Morality

[Dill]

(06-15-2021, 02:29 PM)Lucidus Wrote: I have many points of agreement and disagreement with Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics*, with one area of contention being some of his launching points, or more accurately, the initial requirements he feels are best suited from which to derive the requisites for a good, ethical or virtuous life. But I would prefer not to go too deep in the weeds on the philosophical approaches of those like Aristotle, Socrates, Hume, Kant, etc. Instead, I was hoping for a more practical and pragmatic conversation as to how we can agree on a moral system that benefits the most while doing harm to the least; and how to derive objective moral truths from a necessarily subjective standard. 

Sorry I am late getting back to you Lucidus. Thanks for your response. 

To the bolded, seems like you've already embraced one of those approaches--utilitarianism.  

(06-15-2021, 02:29 PM)Lucidus Wrote: For instance, what if we started with these four precepts [with the overall well-being of our species being the over-arching foundational goal]:

Life is generally preferable to death.
Pleasure is generally preferable to pain.
Wellness is generally preferable to sickness.
Flourishing in generally preferable to suffering. 

It seems to me that from those, we can make many determinations as to what is moral --- if we define morality as that which provides the most benefit and does the least harm --- and even derive objective truths, despite the foundational standards being purely subjective.

In situations where larger societal issues put people / cultures in conflict with one another, I think the "Veil of Ignorance" approach is a great supplemental tool to help determine what is or isn't moral. Take slavery for example. If a person who objects to slavery and a person who condones it are searching for the correct moral answer on the subject, they only need to both imagine themselves being born into a world where there's an exactly 50/50 chance they would end up being a slave. Would they both rather enter that world with said odds, or a world where slavery is outlawed altogether, so that there's zero chance they end up a slave?

Rawls?  When cultures conflict, as you posit here, it seems to me 

1. that it is unlikely the Veil of Ignorance would lead them to the same ethical standards, and 

2. that there can still be a power differential at work, such that one gets to enforce its standard on the other.

No society and no ethicist starts from a tabula rasa. I think it possible that some could say it is proper for women to be subordinate to men, even if that means the subject making the judgment would be subordinated if a woman. Others would not. Same for other kinds of class/social distinctions. I might believe that it is perfectly ok for me to be excluded from most of society if born a Dalit, because to reject that would be to reject beliefs about the progression of the soul, and that belief is more important than social status.

It is hard to judge how your precepts would work, once we move from the ethical to the political, and decide how resources are to be allocated.  If we presume the Veil of Ignorance would lead us to concoct equitable arrangements, can we be sure those would remain in place? 

Back to the power differential for a moment--if a militarily and economically powerful society comes in contact with a weaker, and doesn't like its ethical system/cultural practices (e.g., female circumcision), is it bound to a laissez-faire approach or duty bound to change/ oppose them? 

What question would be posed through the Veil of Ignorance then--do I want to live in a world (into which I could be born a woman) that allows female circumcision or do I want to live in a world that allows more powerful societies to impose their values on less powerful? 

*Just for the record, I have only read Books 1-III, VI and X (chaps. 5-10) of the Nicomachean Ethics, so I am not an expert. I just admire the way he sets up ethical questions, and then moves them into the political, the arrangement of the Polis to produce/incentivize the Good.