Saying "we ought to be virtuous" is expressing a duty to being virtuous: I take those to be the same thing, so I am not following your distinctions here.

To illustrate this, one can take the example of genetic transcription in biology: If we have a DNA sequence, this in itself does not possess genetic expression; it is only in its relation to the RNA and the process of transcription that something like an expression takes place. The idea here is that what we believe to be the prefigured result does not actually exist but only takes place in the relationship of the DNA to an other that interprets and translates it in its own way. The information of who we are is not in the genes, but, strangely enough, in the unprecedented process of transcription, interpretation, translation, etc., itself.

This doesn’t negate in the slightest that we are biologically predetermined in various ways: which is just to say that our bodies have functions. Those functions dictate our design in a weak sense of Telos.

Likewise, someone who wants to go for a strong version of Telos could say that evolution is a process ultimately with a design—but this is not something required for my position. My eye, even with everything you said, is designed to see; and to see in a particular way.

"Existence precedes essence" (Sartre)

This is the consequence of failing to see Telos in things—even in a weak sense. One resorts (typically) to radical individualism.

Man clearly has an essence; and just because it isn’t eternal doesn’t change that. My eye is designed to see and in such-and-such a manner: does that mean that it isn’t undergoing a process of evolution, and partaking in a broader process of evolution as it pertains to procreation? Of course not.

You are trying to go from “everything is transitory” to “nothing has an essence”.

I agree that we do not commonly call them "intentional", but in the sense that they are the direct effect of the intentional act, just like the desired end is the direct effect of the intentional end, there is fundamentally no essential difference between them

You just described the essential difference between them.

You claim that the effect of the act can be separated from its cause, to say that the cause was intentional but the effect was not intentional.

Yes, the cause and the effect can be separated in this way because, you are forgetting, intentionality is an idea (end) being aimed at; so it is entirely possible for a person to aim at something and completely or partially miss—like an an archer trying to hit their mark. If an archer misses and hits a deer instead of the bullseye they were aiming at, was killing the deer intentional? Of course not. If I take your position seriously, then it would be; because your view attaches the intentionality of an act to all causality related effects.

The fact that a person misjudges the effects of one's actions does not make the effects any less intentional.

Before we dive into this, I need you to define what you mean by “intention”; because you are using it in very unwieldy ways here.

A judgement as to the probability of success of one's intentional acts, is not useful toward determining whether the effect of that act is intentional or not.

The point is that what one knows is relevant to what one is aiming at.

Suppose I flip a coin, and the probability is 50/50. No matter what the outcome is, that outcome was intended, because I flipped the coin for the purpose of having an outcome, and the particular outcome which occurs is irrelevant to that intent

Sure, but that doesn’t negate anything I said. My point was that, e.g., you intentionally let a person die if you foresee that there is a 99% chance that the mere act of flipping the coin, which you intend to flip, will directly result in the death of a person. Was is intentional is not solely about the causation that occurs from a given act: it is more fundamentally about what the person is aiming at.

I supose the issue here is one of which is to be king.

Why would we have to choose between deontology or consequentialism?

Deontology is about what we ought to do, while virtue ethics is about who we choose to be. I take it that we can maintain a distinction between being kind because it is the right thing to do, and being kind because one would be a kind person.

This kind of distinction, where what we ought to do is squarely in the realm of deontology, seems false to me: living a virtuous life is about being good, and this is about how we ought to live to be good. The way you’ve separated them, it seems like virtue ethics borrows from deontology to figure out what one ought to be doing.

The difference is in background, in whether one is choosing one's actions because of a duty or because those actions make one a better person.

I would say that one’s duty to what is good comes first, and from that one realizes that the best way to align with what is good is to think about normative ethics in terms of living a virtuous life and not in terms of duties to preordained rules. So I guess deontology secretly wins (: even though it is still getting negated as the result. Still, though, the same can be said of consequentialism: right and wrong behavior being views solely in terms of which consequences maximizes the desired outcome is itself an absolutely applicable moral principle. So I guess deontology, in a trivial sense, wins; but this doesn’t take away from the fact that consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are fundamentally contrary to one another.

