A moral philosophy paper recently written by me, presenting a new liar paradox-like argument about contradictions within consequentialism:
https://philpapers.org/rec/IONCJP
#philosophy #ethic #consequentialism #deontology #metaethics #morality #paradox #research
Beautiful paper and idea. This provides a constraint on ethics where constraints and criteria for rational ethical theory choice are hard to come by. I wonder if we could maintain some element of consequences matters but go agent-relative by defining a domain of responsibility and just saying that the judging agent is not responsible for what the trickster element does. This also reminds me of a thought experiment that Kane B, YouTuber, mentions in this video:
https://youtu.be/puK7XuPU_KQ
@jlou Thank you very much for your time, I am very pleased.
I share your intuition, I think this paradox and conflict between deontology and consequentialism implies the use of a sort of "middle way" theory of responsability where some cases make perfect sense like Judith Jarvis Thomson's Violonist argument.
I've also seen some videos by Kane B while roaming on the philosophy youtube and I tought he shared similar views about metaetics. I've tried to reach him but he hasn't responded yet.
@ArthurI A stimulating read — particularly the way the paper frames moral incompleteness and reflective equilibrium.
I’m less sure, however, that the central paradox isolates a tension specific to consequentialism rather than one arising from self-reference combined with an adversarial causal structure. My sense is that much of the force of the argument comes from the latter, which would seem to threaten any sufficiently expressive normative framework.
@microglyphics Hi, thank you for your time, I am very pleased to see people read and react to my mork.
I agree with you, in fact this potential counter argument is the thing I hesited the most to include in the paper. The paradox seems to take place for every system attributing predicates in function of future consequences.
However I think that consequentialism is the best example of framework able to do that. The only other examples I can think about are also within consequentialist ethics.
Arthur Ionescu
J Lou
Philosophics