How does ethics manifest in behavior?
This thread was inspired by my previous thread about "Should I become something I am not?"
In it the general sentiment was that, people hardly know what they are to begin with. Now, the previous sentence is true with respect to issues about personal identity and agency. It's only apparent to me that when people are confronted with hard decisions to make that we reveal who we really are (does that sound like postmodernism?)
For, example there's the Trolley dilemma, where we have the choice to sacrifice a person to save a group of people. One can approach the Trolley dilemma with Kant's deontological ethics or Mill's doctrine of utility as per consequentialism and utilitarianism.
Now, everyday life has its own mysterious ways of determination of who we are without encountering ethical dilemmas. The question of this thread is that if we don't live with a rationale or volition to do good, then how does ethical behavior arise in our lives? Is it necessary to have a prescriptive ethical doctrine in place to behave or have ethical behavior emerge from ones thinking process?
In it the general sentiment was that, people hardly know what they are to begin with. Now, the previous sentence is true with respect to issues about personal identity and agency. It's only apparent to me that when people are confronted with hard decisions to make that we reveal who we really are (does that sound like postmodernism?)
For, example there's the Trolley dilemma, where we have the choice to sacrifice a person to save a group of people. One can approach the Trolley dilemma with Kant's deontological ethics or Mill's doctrine of utility as per consequentialism and utilitarianism.
Now, everyday life has its own mysterious ways of determination of who we are without encountering ethical dilemmas. The question of this thread is that if we don't live with a rationale or volition to do good, then how does ethical behavior arise in our lives? Is it necessary to have a prescriptive ethical doctrine in place to behave or have ethical behavior emerge from ones thinking process?
Comments (37)
My assumption is that with ethical theories like deontological or consequentialist ethical theories, we have a conceptual framework to go about here that guarantees us some methodology to go about by in addressing choices or decisions to make in response to certain situations. With these conceptual frameworks, we rely on the prescriptive ethical theory to determine our behavior. Our behavior is seen in terms of what is appropriate to act on in terms of the most ethical decision at our disposal at the moment. Dispositions and preferences aside, as they are biases that affect our decision making, I believe that one is compelled to address these situations as best we can with the information we have at hand, again referring to the prescriptive ethical framework we have at our disposal (or what we choose to believe in).
Habit. Substitute maintain homeostasis for "do good" and healthy for "ethical" and the question need not be asked.
Of course not. Consider fairness and caretaking in nonhuman animals or human toddlers ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699762
So, you're assuming that we are by nature ethical. I find this argument in lacking in the real world.
You mention habit, which I'm in agreement with; but, in the context of the question am not quite sure if it is already equipped in our natural homeostasis function.
You must believe we are not an eusocial species and that antisocial sociopathy is the norm rather than a pathology afflicting less than a twentieth of the general popularion.
You also must believe that decades of scientific studies which demonstrate empathy and fairness in pre-socialized human toddlers and nonhuman primates elephants & cetaceans are "fake news" or "alternative facts".
Or maybe you just didn't bother to check out the links in the linked post above?
Tell me, Shawn, where does the predominance of (some) moral behavior come from "in the real world" if moral behavior is not a feature, or function, of our mammalian nature. :chin:
It may be true that what your saying is true; but what it seems to amount to in my mind is that we know what's ethical but don't necessarily act on those impulses or aspirations. We normally default on rational self interest as a calculus to govern our behavior, no?
Surveys, we need surveys i.e. data is a sine qua non if we 're to make inferences. 180 Proof has evidence that supports the existence of some kinda moral instinct in both nonhumans and humans. We might wanna review biological theories, specifically evolution and also, guys, let's face the facts - we're at the top of the food chain.
... and therefore we're on an extinction path as we destroy more and more of the base of the food chain. Maybe we'll develop AGI before we're done. Maybe viable space habitats (for genemodded exo-humans). But probably not.
To see from where an ethical behavior arises we can just follow it backwards to its beginning. Much of it is visceral, I believe, biological. After all, every human action begins and ends there. In this case the conscience, born latent but forever developed, has the final word.
In this way the history of ethics is about recording the pangs and stresses of human interaction and prescribing a means to soothe them. For reasons of health a man must account for his passions as he navigates his inevitable and awkward proximity to others. How do I justify sentencing to death one man in order to save five men? The right behavior is that which invariably allows him to live with himself.
