Natural law morality vs. utilitarian ethics

[Charlemagne_II]

what everyone has always thought is not necessarily right.

Nor is it necessarily wrong. What you have to prove is why it is right, which so far you have not even tried to do. In other threads anal sex has been proven to be bad for your health and a cause of many deaths. What in your opinion is the upside of anal sex? Pleasure only? Then be frank about it: you advocate anal sex because it is pleasurable, regardless of the consequences to health and life.

rape is completely natural but obviously evil.

Very confusing here. First you deny natural law when it applies to anal sex, and then assert it when it applies to rape. Is murder also natural? Is sex between mother and son, father and daughter, also natural? In your terminology, the word “natural” becomes a mere synonym for ** what is**, not for what ought to be. For your information, morality must be about ought, not about is. If it is only about is, it is meaningless, and you cannot even use a word live evil, as you used it above.

 

[Rocinante]

what everyone has always thought is not necessarily right.

Nor is it necessarily wrong. What you have to prove is why it is right, which so far you have not even tried to do. In other threads anal sex has been proven to be bad for your health and a cause of many deaths. What in your opinion is the upside of anal sex? Pleasure only? Then be frank about it: you advocate anal sex because it is pleasurable, regardless of the consequences to health and life.

i don’t have to prove anything. i’m just correcting your fallacy in presuming that what has always been thought to be true ought to be regarded as true.

i’m not the one obsessed with anal sex here. such sexual practices as anal and oral sex are legal in the US for consenting adults (homosexual or heterosexual) who want to engage in the practice. and that is fine by me. i’m just trying to participate in a thread on natural law here rather than debate whether particular sexual acts are moral.

rape is completely natural but obviously evil.

Very confusing here. First you deny natural law when it applies to anal sex, and then assert it when it applies to rape. Is murder also natural? Is sex between mother and son, father and daughter, also natural? In your terminology, the word “natural” becomes a mere synonym for ** what is**, not for what ought to be. For your information, morality must be about ought, not about is. If it is only about is, it is meaningless, and you cannot even use a word live evil, as you used it above.

you’re still not getting it. for anyone (like me) who thinks that natural law ethics ought to be rejected, the word “natural” does indeed only mean something like “what is,” the state of nature.

it is only natural law ethicist who use “natural” as a synonym for “what ought to be.” i think that is an archaic usage that ought go away.

 

[Betterave]

What is superior to “natural law” morality when compared to utilitarian ethics?

Utilitarian ethics asserts that the basic moral duty is to promote a maximum quantity of some abstract quality (happiness or pleasure). This is a mistake. Natural law ethics claims that our basic moral duty (the basic ethical desideratum) is to act in accordance with our nature so as to promote the thriving or flourishing of *people *(as opposed to some abstract quality, as in utilitarianism). Natural law ethics is correct about this. Utilitarianism bases itself on an economic model where we seek to maximize wealth and confuses an *economic *model (which in itself, even applied just to economics, has only limited usefulness) with ethics.

 

[Betterave]

you’re still not getting it. for anyone (like me) who thinks that natural law ethics ought to be rejected, the word “natural” does indeed only mean something like “what is,” the state of nature.

it is only natural law ethicist who use “natural” as a synonym for “what ought to be.” i think that is an archaic usage that ought go away.

so it sounds like your case against natural law ethics is based on miscontruing the sense of the word natural as it is used in natural law discourse… a common strategy, but not a very enlightened or enlightening one.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Anne

i’m not the one obsessed with anal sex here. such sexual practices as anal and oral sex are legal in the US for consenting adults (homosexual or heterosexual) who want to engage in the practice. and that is fine by me. i’m just trying to participate in a thread on natural law here rather than debate whether particular sexual acts are moral.

The ones who are obsessed with anal sex are the ones who practice it. That lets me out.
*
you’re still not getting it. for anyone (like me) who thinks that natural law ethics ought to be rejected, the word “natural” does indeed only mean something like “what is,” the state of nature. *

But you did use the word evil in relation to rape … so where does your idea of evil come from if not that rape is what we ought not to do, rather than what merely is? And why is it that rape is evil (as you said) but anal sex is not?

