disagreements can also be resolved by providing incentives or disincentive to believe.
Moral ...
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It is best humans don't destroy each other, because then there is less humanity to them: what might be the missing assumption?
What is missing is an account how humanity implies necessary and substantive fellow feeling.
John Donne in the 17th Meditation On Emergent Occasions writes the entire thought out thusly:
No man is ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
I take the OP's question to be mainly a quasi-rhetorical meta-ethical question. My apparent non-answer below is that, read like that, the question is largely meaningless, or least very indeterminate, ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
I think you're hitting on a fundamental schism that needs to be addressed, which is the physical vs. the spiritual. To use one of your examples, most people who are against abortion and cite the ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
Different values are not a reason for war.
Just an example: there are over 250 nations living in Russia (nobody knows the exact number - every time they count, the number is different, but there are ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
Just make a case for your own moral framework.
"I think abortion should be legal because bodily autonomy" - this isn't the sum total of the position nor the underlying moral framework. There ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
I agree with several other answers, that there is no final criterion to settle every moral disagreement. In comparison to the field of science or mathematics the situation in ethics is worse.
A good ...
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How can moral disagreements be resolved when the conflicting parties are guided by fundamentally different value systems?
My answer is going to be based on some good references, but I am going to also have to do some reasoning/interpretation/application of my own, here, to make the answer fully relevant to your concerns. ...
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Does friendship bring further obligation?
Since friendship frequently goes beyond formal, transactional commitments and provides emotional support and connection without a rigid quid pro quo arrangement, it might be considered a "free&...
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Does friendship bring further obligation?
I'd say that one obligation is matching the friendship's reality with its pretense. In other words, usually the pretense of friendship includes something like, "I actually care about your ...
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Social norms and Ethics (also called moral philosophy)
According to the SEP entry on social norms:
With a few exceptions, the social science literature conceives of norms as exogenous variables. Since norms are mainly seen as constraining behavior, some ...
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Can the Christian God be a Utilitarian?
Apparently I was too hasty in my judgment about this issue: perhaps it's still true that, in principle, an infinitely powerful being could "solve the utilitarian problem" or "perform ...
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Can objective morality be derived as a corollary from the assumption of God's existence?
I'm trying to make the question a little more testable. Let us suppose some one climbs a mountain, Sinai would be good, but I'm willing to settle for any mountain, provided there is a Being at the top,...
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Is there an ethics term for adjudicating for the least total violent outrage, at the expense of fairness?
Just Joined; funny; author asked for definition. Author gets anecdotal input.
I guess that's supposed to assist in the right road to travel for said definition. Or should we just say label? Or ...
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Are there any virtues in virtue ethics that cannot be plausibly grounded in more fundamental utilitarian principles?
Utility? Ego? Virtue? Schizophrenia?
Apparently the need of disambiguation starts with the ability to offer labels.
If OUR virtue is simple, only to be made complex by the addition of utility, might ...
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Are there any virtues in virtue ethics that cannot be plausibly grounded in more fundamental utilitarian principles?
Overall, it seems to me that virtue ethics appears largely reducible to utilitarianism, or at least many highly valued virtues can be understood in utilitarian terms.
For any course of action that a ...
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Can objective morality be derived as a corollary from the assumption of God's existence?
No need for assumptions here.
God exists.
Therefore we exist. (God is defined as our Creator).
Existence is good. We get to choose what we will do each day and every hour and minute. We enjoy sunshine,...
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Are there any virtues in virtue ethics that cannot be plausibly grounded in more fundamental utilitarian principles?
Utilitarian explanations of chastity or marital faithfulness have never rung true for me. The utilitarian/evolutionary explanation (as I understand it) is that one wants to be sure that one is ...
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Are there any virtues in virtue ethics that cannot be plausibly grounded in more fundamental utilitarian principles?
Your listing is extremely problematic, from the virtue-ethics standpoint, because it is tantamount to rule-utilitarianism, with aretaic functions for deontic ones. But the virtuous person is not ...
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