Question: Is there such a thing as mathematical ethics?
I mean rigorous modelling of moral choices based on mathematical objects (lets call them virtue functions) and derivation of qualitative and/or quantitative properties of these objects based on standard math tools like derivates, order theory, statistics or whatever.
I’m asking because yesterday I had an interesting discussion about ethics which involed modelling subjective value judgements as a function. I’d like to relate this to possible existing work.
Question: Is there such a thing as mathematical ethics? I mean rigorous modelling of moral choices based on mathematical objects (lets call them virtue functions) and derivation of qualitative and/or quantitative properties of these objects based on standard math tools like derivates, order theory, statistics or whatever.
I’m asking because yesterday I had an interesting discussion about ethics which involed modelling subjective value judgements as a function. I’d like to relate this to possible existing work.
I did found these links:
http://www.evolutionaryethics.com/chapter7.html (this seems to be more about analogy between math and ethics development)
http://www.utilitarian.org/maths.html (this is mathematical, but seems to apply only to utiliarism)
Like a utility function?
Wouldn’t this be more or less the same thing as decision theory, just applied to one particular sort of set of preferences?
As always, mathematics has a more abstract version of the model you’re looking for.