We have consensus on basic ethical norms - isnt it possible to identify which courses of action/inaction (regardless of bent) lead to ethical outcomes - and review the results of past actions under an ethical lens?
This debate just seems like some (maybe great) philosophy buried under a mountain of incentivised people searching for ammo.
On some, but morality has not been resolved, not even close.
> isnt it possible to identify which courses of action/inaction (regardless of bent) lead to ethical outcomes
No, figuring out all the consequences of a given action quickly gets intractable the bigger the action is. You can make predictions as to the effect of a law or policy, but you usually can't make guarantees as to their effects. nth order effects keep piling up.
Because rationality is just about making logical deductions. Not preferences, not what life is better, not goals, and nothing. At best it's about how to achieve one's goals more efficiently/faster etc. Not what goals to have.
Rationality as some all-around solution to the worlds problems is a naive pre-modern concept. Tons of 20th centuries atrocities and bad decisions have been performed by highly intelligent people using very rational means to pursue them.
>We have consensus on basic ethical norms
No, we don't, except at very crude stuff like don't kill and don't punch blind old ladies. And even "don't kill" can get tons of discussion and counter-arguments when it comes e.g. to protecting one's country, property, interests, the law, whatever.
>- isnt it possible to identify which courses of action/inaction (regardless of bent) lead to ethical outcomes - and review the results of past actions under an ethical lens?
Even assuming we agreed on ethical outcomes (which we don't) the world is too complex to determine "which courses of action/inaction lead to those outcomes" except in very crude cases. Plus, all actions/inactions have second order effects to other ethical outcomes where people can disagree, ad infinitum.
The past is not some safe guide either: circumstances can and will be different, so following the same action/inaction might bring results now whereas it didn't in the past (and vice versa).
Plus, even more hoopla is not about "ethical outcomes" but about personal interests.
No matter what the "ethical outcome" is, even if we agree on what it is, people can still, completely rationally, want to screw ethical considerations and e.g. take your property, squeeze value out of you to your detriment, etc, if it means they get more wealth/happiness/whatever out of that.
Bad things happening in the name of rationality tend to happen where people are not considering ethical outcomes. You can use computers to time traffic lights or launch missiles, doesn't mean computers are at fault. Building a social system that sees people put in gulags, if your course of action is intended to uphold ethical norms - is irrational.
Peoples preference, their goals, their opinions on which life is better aren't plucked out of the air. They follow logic based on a persons circumstance, history and assumptions about what will happen based on their choice. Coal miners didnt strike because they were marxist, they did it for better wages. Gun owners want to keep guns not because of a philosophical stance, but because they distrust the government or just like shooting guns.`
And yes, it's complicated to make decisions and resolve competing interests. But attempting to categorise individual stances on decisions into two groups of thought - when it's actually individual choices on some very low level stuff - doesn't add anything to the table.
Thats what Im confused about..
Because half of the world has an IQ under 100 and it takes about an IQ of 120 to have a small chance of thinking about these ideas rationally.
There are still people who are way smarter than that who believe Zombie Jesus was real and thus being gay is evil. So progress is hard.
>There are still people who are way smarter than that who believe Zombie Jesus was real and thus being gay is evil.
There are people so uninformed and uneducated as to reduce all kind of religious or moral question to BS Americanisms like "Zombie Jesus".