 

[Rocinante]

so it sounds like your case against natural law ethics is based on miscontruing the sense of the word natural as it is used in natural law discourse… a common strategy, but not a very enlightened or enlightening one.

no, you apparently haven’t been following so i’ll explain. charlemagne is reading my use of the word natural to mean something that i do not mean by the word. i only mean “what is” or “having to do with the state of nature” when i use the word “natural.” i do not mean “moral.” i think what is moral and what is natural are ideas that ought to be kept separate.

i understand that the natural law ethics use of the word is different. it actually banks on conflating these two usages (“what is moral” and “what nature is like”) and in practice amounts to shifting back and forth between these usages as is convenient to support whatever view of what is moral the practitioner of natural law ethics happens to have.

 

[Rocinante]

Utilitarian ethics asserts that the basic moral duty is to promote a maximum quantity of some abstract quality (happiness or pleasure). This is a mistake. Natural law ethics claims that our basic moral duty (the basic ethical desideratum) is to act in accordance with our nature so as to promote the thriving or flourishing of *people *(as opposed to some abstract quality, as in utilitarianism). Natural law ethics is correct about this. Utilitarianism bases itself on an economic model where we seek to maximize wealth and confuses an *economic *model (which in itself, even applied just to economics, has only limited usefulness) with ethics.

so the problem with utilitarianism is that happiness is too abstract to function as the target of moral behavior? somehow you think that the notion of human nature escapes this same issue?

 

[Rocinante]

Anne

since you are quoting me i guess you mean me in the above. are you suggesting that i am Anne? that is the fifth person i have been accused on being on this forum so far. maybe everyone here is actually the same person pretending to be a whole bunch of different people.

you’re still not getting it. for anyone (like me) who thinks that natural law ethics ought to be rejected, the word “natural” does indeed only mean something like “what is,” the state of nature.

But you did use the word evil in relation to rape … so where does your idea of evil come from if not that rape is what we ought not to do, rather than what merely is? And why is it that rape is evil (as you said) but anal sex is not?

rape is evil because it hurts people. would you want to be raped?

 

[davidv]

since you are quoting me i guess you mean me in the above. are you suggesting that i am Anne? that is the fifth person i have been accused on being on this forum so far. maybe everyone here is actually the same person pretending to be a whole bunch of different people.



rape is evil because it hurts people. would you want to be raped?

Using this logic

Anal sex hurts people, therefore it is evil.

 

[Rocinante]

Using this logic

Anal sex hurts people, therefore it is evil.

fine. sure. whatever.

is there anything else that you and charlemagne like to talk about besides anal sex? whether or not the act itself is evil, this obsession with it sure doesn’t seem healthy. you might want to see some one.

 

[Betterave]

Anne (or whatever your name is ), I actually have been following and your claims don’t make sense. I’ll refer back to post 15:

we certainly do NOT agree that “what is good is what fulfills our nature.” what i said is that “fulfills our nature” is a nonsensical notion (more explanation below) and has nothing to do with how i think about morality or how i think anyone should think about morality.

You can claim that natural law advocates equivocate on the use of natural if you want (I think you’re probably either just not understanding what they’re saying, or you are talking to incompetent expositors of natural law theory), but that doesn’t at all imply your strong claim here: that the notion of “what fulfills our nature” is a nonsensical one. If you really believe that, then you clearly simply don’t understand what the phrase means.

[You claimed:
i understand that the natural law ethics use of the word is different. it actually banks on conflating these two usages (“what is moral” and “what nature is like”) and in practice amounts to shifting back and forth between these usages as is convenient to support whatever view of what is moral the practitioner of natural law ethics happens to have.
I’d like to see you try to substantiate that claim.]

this is all very confused. pleasure is the goal of hedonism. happiness or well-being is the goal of consequentialist or utilitarian ethics. short term pleasure is well known to be an unreliable guide to long term happiness.

