How can ethics be judged other than by referring to their consequences? You certainly can’t use ethics to judge themselves.
The idea that “the universe does not reward virtue” gets it wrong. ‘Virtue’ is a meaningless concept by itself; it only has meaning in terms of what the universe does. Virtue is what the universe rewards, so to speak, to the degree that we can say the universe offers rewards.
It would be more accurate to say that virtue is what works in regards to the universe.
Sometimes honesty is unethical.
Ethics are just sets of rules used to determine our behavior in some context. Sometimes X is unethical, for any given value of X, depending on what ethics have been established.
“Always lie” is an ethic. Not a very evolutionarily fit ethic, nor a practical one. But it’s an ethic.
How can ethics be judged other than by referring to their consequences? You certainly can’t use ethics to judge themselves.
The idea that “the universe does not reward virtue” gets it wrong. ‘Virtue’ is a meaningless concept by itself; it only has meaning in terms of what the universe does. Virtue is what the universe rewards, so to speak, to the degree that we can say the universe offers rewards.
It would be more accurate to say that virtue is what works in regards to the universe.
Ethics are just sets of rules used to determine our behavior in some context. Sometimes X is unethical, for any given value of X, depending on what ethics have been established.“Always lie” is an ethic. Not a very evolutionarily fit ethic, nor a practical one. But it’s an ethic.