--- date: '2024-03-05' description: we study ethics in order to improve our life, or Aristotelian ethics id: ethics modified: 2026-06-05 15:08:21 GMT-04:00 tags: - philosophy - seed title: ethics created: '2024-03-05' published: '2024-03-05' pageLayout: default slug: thoughts/ethics permalink: https://aarnphm.xyz/thoughts/ethics.md generator: quartz: v4.6.0 hostedProvider: Cloudflare baseUrl: aarnphm.xyz full: https://aarnphm.xyz/llms-full.txt --- Closely connected to [[thoughts/Value|value]] theory, or rather a systematic analysis of [[thoughts/moral|morality]]. [[thoughts/Philosophy and Kant|Kantian]] ethics presupposes that there is a universal moral law that applies to all rational beings, or his deontological ethics framework that based on “categorical imperative”. This is different from [[thoughts/John Stuart Mill|Mill's utilitarianism]], who argued actions are right insofar as they promote happiness and wrong insofar that they produce a _reverse_ of happiness. [[thoughts/Philosophy and Nietzsche|Nietzsche]] critiqued conventional moral theories, and argued for reevaluation of [[thoughts/Value|value]]. He believed that traditional morality stifled the full potential of human excellence, seen through BGE or “On the Genealogy of Moral”. Ethics arguments are based of the principles of “good” versus “evil”. What defined as “good” and “evil”? Does human whom ideology falls outside of the [[thoughts/Overton Window|Overton Window]] considered “evil”? That’s why it’s important to understand our [[thoughts/Alignment|alignment]] through anthropology work such that we didn’t repeat history. ## normative ethics What should you do? Normative ethics provides frameworks for answering. Three major approaches: - consequentialism (outcomes matter) - deontology (duties matter) - virtue (character matters) Plus care ethics (relationships matter). Each offers different criteria for right action. There is also an argument about [[#normative excellence|normative excellence]] versus [[#absolute excellence|absolute excellence]] where certain values are aligned based on personal goals. ### normative excellence ### absolute excellence ### deontology Kant: morality comes from reason, not consequences or feelings. \[@kant1785groundwork\] Act only according to principles you can will as universal law. Respect persons as ends in themselves, never merely as means. **The categorical imperative** - three formulations: 1. **Universal law formulation**: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” \[@kant1785groundwork\] Test: can you consistently will that everyone act on this principle? If universalizing your maxim creates contradiction, it’s wrong. Examples: - Lying promise: if everyone lied when convenient, promises would be meaningless. Universal lying destroys the practice of promising. Contradiction. Wrong. - Suicide from self-love: can you will a law where self-love destroys life? Self-love’s purpose is life-preservation. Contradiction. Wrong. This isn’t consequentialist calculation (what if lying produces better outcomes?). It’s test for rational consistency. 2. **Humanity formulation**: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” Persons have dignity, not price. You can’t use someone purely as instrument for your goals. Must respect their rational agency, their capacity to set their own ends. Examples: - Manipulative lying: treats person as tool (you manipulate their beliefs for your benefit). Violates their autonomy. Wrong. - Coercion: overrides their rational choice. Treats them as object, not subject. Wrong. - Using someone: okay to hire someone (they’re means to your end), but only if you also respect them as end (fair pay, safe conditions, voluntary agreement). Not _merely_ means. Connection to [[thoughts/love]]: Buber’s I-Thou vs I-It. When you treat someone as I-It (pure instrument, function), you violate Kantian respect. Love requires treating as end. 3. **Kingdom of ends formulation**: “Act as if you were, through your maxims, a law-making member of a kingdom of ends.” Imagine community of rational beings, each legislating universal laws, each respecting others as ends. Your maxim should fit this ideal community. This is regulative ideal: what rational community _would_ will, not what actual communities do will. **Criteria**: what does acting from duty look like? - Act from respect for law, not inclination (you keep promise because it’s right, not because you feel like it) - Maxim passes universal law test (can everyone act this way?) - Treat persons as ends (respect their rational agency) - Willing, not just conforming (external compliance $\neq$ moral worth) **Strengths**: - Respects human dignity regardless of consequences - Provides clear principles (don’t lie, don’t manipulate, keep promises) - Captures moral intuition: some acts are wrong even if they produce good outcomes - Universal: applies to