I’m pretty sure you are wrong about this. Read Bentham. Pleasure is the goal of hedonism, sure, but utilitarianism was originally a hedonistic moral theory.

given that the concept of species is what you appear to mean by man’s nature, why exactly should we feel any duty to be true to our current state of biological adaptation to the current state of nature given that the current state of nature is constantly changing as species continuously adapt to compete with other species? where exactly do you find moral obligation to act in certain ways so as to maintain our species as it happens to be in a particular moment in time in this evolutionary picture?

This is like saying, “Given that species are constantly changing, don’t bother trying to hunt moose, you’ll never pin one down”; or, “Given that nation-states are constantly evolving, don’t bother trying to determine what the laws of the state are”; or, “Because of plate tectonics what is now dry land will probably someday be ocean, so it’s nonsense to claim that there are parts of the Earth that are land and parts that are ocean.” You’ve completely missed the point of natural law theory when you suggest it implies a “moral obligation to act in certain ways so as to maintain our species as it happens to be in a particular moment in time in this evolutionary picture” - you might as well say a cartographer’s goal is to put an end to the activity of plate tectonics.

 

[davidv]

fine. sure. whatever.

is there anything else that you and charlemagne like to talk about besides anal sex? whether or not the act itself is evil, this obsession with it sure doesn’t seem healthy. you might want to see some one.

Insults don’t make your case.

I will remind you that it was you, in post #7 who introduced sexual morality into the discussion. You may have labeled the wrong ones obsessive.

 

[Betterave]

so the problem with utilitarianism is that happiness is too abstract to function as the target of moral behavior? somehow you think that the notion of human nature escapes this same issue?

It’s not that one is abstract and the other is not. It’s that one is right (it starts at the right place) and the other is not. The problem with ‘happiness’ is that it doesn’t mean anything without reference to some subject of happiness, and if the subject of happiness doesn’t have some determinate nature, then it still doesn’t mean anything. This problem is obvious in the early development of utilitarian theories: Bentham talked about pleasure, but Mill had to insist that we mean appropriately human pleasures, not those that were just as fit for pigs (better a Socrates dissatisfied than a satisfied pig). This distinction (an obviously necessary one) crucially depends on the elaboration of some concept of human nature.

 

[Rocinante]

I’m pretty sure you are wrong about this. Read Bentham. Pleasure is the goal of hedonism, sure, but utilitarianism was originally a hedonistic moral theory.

i’m sure it has always been lambasted as amounting to hedonism by its opponents since it was invented. but utilitarians have generally sought to refute that equivalence.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

"Utilitarianism (also: utilism) is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its usefulness in maximizing utility/minimizing negative utility (utility can be defined as pleasure, preference satisfaction, knowledge or other things) as summed among all sentient beings. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. The most influential contributors to this theory are considered to be Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

Utilitarianism was described by Bentham as “the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle.”[1] Utility, the good to be maximized, has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or pain), although preference utilitarians define it as the satisfaction of preferences. It may be described as a life stance, with happiness or pleasure being of ultimate importance."

it appears that Bentham (as well as Mill following him) conceived of utilitarianism in terms of happiness while “various other thinkers” have defined utility as pleasure, but i have no interest in defending any particular utilitarian philosopher and what they may have said.

because it can mean so many different things, i think it is best to reserve “utilitarianism” as a term that refers to the specific philosophical writings of the millses and bentham. i have mostly been using the term “consequentialism” as a more general term for one the sorts of ethical theories to be contrasted with natural law ethics.

i don’t think there is anything we ought to ever be concerned about in the name of morals other than the actual or potential consequences as changes in states of consciousness for beings capable of experiencing happiness and suffering. that makes me some sort of a consequentialist, but i don’t want to subscribe to any historical school of thought since i don’t know exactly what has been said in the past. i agree with the arguments laid out by sam harris in the moral landscape.