I believe that this doesn't follow. I mean, homo sapiens has done well even without conceptual frameworks allowing a person to make decisions based off of the ethical framework. Yet, modern day man finds it easier to function with a set determinate way of behaving according to law and order. Just my two cents.
Easier? You mean without engaging their own intellect?
@180 Proof kinda explained it. But, yes, we're all taxed on what's the most efficient outcome and seem to believe that rational self interest is possibly representative of our true selves.
True self - as in essence - is a reductionist methodology. Any statement about who we are is inaccurate from the moment it is made. It immediately becomes past tense. To be human is to continually progress beyond who we are at any point in time.
Thats not to say that recognising or determining who we are is pointless - its necessary to at least some extent in order for us to act, to be. But when we outsource reasoning - when we function with a set determinate way of behaving according to law and order - then we fail to be our true selves and are instead being according to a rational common denominator, whether self or societal interest.
The most efficient outcome from what perspective?
I think efficiency in decision making is called utility or intelligence.
It's hard to classify someone as intelligent nowadays without metrics swarming around you with advertisements and pixel tracking on a phone. Does that make sense?
I am sure you would agree that base emotions are innate and if that is the case, being social creatures too, how can we not come develop ideas of right and wrong due to mirror neurons assisting in helping us feel/understand the pain of others.
In general I do find the generall view of ethics to be garbage. I am more about meta ethics as there is undeniably (as far as I can see?) a pretty strong case to state that ethics is more of a political tool than a real investigation into the human conidition.
I don't think the field of ethics is, to say, exploited; but it certainly can be as in the case of virtue signaling in consumer behavior. All these advertising companies are always seeking to change or even modify consumer behavior in small amount, which over time can become quite profound on socioeconomics in any capitalist system. Does that sound like something you were alluding to?
I wasnt really asking for clarification on what you meant - it was a comment on the ambiguity of the term. We use it as if it means something specific on its own, but utility is very different to intelligence.
As you point out, utility can be reductively determined (albeit narrowly and after the fact), whereas intelligence refers to a perceived capacity for reasoning, incorporating rational as well as emotional and social intelligence, much of which remains largely unquantifiable (or at least dimensionally complex and variable).
I think that isolating utility from conceptual perspective or interoception of affect leads to impaired and distorted moral judgement. Statements of law and order alone cannot accurately determine ethical ways of behaving without reducing our perception of human capacity, and yet we continue to reformulate and enforce them as if they could. And in doing so, we judge others utility by their disobedience rather than their diverse situational capacities for reasoning. Because its easier.
Just a thought: what if we strived for efficiency in terms of more accurate instead of easier?
It rare for me to do this but I hope in faith that @Hanover would like to address this. What I would say from my side would be something like, we work with an imperfect model and we do the best we can with it. It sounds pragmatic, to say so, but we aren't all behind a veil of ignorance to asses these issues, only judges are.
Quoting Possibility
Well, are you talking about society or the application of law itself? Please clarify.
Quoting Possibility
It seems that pragmatically we address the issue in terms of the benefit conferred to the total, that is society. We can only be as intelligent as the conduct that is expected of us.
So, you can see utility cropping up again in how I phrase the issue.
If you have a discussion around women about women, then if you are a woman you would speak more freely as a woman, but around men or if you were a man the dynamic changes.
No matter how we sit in a social context there is fluctuations between individual and group good ALL of which is mixed up in ignorances, different perspectives and various levels of judgement.
When it comes to ethical debate the real work is internal and excruciating we are never willing to truly expose ourselves to ourselves let alone anyone else. Ergo, ethical claims are far beyond the reality of the individual.
Meta ethics approaches these problems where ethics does nothing as it is never under investigation of itself as a concept.
In other words the immediacy of ethics in every day is what is burdensome on making these decisions and freely talking about it? I think, I would tend to agree.
Quoting I like sushi
I see your point, but what can be said about meta-ethics other than analyzing the differing methodologies. In my opinion utilitarianism has triumphed over other methods of assessing cogent and rational behavior. But, that's just how socio-,economics seems to have played out.
I would answer that question put to Bertrand Russell more or less the same way he does but with slight variations: (1) intellectually trust nothing but publicly accessible evidence and sound reasoning; (2) morally practice Hillel the Elder's principle: "What you find hateful (or harmful), do not do to anyone."
