Does my ethical system need to be something that can be written and read and does it require rigid prescription for certain situations.

I have myself a system and it is far from rigid and it prescribes nothing more to any specific situation than vigilance and thought.
A situation at first glance may appear the same as another and if it were that simple rule/guidelines could be prescribed.
Unfortunately thing aren't always that simple.
There is almost always a bigger picture and in a lot of situations that whole picture will not be able to be observed by one self.

i.e.
I am walking down the street and I'm approaching an elderly woman who due to the slope on the path is struggling with her shopping trolley. Being young and stronger than she, and having that I am in no rush to be anywhere I believe that it would only be right to help out. It causes me more pain to see her struggle than what it would to help her.

But would I be right to blindly force what I think would be the right thing onto her.

In many cases I'm sure the elderly lady would be grateful for assistance.

I would certainly approach with intentions to help but would exercise vigilance. Paying close attention to how she responds to my aproach. There could be many reason why she would not like me to help.

She may have preconceptions of what my intentions are due to the way I appear. If she believes my intention could be of a sinister nature my approach would not be welcomed.

She may be going through an emotional time where she is down on herself because she is struggling with life and feel like a burden on everyone else. My approach would only add to her pain.

She may have experienced abuse in a similar situation previously.

Her culture or religious beliefs may prohibit her from engagements with me being that I am a stranger or of a foreign nature.

The list could go on and on.

I would cautiously approach the woman with a desire to help her but I would pay very close attention to how she reacts to my approach. I would do my best to interpret her reactions and possible reasons for them and then decide what I believe would be the best way to proceed. Upon proceeding I would then exercise the same evaluations and actions continuously.

I find that most situations I encounter in life could consist of countless variables and having a rigid system will not suffice.

This is not to say I don't have a system.
I have my morals and what would they be if I was not to utilise them. I conduct myself in a ways that aligns with my morals. My conduct strongly encompasses vigilance and understanding of the infinite variables that situations can hold.

For this reason I think written rules or a rigid system would be unethical.

I do think that I use my "system" constantly in life.

I also believe that Philosophy for me would be a fruitless exercise if it were not to be used as means of guiding my life. Guiding my life would be difficult without morals/ethics ensuring continuity of actions benefiting choose direction.

Moral theories are better when they accurately describe how humans actually reason morally than when they claim to have complete authority over what humans actually ought to do. Humans do not generally reason by principle, they reason by an intuitive glance at whatever the situation is, where the principles are operating discretely in the background.

Hence why I am skeptical and also unimpressed with the grandiose claims people make about their principle-based ethics on behalf of themselves. Moral theory is unsystematic and messy, and this is indeed a problem, but it's no good trying to remedy the problem by introducing ad hoc generalizations that are imperialistic precisely because they are insufficient.

(Y)

Humans do not generally reason by principle, they reason by an intuitive glance at whatever the situation is, where the principles are operating discretely in the background. — darthbarracuda

The problem is when you are in conflict with someone over principles. To your mind (and perhaps to many others who share your point of view), a moral situation is clearly X, Y, Z, but to someone else who you are having conflict with, the moral situation is A, B,C. No one is going back to Kant's deontology or Mill's utilitiarianism to work it out. Rather, people will go back to their own principles. Who is right? It only resolves when either one party capitulates and accepts situation in defeat, both capitulate a little and there is a compromise, or an outside mediator dictates who is correct. That is how the real world works. That is where morality lies. Much of it works on ignoring those with different values, hashing it out with them, or having a mediator of sorts. Normative ethics as a useful tool perhaps only works as a heuristic for those in the legal system. If a judge has a "rule" on how to apply a case, he may refer to an ethical theory of some kind to judge a rule (what creates the best utility in X tort situation perhaps).

However, there is something to be said for virtue theory if it is not overblown into VIRTUE THEORY (with capital letters). In other words, virtue as some reified thing that is good in itself is not really the value of virtue theory. Rather, that when dealing with each other in the chaos of real world situations of conflict, different personality-types, etc. that there is a groundwork for common decency and fairness in how we treat each other. For if one party thinks its okay to manipulate, and bully, and other thinks this is an unacceptable way to go about business, there is a problem. If both parties think it is wrong to act this way, then if someone does act this way, perhaps there can be a mutual agreement as to which party was not acting appropriately in that case.

