Be virtue ethicist toward yourself, a deontologist towards others, and a utilitarian towards policy

[jack]

I saw someone on tumblr say "Be virtue ethicist toward yourself, a deontologist towards others, and a utilitarian towards policy". I can't find the link now, I don't think I have the words exactly right.

But the more I think about it, the more I think, "isn't that the perfect description?"

Types of ethics

I tend to think of myself as utilitarian, even though I know it isn't perfect. In fact, I tend to think of *everyone* as utilitarian, as I think most people find the good thing about an ethical system, that it makes things better for themselves and others. Even if there are people who genuinely don't think that "I will do the right thing even if I'm damned for it".

However I think a big dollop of the other ethical systems is helpful in practice.

Self

The thing is, most of the time you're not facing a stark choice, "A or B." You're facing an endless series of choices, some small, some big, and will never get them all right, from a mix of "I don't have the energy to decide every case perfectly" and "I'm not that much of a saint (even if I should be)."

So cultivating a habit of choosing a virtuous choice is most of the time, more useful than agonising over the individual choice. A lot of good happens because of people who try to always be compassionate and are compassionate when it matters. A lot of harm happens when people think, oh it doesn't matter that much, don't I deserve something for myself, and get caught out when it DOES matter.

Others

When it comes to how you treat others, you want to follow your virtue ethics, but you need to default to some deontological rules too, because consistency is beneficial: e.g. usually not imposing on people who don't want you to, even if you think it would help.

And when it comes to your opinion of other people's morals, you can judge their intentions, and please do, help them if you can, but in practice, you often need to judge their actions: if they act harmfully, you may need to protect yourself, them, or others, regardless of WHY they act harmfully. If they act virtuously, it's not productive to second guess them.

Utilitarian

And when you're considering policy, you often don't have the luxury of doing what seems right, if something else is proved to be more helpful in practice, directly or indirectly.

Hm, now I'm not sure it made as much sense as when I first saw it, but I still keep thinking about it.

Comments

[ptc24]

There's a frustration here, to do with whether "deontology" etc. refer to deep principles or surface ways of acting.

I mean, how you're actually thinking on a day-to-day basis about things that directly concern you is likely to be a complicated mess. I can think of three occasions to philosophise: a) intellectual curiosity etc., b) when the various things-to-live-by that you and others have seem to conflict, and c) when the mess seems so messy that it all seems arbitrary and pointless and you have a hankering for some simpler thing underneath to make it feel meaningful - and in those three (and possibly other) circumstances the deep principles come in.

So are these words referring to surface ways of acting, or to deep principles - put it another way, can you state one and say "the rest is just commentary" or are they in fact the commentaries? Or even "meso-principles" that sit between the two somehow? For "utilitarianism" at least, there's a nice passage from Mill, the guy who wrote the book on it (although this passage is from a different book, and references the book "Utilitarianism" in the footnotes):

"I do not mean to assert that the promotion of happiness should be itself the end of all actions, or even of all rules of action. It is the justification, and ought to be the controller, of all ends, but it is not itself the sole end. There are many virtuous actions, and even virtuous modes of action (though the cases are, I think, less frequent than is often supposed), by which happiness in the particular instance is sacrificed, more pain being produced than pleasure. But conduct of which this can be truly asserted, admits of justification only because it can be shown that, on the whole, more happiness will exist in the world, if feelings are cultivated which will make people, in certain cases, regardless of happiness. I fully admit that this is true; that the cultivation of an ideal nobleness of will and conduct should be to individual human beings an end, to which the specific pursuit either of their own happiness or of that of others (except so far as included in that idea) should, in any case of conflict, give way. But I hold that the very question, what constitutes this elevation of character, is itself to be decided by a reference to happiness as the standard. The character itself should be, to the individual, a paramount end, simply because the existence of this ideal nobleness of character, or of a near approach to it, in any abundance, would go farther than all things else toward making human life happy, both in the comparatively humble sense of pleasure and freedom from pain, and in the higher meaning, of rendering life, not what it now is almost universally, puerile and insignificant, but such as human beings with highly developed faculties can care to have."

I suspect by the way words are used in many quarters we should have to conclude that Mill, Mr. Utilitarianism himself, was a virtue ethicist.

[jack]

Part of it is that I suspect people differ about whether their brand of ethics is fundamental (and would genuinely double down on "yes, you should be virtuous even if it continually causes giant harm" or vice versa), or whether another brand of ethics is fundamental but that's so obvious it's insulting to debate it, the important thing is that their OWN ethics is how you should actually behave.

[edrith.co.uk]

I like the first two parts but am unsure about the third - wouldn't this just give the state a license to fulfill all the classic utilitarian actions, such as chopping people up to distribute organs? In practice, principles such as freedom of speech, right to a fair trial and the Human Rights Act seem to be us saying explicitly that we don't want policy to be utilitarianist but to follow (at least some) deontological rules.

[Caveat: I'm not a utilitarian so may be biased].

[jack]

Well, it's true, people view this in different ways. I am mostly utilitarian, and I think both, it doesn't cover EVERYTHING (this post is partly about times utilitarianism isn't the most useful way of thinking about something), but also, that a half-way sensible interpretation of utilitarianism doesn't have those obvious flaws.

I think a sensible interpretation of utilitarianism is still incomplete, but that even so, at least in my opinion, would advocate for a society with those kind of deontological principles, human rights, etc. Because IN THEORY a benevolent dictator might suppress speech which does more harm than good, but in practice, suppressing criticism of the government is much, much more common. So maybe, if you're secretly in the position to stop people abusing freedom of speech without anyone finding out, you might do it, but as a principle for society, please, have freedom of speech with only carefully considered exceptions. And the same for all the apparent objections -- sensible utilitarians should usually find a society without those being common as better for everyone.

However, I do agree that I don't think we yet have a *complete* version of ethics. People fiddle with utilitarianism trying to patch it up with different formulas for how to tot up how people gain/suffer, and you can do things like, counting innocent-person-being-condemned as much greater harm than the benefit to other people[1], but i don't think we've found a version that really solves the problems yet. But I feel like, it's still a good guide, it's usually obvious when it stops being useful.

In fact, I'm interested. When you say, you're not a utilitarian, do you mean, "you follow another form of ethics, and if you discovered that doing so caused immense ongoing harm, that wouldn't be a problem for you" or "you might do utilitarian things sometimes but you don't think utilitarianism is a complete ethical system?"