It\u2019s hard to explicitly articulate how exactly I decide if something is right or wrong \u2013 by nature, a lot of it will simply be the product of experience and more nuanced than I can easily write \u2013 but I\u2019ll do my best. In short, I think my views have a large utilitarian component to them, with the focus or motivation being on the resulting society or common good that results. In terms of the reading, I\u2019d say I lean towards the Consequentialist theories, with a mixture of the Utilitarian and Common Good approaches.<\/p>\n
A quick disclaimer: I don\u2019t have any formal experience with ethics, so this is neither going to be a tidy idea that sits neatly in the ethics box, nor an expression of hard and fast rules that I would stick to without qualifications. That said, I\u2019ll do my best to express myself.<\/p>\n
The short way that I would express my thinking is \u201cWhat would happen if everyone behaved this way?\u201d Now, this sounds like the categorical imperative: \u201cAct only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.\u201d However, I don\u2019t mean to make statements about the universality of rules or actions like the categorical imperative does \u2013 I think that\u2019s reductive, and any reasonable system should have more nuance.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m more concerned with the motivations<\/em> behind these actions. I\u2019ve always found emergent behavior from simple rules very interesting \u2013 for example, things like linked lists or cellular automata exhibit very interesting properties from a set of relatively small constraints. In the same way, I think that in even small actions, the way we give and take can add up to have large impacts on the larger communities we\u2019re a part of. Instead of \u201cshould everyone take this action or follow this rule?\u201d, my thinking is more along the line of \u201cshould everyone weigh their own needs against those of others in this way?\u201d<\/p>\n This is where my thinking more resembles utilitarianism. I agree with much of utilitarianism \u2013 I think that if everyone strives to have a net positive impact on the world, to leave people better off than they met them, it could make a profound difference. However, \u201cDon\u2019t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.\u201d People have different needs and abilities, and at times being willing to accept help or an \u201cunfair\u201d distribution in your favor can be as important as offering help or giving up something of yours for others\u2019 benefit.<\/p>\n This way of thinking can trivially decide between right and wrong in a lot of cases, simply by taking an idea to its extreme. Is murder wrong? Well, if everyone murdered people, that certainly wouldn\u2019t work. It\u2019s the same with just about any crime, or other actions that are more or less unanimously agreed on as bad. The times when I lean on this thinking are more questions of what would be the best course (rather than black and white), particularly in questions of common resources and their allocation.<\/p>\n One possible weakness to this way of thinking are situations like the prisoner\u2019s dilemma, in which the solution that\u2019s optimal to everyone is not the optimal strategy for single actors \u2013 that is, situations where someone trying to think of the group could be \u201ctaken advantage of\u201d by people who don\u2019t have the same intentions.<\/p>\n Obviously you have to consider the chances for this and be careful not to expose yourself to huge risk (irresponsible altruism can be na\u00efve), but by and large I think one should still try for the group outcome anyway. Someone has to take the first step if anything can change for the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reading 00: Utilitarianism, Mostly It\u2019s hard to explicitly articulate how exactly I decide if something is right or wrong \u2013 by nature, a lot of it will simply be the product of experience and more nuanced than I can easily write \u2013 but I\u2019ll do my best. In short, I think my views have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jacob-beiter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}