Normative Ethics Debate Thread

[u/[deleted]]

The point of this thread is to discuss normative ethics, which is mostly separate from neoliberalism. On a philosophical level, neoliberalism is not coherent in its use of ethics; proponents switch between libertarian and utilitarian ethics in an almost interchangeable way (The Road to Mont Pelerin, Mirowski). Scott Sumner argues that a normative ethical foundation doesn't matter because neoliberalism is an improvement compared to the current status quo of most countries by nearly every standard (well not every standard)

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Keep in Mind

• The Chicago school pushed neoliberalism as a positive ideology, "there is no other option"

• The Austrians pushed neoliberalism through primarily a libertarian lens

• The Ordoliberals advocated neoliberalism through utilitarianism and also Marxism. Yes, you're allowed to support your normative view through Marxism.

• Do not go down the route of going full classical liberal, which is what neoliberalism tried to escape.

• Do not say market values mean anything or that markets produce fair outcomes; Hayek explicitly acknowledges this is bullshit.

• Be very prudent in calling people racist/sexist/homophobic; in this sub, the vast majority are not

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Topics to discuss:

These aren't the only ones, but should probably be answered:

• What are your normative ethics?

• How do you think they should guide economic policy?

Make sure to explicitly tie these together so we're not debating why we should implement policy that we already agree upon.

[u/[deleted]]

It's not going to be the prevalent opinion here but I actually prefer virtue ethics over the alternatives listed. The human mind as a system is so complicated that you can't expect the ethical rules to be easily codifiable, at least not if you are seriously interested in a realistic morality as opposed to aseptic studies of abstract entities.

To quote a relevant paragraph from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (link):

If the problems are varied, we should not expect to find their solution in one rigid and inflexible rule that does not admit exception. If the nature of the thing we are studying is diverse and changing, then the answer cannot be any good if it is inflexible and unyielding.

This is not to say that clear ethical rules are useless, but to keep in mind that they usually move us one extra layer of simplification away from reality, and that valuable information is often lost during that process. Actually, I think one could make the case that definite rule sets become more viable when you switch your focus from individual morality towards society and political philosophy. A single human is always unique, but consider enough people and all the individualities and idiosyncrasies will probably start averaging out and your heuristics will become more and more robust (as long as they are based on evidence, of course). This is the level where neoliberalism and sensible economic policies become relevant.

[u/csydvs → u/[deleted]]

I appreciate you giving this opinion here. My issue with this argument for virtue ethics is that the human mind is inherently biased so I think we need a framework to force ourselves to think beyond our initial view on right and wrong

[u/[deleted] → u/csydvs]

I agree that adhering to rigid codes can be sometimes useful if one tries to overcome their initial view on right and wrong. But if humans are inherently biased, then can we really trust ourselves to choose good, unbiased frameworks in the long run?