"Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism)."

- Rosalind Hursthouse, SEP, "Virtue Ethics", https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/

#virtue #ethics #deontology #consequentialism #character

The more I think about #politics, #morality, and the so-called "political spectrum" or "political compass, the more I think that the best way to define a politic is along two axes, but not the ones which have been proposed in the past. I would define the political spectrum along the axes of #equality v. #inequality and #deontology v. #teleology.

Debates about "#economic freedom" and "#social freedom" are misleading, because those are ultimately the same thing—the equality v. inequality dynamic.

New Cambridge Element "#Deontology" (by Piers Rawling). Free access available until 30 January 2023: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/deontology/9714AF362CDFDB500B06F2D5CA6F8487

The shopping cart deontology

#deontology

The problem that #Bentham is tackling in his #Deontology, is not that the government makes you wear a seatbelt for the good of others but you would actually prefer to do your own thing, it is that the government makes you wear a seatbelt for the good of others but you still want to think of yourself as a good person.

For Hundreds, if not thousands, of years, we have largely limited the changes to society. With the exception of revolutions (more on those later) we rely on reforms to "course-correct" well meaning systems that were either poorly designed, or poorly implemented.

But were they well meaning?

When merchants undermined the power of monarchs with the help of enlightenment philosophers, and landed gentry serving in newly formed parliaments, they were not seeking the liberation of peoples for the sake of the liberated peoples. They sought to seize that power for themselves. and they ultimately succeeded.

The assumption behind reformism is that you are fixing a broken system. But do we measure a system's efficacy by its stated intent, or its functional outcomes? In philosophy this is the question of deontology vs consequentialism.

The deontologists will argue that what matters is intent, and that no matter how bad the outcomes are, if the stated intent is good, then the implementation is what went wrong.

The consequentialists will argue that it doesn't matter what the stated intent is, if the results are bad, then we cannot differentiate between bad intent and bad implementation.

But for those with Power Over others, it is exceedingly rare for them to admit to bad intent, and there is no shortage of subordinates on which to blame bad implementation. So deontology becomes the philosophy of choice for Hierarchies of Domination, and consequences be damned.

The hierarchies of domination, with their stated good intentions, and their abundance of scapegoats, then proceed to set the boundaries of tolerable changes that can be made to their power structures. And thus we have reforms. The power structure stays in place, and is only altered in ways that do not reduce the Power Over others. Many scapegoats can be sacrificed in this process, and since the appearance of accountability is thus upheld, we (the frog) sit idly in the water, blissfully ignorant of our impending doom.

Reformism is a slow death, and a concession to the powerful that we will tolerate any consequences their systems visit upon us, as long as we get a pound of flesh in the process.

Revolution should be (but rarely is) consequentialist in its view of existing power structures. Far too often, we see a lack of unity of means and ends in the revolutionary rhetoric used by those that go on to enact revolutions, only to have them seek whatever means they have at hand, to achieve an end that cannot result from those means. Again, this becomes deontological, and eventually we see scapegoats being sacrificed to stated good intentions of the revolutionaries that eventually seize the reigns of power. (Yes, I am pointing at the likes of Lenin and Stalin here)

In this way, deontological revolutions are just a more "radical appearing" kind of reformism. The power structures remain, but we change who holds the reigns of power. We don't notice the water heating up as we (the frog) are focused only on the removal of the hand that was turning up the heat, ignoring the hand that has replaced it.

So this leads us to a singular conclusion. If frogs we must be, then we cannot allow the slow boil of deontological reformism, or the replacement boil of deontological revolutions. We need a more consequentialist approach to revolution, so that we never forget that stated intentions and a plethora of scapegoats, do not prevent us from boiling.

#philosophy #reform # revolution #deontology #consequentialism

I am not a philosopher, please don't attack me in the comments

#Deontology and #HumanRights with #Philosopher #SimonBlackburn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ve3n3uIL4&ab_channel=NortheasternUniversityLondon

#Philosophy #Utilitarianism #IndirectUtilitarianism #Consequentialism #CategoricalImperative #Mill #JohnStuartMill #JSM #Kant #ImmanuelKant #Liberalism #Economics #Ethics #MoralPhilosophy