Ryan made a jokey OP and then switched to serious. Crafty.

^Nah, you made a jokey about the Okies in your initial reply, but I think Ryan was serious from the start. Don't project

I was serious in my op. I tried to explicitly say I didnt want the kind of bull**** that has been going in on this thread and was only interested in using the stated ethical theories as they related to the article.

SMP is not what it used to be. Kind of a waste of time now imo.

I think you are the only person who gave a legit response iirc and thats 2/26 posts itt.

edit: nvm, VeeDDzz did too. 4/26 then.

That was for the PU crowd. They like it. You do have a point.

I see no data or metadata in your response.

Again, where is the metadata that you speak of?

My response was legit. Whether a philosophical viewpoint is valid/coherent matters more than a wee bit when trying to apply it.

I generally assume that application involves reality.

Apparently freely denied, but with extremely limited authority.

Freedom seems to keep moving authority into check . How to checkmate freedom without any power to back a limited authority?

Still not seeing the metadata...

Which you remain free to do so.

Are you hiding this metadata? Common decency requires that you present it.

That is evidence of denial of information which is already posted. Absent the authority to remove other's posts, seems that remains to be the way it is.

Why is it relevant that police officers do something different to everyone else? don't most people do something different to everyone else? and don't most people cultivate different virtues under different domains?

Check out McIntyre's 'After Virtue'.

Virtue Ethics is making a revival. Rightfully.

When we weigh consequences and intentions above that of character, we create and sustain a society full of victims. Great for those who know better at least.

Virtue Theory is not based on reason, it's based on opinion, which I don't think is a good thing for ethics. Virtues change based on what country you are in and they even change in different parts of the same country. What traits are virtuous in a certain location is based on the collective feelings of the people who live there. Collective feelings should not be relevant in philosophical discussions about ethics.

Don't get me wrong, virtue ethics is still light years ahead of any ethical system that can come from religion. It's just that it's also light years behind some other ethical theories. Socrates didn't say that what was good was whatever his city thought was good, he made arguments supported by logic and reason.

The only virtue relevant in an ethical dilemma is the virtue of being ethical. I don't care if you have courage, honor, etc etc: if you murder a person, it is still unethical. And it was not deemed to be unethical using virtue theory, it was deemed unethical via discussions about liberty and an analysis of the amount of good that comes from being allowed to murder vs the amount of good that comes from being murdered.

And what if it was found that every virtuous person that we know of in history had murdered at least two people in their lives? If this were found to be true, virtue theory would be forced to deem murder an ethical action. If it was found that Mill murdered 100 people it would not change the value of utilitarianism nor would it change how ethical utilitarianism would deem the action of murder.

To tell you the truth, there was no way I was going to apply virtue theory to my paper. I started with the conclusion that it was not applicable and worked backwards to find reasons that supported that conclusion. I thought and still now think that virtue theory is useless so I'm not surprised (though a little disappointed) that you didn't like my reasons for why it didn't apply.

So your response is probably correct, and I don't think I did a great job on that part, but I had my reasons.

Virtues are supportable by reason.

Is this an accurate representation of your capabilities in making an intellectual response in a philosophy thread or are you trolling here? The post of mine you replied to is an accurate representation of mine.

How about replying again with the intentions of adding something to an intellectual discussion rather than trying to get a chuckle (or whatever your motivation was). Or if you are not willing to do that, how about playing the role of a casual observer?

edit: I just feel like there is a real discussion taking place and you are getting in the way of it rather than thinking about your ideas before making a well thought out reply.

An update regarding the paper:

The paper I showed here was the paper I submitted. The real discussion didn't start in time for me to incorporate it. Got a 93%, prof said I didn't do enough to talk about the new technology and how it affects civil asset forfeiture (it is a computer science ethics class). I think that's fair enough.

Well I am not discerning any obstructions to discussion, though self-fulfilling obstruction may apply for others than myself.

I did make an assertion concerning virtues which can be further explored around any particular virtue. So an open avenue for discussion is apparent in this regard.

Oh, and I do intend to read your paper, but it doesn't show up very well on my phone and I am away from larger screens for the time being. Patience is virtue.

Moral duties derived by deontology and moral rules derived by consequentialism are both inferior from my perspective.

Moral duties and moral rules both serve to reduce the people's exercise of free-agency, so as to move toward a sort of hive-mind. Essentially, human autonomy or freedom is inverse to moral rules, so that the more moral rules you must abide by, the more of a predictable, or enslaved life you live.

"The most moral are in fact the cruelest members of society. Their fervent adherence to moral rules robs them of all freedom of will. Like a caged beast gnawing at the bars; longing for the wild, their selflessness demands they inflict endless cruelty onto themselves. This is the origin of bad conscience." - Nietzsche.

Indeed, in the modern condition this is the cause of much dissatisfaction, although people often attribute it to other causes. As such, for many ethicists, the goal of ethics is not solely to make people more ethical or happy, but rather, to enrich human life by ensuring that there is ample room for the exercise of free will. This comes with increased risks to an extent, and it also requires a refocusing of our ethical viewpoint.