Thus separating hysterectomy from abortion, in your description, which only has the negative effect of fetal death. 2 vs 1, double vs single.

I separated the hysterectomy abortion from a “traditional” abortion; and each were outlined with 1 good effect and 1 bad effect—totally two effects each. I don’t understand where you got the 2 vs. 1 from.

When in reality abortion already has two negative effects (which are in conflict), the fetal vs the maternal interest (survival vs bodily autonomy)

They are in not in moral conflict, like I noted before: one cannot do something immoral to produce a good end. The good end of respecting the interests of the woman with respect to her body cannot be achieve at the expense of killing someone.

The bad effect of not respecting the woman’s interests in the case of a traditional abortion is not a result of an immoral action or inaction; so the agent deciding whether to carry it out cannot be morally responsible for it. On the contrary, an agent carries out the traditional abortion to produce the good effect (of which is the negation of your negative effect you referred to), then they have done something immoral because they intentionally killed an innocent person as a means towards that good end.

You said you understood this point I made earlier; but I don’t think you did, because you seemed to skip over it without addressing it.

Fair enough :up:

Your translations help clarify a bit. My translation says:

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action as well as choice, is held to aim at some good. Hence people have nobly declared that the good is that at which all things aim

Which is, compared to your citations, a poor translation (apparently). Irregardless, if I take it that his second sentence is a definition (and not an assertion that about what nobility think), then:

1. He is defining what he thinks the good is, and not what good is itself. 'The good' refers to what is supremely and ultimately good, which he seems to be claiming is whatever all things aim at. This is not a definition of the concept of 'good'.

2. If I assume he means to define "good", as opposed to "the good", as "that which all things aim at", then this seems like an incredibly inadequate definition. Firstly, there seem to clearly, even by Aristotle's own admission, be things which agents aim at which are good but are not universally aimed at by all agents (e.g., pleasure). Secondly, if "good = that which all things aim at" then when someone says "well-being is good" they are saying "well-being is something that all things aim at" which is both false and does not capture the essence of what they are trying to express with the word "good".

But is something accidental if it not only could have but should have been forseen?

Yes. No one would say I intentionally killed someone by drunk driving if they knew for certain that I genuinely did not foresee the serious possibility of killing or injuring someone by drunk driving. For example, a severely cognitively challenged person who gets their hands on some alcohol and ends up drunk driving probably isn’t capable of foreseeable the obvious possibility that they may injure or kill someone. In practicality, most people cannot get away with claiming they did not foresee it (because we do not believe them) or, if they can, we hold them responsible for their negligence (as opposed to their intentions).

Unintended consequences are not necessarily accidental, only unforseen.

What do you think an “intention” is? If a consequence of something intended is accidental, then it was unintentional: that’s what it means for it to be accidental.

However, in another sense, when something is the effect of intention, we say it is intentional regardless of whether the effect is accidental.

Not necessarily. If the side effect is not easily foreseen, then we typically don't consider it intentional; or we might say that it was intentional insofar as the person was aware that there was a chance of it happening and accepting those odds. However, in the case that it is foreseeable or was foreseen (with high probability)(all else being equal), then I completely agree it was intentional: it as indirectly intended, which entails it was not accidental.

You can't say some accidents are intentional: that's like saying some orange squares are not orange.

For example, I swing the hammer at a nail, and accidentally hit my thumb. The act of swinging the hammer was intentional, regardless of whether I hit the nail or my thumb. So whether the nail is hit or my thumb nail is hit, is irrelevant to the fact that the act which results in one or the other is an intentional act. So even though it is my thumb which is hit, the act which has that effect is intentional.

