by roxolotl | 2025-09-19 13:23:02+00:00
Utilitarianism has two issues. The first is the utility monster which is a classic criticism that boils down to "what if there was something which gains infinite utility from the suffering of others". I think it's a rather weak criticism however it is currently what the AI/Crypto effective altruists have almost fully given in to. They argue utter destruction of humanity by an AI is a reason you should donate all your time and money to AI safety research. But the more useful criticism is that it's too simple to actually model reality and leads to an economic approach to ethics. This is what leads to a primacy of the bureaucratic state. It becomes a moral imperative to gather as much information as possible to enable the state to maximize utility. The best example of this is that Brave New World is a utilitarian utopia.

Deontology is answered by the parent article. Most deontological frameworks are defined as correct in and of themselves. If you genuinely believe in one you're likely a moral individual by other definitions so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Virtue Ethics is commonly criticized as not being normative enough, it doesn't really tell you explicitly how to act it instead tells you what a good person looks like, and too complex so at to be actually useful, the definition of virtues aren't simple. I like Hursthouse's defense and formation of it in her paper on Abortion[0][1]. It boils down the the criticisms being the reason that it's a useful theory. I like these two points she makes:

"Second, the theory is not trivially circular;it does not specify right action in terms of the virtuous agent and then immediately specify the virtuous agent in terms of right action. Rather,it specifies her in terms of the virtues, and then specifies these, not merely as dispositions to right action, but as the character traits(which are dispositions to feel and react as well as act in certain ways) required for eudaimonia"

"Third, it does answer the question "What should I do?"as well as the question "What sort of person should I be?" (That is, it is not, as one of the catchphrases has it, concerned only with Being and not with Doing.)"

In short the theory isn't trivial, unlike utilitarianism which can easily fall victim to being over trivialized as shown by today's AI effective altruists and utopias like Brave New World, and it provides answers to both what you should do and who you should be, unlike deontology which just answers what you should do. I like this paper because it makes a genuinely unique case for the ethics of abortion. She argues that you can both grant personhood to a fetus, or more accurately that personhood is irrelevant, and still ethically justify many abortions.

That likely is too nuanced for today's discourse but that's the point. As we've moved to either utilitarianism or deontology as the driving motivation behind our moral actions we've over simplified the world.

Anyways hope that's interesting, helpful and provides some insights into my thought.

[0]: stable jstor source https://www.jstor.org/stable/2265432?origin=JSTOR-pdf [1]: free pdf which may or may not go away https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PPP504/Hurst...