Can you elaborate on the darkness? — fdrake

Er, not really, I'm sorry. I call it darkness because it isn't clear. It seems necessary that there should be such a darkness, or blind-spot or whatever. If you come across someone who lacks (in their own imagining) that hesitancy and radical doubt, then they tend towards fanaticism. Is it St Paul... "For now we see through a glass, darkly..."?

There's a certain unreality to 'what I ought to do'. I have to imagine what a person of good will would do, because my will is not as good as I will it to be, and then try and act as if I had good will. If I actually had good will, all this would be unnecessary and I could just act naturally. We can easily disagree about what this imaginary person of good will would do in any situation, according to how we theorise good will, and/or the situation.

Your thesis that no discourse about ethics is admissible unless it is aimed at helping us making ethical decisions in our daily life seems bizarre to me. Can you motivate it? Is there some more general principle of which this is a consequence, or is ethics a special case?

What's your stance on other intellectual endeavors, such as science - must they all have immediate practical consequences? I suppose an alchemist that wants to get rich by transmuting base metals into gold would be OK in your book, but a chemistry professor who has no intention of putting his studies of chemistry into actual practice is a fool and a charlatan. And of course, philosophy of science would be doubly sterile - a pointless inquiry into a pointless study.

Or did I get your completely wrong?

I think something like this. All ethical inquiry consists in reasoning about what to do. This includes what it means to do something right (is this thing I do ok? is it good?), what justifications are adequate ethical motivation (consequences, duties...), or abstract properties of ethical behaviour (is it rational, emotive...). If the way someone thinks about the abstract properties or adequate justifications has no influence on how they live their lives - what might be called practical applications - then the system of abstract properties and demarcation between adequate and inadequate justifications is entirely abstracted from attempts to live a good life.

What I've been trying to do in the thread is coax out people who have advocated architectonic thought about the abstract properties of ethical behaviour or adequate justifications and attempt to get them to derive specific 'oughts' or ways of conducting themselves from the systems. So far I've received little to no effort in 'derivations' from what people think ethics should consist in to what they should do.

A scientific idea does have practical consequences, insofar is it must be realised through research and provide a vantage for viewing other scientific ideas and generating other scientific problems.

I don't think your 'system' is one of the ones I'm trying to tar in this thread. It seems like a bunch of generalizations from difficult scenarios you've been in, so isn't a top-down imposition, it's a bottom-up exploration.

That makes sense. Do you think being ethical is possible without this sense of doubt? I've met a few people who were convinced that they had good will and were ethically right regardless of what they did - they weren't sociopaths, just people who strongly identified with their own sense of right and wrong... The arbiter of right and wrong being their decisions.

Also reminded of Sam Vimes from Discworld. He was a good man because he fought the darkness he wanted to enact. In opposition to Carrot, who was good by virtue of narrative force.

That makes sense. Do you think being ethical is possible without this sense of doubt? I've met a few people who were convinced that they had good will and were ethically right regardless of what they did - they weren't sociopaths, just people who strongly identified with their own sense of right and wrong... The arbiter of right and wrong being their decisions. — fdrake

I hesitate to say it is impossible, but self righteous conviction most often looks naive and ugly to me:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. — Oliver Cromwell

And yet the man himself is the epitome of self-righteous conviction, and I quote him...

But Cromwell is perhaps more like Lord Vetinari - a good man because he owned the darkness

I think something like this. All ethical inquiry consists in reasoning about what to do. This includes what it means to do something right (is this thing I do ok? is it good?), what justifications are adequate ethical motivation (consequences, duties...), or abstract properties of ethical behaviour (is it rational, emotive...). — fdrake

Well, thinking about what to do would be practicing ethics (of course, not all decisions are ethical decisions, but I am assuming we are talking specifically about the latter here.) The rest would indeed be what constitutes ethical inquiry.