Nonetheless, I can understand people's attraction to utilitarianism when they are determinists or compatibilists. For the rest of us, there are better options.

I think in ethics we are talking only about the cases where we specifically say "dont do that in spite of your free will" or "**** your free will, dont do that." Its not unethical to scratch your arm because no one cares--you arent hurting anyone--so use your free will however you like in situations like that. But the portion of free will you are talking about is exactly the portion which comes under ethics. And that is exactly what ethics tries to answer. You make it sound like it is different but it is one in the same.

Also, you didn't respond to my post about virtue ethics. It was a reply to the post you made about McIntyre's 'After Virtue'.

That it is relative to culture does not demonstrate that it is based on opinion. All ethical frameworks are relative to culture except for some extreme cases of deontology. If you want to make collective feelings irrelevant then appeals to deontology may indeed get you there, but appeals to utilitarianism not so much. Ethics based solely on logic and reason is ethics that erodes freedom and liberty from my perspective.
In a virtue ethics perspective, what causes one to consistently make ethical choices is the focus. What collection of virtues does it take? Not whether one makes an ethical choice here or there or whether one makes an ethical choice when told to do so by a moral rule.
Something doesn't need to be deemed 'unethical' as that is not the focus of virtue ethics. The focus is on the traits or set of beliefs that cause some people to behave ethically in a consistent manner.
This is incongruent with the above. Just before you said that virtue ethics does not decide or 'deem' what is unethical and now you're claiming that it would be deciding so in this case?

I disagree with every single sentence in this paragraph. 1) Virtue theory, as derived from Plato and Aristotle, is explicitly claimed to be based on reason (and knowledge) rather than opinion. 2) Virtues are dispositions or habits to act in such a way that you achieve the good (generally understood as happiness or contentment). It is obviously the case that some actions that lead to a good life in some societies do not in others. That doesn't mean that the virtue itself (of say, courage) is different, just that it leads to different actions in different societies. 3) Virtues don't have anything inherently to do with the "collective feelings" (whatever that is) of a society. Instead, they are supposed to be based on reasoning about the good life and the best way to achieve that life based on your own life circumstances. 4) Philosophical discussions about ethics usually include discussions of various emotivist and other noncognitive (including presumably "collective feelings") theories of morality, as they should.


Socrates was a virtue theorist.

Being ethical isn't really a virtue, at least as they are typically defined in philosophy. I'm pretty sure you don't understand virtue theory and would recommend reading this article.

Also, I'm doubtful of your historical claim here. Murder was claimed to be wrong long before modern moral theories were developed (eg the earliest law codes condemned murder).

Well, that would be an interesting thought experiment. In a world where literally every virtuous person committed murder, murder probably wouldn't be immoral. Not sure where the problem is there.

Virtue theory can be more difficult to appreciate than deontological or teleological theories because its rules are less systematic. But I think this is a mistake. Virtue theory as talked about by ancient philosophers has a few insights and the highlights are worth reading. But at its core are empirical claims about human flourishing that are susceptible to modern scientific methods of study. Aristotle didn't do a longitudinal study of human happiness, he had to make educated guesses based on his intuitive understanding of human nature. We can do a lot better than that today.

In your view does preference utilitarianism also reduce people's exercise of free agency?

I will need to read more into preference utilitarianism, but from a brief reading of what is in your link, I would say that there are definitely parallels between this type of utilitarianism and my own views. However, my views place greater focus on the type of preferences needed for something like eudaimonia. For example, my view aligns more closely with the importance of experience - openness to both good and bad experiences - and I consider happiness and even ethical decision-making as either by-products, determinants or outcomes of this. My view is also more long-term, rather than being overly concerned with current preferences. Sartre's 'being for itself' and 'being for others' has strong parallels to it perhaps.

Thank you very much for the link here though. I will definitely need to read more into this, as I am still struggling to understand how any type of utilitarianism and its emphasis on moral rules, can leave sufficient room for the exercise of freedom over the long-term.

Lets say a guy walking down the street punches a stranger in the face for no reason. Lets try to determine if his action was ethical or unethical using virtue theory.

First of all, what virtues do we use?

Second, using those virtues, how do we come to a conclusion as to whether or not his action was ethical, unethical, or neither.

I'm curious to see virtue theory is action.

Thats just how the human brain works--you make a cost benefit analysis. And its not just the human brain, many other animals do the same thing. You compare the good to the bad and if the good outweighs the bad you do it. You can see it in an animal of prey that is hiding in ambush and is visibly having to restrain itself from launching the attack too early. This is nothing new, imo.

What is new (relatively), and seems frivolous to me, is defining "virtues" and deriving an ethical system from there. How did you come to choose what was virtuous in the first place?

Why is honesty a virtue whereas dishonesty is not a virtue?
Why is loyalty a virtue whereas disloyalty is not a virtue?
Why is generosity a virtue whereas malevolence is not a virtue?

Did we get lucky on all the virtues and just happen to pick those that are beneficial in life? Or did we first look at what was beneficial in life and then give those things names and praise them as virtues. Why not just stop pretending and cut out the middle man.