So, I’ve been chatting with my buddies lately, and it’s turned into a bunch of debates about right and wrong. I think I have a pretty solid moral compass, I’m not bragging haha, but most people I know can’t really explain why something’s right or wrong without getting all circular or contradicting themselves.
So, how do you figure out what to do? No judgment, just curious. I’ll share my thoughts below.
Thanks!
Edit: Oh, all you lil’ philosophers have brought me a cornicopia of thoughts and ideas. I’m going to take my time responding, I’m like Treebeard, never wanna be hasty.
Logic is the wrong tool for ethics. In formal logic, you can only assign values like true or false to something called “descriptive statements”. These are statements of fact, that can be observed.
Morality deals with “prescriptive” statements. Unobservable and unstable statements about how the world ought to be.
Logic breaks down because it’s impossible to argue for something that should be using only facts about how thing are.
The prescriptive statement “it’s wrong to harm” relies on the prescriptive statement “harm is bad”. Their is no bottom to it.
Well if we follow that to its conclusion I may as well delete the thread and try not to think about it.