If the way someone thinks about the abstract properties or adequate justifications has no influence on how they live their lives - what might be called practical applications - then the system of abstract properties and demarcation between adequate and inadequate justifications is entirely abstracted from attempts to live a good life. — fdrake

Yes, and?... You imply (and say explicitly in elsewhere) that there is something wrong with that. I am trying to understand why you think so. Why is it wrong to pursue an inquiry into ethics for reasons other than helping yourself make the right choices? For example, out of the love of wisdom (you know, philosophy)?

I am speaking, by the way, as someone who is skeptical of ethical systems. But not of meta-ethics - after all, my skepticism is itself a meta-ethical position. As is perhaps your stance here as well.

It would be strange to love wisdom without trying to let that wisdom influence your actions, no?

Indeed, but who is doing that?

And what influence the study of ethics may have depends on the kind of study. Specifically, whether the study concerns the is or the ought. Only the latter provides what you are asking for, i.e. immediate guidance for ethical decisions, but the former can be a subject for ethical inquiry as well.

What's interesting is that, as much as your ire is directed against ethical systems, I can't think of any ethical inquiry other than system-building that can inform one about practical ethical decisions. As I understand it, developing ethical systems is akin to science or engineering, wherein one tries to discover or create overarching structures that bridge the gaps between particular instances of ethical knowledge and thus enable us to find answers where we don't already have them (the counterpart in science would be predicting observations where they are not already available).

If one is skeptical of such enterprise, as I am, then one is left with looking into the is of ethics. I suppose that too can influence one's ethical behavior in some cases, but the influence wouldn't be so direct and obvious.

I think you're interpreting my ire towards ethical systems as a kind of quietism towards them - that theory is irrelevant for motivating ethical decisions, considering what we should and shouldn't do. Rather I'm trying to advocate a subordination of ethical systems to ethical decisions. The subordination I'm advocating is that ethical systems should allow a user to think in concrete circumstances about what to do - they should have some heuristic import to applied ethics. If they don't have the ability to give heuristics; using 'heuristic' as 'a method of informing about choices'; then they can no longer have an impact on ethical decisions.

This is related to my claim in the OP, admonishing the idea that people 'pretend that they live their lives by an ethical system they just invented'. This gets the direction of influence wrong; subordinating ethical decisions to theoretical constructs, rather than using theoretical constructs to make ethical decisions. I'm sure that you've also met people who have in their mind a theoretical guarantee that their actions are always right - and these people are assholes. Or, rather, they always get to decide whether what they did was right or wrong, failures in character and lack of relevant experience to a specific context of decision be damned.

Hence raising questions like 'how would a cognitivist and a non-cognitivist behave differently in scenarios?' Or more precisely, what variations do their meta-ethical stances allow in their behaviour. Similarly 'how would a utilitarian and a deontologist behave differently in scenarios' - or more precisely what variations do their normative-ethical stances allow in their behaviour. If there are no differences - no applicable heuristics that can be 'derived' from the system - then they cannot inform the procedure of ethical decision. Which is supposed to be the core action of these theories.

If you'll permit me to use 'empirical evidence' in philosophical debate, look at the way people use the trolley problem to distinguish between different normative ethical frameworks. It is a model ethical decision, an ambiguous scenario with internal conflicts in intuition. The normative systems give different ways of resolving the problem - usually with respect to which horn of the ethical dilemma they admit. What is primary in the consideration of the trolley problem isn't that, say, act utilitarians and rule utilitarians may differ on its solution, rather that the ethical decision contained in the trolley problem generates ambiguities which are then codified and analysed in accordance with different normative-ethical structures.

If one is skeptical of such enterprise, as I am, then one is left with looking into the is of ethics. I suppose that too can influence one's ethical behavior in some cases, but the influence wouldn't be so direct and obvious.