We should put the above short, sweet, & pithy paragraph in a time capsule - a message for our children on what's important in life (how to "live together and not die together" ~ Bertrand Russell)
I hate to say it, but it might be better if some people (me included) never read philosophy and theory, and just applied this and got on with fucking living - choosing, doing and staying silent. :razz:
For me the point is more or less about what I state publicly being just a public statement. We all fall prey to looking good to help ourselves. The real issue for me is to not waste time saying this or that to you or anyone else, but to shut my mouth and be brutally honest with myself and do my nest not to pretend I am something I merely wish to be.
This is not something I would prescribe to anyone though. All I say is I strongly believe it is a waste of time debating ethics because to debate you are already playing a social game rather than exploring your own take on the world regardless of whether others agree or not it is important what others think because we are social but I do not see it as being the main reason I should act one way rather than another.
It would be easy to frame me as a moral relativist and you can do so if you wish. I would not say that about myself though. I find ethics to be unethical and morals to be immoral.
Well, Im not sure that we always do the best we can with it. We often do what best suits us at the time. Recognising the fallibility of the model, and the resulting uncertainty in our judgements, should give us pause. Yet it rarely does - and we invariably cite/blame the model, even though we always knew it would be inaccurate. There are repeated calls for an overhaul of these statements of law and order, even though no amount of rewrite will render them sufficiently accurate to stand alone in determining ethical ways of behaving.
Quoting Shawn
Im talking about society, although the application of law is susceptible. Hence the level of intelligence (rational, social and emotional) required to practice it with any competence.
Quoting Shawn
We can be more intelligent than what is expected of us, theres just no individual incentive/benefit to do so. And so this claim that pragmatism confers benefit to the total is not entirely accurate, is it? Pragmatism confers the minimum expected benefit to society.
You probably noticed by now that I dont subscribe to pragmatism or utilitarianism in ethics. I do get the attraction, however. It does seem easier. But I dont think it can achieve anything more than assessing or justifying the rationality of behaviour AFTER the fact.
Human behaviour is by definition a manifestation of an ethic, which is a specific instantiation of ethics. In other words, all behaviour is ethical (or unethical) as the case may be; all behaviour is interpretable in ethical terms. Isn't it?
In other words, "anything more than" learning (developing more adaptive habits) a feature in my book, not a bug.
I didnt say it was a bug - my point is that it lacks accuracy, but I get that may not be a value for you. Justifying past behaviour offers little learning by way of developing more adaptive habits. All behaviour occurs within a social and emotional context, rendering the mere rationality of past behaviour an inaccurate account of the reasoning behind it.
Actually, pragmatism and utilitarianism are very consequentialist, so I don't see how else to asses the moral worth of an action rather than after the fact with those two rationale's.
I believe that every behavior can be interpreted as ethical but we aren't bound to be ethical at all times. Unless, they're in the military or something.
I do believe you are right about the incongruence between social and emotional contexts; but, I think the issue isn't overdetermined by those factors.
I guess my take is that people are always being ethical. Even when they fail to be ethical, they are manifesting an ethic, just not what we construe as a positive one. Realizing this can be a strong motivator to reflect and perhaps to begin to try to enact a more healthy ethic.
Not with those two rationales, of course. I think my highlighting after may have confused things. This focus on assessing the moral worth of an action is where the inaccuracy in terms of ethics lies, precisely because an action or behaviour can only be morally evaluated in its social and emotional context. The moral worth of a future action will always be relative.
I think the question of should I become something I am not? cannot be answered by consequentialism, because it isnt about an action, nor an evaluation, but rather an overall perception of potentiality. Were not really asking about the moral worth of an action here, but how one perceives the value of change itself. The reality is that I will become something I am not regardless - ethics being more than merely action. Ethics is about understanding and refining our conceptual structures of value and potential, which direct all our changes in effort and attention, regardless of whether or not we act. In this context, pragmatism or utilitarianism as reductionist methodologies are only one aspect of a much broader understanding of change.
The question might be rephrased as: what is the best use of my limited resources of effort and attention in terms of change? It wont produce eternal statements of law and order, but I think it may gradually help to determine a more ethical life, regardless of whether we agree on values, or what our individual capacity may be.