all rational beings **Critiques**: - Too abstract: ignores particularity, context, relationships (care ethics critique) - Rigorism: allows no exceptions (lying to murderer at door?) - Conflicting duties: what when two categorical imperatives clash? - Empty formalism: universal law test gives different results depending on how you describe maxim - Ignores moral emotions: reduces morality to reason, excludes compassion, [[thoughts/love]], care - Autonomous subject assumption: presupposes independent rational agent (care ethics: we’re always already relational) See also [[thoughts/Philosophy and Kant]], [[thoughts/hermeneutics]] (contrast: Kant’s universal principles vs hermeneutic particularity) ### consequentialism Outcome is all that matters. Right action = action producing best consequences. Judge acts by results, not intentions or rules. **Utilitarianism** (Bentham, [[thoughts/John Stuart Mill|Mill]]): maximize utility. \[@mill1863utilitarianism\] - Bentham: utility = pleasure minus pain. Hedonic calculus: intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, extent. - Mill: qualitative pleasures differ. Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than fool satisfied. Higher pleasures (intellectual, moral, aesthetic) > lower pleasures (bodily). - Greatest happiness principle: actions right in proportion as they promote happiness (pleasure, absence of pain); wrong as they produce reverse. **Criteria**: maximize aggregate welfare across all affected parties. Act utilitarianism: evaluate each act individually. Does _this_ action maximize utility? Rule utilitarianism: follow rules that, if generally followed, maximize utility. Don’t lie (rule produces best outcomes overall), even if particular lie might help. **Examples**: - Trolley problem: pull lever, kill one to save five. Utilitarianism says: pull lever (five lives > one life). - Organ harvesting: kill one healthy person, harvest organs, save five dying patients? Act utilitarianism might say yes (five > one). Most find this repugnant—suggests utility isn’t everything. **Strengths**: - Intuitively appealing: consequences matter - Impartial: everyone’s welfare counts equally - Flexible: adapts to context (vs rigid rules) - Action-guiding: clear decision procedure **Critiques**: - Demandingness: requires constant maximization (no supererogatory acts) - Ignores distribution: total utility might require terrible inequalities - Rights violations: can justify harming innocents for greater good - Reduces persons to utility containers: ignores dignity, particularity (Kantian critique) - Separateness of persons: treats individuals as interchangeable (Rawls’s critique) - [[thoughts/Compression]] problem: reduces rich moral life to single metric (utility) - Care ethics critique: can’t aggregate across persons—each person’s particularity matters Locke’s alternative: action acceptable if it respects human rights of everyone involved. Rights constrain utility maximization. Common good approach: promote flourishing of whole community, not just aggregate preference satisfaction. ### virtue ethics Don’t ask “what should I do?” Ask: “what kind of person should I be?” Morality is about character, not rules or outcomes. Aristotle: virtue (_arete_) is excellence of character acquired through practice. \[@aristotle\_nicomachean\_ethics\] Eudaimonia (flourishing, living well) is the goal. You achieve it through virtuous activity. **Key virtues**: courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, generosity, friendliness, truthfulness. Each is mean between extremes: - Courage: mean between cowardice (deficiency) and rashness (excess) - Generosity: between stinginess and wastefulness - Friendliness: between surliness and obsequiousness Phronesis (practical wisdom): knowing what virtue requires in particular situation. Not rule application—interpretive judgment about context. Requires experience, habituation, good upbringing. Connection to [[thoughts/hermeneutics]]: phronesis is hermeneutic skill. You interpret situation, grasp what matters, respond appropriately. **Practice-based**: virtues acquired through habituation. You become brave by doing brave acts, generous by doing generous acts. Virtue is second nature developed through practice. Philia (friendship, [[thoughts/love|love]]): central to good life. Not instrumental—friends are good in themselves. Virtuous friendship: mutual recognition, shared activity, reciprocal development. **Criteria**: what does virtuous person do? - Acts from stable disposition (one generous act $\neq$ generous) - Chooses virtue for its own sake (not for external reward) - Acts with pleasure (virtuous person enjoys virtuous acts) - Exhibits phronesis (knows what situation calls for) - Integrated character (virtues harmonize; not courageous in war but cowardly in conversation) **Strengths**: - Captures moral development: you become