The 'is' of ethics has a very natural link to how we decide to approach ethical decisions... it describes how we make them. When we make an ethical decision, we should consider what we ought to do - and this is where ethical systems are useful. Is it too much of a stretch to say they have to be useful in this regard to be ethical systems? Another way of putting this is - if they do not suggest or provide heuristics which may allow differences in ethical behaviour, normative-ethical and meta-ethical structures consist in differences that makes no difference for how we live our lives. Surely a sorry state for any ethical inquiry to be in.

My meta-ethical framework is roughly Emotivist, and my ethical framework is roughly Utilitarian, but not rigidly so. In theory it can be over-ridden if the action the Utilitarian perspective recommends just feels wrong. I can't remember that ever having happened in practice. I have yet to encounter a police chief that offers to spare ten indigenous people if I execute one of them.

I don't think my meta-ethical framework has a big effect on one's actions, but my ethical framework does. It has led to major changes in what I donate, what I eat, what I buy and what I say.

I don't see my ethical framework as foundational, or as something to be used for browbeating others. For me, ethics is personal, to be used as a guide to making important decisions. It can lead to lobbying and public advocacy, and I do some of that (not as much as I 'should', because I am weak) but that's different from being judgemental.

My dabblings in philosophy, including what I've read on this and the previous forum, have been a significant influence on my ethical stance, and thereby what I do.

I can imagine examples of how thinking in terms of consequences is different from thinking in terms of duties, but do you ever get any wisdom in how to act from your rough adherence to emotivism? If so, how?

I'm reluctant to label any opinion I hold as wisdom, but some benefits that perhaps emanate from my Emotivist opinion are

• If I have a moral dilemma, in spite of having diligently reflected on it to try to reach a clear decision, I don't have to torture myself with the belief that there is some 'morally correct answer' out there that may subsequently surface and show that whatever I decided to do was immoral. My Emotivism says that 'in this instance, the moral issue is undecidable so choose one of the remaining options and be at peace',
• I feel free to overrule the recommendations of my default Utilitarian position if they feel wrong. If I believed in objective moral truths I would find it hard to justify doing that.

The problem is when you are in conflict with someone over principles. To your mind (and perhaps to many others who share your point of view), a moral situation is clearly X, Y, Z, but to someone else who you are having conflict with, the moral situation is A, B,C. No one is going back to Kant's deontology or Mill's utilitiarianism to work it out. Rather, people will go back to their own principles. Who is right? It only resolves when either one party capitulates and accepts situation in defeat, both capitulate a little and there is a compromise, or an outside mediator dictates who is correct. That is how the real world works. That is where morality lies. Much of it works on ignoring those with different values, hashing it out with them, or having a mediator of sorts. Normative ethics as a useful tool perhaps only works as a heuristic for those in the legal system. If a judge has a "rule" on how to apply a case, he may refer to an ethical theory of some kind to judge a rule (what creates the best utility in X tort situation perhaps). — schopenhauer1

Utilitarianism was never really meant for everyday decisions, people like Mill and Bentham explicitly say they mean it more for political entities that treat individuals as social atoms. It was a way of ensuring the maximum utility of a society, where people are most happy and more importantly have their rights protected (where rights are also grounded in their happiness).

I'm even skeptical of the role principles have in everyday moral decisions. I think most people have the very same principles - don't hurt other people, don't steal, don't lie, don't break your promises, be a nice person, etc. What makes people disagree on moral issues isn't in terms of principles but in terms of empirical, sometimes metaphysical, reality. Abortion, for instance, is not a question about the principle of harming other people, since almost everyone agrees killing other people is just wrong. Rather it's often a metaphysical debate about the status of the fetus, viz: whether or not the fetus is something that can be killed, and/or if the mother's life is more important than the babies, etc. People like myself who argue that animals have rights that should not be violated are arguing an empirical hypothesis: animals are conscious, they do suffer, and the application of a principle that we all already have (harming others) makes it wrong to manipulate animals in the way we so often do.

