It’s better when we have our heart in it, and my point is that moral reasoning can help us do that. From my point of view, almost all the moral gains that really matter come from action on the level of global initiatives and careers directed at steering outcomes on that level. There, as you say, consequentialism is the way to go. For the everyday human acts that make up our day to day lives, I don’t particularly care which moral system people use—whatever keeps us relating well with others and happy seems fine to me. I’d be fine with all three ethical systems advertising themselves and competing in the marketplace of ideas, as long as we can still come to a consensus that we should fund bed nets and find a way not to unleash a technological apocalypse on ourselves.
It’s better when we have our heart in it, and my point is that moral reasoning can help us do that.
My bad, I should have been clearer. I meant to say “isn’t it better when we have our heart in it, and we can dispense with the reasoning or the rule consulting?”
I should note, you would be in good company if you answered “no.” Kant believed that an action has no moral worth if it was not motivated by duty, a motivation that results from correctly reasoning about one’s moral imperatives. He really did seem to think we should be reasoning about our duties all the time. I think he was mistaken.
It’s better when we have our heart in it, and my point is that moral reasoning can help us do that. From my point of view, almost all the moral gains that really matter come from action on the level of global initiatives and careers directed at steering outcomes on that level. There, as you say, consequentialism is the way to go. For the everyday human acts that make up our day to day lives, I don’t particularly care which moral system people use—whatever keeps us relating well with others and happy seems fine to me. I’d be fine with all three ethical systems advertising themselves and competing in the marketplace of ideas, as long as we can still come to a consensus that we should fund bed nets and find a way not to unleash a technological apocalypse on ourselves.
My bad, I should have been clearer. I meant to say “isn’t it better when we have our heart in it, and we can dispense with the reasoning or the rule consulting?”
I should note, you would be in good company if you answered “no.” Kant believed that an action has no moral worth if it was not motivated by duty, a motivation that results from correctly reasoning about one’s moral imperatives. He really did seem to think we should be reasoning about our duties all the time. I think he was mistaken.