The hammer hitting your thumb was not intentional whatsoever prima facie in your example. The act of swinging the hammer, intending to bring about the end of hitting the nail into something, was intentional. Now, let's say you foresaw that the hammer might hit your thumb and new this with 20% probability and still decided to carry it out: we would say that you intentionally swung the hammer knowing it may result in an accident, but we would NOT say that you intentionally caused that accident. Now, let's say you foresaw with a 99% probability that you were going to cause the accident instead of what you really intend, then we might say you intended it because of the probabilistic certainty that you had of bringing it about. It depends though, because we might say you are just stupid and didn't realize that it doesn't make sense to carry it out with that high of a probability; or we might say you are unwise (unprudent) for doing it anyways out of (presumably) passion or desire to hit the nail.

My main point is just that accidents, by definition, cannot be intentional. That's categorically incoherent to posit.

I am not following: please outline the three effects of a standard abortion that are relevant to the end of ceasing the pregnancy.

Most interesting. I am also a virtue ethicist; but wouldn't you agree that even a virtue ethicist needs to formulate generally or even absolutely applicable moral principles, and adhere to them, in order to cultivate and maintain a virtuous character as well as to guide them through life?

E.g., I find it hard to envision how a person could deliberately cultivate a character such that they are kind, if it were not for the fact that they knew that they generally or absolutely should be kind (which is itself a moral principle). Likewise, e.g., having instilled a disposition (i.e., a habit) of being kind is not enough to know how to act kindly in every situation; or, if it is, then it is impractical for the common man with an average intelligence. It seems like, to me, a person who holds moral compasses primal over principles still will have to, as a secondary aspect of their theory, accept the necessity of the latter.

@Leontiskos is using a very Aristotelian concept of choice; whereas @Banno is using it in the modern sense.

For Aristotle, an act can be voluntary without being a choice; but it sounds like Banno would deny this distinction altogether. It seems like a mere semantically disagreement in the end. When speaking to Banno, I would just clarify that by "choice" I am referring to what they call "deliberate choice". At the end of the day, I don't think such a dispute amounts to anything but semantics, but maybe I am misunderstanding.

The OP is NOT contending with whether or not a standard abortion is wrong or not: it is just using it as an example for the principle of double effect, and presupposes that it is wrong and offers a relevant difference between it and the permissibility of performing a hysterectomy.

With respect to whether or not abortion is wrong, which is a completely separate topic, I would say it is immoral because directly intentionally killing an innocent person is always wrong. One cannot do something immoral for the sake of producing a good end: so even if it is good to uphold the autonomy of people, it does not follow that one can kill an innocent person as a means towards that end; just as much as someone cannot violate the autonomy of one person as a means towards saving the life of another (on the flip side).

Likewise, to just anticipate the first response, abortion is not a case where one is violating the autonomy of the mother as a means to saving the life of the unborn child. There is an unborn child and its mother who does not want to be pregnant (for whatever reason) to start out, and now one must decide whether they are going to (1) kill the unborn child as a means towards respecting the mother's wishes or (2) let the woman's wishes be violated. In the case of the former, they are committing an immoral act; in the case of the latter they are letting something bad happen (at best) because they cannot do anything that is morally permissible to remedy the situation.

Again, this has nothing directly to do with the OP; but I am more than happy to discuss it.

:lol:

As to the abortion example, your comments make the (common) error of omitting the immorality of trampling the bodily autonomy of an adult human should abortion be outlawed. — LuckyR

I didn't follow this part: what do you mean by that?

If there is a foreseen effect to one's actions, then it is intentional. If it isn't foreseen, then I agree that it is accidental but that doesn't entail that it is intentional. So I am not following what you are contending with here.

From what you said, it follows that accidents are never intentional; even if accidents can arise from intentional acts.

A direct intention is anything which is a part of the directional flow of what is aimed at (as the end); whereas indirect intention is anything which is still aimed at (for the sake of the end) but not a part of that directional flow towards the end.

I would suggest reading through this thread and specifically the exchange between @Leontiskos and I.

