Ethics: consequentialism vs. deonthology
Just yesterday I had a big argument with my love on ethics. And it wasn't even the first time. A lapsed catholic, brought up in a very religious family, my dear one is, as should be expected, strongly on the side of Kant, and his categoric imperative. I, on the other hand, was brought up in a catholic country, but was never one, neither was the education I received from my parents. In addition, my parents had very different, and often incompatible moral perspectives, which compelled me, from an early age, to develop my own set of beliefs. Not necessarily the ones that were offered to me by the catholic tradition of those around me, but not necessarily against it either. In doing so, in attempting my lonely way into ethics, albeit strongly influenced by the ideas I was familiar with, I become necessarily a consequentialist, with a good mix of judeo-christian, and Kantian humanistic tradition.
Strangely enough, starting from very different directions, my beloved and I arrived exactly at the same spot. It will be extremely hard to find two people who more often agree on wrong and right than he and I. Yesterday's argument, note, was only a discussion on principles, not one on conclusions. The argument heated up to the point that we were shouting at each other louder than we ever did for more personal and less abstract reason, "You've cheated on me!" would never make me shout louder, than "Kant is wrong!". Trust me on this one. And, once again I heard him desperately shout, "You of all people!" in the same spirit of Caesar's "Et tu, Brute?". "Don't you believe in Human Rights?", he continued, well yes... I'm even a member of Amnesty International, you can't get more deonthologic than that.
So I've been thinking about it and I've realized, than I'm a consequentialist in principle and believe, but often, not always, a deonthologist in practice. Just like he is exactly the opposite. And I have no problem joining the two for a very simple reason. I'm more aware than either Kant or Bentham of the limitations (and I'd even go further and say, the mediocrity) of the Human intellect. If there was a God and He in his infinite knowledge and wisdom was willing to, in every situation, predict the exact consequences of our every action and weigh their pros and cons, do the math for us and finally inform us of his conclusions, I'd be a pure consequentialist. As it is, as this is not clearly the case and we're more often than not left to our own meagre resources to make all of that, I must defend the need to resort to more general principles, developed over many thousands of years, ingrained in our genetics, thought by the intellect of those, like Kant, much more capable than us, and tested over and over again through History. I find that this is even more strongly the case, when it comes to politics, God help us and make sure that our leaders are not indeed pure consequentialists and have, like me, a strong sense of their own limitations. Even more so when daily they demonstrate these to be much stronger than my own.
I'll leave you with a quote by Bertrand Russell:
Addendum: I've just found out that I'm sort of a rule consequentialist. My idea is that, in practice, we often do mistakes of judgement. This implies that if we were to decide on right or wrong in every action we took, we would be more prone to do wrong than if we follow some rules that work in almost every situation. So the few situations where the rule breaks are well compensated by the situations where we'd have judge wrong when breaking the rule and the overall balance is positive. A good example of this is torture. I can accept that very exceptionally torture can be justified, in other words it can be the right thing to do. However I'm also convinced that in most cases where torture is applied this is absolutely not the case. I'm also convinced than a complete ban on torture would amount to more good in the short run (yes, I don't think you even need a long run on it), than if we allowed anyone, no matter who, even the pope or Gandhi, to decide. It is not hard to see that this kind of reasoning ends up being very close to Kant's idea of the categorical imperative, but I still have some problems with it. Maybe I need to read from the source: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
Strangely enough, starting from very different directions, my beloved and I arrived exactly at the same spot. It will be extremely hard to find two people who more often agree on wrong and right than he and I. Yesterday's argument, note, was only a discussion on principles, not one on conclusions. The argument heated up to the point that we were shouting at each other louder than we ever did for more personal and less abstract reason, "You've cheated on me!" would never make me shout louder, than "Kant is wrong!". Trust me on this one. And, once again I heard him desperately shout, "You of all people!" in the same spirit of Caesar's "Et tu, Brute?". "Don't you believe in Human Rights?", he continued, well yes... I'm even a member of Amnesty International, you can't get more deonthologic than that.
So I've been thinking about it and I've realized, than I'm a consequentialist in principle and believe, but often, not always, a deonthologist in practice. Just like he is exactly the opposite. And I have no problem joining the two for a very simple reason. I'm more aware than either Kant or Bentham of the limitations (and I'd even go further and say, the mediocrity) of the Human intellect. If there was a God and He in his infinite knowledge and wisdom was willing to, in every situation, predict the exact consequences of our every action and weigh their pros and cons, do the math for us and finally inform us of his conclusions, I'd be a pure consequentialist. As it is, as this is not clearly the case and we're more often than not left to our own meagre resources to make all of that, I must defend the need to resort to more general principles, developed over many thousands of years, ingrained in our genetics, thought by the intellect of those, like Kant, much more capable than us, and tested over and over again through History. I find that this is even more strongly the case, when it comes to politics, God help us and make sure that our leaders are not indeed pure consequentialists and have, like me, a strong sense of their own limitations. Even more so when daily they demonstrate these to be much stronger than my own.
I'll leave you with a quote by Bertrand Russell:
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.So true! Although I'd be more modest and replace "The whole problem" with "One of the main problems" to be on the safe side and make sure I do not neglect other problems that may exist and that my knowledge and intelligence fail to grasp.
Addendum: I've just found out that I'm sort of a rule consequentialist. My idea is that, in practice, we often do mistakes of judgement. This implies that if we were to decide on right or wrong in every action we took, we would be more prone to do wrong than if we follow some rules that work in almost every situation. So the few situations where the rule breaks are well compensated by the situations where we'd have judge wrong when breaking the rule and the overall balance is positive. A good example of this is torture. I can accept that very exceptionally torture can be justified, in other words it can be the right thing to do. However I'm also convinced that in most cases where torture is applied this is absolutely not the case. I'm also convinced than a complete ban on torture would amount to more good in the short run (yes, I don't think you even need a long run on it), than if we allowed anyone, no matter who, even the pope or Gandhi, to decide. It is not hard to see that this kind of reasoning ends up being very close to Kant's idea of the categorical imperative, but I still have some problems with it. Maybe I need to read from the source: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
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