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Practical Philosophy, Monday
Monday, June 9th, 2014 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endsthegame"Judgments," Ender said. "We all make them."
He gave everyone a faint smile. "About actions, and about people. It's this process that drove the philosophers of old into endless debates on the nature of morality, on when it was okay to judge something unfit, terrible, evil. They developed extensive theories on ethics and morality. Take the old Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle, who believed in virtue ethics - the idea that the character of the person defines the morality of his actions. Socrates argued, for instance, that if a person knew what was right, then he would do right. It was only ignorance that caused evil."
"Then there were the stoics, who believed virtue laid in contentment, in being happy with the lot you were given, whatever it was. Opposite them, the hedonists, who believed 'good' was anything that maximized pleasure. Later philosophers came up with the theory of consequentialism, the idea that one's morality was determined by the consequences of one's actions. Some philosophers felt that good deeds were only good if they worked to better the state, for instance. On the other hand, deontologists such as Kant believed that goodness stemmed from the act itself, and the reasons that drove you to act - acts made out of duty were considered intrinsically good, for instance."
He sat back.
"But how does that translate to us practically?" Ender said. "Well, as I said, we all make our judgments. Of ourselves, of the people around us, of their pasts - especially around here. On what do you base your judgments? I think most of us realize that there is no such thing as pure black and white - pure good and evil - but the sliding scale of our moral judgment of others does tend to work from a particular frame of reference."
Another faint smile.
"I personally believe that character is important," he said. "Once you try to understand what moves people to do what they do, it becomes that much harder to consider them evil, irredeemable. After all, most of us do what we think is right, even if our ideas of what right is fluctuate wildly. And in doing these things, we inspire other people to act in their own way."
He gave everyone a faint smile. "About actions, and about people. It's this process that drove the philosophers of old into endless debates on the nature of morality, on when it was okay to judge something unfit, terrible, evil. They developed extensive theories on ethics and morality. Take the old Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle, who believed in virtue ethics - the idea that the character of the person defines the morality of his actions. Socrates argued, for instance, that if a person knew what was right, then he would do right. It was only ignorance that caused evil."
"Then there were the stoics, who believed virtue laid in contentment, in being happy with the lot you were given, whatever it was. Opposite them, the hedonists, who believed 'good' was anything that maximized pleasure. Later philosophers came up with the theory of consequentialism, the idea that one's morality was determined by the consequences of one's actions. Some philosophers felt that good deeds were only good if they worked to better the state, for instance. On the other hand, deontologists such as Kant believed that goodness stemmed from the act itself, and the reasons that drove you to act - acts made out of duty were considered intrinsically good, for instance."
He sat back.
"But how does that translate to us practically?" Ender said. "Well, as I said, we all make our judgments. Of ourselves, of the people around us, of their pasts - especially around here. On what do you base your judgments? I think most of us realize that there is no such thing as pure black and white - pure good and evil - but the sliding scale of our moral judgment of others does tend to work from a particular frame of reference."
Another faint smile.
"I personally believe that character is important," he said. "Once you try to understand what moves people to do what they do, it becomes that much harder to consider them evil, irredeemable. After all, most of us do what we think is right, even if our ideas of what right is fluctuate wildly. And in doing these things, we inspire other people to act in their own way."