Despite the appearances, there is a large worldwide consensus as to what these basic moral "principles" are. Moral disagreement arises when we disagree about the application of these principles, i.e their appropriate-ness given the circumstances. Of course, there are some moral principles that do differ, often in terms of religious belief, i.e. God's will determining what is right and what is wrong, or some faux Taoism about the "way of the universe", or whatever. But this is just another form of monism and absolutism that I think corrupts a person's ability to skillfully assess a moral situation, which is of course a virtue.

I'm even skeptical of the role principles have in everyday moral decisions. I think most people have the very same principles - don't hurt other people, don't steal, don't lie, don't break your promises, be a nice person, etc. What makes people disagree on moral issues isn't in terms of principles but in terms of empirical, sometimes metaphysical, reality. Abortion, for instance, is not a question about the principle of harming other people, since almost everyone agrees killing other people is just wrong. Rather it's often a metaphysical debate about the status of the fetus, viz: whether or not the fetus is something that can be killed, and/or if the mother's life is more important than the babies, etc. People like myself who argue that animals have rights that should not be violated are arguing an empirical hypothesis: animals are conscious, they do suffer, and the application of a principle that we all already have (harming others) makes it wrong to manipulate animals in the way we so often do. — darthbarracuda

I am not sure that people necessarily have the same basic everyday principles. What's funny, is it is the day-to-day interactions that are least thought about in the sphere of ethics, but the most relevant to our everyday lives. Look at Trump. There are plenty of people like him and even admire him. His principles as a manager are (to me at least) repulsive and immoral. How he leads from divisiveness and through cruel (and often misleading) ad hominems at his direct reports and people at large is wrong to the point of crossing moral boundaries. He isn't the only one though. Go to many corporate environments, those personality types are out there, stomping over people's dignity and getting away with it- abusing their power, forcing people out of jobs that otherwise could have provided a stable livelihood, etc. etc. There are plenty of daily interactions where there is a difference of opinion. Where does morality end and simple preferences for style begin? That is a really good philosophical question, but no one tries to dig deeper than the biggies (murder, theft, promise-keeping, human rights on a grand scale, etc.).

Yes, and?... You imply (and say explicitly in elsewhere) that there is something wrong with that. I am trying to understand why you think so. Why is it wrong to pursue an inquiry into ethics for reasons other than helping yourself make the right choices? For example, out of the love of wisdom (you know, philosophy)? — @SophistiCat

Let me try and formulate the converse then. 'I don't care about how to live ethically, I only care about what it means to live ethically'.

Somewhat imprecise but I think it suggests the right idea.

I think you're interpreting my ire towards ethical systems as a kind of quietism towards them - that theory is irrelevant for motivating ethical decisions, considering what we should and shouldn't do. Rather I'm trying to advocate a subordination of ethical systems to ethical decisions. The subordination I'm advocating is that ethical systems should allow a user to think in concrete circumstances about what to do - they should have some heuristic import to applied ethics. If they don't have the ability to give heuristics; using 'heuristic' as 'a method of informing about choices'; then they can no longer have an impact on ethical decisions.

This is related to my claim in the OP, admonishing the idea that people 'pretend that they live their lives by an ethical system they just invented'. This gets the direction of influence wrong; subordinating ethical decisions to theoretical constructs, rather than using theoretical constructs to make ethical decisions. I'm sure that you've also met people who have in their mind a theoretical guarantee that their actions are always right - and these people are assholes. Or, rather, they always get to decide whether what they did was right or wrong, failures in character and lack of relevant experience to a specific context of decision be damned. — fdrake

I read these passages a couple of times, and they still confuse me somewhat. In keeping with my earlier is/ought distinction, I would distinguish descriptive systems and prescriptive systems. These can be the very same systems, but their import is different. A descriptive system is subordinated to ethical judgments in the sense that preexisting judgments inform the construction of the system, and the soundness of the system is tested against ethical problems whose solutions are arrived at independently from the system (such as the trolley thought experiment). Ethical judgments always trump a descriptive system.

On the other hand, ethical judgments are subordinated to a prescriptive system, in the sense that the system dictates the judgments. And this is precisely the case where you have a theoretical guarantee that your actions are right: if you follow a prescriptive system, then actions that are in keeping with the system cannot fail to be the right actions (the only remaining uncertainty is whether the actions really do conform to the system).

