Reconciliation?

Discuss arguments for existence of God and faith in general. Any aspect of any orientation toward religion/spirituality, as long as it is based upon a positive open to other people attitude.

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Jim B.
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Joined:Fri Aug 23, 2013 2:36 am
Reconciliation?

Post by Jim B. » Fri Jun 03, 2016 3:37 pm

I was going to put up some thought experiments indicating that consequentialism runs counter to our moral intuitions, but then I thought that anything like that can be subverted, and pretty easily. The long-range rule consequentialist can always respond to counter-examples by saying "But of course it's preferable to forego the better consequences in that case because the world is better off in the long-run if people internalize these virtues. Even if doing so doesn't pay off immediately, it will eventually." So maybe there's a point where rule consequentialism and rule deontology and virtue ethics begin to blur into one another.

And then again, maybe not. As I mentioned in another thread, there seems to be something deeply incoherent about lying, even when lying is justified and brings better consequences. This has to do with the internal incoherence of it. There also seems to be something deeply coherent about intrinsic rights. Even if they are emergent properties, like colors, they seem to be intrinsic because they result from the nature of the things involved and not our opinions. But that's just my opinion...

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