In Defense Of Practical Moral Skepticism

Like TheSkeptic, it has helped me refine my thoughts both on PMS and on MBE. So, it seems as though in this last round my opponent "technically conceded this debate. " He notes a "flaw in the formulation of PMS – it's out of my bounds to claim that there seems to be no reason(s) to always act morally. " So in this round, I won't be attempting to refute PMS (as that's already been taken care of). I leave the rest to voters. Instead, I want to briefly clarify a few things about MBE. First, MBE has only one unchanging rule: that we coordinate our actions towards mutual benefit. Ethical beliefs can be derived from this unchanging rule, but these ethical beliefs are always conditional and circumstantial. This means that they depend on the situation at hand, and that these ethical beliefs are subject to change to meet the demands of MBE's unchanging rule if the circumstances present themselves in which such a change is required. None of this is as vague and ambiguous as my opponent claims. It is simply very open and flexible. Pro seems to have two main criticisms of MBE. First, Pro asks, "what about one party gaining benefit from action A1 whereas the other party does not, and in fact gains problems from action A1. There is no mutual benefit (cases like rape, murder, as you've mentioned). " Second, Pro asks "Why should I care about mutual benefits? " These two amount to the same criticism: is it always rational and preferable to seek mutual benefits? I believe it is, and I provide game theory as the case for this. Game theory is a branch of mathematics that looks at mutually connected actions and attempts to predict behavior and to determine the best possible decisions. Unfortunately, I cannot go into a lengthy survey of how game theory works here; it would require more time and space than I have. What I can say is that game theory can show how mutual benefits are (1) more rational choices than others, and (2) that an action that produces mutual benefit reduces to self-interest (in the case that you believe actions are or can be motivated only by self-interest, the only real criticism I see of MBE from Pro). In game theory, if a person P1 benefits another person P2, person P2 is more likely to act in such a way that benefits P1. Now you apply this logic across society, and it becomes clear that coordinating actions towards mutual benefit produces more benefit for an individual because of the benefits that person will receive from others. Conclusion: mutual beneficial actions are always preferable to acting for your own benefit. Pro's question, is it "not conceivable for you to come across situations in which acting for your own benefit is more preferred than acting in mutual benefit," has a clear answer: acting for you own benefit IS acting in mutual benefit. The final reasoning for this is the concept of "Tit for Tat. " This is considered an optimal theoretical strategy, and basically states that a person cooperate as long as others cooperate. As soon as a person stops cooperating, however, then the other person will not cooperate as well. To stop acting for mutual benefit upsets the equilibrium, and therefore, it decreases the overall benefit for the person. [1] In other words, through game theoretic reasoning, we see that coordinating actions towards mutual benefit is ALWAYS rationally preferred over actions that only produce your own benefit. Again, I'd like to thank TheSkeptic for this debate. It has really helped me think through some difficult ethical problems and to formulate a clearer response to PMS. I hope our audience has also enjoyed it. [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org...