NORMATIVE THEORY on studio waslo

Be wary of homonymy

wesleychent@gmail.com (Wesley Chen) — Fri, 16 May 2025 18:50:09 -0700

Imagine you’re back in high school and your friend is coming over to hang out. Your mom tells you, “Make sure he’s comfortable,” and you agree (You were going to do this anyways. Who doesn’t make sure her friends are comfortable?). When he arrives, you ask if he wants any drinks and snacks, and he says that he’s “all good.” You two spend an hour or two finishing your homework, then watch TV until he has to go home for dinner. In many ways, a perfect way to spend an afternoon; but, after he leaves, your mom is furious. “Why didn’t you bring him anything? I thought you said you would make him comfortable! You’re always so rude to our guests!” You, of course, are confused. You asked your friend if he wanted anything and he said no—isn’t that making sure he’s comfortable?

You can't reduce all moral theories to consequentialism

wesleychent@gmail.com (Wesley Chen) — Sun, 11 May 2025 18:51:44 -0700

The ascendant moral theory among the general public is consequentialism, the theory that only consequences matter in normative evaluation. It is easy to understand consequentialism’s appeal: its framework of action based on efficient causation aligns with our widely accepted physicalist metaphysics, and its focus on outcomes mirrors the prevailing political-economic logic of capitalism. However, the joint dominance of these three doctrines—consequentialism, physicalism, and capitalism—makes it hard to imagine alternative worldviews (as the saying goes, “Fish don’t know they’re in water.”). While proponents of physicalism and capitalism assert themselves by claiming that alternatives are infeasible, it is not uncommon to see consequentialists resorting to reductivism to take down their enemies. That is, they like to claim that all other moral theories are just consequentialism in disguise. For instance, consider the charge that deontology, the moral theory that emphasizes following rules, is just “rule consequentialism”, a form of consequentialism where actions are judged according to rules that are justified by their consequences. The reductivist argument is simple: most deontological theories assert a common good, such as rationality, that unifies the theory’s rules. The reductivist reinterprets this to mean that the deontological theory adopts a rule because it has the consequence of providing that good, thus reducing the theory to rule consequentialism. Similar strategies can be deployed against the full range of non-consequentialist moral theories—strategies that must be refuted if we want those theories to survive.

Altruism is not a selfish hedonism

wesleychent@gmail.com (Wesley Chen) — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 15:49:59 -0700

A wildly common—and dangerous—charge against altruism is that people only commit altruistic acts in order to feel good. You might believe this yourself; after all, it has significant intuitive appeal. People love to talk about how good it feels to volunteer or donate to charity, and when we help others ourselves, it does indeed feel good. Since the desire for pleasure often drives us to do certain things, it is easy to conclude that the good feeling we get from altruism also motivates it. If this was true, however, altruism wouldn’t be any more praiseworthy than drug use or street racing—it’s just another flavor of selfish hedonism. From this perspective, the choice between helping others and doing drugs is simply a matter of preference: some people feel better while helping, others feel better when they get high. The consequences of altruism, like ameliorated suffering or saved lives, are mere side effects and not really something altruistic people care about—they are in it for the pleasure alone. It is for this reason that this claim is frequently made by selfish people. By equivocating altruism and whatever vice they pursue, they conveniently excuse their selfish behavior.