I posted this meme to the Lemmy Shitpost community. I reckoned that it might generate a bit of debate, and would probably end up locked, but the entire post got deleted, and moreover, I’m now forbidden from sharing political posts to the community. Political posts are not against the rules of the community.
I have reason to believe that the post was deleted not because it was controversial, but because the moderator (Decoy321) disagreed with the political slant of the meme. The reason I find this suspicious is because other controversial posts, such as one about veganism remains up, and Decoy321 seemed to enjoy the fact it was controversial:
more professional philosophers identify as deontologists than any other ethical system
Being a professional deontological philosopher doesn’t actually make an argument for deontology. Or that there more of those than others. That just means a lot of smart people are wrong.
there is a survey of philosophers that shows what I said is true
I wasn’t refuting that a lot of philosophers are deontologists. I was saying that’s irrelevant.
it’s highly relevant to your erroneous claim
“no one should entertain people who value virtue over consequence.”
the experts in the field just disagree with this stance.
Experts in philosophy are well educated in philosophy, but generally their reading and discourse choices are specifically guided by motivated reasoning more than in other fields.
Experts are just people who’ve learned a lot about a topic. While the required reading to achieve that is commendable (given the dire state of literacy these days), so do medical quacks, conspiracy theorists, and theologians and I don’t waste time debating or engaging seriously with them either.
if your position is that professional ethicists are wrong, and we shouldn’t entertain their stance, I don’t see how you’re any different from a quack or theologian.
OK, let me actually explain why I don’t think they’re worth engaging with:
Ethics are based on subjective axioms but they are motivated by certain objective beliefs about reality. Deontological and virtue ethics are both strongly motivated by a belief in free will, compatibilist or libertarian.
Both compatilism and libertarianism are akin to basically believing in magic (free will) because it feels good. And it feels bad to believe you have no free will.
But most people (including experts) believe in it anyway. Because its very human. We are evolutionary biased to believe in this fairy tale. It helps keep us motivated, the idea that we are in control of our fate (we aren’t).
And if you believe in free will, deontological or virtue ethics both make perfect sense. So most experts, who are well read and smart people, are operating on on their education but also… motivated reasoning.
If this is unconvincing to you, then yeah there is no reason for us to talk. Go ahead and think of me as a quack I don’t give a shit I don’t want to waste my time.
if the world is deterministic, ethics don’t exist.