In reality, I think, the split between descriptive and prescriptive systems is not so clear-cut. Those people who consciously follow some system of ethics will have chosen the system to follow at some point, and their choice would likely be informed by preexisting ethical judgments. And in practical ethical decisions they would often let intuitive judgments trump whatever principle they are supposed to follow, or they would simply neglect to invoke principles in great many practical situations. We turn to abstract principles in cases of uncertainty, and even then it is often hard to say how much the eventual decision was informed by the "head" and how much by the "heart." Or else we use ethical principles as heuristic shortcuts - so that we don't have to closely examine our conscience for every trivial decision.

If there are no differences - no applicable heuristics that can be 'derived' from the system - then they cannot inform the procedure of ethical decision. Which is supposed to be the core action of these theories. — fdrake

Is it though? This is what I've been questioning. You are, again, implying that the only admissible ethical inquiry is one that can result in practical guidance. I disagree on general principles, and would like to again put this in a broader context of human endeavors. Not everything we do or think about is aimed at immediate practical ends.

The one thing on which I would agree with you is that we should not pretend. We should not pretend that a theoretical difference makes a difference in practical ethical decisions if in reality it doesn't. And we should probably be more mindful of this point when discussing ethics. But I don't think that every discussion of ethics is infected with such pretension.

Let me try and formulate the converse then. 'I don't care about how to live ethically, I only care about what it means to live ethically'. — fdrake

Come now, you know better than that! This is not the converse: what I said was not an either/or proposition.

Look at Trump. There are plenty of people like him and even admire him. His principles as a manager are (to me at least) repulsive and immoral. — schopenhauer1

One Soviet writer and intellectual who was jailed and later exiled for publishing a book of fiction abroad, once quipped: "My disagreement with the Soviet regime is purely esthetic." The first time I heard this, I thought his remark was flippant and paradoxical. Only later did I come to appreciate its truth and apply it to myself. I suspect that such "esthetic" disagreements run deeper than any articulated principles. We can argue circles around each other about policy and such, but if you are not repulsed by Trump's very demeanor, then I know that there is a moral gap between us that no principles can bridge.

On the other hand, ethical judgments are subordinated to a prescriptive system, in the sense that the system dictates the judgments. And this is precisely the case where you have a theoretical guarantee that your actions are right: if you follow a prescriptive system, then actions that are in keeping with the system cannot fail to be the right actions (the only remaining uncertainty is whether the actions really do conform to the system).

Bit of imprecision there. Person believes system is right. Person believes any action entailed by the system is right. Person believes system entails particular action, then person believes action is right.

Is it though? This is what I've been questioning. You are, again, implying that the only admissible ethical inquiry is one that can result in practical guidance. I disagree on general principles, and would like to again put this in a broader context of human endeavors. Not everything we do or think about is aimed at immediate practical ends.

I don't think I've made an argument that the systems we're talking about have to be aimed at immediate practical ends, only that they should entail or constrain things that we do - by providing heuristics and methods of thought. The purpose of the ethical system might be to understand whether moral statements have propositional content, and whether that propositional content is true or false, but then there should be some relationship - minimally in the form of heuristics - between what a person's ethically justified in doing and how they understand ethics.

Beliefs about ethics aren't 'free floating' somewhere in a purely abstract domain, they concern concrete ethical decisions - if the systems aren't sensitive to variations in ethical decisions then they lose their core content.

More generally, the idea that there are 'purely philosophical problems' is something I don't believe, nor do I believe that 'the love of wisdom', originally founded in ethics, is done justice by the want to entertain abstractions devoid of real problems.

Come now, you know better than that! This is not the converse: what I said was not an either/or proposition.

Ok, how would you formulate my central claim in the thread, and how would you formulate its converse? Should help us get something nice out of the discussion.

