Uncommon Sense Ethics

ThePuppyturtle's video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75HCdDz5_Uc&feature=channel_video_title

Quote from John Stuart Mill:
"The rightness or wrongness of saving a man from drowning does depend very much—not upon the motive, but—'upon the intention', no utilitarian would have differed from him. Mr Davies, by an oversight too common not to be quite venial, has in this case confounded the very different ideas of Motive and Intention. There is no point which utilitarian thinkers (and Bentham pre-eminently) have taken more pains to illustrate than this. The morality of the action depends entirely upon the intention..."

Quote from Dale E. Miller:
"if there are more realistic cases in which the theory entails that we are obligated to do something contrary to our convictions, is to question why we should ever trust our pre-theoretical considered moral judgements more than a theory for which a compelling intellectual case can be made. As Smart writes, if the results of act utilitarianism 'conflict with common-sense ethics', then '[s]o much the worse for commonsense ethics!'

Works Cited

Mill, John S. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 2001. Print.

Miller, Dale E. J.S. Mill: Moral, Social and Political Thought. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010. Print.

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[MoralityIsAReligion]

And that is just one out of countless examples for a complete refutation of your moral intuition. Actually you are a pretty good evidence against intuition yourself: You said that we have moral intuition so many times that it must be wrong since if it were true there was no need to say it that many times because we all already knew it.

[MoralityIsAReligion]

@Epydemic2020

Yeah poor Nazis...they were misinformed. All they wanted is making the world a better place. LOL...Come on man you don't actually believe this nonsense do you ? The Germans needed food and Hitler said: Alright: Let's kill the jews and steal their shit. And the Germans were like: Yay...we're all in. That's what actually happened. Now you can't just openly rob and kill people so they came up with the subhuman crap for an excuse but nobody actually believed this shit.

[kelarael]

@Epydemic2020 And I've disagreed with you in those videos too. If I don't accept your premises there, I'm hardly going to accept them now as a support for your argument here.

You are arguing for moral intuition. you said yourself separate from empathy, separate from consequences, as consequences are frequently cultural. It seems to me that everything still comes down to empathy and culture. Without these things, your intuition becomes a meaningless argument.

[Epydemic2020]

@kelarael

"Why have entire societies broken these supposed intuitions and not felt they are doing anything wrong?"

Nazi Germany seems to be the go to example for that type of argument. The nazi's have the same intuitions we do about something like "killing non-consenting people solely for entertainment is wrong". What is different is misinformation about whether or not Jews are subhuman, and they also think they have more noble intentions (eugenics).

[Epydemic2020]

@kelarael

I have addressed all of these in past videos, there may be more than one explanation.

With children in particular, ignorance is a huge factor. Children are quite bad at understanding the ramifications of their actions.  A kid might shoot you dead and laugh having no idea that they just killed you because they don't understand the pain of getting shot or really grasp the concept of death.

Societies exhibit wrong moral conclusions, not broken intuitions.

[kelarael]

@Epydemic2020 Then why do children not follow these intuitions, they hit and fight over the smallest things, or just to make themselves feel better. They need to be told that that is not appropriate behaviour.

Why have entire societies broken these supposed intuitions and not felt they are doing anything wrong?

You can say "they knew, they just came up with a justification" but I would disagree.

[Epydemic2020]

@kelarael

Moral intuitions are not informed by culture nor upbringing (that'd be a contradiction in terms), you apparently mean to say "moral conclusions" are informed by culture and upbringing. If that is what you meant, then I agree, but it wouldn't undermine my position at all.

[kelarael]

@kelarael Moral intuitions are informed by your upbringing and culture, but there are some common themes found n ALL social animals, because that is how social structures develop. They can't develop in a completely "everyone for themselves" or completely selfish manner, because it would not produce a stable social structure and thus it would not BE a social animal.

Morality is simply rules of interaction with others and their property and possessions.

[kelarael]

@Epydemic2020 special pleading. "They know it's wrong, they just justify it a different way" e.g. "they're not really people" all you're saying is "my moral intuition is right, they're wrong, they just refuse to follow the truth"

It's no different from "atheists just want to sin! They know god exists!" it's just a case of applying something you believe to be true as fact to everyone else.

[kelarael]

@Epydemic2020 The seeing things that weren't there was an example of the fallibility of the senses.