What is Reddit's opinion of Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion?

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Pre-script (I guess that's the opposite of a post-script?): One of the biggest flaws to secular ethics, to me, is why. I would appreciate any and all input on that topic, as well as feedback on the rest of this morass.

There's bound to be some pithy quote I could insert here about being a critic because that's easier than being a creator, and I'm a big fan of pithy quotes and cliches.

Perhaps a paraphrase: "Those who can teach philosophy, do; those who can't, critique those who do."

That was the longer way to say: nope, I got nothin'. Or rather, not absolutely nothing, but nothing so extensive as I would like to provide. It's one of the big projects that I chip away at slowly.

What follows is a meandering exploration of thoughts on the topic; I'm planning on starting a blog in the not too distant future and will be exploring this somewhat more systematically, and I'll link it here.

TL;DR of the below: A system that says "here's good traits, do those" is likely going to produce better long-term results than a system that says "constantly attempt impossible math to decide what to do."

I lean towards some form of virtue ethics; Kreeft's Back to Virtue was great for me. But it's also a deeply Christian approach, and I think it's possible to create an approach that works for secular and religious people more or less evenly (why I think so when people have been trying for centuries, if not millennia... I guess I'm a little more idealistic than I like to admit).

Virtue ethics (VE) (and I'd lump in Stoicism as a related topic of interest) shares at least one flaw of Scott's consequentialism (SC): how do you define good? Consequentialism enjoys it's woo-woo math about utilons or utility points, but since there's no grand utilometer, is it that different from Marcus Aurelius writing "You know what is good, do it"? You're still relying on your intuitions about what is good, which does bother me about VE still.

Part of the appeal of the virtue ethics/Stoicism approach to me is the same as Peterson phrased it: Clean your room! VE is, to me, a much more personal, human, humane ethic than SC. I think it is important to be a good person first, and that will 'ripple out' to create a better world. Scott called it Newtonian ethics, but I think that misses something; it's not that "deservingness" decreases with distance, but complications increase with geographic and cultural distance. This concentric localism reduces the "bang for your buck" compared to SC (and thus EA), but I think it also reduces the failure mode risks.

What SC says about doing good changes based on any number of factors: how you rate different kinds of suffering, what you think does the most good, what you think generates the most utilons, what time scale you're judging everything on, etc. You can be an awful, hateful person but still "do a lot of good" under SC, which depending on perspective could be good or bad, but I think that possibility leaves a lot of room for SC to burn itself out by ignoring the interpersonal effects (Organized EA seems to have recognized this and started to deal with it, although Rob Wiblin at least still acknowledges it as an integral component of the philosophy that most can't live up to).

I also think VE involves more flexibility innately, whereas flexibility of SC is contingent on a peace treaty of sorts. Scott says outright SC should lead to one answer of what is right. This should mean that everyone following SC is doing the exact same thing: we can look at EA to show this is not currently happening, which means SC is failing to provide that one obvious answer. I recognize I decried the wishy-washy "my feels" as a flaw of SC, and this is part of why- if it is supposed to provide one answer, but doesn't, is it doing its goal? The variety of missions operating under EA indicate that SC is not that good at providing answers, and that those involved aren't particularly consequentialist. VE on the other hand has the flexibility of allowing personal definitions of good: this can be abused by selfish definitions of "good" but also gives that variety without violating its ideal. Your good is not quite the same as my good, simply because we're different people in different situations, but we can acknowledge we are both being good. This only occurs in SC because of a peace treaty of accepted dissent; were it taken seriously, anyone not following your specific good is dooming the universe (a la Bostrom's calculations) (This might be my least favorite paragraph of my rambling; I think there's an important point here but the way I'm phrasing it sounds very self-serving. I'm leaving it in hopes of figuring it out eventually)

I'll stop here because my rambling isn't really clarifying anything at this point, I don't think. But I would add an excerpt from a comment on one of Scott's old blogs against virtue ethics:

>I feel like, in saying “virtue ethics is bad”, based on the specific virtue ethics you’ve encountered, you’re doing something akin to saying “consequentialism is bad” after reading consequentialist writing by Clippy. Consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are not moral frameworks; they are categories of moral frameworks, or rather, categories that individual fragments of moral knowledge fall into, according to whether they do their good/bad classification on events, on actions, or on people.

>My position is that consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are all valid, and any complete moral framework must gracefully handle fragments of moral knowledge in all three forms. I think a surprisingly large amount of our moral knowledge comes from hero/villain classifications given to us in fiction, spread across weak-evidence relations like “the goals of good people are good”.

I'd pretty much agree with that. There's useful aspects to each, and distinctly saying one is good or bad is to overlook the advantages of the others, and the flaws of the one you've picked. My second-biggest issue with Scott's ethical writings is that he handwaves over the gaps of his consequentialism without digging, in a satisfying manner, into them (digging into gaps is not the best turn of phrase, I know). He tries, sort of, but I don't find the answers even remotely solid (hence I said I dismiss them for being specific to Scott, not to the broader philosophy). The "why" question posed at the top would be the biggest. He wants to good because he wants to do good; is it a virtuous tautology and we can't answer more than that?

Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898704227/

Excellent book!

Maybe consider “Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion” https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898704227/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_17RD7JVYVJE3GXRHFXYB

> I can see why people might look at this situation and hope for a large class of people who are neither humble nor sincere

Would that just be marketers? And indeed, in the social media age of "personal brands," so many are marketers, selling their soul for ephemeral attention. No hope, indeed!

