“we shape the ideology to steer clearer of RB & naive consequentialism?”
I’m strongly in favour of this as something for CEA to aim for via the content of EA intro fellowships.
Specifically, EA should actively condemn law-breaking in the pursuit of doing good as a general principle and accept that EA isn’t just applied consequentialism and does accept broad deontological principles like “don’t break the law”, “don’t lie” etc.
I think this is impossible. We all can easily point situations where breaking the law is a moral obligation; this is a true for Christians in Rome as for utilitarians.
What is needed is a clear appreciation of what is Law for, and why it has a very special value as social coordination device even if there is room for improvement in its material content. This is an excellent piece on that:
“we shape the ideology to steer clearer of RB & naive consequentialism?”
I’m strongly in favour of this as something for CEA to aim for via the content of EA intro fellowships.
Specifically, EA should actively condemn law-breaking in the pursuit of doing good as a general principle and accept that EA isn’t just applied consequentialism and does accept broad deontological principles like “don’t break the law”, “don’t lie” etc.
I disagreed with this because good, sophisticated consequentialists should follow those rules on consequentialist grounds.
I think this is impossible. We all can easily point situations where breaking the law is a moral obligation; this is a true for Christians in Rome as for utilitarians.
What is needed is a clear appreciation of what is Law for, and why it has a very special value as social coordination device even if there is room for improvement in its material content. This is an excellent piece on that:
https://www.utilitarianism.com/utilitarianism-justice.pdf
Don’t be casual about sex and law breaking is a good piece of advice :-)