It makes plenty of sense to point out that the Schelling points and the associated cooperative customs point to a set of virtues. But it isn’t just consequentialists who can make this point. Some varieties of deontology can do so as well. Habermas’s discourse ethics is one example. Thomas Scanlon’s ethics is another. From the Habermas wiki:
Habermas extracts the following principle of universalization (U), which is the condition every valid norm has to fulfill:
(U) All affected can accept the consequences and the side effects that [the norm’s] general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of everyone’s interests, and the consequences are preferred to those of known alternative possibilities for regulation. (Habermas, 1991:65)
One can easily understand the “norms” as tacit (or explicit) agreements, existing or proposed. A society reasoning together along those lines would probably look similar in many ways to one reasoning along utilitarian lines, but the root pattern of justification would differ. The utilitarian justification aggregates interests; the deontologist (of Habermas’s sort) justification considers each person’s interests separately, compatible with like consideration for others.
It makes plenty of sense to point out that the Schelling points and the associated cooperative customs point to a set of virtues. But it isn’t just consequentialists who can make this point. Some varieties of deontology can do so as well. Habermas’s discourse ethics is one example. Thomas Scanlon’s ethics is another. From the Habermas wiki:
One can easily understand the “norms” as tacit (or explicit) agreements, existing or proposed. A society reasoning together along those lines would probably look similar in many ways to one reasoning along utilitarian lines, but the root pattern of justification would differ. The utilitarian justification aggregates interests; the deontologist (of Habermas’s sort) justification considers each person’s interests separately, compatible with like consideration for others.