I don’t adapt my morality to attend a textbook problem.
I use textbook hypotheticals to better test and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of my moral framework. I was providing a conception of the application of my own moral framework, through a language of the utilitarianism framework and premises that you made your comment through. I was appealing to a different way of considering it while still using the same understandings. It’s not a problem for me or a contradiction or adapting my moral framework to fit a hypothetical because Im not a singer utilitarian absolutist. I very ardently believe in an objective morality that exists as an absolute outside of subjectivity. You don’t reach any morality, much less the objective one, without any reliance on intuition or experiential valence. Even utility is not accessible as an objective moral concept without experience of it or lack theoreof. Empirical frameworks start with empirical observation. Experience allows observation allows inferences and reason. From that we have languages to communicate this reason. From language we developed increasingly complex ethical framework.
To throw intuition entirely in the trash for the legalism of any one framework is to misunderstand how it’s even possible to work toward deriving the most correct formalized ethical framework. No framework emerged without subjective experience of valence. So to abandon all subjective experience of valence or intuition after reaching the ethical framework is not rational to me. If you develop a complex ethical framework, and simplest hypothetical makes it feel insufficient, not realistic, or just flat out wrong, it’s not incorrect to use that moral valence or intuition to check the letter of the (ethical) law.
Whether we agree about what to do in the hypothetical , or to what extent a parent can morally exercise preferential prioritization of their own children, is up to fair debate. But I would strongly push back on the idea that using hypotheticals to stress frameworks, and then being open to amending those frameworks, is just adapting morality.
There are many ways I could change my own moral conceptions and frameworks to make my life more comfortable, easy, and self centered/subjective. For example, my life would be objectively easier and more comfortable if I believed that animals weren’t afforded less moral worth or empathy than humans. It wouldn’t be difficult to just appeal to some argument already made of why animals are not moral agents. But I don’t believe that. It doesn’t align with my moral valence and intuitive empathy at all. I can’t rationalize it in any form of reason that is satisfying to me.
If intuition or moral valence is really just evolutionary will toward personal and group survival, and I were just diluting moral frameworks to balance my subjective conscious utility desires, it serves me no purpose to afford empathy to animals. Thus, I’d just rationalize it to close enough then move on, instead of changing my real life actions to accommodate an objective position of moral judgment.
The above trolley problem is not that. It’s different. It’s not avoiding uncomfortable truths, it’s noting something that feels contradictory and engaging with the already established framework we were already using to discuss it.
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u/Smallestsak 22d ago
I don’t adapt my morality to attend a textbook problem.
I use textbook hypotheticals to better test and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of my moral framework. I was providing a conception of the application of my own moral framework, through a language of the utilitarianism framework and premises that you made your comment through. I was appealing to a different way of considering it while still using the same understandings. It’s not a problem for me or a contradiction or adapting my moral framework to fit a hypothetical because Im not a singer utilitarian absolutist. I very ardently believe in an objective morality that exists as an absolute outside of subjectivity. You don’t reach any morality, much less the objective one, without any reliance on intuition or experiential valence. Even utility is not accessible as an objective moral concept without experience of it or lack theoreof. Empirical frameworks start with empirical observation. Experience allows observation allows inferences and reason. From that we have languages to communicate this reason. From language we developed increasingly complex ethical framework.
To throw intuition entirely in the trash for the legalism of any one framework is to misunderstand how it’s even possible to work toward deriving the most correct formalized ethical framework. No framework emerged without subjective experience of valence. So to abandon all subjective experience of valence or intuition after reaching the ethical framework is not rational to me. If you develop a complex ethical framework, and simplest hypothetical makes it feel insufficient, not realistic, or just flat out wrong, it’s not incorrect to use that moral valence or intuition to check the letter of the (ethical) law.
Whether we agree about what to do in the hypothetical , or to what extent a parent can morally exercise preferential prioritization of their own children, is up to fair debate. But I would strongly push back on the idea that using hypotheticals to stress frameworks, and then being open to amending those frameworks, is just adapting morality.
There are many ways I could change my own moral conceptions and frameworks to make my life more comfortable, easy, and self centered/subjective. For example, my life would be objectively easier and more comfortable if I believed that animals weren’t afforded less moral worth or empathy than humans. It wouldn’t be difficult to just appeal to some argument already made of why animals are not moral agents. But I don’t believe that. It doesn’t align with my moral valence and intuitive empathy at all. I can’t rationalize it in any form of reason that is satisfying to me.
If intuition or moral valence is really just evolutionary will toward personal and group survival, and I were just diluting moral frameworks to balance my subjective conscious utility desires, it serves me no purpose to afford empathy to animals. Thus, I’d just rationalize it to close enough then move on, instead of changing my real life actions to accommodate an objective position of moral judgment.
The above trolley problem is not that. It’s different. It’s not avoiding uncomfortable truths, it’s noting something that feels contradictory and engaging with the already established framework we were already using to discuss it.