This is like saying, “Given that species are constantly changing, don’t bother trying to hunt moose, you’ll never pin one down”;

no, it’s not. it’s like saying “Given that species are constantly changing, why should we think that they have a moral duty not to change but rather to be true to their natures?”

or, “Given that nation-states are constantly evolving, don’t bother trying to determine what the laws of the state are”;

no, it’s asking, why should we think that the way the laws are now should decide what the laws ought to be in the future?

or, “Because of plate tectonics what is now dry land will probably someday be ocean, so it’s nonsense to claim that there are parts of the Earth that are land and parts that are ocean.”

no, it is to point out the non sequitur of saying that a part of earth is now land means that the part of earth ought to always remain land and not be used as a reservoir. or that if a part of the earth that is now ocean we ought not pump in sand to extend a beach or build an oil platform on it.

You’ve completely missed the point of natural law theory when you suggest it implies a “moral obligation to act in certain ways so as to maintain our species as it happens to be in a particular moment in time in this evolutionary picture” - you might as well say a cartographer’s goal is to put an end to the activity of plate tectonics.

i certainly haven’t been convinced that natural law theory has a point to miss. if certain posters in this thread are to be taken as any guide, its purpose seems to be nothing more than to find some way to argue that anal sex is immoral.

i hope you can give natural law ethics a better defense (and i’m pretty confident that you can.)

 

[Rocinante]

It’s not that one is abstract and the other is not. It’s that one is right (it starts at the right place) and the other is not. The problem with ‘happiness’ is that it doesn’t mean anything without reference to some subject of happiness, and if the subject of happiness doesn’t have some determinate nature, then it still doesn’t mean anything. This problem is obvious in the early development of utilitarian theories: Bentham talked about pleasure, but Mill had to insist that we mean appropriately human pleasures, not those that were just as fit for pigs (better a Socrates dissatisfied than a satisfied pig). This distinction (an obviously necessary one) crucially depends on the elaboration of some concept of human nature.

in harris’s version of consequentialism, the “subject” of interest is conscious experience rather than any essential nature.

the extent to which we ought to be concerned about the pig you mentioned is the extent to which it has the capacity to experience happiness or misery. we don’t have any moral concerns about the rock when deliberating about the morality of throwing a rock at a pig. we wonder about the pig rather than the rock because we think the pig can suffer to some extent but the rock simply can’t. the issue for the consequentialist is well-being of all creatures rather than whether or not throwing that rick is a violation of the pig’s essential pig-ness.)

so you see, even if you are right in the case of mill, a consequentialist moral view does not need to depend on a conception of human nature or pig nature or any such essential natures.

 

[Betterave]

i’m sure it has always been lambasted as amounting to hedonism by its opponents since it was invented. but utilitarians have generally sought to refute that equivalence.

Certainly hedonism has had a bad name going back to misconceptions of Epicurean hedonism, but I’m just noting that the basic original character of utilitarianism is hedonistic. That’s a simple adjective, not an insult (or even a critique).

*original *Epicurean philosophy," since Bentham himself thought of himself as an Epicurean.]

i don’t think there is anything we ought to ever be concerned about in the name of morals other than the actual or potential consequences as changes in states of consciousness for beings capable of experiencing happiness and suffering. that makes me some sort of a consequentialist, but i don’t want to subscribe to any historical school of thought since i don’t know exactly what has been said in the past. i agree with the arguments laid out by sam harris in the moral landscape.

I haven’t read Harris’s book and don’t plan on doing so. But point taken: you’re some kind of consequentialist, and not necessarily committed to major tenets of classical utilitarianism.

no, it’s not. it’s like saying “Given that species are constantly changing, why should we think that they have a moral duty not to change but rather to be true to their natures?”

But that’s not at all what natural law theories claim!

no, it’s asking, why should we think that the way the laws are now should decide what the laws ought to be in the future?

Again, natural law doesn’t make normative claims about possible changes in the nature of things. Since it is grounded in the nature of things, if the nature of things changes, then natural laws will necessarily change correspondingly.

no, it is to point out the non sequitur of saying that a part of earth is now land means that the part of earth ought to always remain land and not be used as a reservoir. or that if a part of the earth that is now ocean we ought not pump in sand to extend a beach or build an oil platform on it.