good through practice - Emphasizes character over isolated acts - Contextual: phronesis adapts to situation - Holistic: integrates reason, emotion, habit - Communal: virtues learned in communities of practice **Critiques**: - Circular: virtuous act = what virtuous person does. But who’s virtuous? Who does virtuous acts. No independent standard. - Cultural relativism: virtues vary by community. Which community’s virtues are right? - Action guidance: “be virtuous” doesn’t tell you what to do in hard cases - Elitism: assumes leisure for habituation, education. What about those without resources for virtue development? - Under-theorized obligations: strong on character, weak on duties, rights, justice Neo-Aristotelian response (MacIntyre, Nussbaum): ground virtues in human nature, needs, capabilities. Not arbitrary—virtues are what humans need to flourish. See also [[thoughts/love]] (virtue ethics: love as practice developing character) ### care ethics Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings: ethics of care emphasizes particularity over universality, relational self over autonomous individual, context-sensitive responsiveness over abstract principles. \[@gilligan1982different; @noddings1984caring\] Core commitments: - **Particularity**: you don’t care for “humanity” in abstract. You care for _this_ person, in _this_ context, with _this_ history. Their particularity matters. Not interchangeable with anyone else. - **Relational self**: you’re not autonomous atom making rational choices in isolation. You’re always already in relation. Care doesn’t happen _to_ a self; it partly _constitutes_ the self. You become who you are through being cared for and caring for others. - **Context-sensitivity**: respond to their needs as _they_ articulate them, not as abstract principle dictates. Requires phronesis (practical wisdom from [[thoughts/hermeneutics]]): knowing what matters here, now, to this person. - **Responsiveness**: ethics emerges from actual encounters, not hypothetical scenarios. Face of the other calls you to respond. Not “what would rational agent do?” but “what does this person need?” Sara Ruddick: maternal thinking as ethical paradigm. \[@ruddick1989maternal\] Preservative love (protecting vulnerability), nurturance (fostering growth), training (shaping development). Not limited to biological mothers—practice available to anyone engaged in care work. Eva Feder Kittay: dependency is human condition, not exception. \[@kittay1999love\] Liberal ethics assumes independent, autonomous agents. But we’re all dependent (childhood, illness, age) and interdependent (care work sustains “autonomy”). Ethics must center dependency, not marginalize it. Care as work: emotional labor, interpretive labor, maintenance labor. Not automatic, not effortless. Requires attention, practice, skill. Feminist ethics recognizes this labor (often invisible, often gendered, often unpaid) as essential to human flourishing. Connection to other frameworks: - vs consequentialism: care ethics rejects aggregating welfare across persons. Each person’s particularity matters. Can’t sacrifice one for greater good of abstract whole. - vs deontology: care ethics rejects universal principles applied regardless of context. Duties emerge from relationships, not abstract rationality. Kantian respect treats persons as interchangeable exemplars of rationality; care ethics attends to irreducible particularity. - with virtue ethics: both emphasize practice, character development, phronesis. But care ethics adds: relational self, dependency, feminist critique of “autonomy.” - with [[thoughts/hermeneutics]]: both require entering other’s horizon, fusion of horizons, interpretive charity, staying in circle. Care is hermeneutic practice. Criteria (Wittgensteinian): what does caring look like? - Attending to their particular needs, not abstract category - Tracking changes, staying curious, updating interpretation - Responsiveness: adjusting to what they articulate, not imposing your framework - Staying through difficulty: illness, conflict, dependency - Recognizing care as work: not natural, not effortless, not gendered essence Critiques: - Risk of exploitation: care work falls on women, unpaid or underpaid. Care ethics must include critique of gendered labor, not naturalize it. - Particularity vs justice: how do you scale care beyond immediate relationships? Risk of parochialism. Response: care and justice are complementary, not opposed. Justice requires care (attending to particular contexts); care requires justice (fair distribution of care work). - Over-emphasis on harmony: care isn’t always warm. Sometimes care means conflict, boundary-setting, refusal. Caring for someone can require saying no. see also: [[thoughts/love]], [[thoughts/hermeneutics]], [[thoughts/functionalism]] (critique: care resists reduction to functional role) ## meta-ethics.