There is one significant question about ethics that has been skirted around, but, as far as I remember, never specifically addressed here. “Why should any particular person follow any ethical or moral rule?” Kai Nielsen has an entire book, Why Be Moral?, devoted to the issue, but doesn’t come to a good reason.
Humans’ inherited patterns of behavior are a beginning, Nielsen only addresses purely philosophical issues in the book, but still not adequate for what then becomes the question, “Why not defect?”
I believe the answer to this question is “Because the rule maximizes one’s ethical values.”
(Without getting into the act versus rule argument, which figures into my post, where I am, to some extent, arguing against act utilitarianism on the grounds that it is too computationally expensive.)
Of course, that leads directly into the question, “Why should any particular person hold any particular ethical value?” I don’t believe this question has an answer that doesn’t lead directly into another ethical value, which is why I hold ethical values as axioms.
There is one significant question about ethics that has been skirted around, but, as far as I remember, never specifically addressed here. “Why should any particular person follow any ethical or moral rule?” Kai Nielsen has an entire book, Why Be Moral?, devoted to the issue, but doesn’t come to a good reason.
Humans’ inherited patterns of behavior are a beginning, Nielsen only addresses purely philosophical issues in the book, but still not adequate for what then becomes the question, “Why not defect?”
I believe the answer to this question is “Because the rule maximizes one’s ethical values.”
(Without getting into the act versus rule argument, which figures into my post, where I am, to some extent, arguing against act utilitarianism on the grounds that it is too computationally expensive.)
Of course, that leads directly into the question, “Why should any particular person hold any particular ethical value?” I don’t believe this question has an answer that doesn’t lead directly into another ethical value, which is why I hold ethical values as axioms.