A good diagram for explaining this is Leontisko's V vs. 7; and a good example is how the one dying, by way of pulling the lever, in the trolley dilemma (to save the five) is a side effect which is not a part of the directional flow of the aim towards the end, which can be evidently seen by removing the one sacrificed person from the hypothetical and still seeing that that direct flow towards the end (of saving the five) is untainted. The killing of the one is still intended because it is foreseen and aimed at (insofar as it is a foreseen effect of using the means of saving the five), but is not intended in the same manner as using the lever (i.e., means) to save the five (nor is it intended in the same manner as kidnapping and harvesting the organs of a healthy person to save five sick people).

I will leave it up to you when you want to stop the conversation. I guess I am more of a Hegelian than you are...

:up:

That's not a definition of the concept of good: he just mentioned that it has been rightly (according to him) said that what is good is what everything aims at. That's an entirely different claim than what good itself is.

EDIT: To elaborate more, to say that everything aims at what is good does not elaborate at all on what good itself is nor what is supremely good. Firstly, what can be supremely noted as good could be anything at all, and it could still be true that everything aims at it (depending on what it is); and Aristotle's statement leaves it an open-question entirely. Secondly, even if he would have elaborated on what is supremely good then it would still be an open-question what the concept of good refers to (e.g., if everything aims towards what is intrinsically valuable, then it is still an open-question--without further elaboration--what the concept of 'good' refers to even if it is good to aim at what is intrinsically valuable)

Aristotle makes zero attempt to define what the concept of good refers to; but he alludes to what is supremely good being that which is aimed at (which is an allusion to intrinsic value).

@Count Timothy von Icarus

CC: @Herg

I see a mention was made in this discussion board (OP) by Herg, but when I visit the link it says "not found": https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/915150 . Did a moderator remove it?

Aristotle never defines good in his ethics: he just uses it and the reader has to tease out what he means by it based off of what he says.

That's fair: I meant to depict the foreseeable effects, and not all of them.

I am not a deontologist either; so I can appreciate that. By the principle of PDE, I am referring to a generally applicable moral principle. There might be a situation where I would oppose using it, even as I depicted it; but it seems to work well in most controversial situations, and I certainly am not about to become a straight up particularlist about morals (;

Accidents are never intentional; but evolution doesn't operate on accidents.

Saying it is "intentional", "purposeful", etc. is tricky with non-agency; and I understand why people oppose it. It is usually associated with an agent of some sort; but, in that case, I just call it "function".

Upon thinking about it more, I updated the OP: now it resembles the traditional PDE.

Couple updates to note:

1. My PDE no longer mandates anything as obligatory, as I was thinking of when there is no action or inaction one could take which didn’t have a bad side effect—and that is a separate question from whether or not it is permissible to do good sometimes when there will be a bad effect;

2. My PDE accounts for the comparison of the good effect and the bad effect (of the currently selected means of achieving the former): this is an essential aspect that my PDE was completely missing; and

3. My PDE still finds comparing the alternative means (towards the end) necessary (because if there is a means that has no bad side effect to bring about the same good, then that is the best option even if the good effect significantly outweighs the bad effect of the currently selected means) but it does not obligate anyone either way; and

4. The good effect must significantly, as opposed to merely, outweigh the bad effect—otherwise, it resembles too closely (although it is not) directly intentionally doing something bad as a means towards a good end (e.g., if there are two sick people and there is a means which could cure the one but kill the other, then it seems immoral to use that means).

Number 4 gets me into dicey waters, because I am uncertain if I can still hold my expounded position on the hysterectomy: is saving the mother of cancer significantly outweigh the death of an unborn child? I am not sure.

What you just described is the idea of over-taxation and its mitigation/eradication being manifested into society through action; which is impossible under your view, since ideas come after what happens.

What you are forgetting or misunderstanding is that action is the manifestation of ideas; and I think you may be thinking of an "idea" as something sans action.