One Soviet writer and intellectual who was jailed and later exiled for publishing a book of fiction abroad, once quipped: "My disagreement with the Soviet regime is purely esthetic." The first time I heard this, I thought his remark was flippant and paradoxical. Only later did I come to appreciate its truth and apply it to myself. I suspect that such "esthetic" disagreements run deeper than any articulated principles. We can argue circles around each other about policy and such, but if you are not repulsed by Trump's very demeanor, then I know that there is a moral gap between us that no principles can bridge. — SophistiCat

Yep. The problem here is even worse.

1) It's not just aesthetic when you're close up, it's all too real.

2) It's not just aesthetic when you're far away, he's the leader of the "free world"- a state of affairs that affects us all.

3) There are people like him all over, in many many workplaces and industries. Some people call it "the corporate edge" or having a "big personality". Anyone and everything can be justified with a few slogans. Apparently there are some people who like assholes and want them in power.

Beliefs about ethics aren't 'free floating' somewhere in a purely abstract domain, they concern concrete ethical decisions - if the systems aren't sensitive to variations in ethical decisions then they lose their core content.

More generally, the idea that there are 'purely philosophical problems' is something I don't believe, nor do I believe that 'the love of wisdom', originally founded in ethics, is done justice by the want to entertain abstractions devoid of real problems. — fdrake

Well, I am not sure what a 'purely philosophical problem' would entail for you, but I tend to regard such problems as language problems. And like it or not, a lot of discussion in philosophy comes down to arguments about language - or so it seems to me, from my admittedly superficial amateur perspective. While I admit that working out precise language is akin to fashioning the tools of the trade for an analytical philosopher, I don't much care for such discussion myself - especially when it pretends to be substantive discussion. Still, like good therapy or surgery, a trenchant analysis of philosophical discourse can dissolve pseudo-problems and clear up confusions, and that is a good thing.

But what would constitute substantive discussion of ethics? In addition to laying out and defending the principles for living a good life, I would also include meta-ethics in that category. Although a lot of that discourse would, again, be ultimately about language, it doesn't have to be 'free-floating' if it connects to other ideas and things that matter to us.

It's a good question. It's not as though most people filter their moral choices through some moral theory. However, I think it helps us think more about these questions, and some of the problems that arise. In my own life it's helped me think more about how to act, and I believe its become part of my own thinking. For the general public this probably isn't so, but for those of us who like doing philosophy the thinking is that some of this filters down into society. How much of it is practical is a really good question, but you can ask this of most philosophical theories.

Finally, it's probably the case that even if you don't have a well thought out system of ethics, you're moral actions probably are associated with a system of rules that you learned from family, friends, and society. So in this sense it's probably a theory in a loose sense of the word.

So, ethical philosophers of thephilosophyforum, what do you actually do with your ideas and systems? — fdrake

Hey fdrake!

I would agree with the notion that many folk promote and/or argue for some sort of ethical/moral system which they themselves do not follow. The real life examples are far too numerous to count. However, not following your own moral belief is not always unacceptable and/or objectionable. I mean, pace someone earlier, there's nothing objectionable about working to be a better person. Aspirations of better require an agent's imagining better. One can make a moral mistake and come to recognize having made one if and when s/he has moral groundwork of some sort in order to reflect upon. Being the best(most moral) person is something to aspire towards. Not everyone will meet their own standards. That is not a flaw inherent to moral belief. It is a feature thereof.

As far as the general usefulness of promoting an ethical system which cannot be possibly followed as a result of the way the world's laws are structured, I suppose that it could be the case that the law forbids and/or punishes good behaviour and rewards clearly immoral behaviour.

To directly answer the question...

I try to make my own moral thought and belief as congruent as possible to the way things are, in that it ought be at least supported by the facts and not stand in direct contradiction. I do however, make constant deliberate decisions to follow my own moral standards. That happens on a very regular basis. Charge me with wearing rose-colored glasses, but I actually think that everyone does, regardless of what they say outright after the fact and upon reflection. I mean, everyone chooses to do what they think is acceptable at the time. The reasons for it being so vary. Not all reasons for taking action are good.

