this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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"Every ethics course pans utilitarianism"
"I took ethics and they gave very serious consideration to utilitarianism"
"Am I out of touch? No, it's the ethics professors who are wrong"
Do you hear yourself?
Name one single ethical philosophy that can't lead to negative outcomes.
So deontology? An absolute trash philosophy, see the Paradox of Deontology. Lying is wrong, so you shouldn't lie to the axe murderer when they ask where your family is. Enabling genocide is wrong, so we should let the person who wants to accelerate that genocide and enable others get into a position to do so. Many more will suffer and die, but hey at least you can be smug about your virtues.
This is a childish philosophy for childish people. It says "Who cares about the consequences of my choices. All that matters is that I don't have to make any difficult choices when presented with an ethical dilemma. Who cares if the death tolls skyrocket." It disincentivizes action in the very situations that most desperately rely on ethical considerations.
If you make "the right choice" and more people directly suffer because of it, you didn't make the right choice. You made excuses.
Slapping labels on things are how we discuss ideas. If you can't describe your worldview, you can't support or defend it. That said, the consequentialist stance is less label-obsessed than you. It only cares about results, not the philosophical pathway you followed to get there
How is erecting an absolute rule in ethical behavior distinct from deontology? Your stance against utilitarianism logically extrapolates to all consequentialism, and all teleology at that. You've constructed a philosophy where the rule, Don't Support Genocide, is elevated over the consequences, genocide is accelerated and expanded.
More deaths is an explicitly negative result, so your ethical philosophy failed at the one thing it was supposed to do. Defend your virtues all you want while the suffering of those actually affected skyrockets. Childish excuses.
These are all variations on labels. They are either effective forms of information transfer, or they're ineffective. Effective information transfer requires that the recipient can accurately decode the meaning of the message. If your communication mode accomplished that, congratulations you've made a label by another name. If it did not, you have not communicated your message.
No one is saying genocide isn't wrong, that's a ridiculous straw man. What people are saying is there are two outcomes: everyone in group A dies, or everyone in group A and group B dies. Not supporting genocide doesn't end the genocide. This isn't even the trolley problem because everyone on the side track is also on the main track Harris losing saved no one, and now the additional deaths will start. The performative resistance will be replaced by unlimited support.
Why do you think all those extra deaths justify your virtue? Don't Support Genocide will exacerbate the very problem it was intended to solve. This is why absolutism is a childish ethical philosophy doomed to failure. Of course genocide is wrong in every circumstance, but your absolutism just enabled the exacerbation of genocide. I hope your ideological purity is worth the annexation of the West Bank, because that's your prize
Profoundly incorrect on all counts. I hope your principles drown out the screams, because those of us with brains and hearts will be screaming with them.