Copy-pasting my better Tumblr posts to this blog - Part 8 of 8

[everythingisoptional]

Hot take: trying to base your system of ethics on classifying actions as ethical or unethical is a mistake. All you need is to be able to evaluate actions as more or less ethical than other actions. Trying to set a universal “zero point” that you compare to in order to determine whether an action is ethical or unethical is both unnecessary and a source of pointless confusion.

Of course, choosing to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is a useful hack that groups or individuals can use to make themselves behave more ethically. But it’s important to remember that it’s just a hack. The line is not part of your values system, and two people can theoretically have the exact same utility function and still disagree about where the line should be drawn in a particular context, if they have factual disagreements about how people would respond to the line being drawn in a particular place.

Comments

[highpriestessofelua]

In practice, the function of the "zero point" is social: everything about the zero point is rewarded, everything below the zero point is punished.

[everythingisoptional]

Exactly! Hence the inherently context-dependent nature of the decision of where to put the zero point (and the futility of trying to agree on a fully universal place to put it).