I believe, if I am understanding you correctly, Aristotle would say it is always learned; because virtuous activity is never on accident. Aristotle thought that we are morally responsible for our rationally deliberate actions; and those are never innate.

Not a strong recommendation in my opinion.

Why not? What are your thoughts, Banno?

That is impressive in itself - intellectual honesty on display. Cudos to you, brother Bob.

You too, brother. It is always a joy conversing with you (:

It’s a real tightrope with real pitfalls.

Very true, indeed; and this is why I had to be more specific with my PDE in the OP than the classical definition.

Just ridiculous, and if that situation actually arose I would never blame any of the falling people for any outcome. Too surreal to inform a question of morality.

To a certain extent I agree; but I would say that one, as I am understanding it, should pull the lever because:

1. They have two options: let the five die to directly intentionally respect the life of the one or kill the one to directly intentionally save the five;

2. Either option is an action or inaction which is a result of directly intending something good but is accompanied by a bad side effect;

3. The option with the least bad side effect, in the instance that they all have bad side effects, should be taken; and

4. The killing of the one is less severe of a bad side effect than the deaths of the five (all else being equal).

So pulling the lever is obligatory; because I make no distinction between the inaction and action in #2. Now, perhaps it is relevant and I am missing something.

You aren’t morally responsible for choosing to let 5 people die or choosing to kill 1 person, you are morally responsible for choosing not to take on a duty to make any decision given those facts, and the bad effect of 5 people dying is not intended by you.

I only see omissions as a morally permissible when one can only directly intend something bad by performing an action; and so any other case one is equally morally responsible for the results of their inactions.

:up:

Again, I think the idea comes second, after the fact.

This is impossible: society is based off of social constructs, which are ideas people have had—ideas through action (at a minimum). Human beings develop their living structures on ideas, even if they are not entirely able to explicate it to people through language what those ideas are, and so the idea which is embodied in the society must come first.

According to your logic, rights came before the idea of rights; which makes no sense. People started formulating an idea of a ‘right’ and started implementing it into society (largely because they were fed up with being mistreated).

:up:

In the other thread I ended up in the end saying that it is not permissible to pull the lever, but I think it is uncontroversial the PDE does not make it obligatory to pull the lever.
…
The key here is that the PDE does not apply to omissions, and this is because omissions (non-acts) do not have proper effects. So I would say that you have two principles operating: the PDE which renders the act permissible, and another principle regarding omissions which renders the act obligatory.

Within my formulation, I think it would be obligatory; because, as you noted, my version compares the bad side effects of each foreseeable means (towards the end) and not just the good effect (of that end) and the bad side effect being considered (of an action).

I agree that there is a morally relevant difference between omissions and commissions; but, for me, it is when considering doing something directly intentional bad vs. directly intentionally letting something bad happen. In the cases I expounded in the OP, it is about doing something directly intentionally good with a bad side effect vs. directly intentionally lettings something bad happen.

E.g., the driver that swerves to save the two at the expense of the other two, instead of killing all four, is choosing to directly intentionally save the two with a bad side effect of killing the other two; whereas if they chose to do nothing and kill all four they are directly intentionally respecting the two with a bad side effect of killing all four. In both cases, they are intending something good but both have bad side effects; so the less severe one should be chosen. On the contrary, a person that refuses to kidnap and harvest the organs of one person to save five ill patients which results in the five patients dying, is letting the five die because they cannot directly intend something bad (like using the one as a means to save them).

In the other thread you were quite adamant to distinguish commissions from omissions, and you got a lot of pushback. I never actually opposed that distinction, but I put it off as a separate topic. What I would say is that there is a morally relevant difference between a commission and an omission, but this does not mean that we are never responsible for omissions, or that omissions are always permissible.

Agreed; but I think, now that I have refined my understanding of an intention, my distinction only applies to direct intentions.

The proportionalist condition classically compares the good effect(s) to the bad effect(s) of the single action, not the effects of different actions.