Finally, it's probably the case that even if you don't have a well thought out system of ethics, you're moral actions probably are associated with a system of rules that you learned from family, friends, and society. So in this sense it's probably a theory in a loose sense of the word. — Sam26

Working from the premiss that at conception we are entirely void of all thought and belief, we learn the necessity of our holding firmly to the notion that thought and belief are accrued... moral thought and belief notwithstanding.

One's moral thought and belief are entirely adopted at first. One cannot come to question the veracity of one's own thought and belief unless one has pre-existing thought and belief and a means to isolate it. Doubting one's own thought and belief requires complex language as it happens when one considers their own mental ongoings. Considering one's own mental ongoings is thinking about one's own thought and belief. Thinking about thought and belief requires something to think about. We must first form and/or hold moral thought and belief prior to our being able to doubt it's veracity.

Thought and belief are prior to the ability to doubt what one is being taught during language acquisition. Thought and belief that is prior to the ability to doubt does not include the ability to doubt. All doubt is belief based, and it consists in/of doubting the truth of something or other. Doubting the veracity of one's own moral thought and belief requires a baseline of pre-existing moral belief. Belief grounds all reasonable doubt. What matters most can be clearly described. Reasonable belief provides reasonable doubt. Unreasonable doubt doesn't warrant much attention.

One almost entirely adopts his/her own initial worldview, and it comes replete with a code of conduct; with notions of being good/bad, admirable/detestable, harmful/helpful, etc. One initially judges his/her own actions through a moral lens that only language acquisition can initially bring.

Can what we learn about what counts as moral/immoral during this time be false? If so, what makes it so?

Thought and belief are prior to the ability to doubt what one is being taught during language acquisition. Thought and belief that is prior to the ability to doubt does not include the ability to doubt. All doubt is belief based, and it consists in/of doubting the truth of something or other. — creativesoul

I do believe that one can have thoughts and beliefs prior to learning language. I argued this in my Wittgenstein threads. I'd be careful in expressing the limits of these beliefs though. No doubt that sharing a belief with others in terms of statements is a necessary feature of language.

It sounds like you're saying that we cannot express doubts without language. If this is the case, I don't think it's true. One can express doubts by one's actions, just as one can express beliefs by one's actions. The act of digging in the ground, for example, shows my belief that something is there (beliefs being states-of-mind). The act of doubting can also be observed. For example, one might have buried something in the ground (primitive man for e.g.) only to find that the object isn't where one thought it was. You may see the person quit digging, for example, look pensive, trying to figure out where the thing is buried. So the expression of doubts isn't necessary to language. It does seem to be a feature that's closely related to memory, that is, the person digging might be doubting their own recollection of where they buried a particular object.

The concepts of doubt and belief are something that requires language. However, one can show one's belief or doubt by one's actions apart from the concepts or apart from language. So at a primitive level one's beliefs are shown through actions, but as we acquire language, we not only show our beliefs by our actions, but we show them by using concepts and/or statements.

It sounds like you're saying that we cannot express doubts without language. — Sam26

Fair rendition... Not quite right though.

I'm saying that in order to doubt, one must have pre-existing belief that grounds the doubt. As it pertains to doubting one's own moral thought and belief, one has to have it. Having moral thought and belief requires language. Being able to doubt the veracity of one's own moral thought and belief requires language.

Digging in the ground is an action that can have more than one cause. Believing that something is there is but one. Believing that something could be there is another. Believing that digging in the ground causes something to be there is yet one more.

Which one applies to the chickens?

I'm honoring the suggested care in expressing the limits of these beliefs.

The concepts of doubt and belief are something that requires language. However, one can show one's belief or doubt by one's actions apart from the concepts or apart from language. So at a primitive level one's beliefs are shown through actions, but as we acquire language, we not only show our beliefs by our actions, but we show them by using concepts and/or statements. — Sam26

So, we agree then on one count at least. Belief does not require language.

Doubt, it seems we disagree on. If doubt is belief based, and doubting one's own thought and belief requires being able to set it aside as a means to isolate it(which I hold it does), then doubting one's own thought and belief requires language, for language is the only means we have for metacognition.