so anyways my ethics classes are going great im having a fun great awesome cool fun great poggers time
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024
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You're spot on. Uncertainty makes a huge difference, especially in regards to utilitarianism. With certainty of the full outcomes, act utilitarianism is probably the best theory. Unfortunately for act utilitarians, that certainty is impossible, making it a shit theory in practice. That's where virtue, contract, and rule based theories shine. They can balance uncertain outcomes with probable consequences. They will lead to the worse outcome some percentage of the time, but that's life. You can try your best and still lose.
You're probably aware of this inherent contradiction by for the sake of any third parties reading:
TotallynotJessica is advocating for virtue, contract, and rule based ethical paradigms based on the hypothesis that they will, in general, more effectively lead to outcomes preferred by utilitarianism.
I think this contradiction is only important to people that are entrenched on one side or the other (or the other, or the other). For people that just want to understand how to make good decisions in their lives it's a bit of a moot point.
It certainly helps with the annoying parts of ethics. It made it more accessible to know that most past philosophers wasted time chasing the unobtainable and ignoring what is useful.