In Defense Of Practical Moral Skepticism

At this juncture, I'll do several things alongside with one that may be controversial. I'll explain later on in the debate. ==================== Practical Moral Skepticism ==================== My criminal example was to highlight the value most ethical theories have about gratuitous (unnecessary in the sense of not creating enough virtue/happiness/etc. to overrule it in a consequentialist framework) murder, and demonstrate that there are many rational reasons to commit it despite moral prohibitions. Here's a detailed scenario: a man, working under the pretense that Kantian ethics is sound, contemplates whether or not to murder someone he knows. He plans to do this because the man just wronged him horribly, and he is unable to get rid of his vengeful feelings unless he murders him. He then commits the act. There are two ways of analyzing this: It can be considered rational in the restricted sense of acting in accordance with your interest, even if it may result in haphazard consequences (i. e. you going to jail). However, I sense you're probably conceiving of another usage of rational, in which negative consequences are not generated from your act. Even then, such a scenario is imaginable (i. e. a murder in which you get away with). I'm convinced that it be conceived of in the first sense, in which even seemingly destructive acts (in contrary to moral reasons) are not irrational. This is simply because whatever is rational can only be determined in context with your goal -- if you wish to gain truth, it's rational to obey the laws of logic and reasoning. If you wish to gain happiness, it's rational to stick to what would likely garner you happiness (i. e. engage in your favorite activities, don't commit crimes as they may likely result in jail time, etc. ). In the relevant sense, it isn't truly "stupid" for someone to do a senseless act like murdering someone for petty reasons and getting caught. Whatever reason they may have for committing that murder, it isn't necessarily irrational if you allow a wide range of contexts/goals. However, again I stress that even if this former formulation fails the latter should not. However, despite all that I had an initial worry about my example, and it's grown to the point of where I realize 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 for morality per se, but rather that there doesn't seem to be a necessary reason to always act morally for all ethical systems currently known. There is a distinct epistemic distinction, and I've overstepped my bounds. Not only can I not prepare for some potential ethical theory that somehow equates rationality with moral acts (i. e. acting is moral), but I also can't prepare for the mere possibility of an ethical theory that, either by theory or coincidence, happens to have all it's moral claims align with all possible reasons. So while I can provide counterexamples for an existing ethical theory, since I have a framework to work off of, I can't do this with any other potential ethical theories in which I have no knowledge of the particular. As I've hinted in my introduction, at this point I have technically conceded this debate. I propose that my resolution be changed to a softer version, in which PMS references only to ethical theories currently known. If my opponent has any problem with this, and decides to simply say I have lost per the definitions, this is absolutely fine. If the voters feel I lost per technical definitions, then this is absolutely fine. However, if either the voter or my opponent have a more relaxed approach, then feel free to take my last round into consideration. Either way it's an enjoyable debate that has made me realize a silly mistake in PMS that I should've noticed, albeit at the same time it has helped fortified my belief in this new version as well :). ==================== Opponent's "Mutual Benefit" Ethical Theory -- Inherent Problems & Unsatisfactory Response to PMS ==================== 1. Perhaps I have mis-characterized your ethical theory, but in all honesty given your current formulation it's incredibly mundane. However, I want to stress that your formulation of MBE thus far has been quite vague, and an occurrence of straw men coming from my part is probably due to the aforementioned vagueness. Since this point is foregone, I'll explain my previous statement in further points. If you want to claim ethics is extremely important function, sure I'll accept that. I'm not sure why you have to observe that, as it's a pretty simple and uncontroversial fact. 2. I never stated MBE is a utilitarian theory, but a similar one (taking ethical analysis into account by considering others, and their combined psychological facts). As such, you'd expect similar criticisms to arise. And it's at this point I have to stress the utmost vagueness of your theory: *You state that MBE adapts to every situation, but you never fully explain nor justify this maxim. You refer to processes of game-theoretic reasoning and mutual benefit, but you never give a comprehensive survey of it. How am I to criticize a maxim if I can't have it's proper formulation. Kantian ethics and pragmatism both utilize a maxim that hopes to adapt to every situation, so in a similar fashion you need to provide justification for it let alone an explanation. *You say that even if someone is negatively affected by the acts of others, this wouldn't make it immoral if they weren't involved in the process of mutual beneficial actions. Your theory makes sense when considering two or more rational, consenting parties. However, 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). *However, as you have aptly noted in your previous round, you talk about this potential problem citing magnified benefits with other parties not just including you and the woman being considered. And this is exactly why I used utilitarian as a key analogy - you seem to have a consequentialist theory, and thus it falls prey to the criticisms I mentioned in the last round. These would include utility monsters (or in your case, benefit monsters). You could bite the bullet and accept it dead on, but it makes more incredulous (albeit still sound in some sense, I suppose). If you do take that round, there still exists a fundamental question: Why should I care about mutual benefits? Is it because it's ALWAYS rational to seek mutual benefits? If you claim such, 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? I could easily see examples of this -- instead of ordering pizza for me and my friend, I secretly order the pizza and eat it all for myself. My friend never knows about this, but I enjoy the spoils of enjoying more pizza without him eating it. Hell, maybe I even used his money and he just forgets. In the possible situation in which my argument is yet another straw man, I can't stress enough the ambiguity in your philosophy. If we ever have a go at this again, I would like to hear a comprehensive explanation of it first.