Does The End Justify The Means?

[giblets]

What with "x is always wrong, but there may be no better alternatives than to do x?"

Don't ask me for an example.

That seems like a more complicated consequentialism. "ends don't justify means" people seem to think that doing nothing is an option, and if you do nothing you're not responsible for anything.

[Kuciwalker]

I guess some people might come up with excuses to justify whatever they want to do, instead of actually figuring out what the right thing to do is. But of course you're advocating deontological ethics as a means, aren't you?

Yes. It's sort of like the burning boats example in game theory.

btw this is known as rule consequentialism generally, though there are a bunch of minor details you have to work out to have a complete theory.

Of particular concern to any consequentialist system is how to deal with the locality problem, i.e. explaining why an individual's responsibility to nearby people is greater than his responsibility to those far away. Rule consequentialism can provide some useful outs here.

[SlowwHand]

Actually, as thread-starter, I shouldn't have made a statement of condemnation about lack of ethics, since that's the question at hand. How do people view ethics?

[loinburger]

It either is or it isn't. This is a black and white question.

There aren't very many black and white questions in ethics. Even a question that's very simple on the surface, like "is it okay to kill people," has a lot of exceptions. You yourself have stated that it is okay to kill Iraqi civilians for the crime of looking like terrorists.

Rules are good for simplifying the common case. "Is it okay to kill people?" "Probably not." For the thornier questions, intentions are more important. "Is it okay to kill people?" "I dunno, why do you want to kill them?" Utilitarianism is really only useful as a tie-breaker.

[SlowwHand]

Your interpretation is wrong. If combatants dress as civilians and take refuge among civilians and civilians condone it, there are no civilians.

[loinburger]

At which point it becomes necessary to ask your intentions in wanting to kill Iraqi civilians (or, if you prefer, your intentions in wanting to declare that Iraq contains no civilians). The point is, rules usually work but they don't always work.

[Ben Kenobi]

So I can harvest gribbler's organs sell them on the black market and save 5 people's lives and make a tidy little profit in the meantime?

Interesting.

[SlowwHand]

It's not a matter of wanting to kill people that claim to be civilians; besides which, this is not an Iraqi war thread either.

[loinburger]

It's not a matter of wanting to kill people that claim to be civilians; besides which, this is not an Iraqi war thread either.

No, it's about your saying that the ethics question you've asked is black and white. And yet, you say in this thread that it is absolutely not the case that the ends can ever justify the means, while in another thread you were willing to say that it is okay to cause the deaths of several million Iraqi civilians (leaving aside for the moment your revocation of the civilian status of an entire nation's population) in order to prevent the deaths of a much smaller number of Americans. In other words, you don't really believe that it's a black and white question - you're usually opposed to having the ends justify the means, but in the case of killing Iraqi civilians you believe that the ends justify the means.

[Ben Kenobi]

How do people view ethics?

It's a useful discipline, moreso than most. I'd say ethics is probably more important than my own discipline of history. The only one I can really think of as more important is probably language. Can't express ideas without some form of communication. I'd be open as to whether maths is more important than ethics.

I'd list them:

language, ethics, philosophy in general, mathematics, history, physics, chemistry, biology (inc medicine), economics, engineering, computer science, about ten ellipses, psychology, sociology, women's studies,

[SlowwHand]

No, it's about your saying that the ethics question you've asked is black and white. And yet, you say in this thread that it is absolutely not the case that the ends can ever justify the means, while in another thread you were willing to say that it is okay to cause the deaths of several million Iraqi civilians (leaving aside for the moment your revocation of the civilian status of an entire nation's population) in order to prevent the deaths of a much smaller number of Americans. In other words, you don't really believe that it's a black and white question - you're usually opposed to having the ends justify the means, but in the case of killing Iraqi civilians you believe that the ends justify the means.

Bull****. That's all I have to say to such a dumb ass.

[loinburger]

You want to kill millions of people for the crime of living in the wrong country. You should not be starting a discussion on ethics as you obviously have no idea what the word means.

[SlowwHand]

Just state the obvious. You have no clue about this thread, nor are you capable of understanding the question you keep attempting to argue. Troll away and show your ass.

[loinburger]

You have a hard-on for genocide. You may be even more vile than Ben - your only saving grace is that you don't post as often as he does.

[Elok]

Virtue ethics never gets any love...

For those of you who have BK on your ignore lists, I'm not going to quote him, but he has just said that philosophy is more important than mathematics, while history is more important than any of the hard sciences.