>What ideology would you have me adopt? What public thinkers would you endorse? What principles?

I once quipped, when asked the same question after critiquing utilitarianism, "those who can, write philosophies. Those who can't, critique philosophies." I generally fall in the latter category :3

I don't know. My problem is very rarely with your principles, but with how they get expressed by others and at scale. Scrolling through, I could nitpick and quibble (and I do, later, to make a point about intention and scale), but I don't actually disagree with any principle you listed (maybe Gamergate, but that's also a sort of "distributed hypocrisy" problem for both sides, very messy, neither side covered themselves in a single leaf of glory AFAIK).

I mean, privilege: useful. Systemic racism: useful. Acknowledging flaws and limits of rationality, and coping with those: useful.

It's when those hit the seething chaos of mass society and social media that they corrupt into some unholy nightmare that is all too often more destructive than helpful. Too easily abused at scale! The nuance is burned away, and with it most of the usefulness. Maybe I'm wrong, and that is necessary a la the old omelet adage, but I don't think so. It's easy to sacrifice eggs when you think you won't be one of them.

Public thinkers: I'm a big fan of Peter Kreeft, he's one of the best virtue ethics writers around, but he's also deeply Catholic (a trend in my intellectual tastes these days, despite not being Catholic). Glenn Loury. Chloe Valdary. Gracy Olmstead (and, fitting, this article against ideological labels for being too restrictive). Alan Jacobs, Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul. Joseph Bernardin's consistent life ethic is probably the closest to a single ideology I can suggest, but I don't agree with all of it, and it certainly would clash with your style of feminism.

Front Porch Republic is possibly the only "publication" where I have not felt offended or harmed, so I'd recommend it and most of its authors. That is not to say I always agree; indeed, quite often I disagree or am challenged to rethink by the writing there. I'd be even more concerned if I agreed with them completely, because I know I'm missing knowledge and that would mean I'm not gaining it from them! But not once have I felt disrespected or thought less of; I do not recall a time where a writer there has resorted to insults (or given apologetics for those of others). Those are words someone may quibble with: "you should be offended!" Transgression for its own sake is just... pathetic, though, in my opinion. I think there are worthwhile distinctions to be drawn between offensiveness and challenge, as I tried to do there.

As for principles: I have little to add to your own. I do put more emphasis on tone and kindness, because I think they are necessary, and performative hatred is completely unacceptable poison. But they are not enough, alone, either. I don't want to fall into the trap of being MLK's "white moderate" for the sake of tone- but I don't want to justify hatred, either. I think we can strike a much better balance, and for the life of me I can never understand why so many people willfully fail at that, seemingly not considering the possibility or else thinking that it's actually good.

>It's not my word, exactly, except insofar as I embrace the pejorative because I know I agree with a lot of the specific positions thus critiqued, and I hate seeing them talked about in the derogatory abstract, instead of grappled with in the embodied particular.

That's an interesting way to put it, thank you. Not unlike the list of principles, I take the opposite tack: despite agreeing with many specific positions (though we'd have to dig into how specific), I cannot embrace due to the gap between intention or principle and action.

>I think it's absolutely fine that Dr. Seuss' estate stopped publishing a small number of his books that had racist imagery.

That's an interesting situation that highlights some of the issues around the "correct" response and the problem of scale.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to stop publishing them, even if some of the calls were... questionable. I was more bothered by eBay's reaction (though to be fair, they put their money where their mouth is; they lost out on a lot of seller fees).

But there's also a question of... well, creative destruction, to twist the meaning a bit. "On Beyond Zebra" is a fascinating piece of creative work despite not being one of his more famous ones (and likely the least-offensive/least-obviously-offensive of those canceled). As the estate and controllers of the property, it's their choice legally, but they could've just... replaced that one character. This "messing with canon" has its own flaws and critiques, but it could've been the best of both worlds, rather than just being... less.

I keep seeing people say "now is the time for new stories!" as they demolish the old, and somehow the replacements never really come.

>I think the #MeToo movement was easily a net positive for the world.

Since I haven't shilled for them in a while: I strongly prefer the Joyful Heart Foundation.

I have been able to watch the benefits of Joyful Heart, and participate, and perhaps that's why I rate it so much higher. I know the stories of their successes, have even met a few, whereas #metoo successes seem primarily to be actresses. Not that actresses are less human or less deserving of being treated well- just that the scale is different, the cares are different. Maybe I'm wrong and other benefits have trickled down to normal people, and I just haven't noticed; the failures and excesses are loud while the normal successes are private.

Maybe I'm wrong in other ways, and that what is currently deeply hateful will one day give birth to a legitimately productive, peaceful, progressive movement. All manner of things will be well, right? The hateful caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly, a sickening albeit necessary step. I don't think so. I think it could be done without that, that the good effects could be had without the bad. But maybe I'm wrong- after all, the good ideas are out there but not being adopted at scale. I fear they can't be. But I've written more than long enough; I shan't subject you to more ramblings... for now.

As ever, thank you. My interactions with you are one source that helps restore my faith in humanity lost elsewhere (though, do not fear, not the sole source- but most definitely an appreciated one).

Peter Kreeft's "Back to Virtue" is excellent! I read it (when I was in my 20's I believe?) and it really resonated with me.

https://www.amazon.com/Back-Virtue-Traditional-Wisdom-Confusion/dp/0898704227/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2OX5HFBVSCH6Q&keywords=peter+kreeft+back+to+virtue&qid=1566528034&s=gateway&sprefix=peter+kreeft+back+to+%2Caps%2C163&sr=8-1