Again, that’s a straw man: natural law theory makes no such claims.

i certainly haven’t been convinced that natural law theory has a point to miss. if certain posters in this thread are to be taken as any guide, its purpose seems to be nothing more than to find some way to argue that anal sex is immoral.

I don’t think you’re being fair here, but I guess it probably is best to leave further discussion of anal sex aside for now.

 

[Betterave]

in harris’s version of consequentialism, the “subject” of interest is conscious experience rather than any essential nature.

right…

the extent to which we ought to be concerned about the pig you mentioned is the extent to which it has the capacity to experience happiness or misery. we don’t have any moral concerns about the rock when deliberating about the morality of throwing a rock at a pig. we wonder about the pig rather than the rock because we think the pig can suffer to some extent but the rock simply can’t. the issue for the consequentialist is well-being of all creatures rather than whether or not throwing that rick is a violation of the pig’s essential pig-ness.)

But the pig’s specific capacity for happiness or misery is still obviously a function of its nature (same goes for the rock’s non-capacity for such)! (even if the consequentialist seems not to realize this)

so you see, even if you are right in the case of mill, a consequentialist moral view does not need to depend on a conception of human nature or pig nature or any such essential natures.

…so I don’t see your point at all.

 

[Rocinante]

right…

But the pig’s specific capacity for happiness or misery is still obviously a function of its nature (same goes for the rock’s non-capacity for such)!

you can look at it that way but doing so is completely unhelpful for deliberating about the morality of throwing the rock at the pig.

i can’t see how natural law ethics can get you anywhere. the idea is that we ought to treat the pig according to the pig’s nature and act by our own nature with respect to the pig.
now we have to figure out what a pig truly is and what a human being truly is which are both equated in natural law theory to what a pig ought to be and what a human ought to be. how do we do that without begging all the moral questions that natural law ethics is supposed to help us solve? all we seem to have here is the unhelpful demand that we ought to treat the pig how pig’s ought to be treated.

 

[Betterave]

you can look at it that way but doing so is completely unhelpful for deliberating about the morality of throwing the rock at the pig.

of course it’s not completely unhelpful! If the pig is in the garden, throw a rock at the pig, or sick the pig-dog on the pig - it will hurt the pig (slightly!), and cause no offense to the rock, while protecting the garden. If it is your neighbor’s child in the garden, on the other hand, you shouldn’t do this to her, because she has a different nature from the pig and her specific nature must be respected.

i can’t see how natural law ethics can get you anywhere. the idea is that we ought to treat the pig according to the pig’s nature and act by our own nature with respect to the pig.
now we have to figure out what a pig truly is and what a human being truly is which are both equated in natural law theory to what a pig ought to be and what a human ought to be. how do we do that without begging all the moral questions that natural law ethics is supposed to help us solve? all we seem to have here is the unhelpful demand that we ought to treat the pig how pig’s ought to be treated.

Why do you think that is unhelpful?? Do you really think that if we think that a dog with rabies should be shot because we know that its dog nature has been corrupted, we are begging some question?

It seems that you are begging the question as to what questions we need to answer in order to solve moral problems. Your alternative seems to be, treat the pig as a locus of conscious experience which is no different in kind from any other locus of conscious experience… meaning what?! …which implies what? Your suggestion really does seem to be nonsensical.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Anne

is there anything else that you and charlemagne like to talk about besides anal sex? whether or not the act itself is evil, this obsession with it sure doesn’t seem healthy. you might want to see some one.

Actually, the reason for bringing up anal sex and staying with it is that you are already on record as defending it is a moral action. Why are you obsessed with getting off the subject? Is it because you simply cannot supply a school of ethics that allows anal sex as a moral, rather than an immoral act?

Just tell us in one sentence, what is the moral criterion for anal sex as a moral action?

You said rape is evil because it hurts people. But “hurt” by itself can’t be a criterion for evil. If it were, it would be evil to get your flu shot, never mind getting a tooth pulled or surgery for breast cancer.