Yes, I agree. I just see that as a weakness in the classical formulation: it is completely silent on if one should pick the means with the least severe bad effects, and instead only comments on whether the bad effect does not outweight the good effect. Both are arguably important.

I don't see any connection between these two worldviews and Aristotle's.

Design and purpose are inextricably linked, and can be used to two ways: the intentionality of an agent and the expression thereof in something, or the function something. I mean it in the latter sense when it comes to humans.

That my eye was not designed by an agent, does not entail it does not have the function, developed through evolution, of seeing. In that sense, it is designed for seeing. If you wish to use "design" in the former sense strictly, then I would just say that one should size up to their nature, and their nature dictates their functions.

More or less, yes. We are designed a particular way, and we can choose to go against it; but we will only be damaging ourselves.

I have created my own purpose of being good (to your point); and thereby commit myself to the purpose, which I have independently of my created purpose, of being a eudaimon (because that is what I was designed for).

The first is merely a decision I made, and the latter stems from what is good.

I don't think this is true, but I don't think I have the ammunition to shoot it down.

I am not a historian either, so perhaps I don’t either; but it seems pretty clear that society is like a wave, and the flow is marked out by someone (or a group of people) gaining sufficient influence on the masses...this starts with an idea.

If by common knowledge you mean something known by most people, I disagree. I think if you started a thread to discuss the meaning of any of these three terms you would get quite a few differing opinions, and that's just among us amateur philosophers. The answers would be even more diverse in the general public.

If, on the other hand, you mean it is common knowledge among those familiar with Aristotle's works, I don't have a response, since I don't know enough to have a meaningful opinion.

I mean the second.

I think that human values are a reflection of human nature, whatever that means. I would have thought that means the answer to your question is "yes," but now I'm not so sure.

This doesn’t necessitate a “yes” or “no”: it is indeterminate with the information you have given so far.

Moral realism is usually a three-pronged thesis (at a minimum):

1. Moral judgments are truth-apt.
2. Moral judgments express something objective.
3. There is at least one true moral judgment.

Prong 2 is the most important one: moral objectivism. I can’t tell if you hold there are moral facts or not.

Now I have the freedom to follow where my intrinsic virtuosities lead me, although that's something easier said than done. I find many of the things I do are playful, participating in the forum is one of those.

Engaging in fun is arguably an essential aspect of becoming happy, but it is not an element of being virtuous. I am not acting, in any meaningful sense, virtuous by intending to merely do something I enjoy doing.

Happiness, virtue, and good as objective standards without making a circular argument by using each word to define the others. Actually, I think that will take us down a long and winding path, so we can leave it for now.

The concept of good is identical to the concept of value; and the property of goodness is identical to the property of valuableness. Actual, or intrinsic, goodness is actual, or intrinsic, valuableness; and thusly the highest (intrinsic) good is what is the most (intrinsically) valuable.

Happiness is the most intrinsically valuable; because it is the most intrinsically motivating (and I leave this intentionally vague for now); which makes it the chief good. It is a persistent state of supreme fulfillment and well living. It is essentially well-being.

Virtue is a habit of usually character which is excellent (relative to what is the subject of discussion). “Excellence” here is NOT a morally loaded term, and is kind of confusing for the modern man. This can be readily seen by how confusing it can be to the modern man to encounter Aristotle splitting virtues into moral and intellectual virtues; which seems odd since most people think of a virtue as inextricably tied to morality. Virtues are excellent habits of character; and this is not limited to the moral domain—e.g., the particular traits required to be a good runner are virtuous running traits because they are excellent for running.

This feels like an escape clause. Yes, follow your heart, but let me decide if your heart is up to the task.

It has to be that way: a conscience is not necessarily naturally morally sensitive and well-grounded. Wouldn’t you agree? A child conditioned by Nazi propaganda that follows their heart in their adulthood are going to make really morally egregious decisions.

This is an interesting discussion. Thanks for that.

You too!

It is something they have. "Receive" and "create" presuppose that purpose only comes from an agent.