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Sal, I read your post and found it incredibly intriguing.

I've been studying philosophy for some time now, and it's becoming harder and harder to pinpoint where I stand, ethically. I'm somewhere between virtue ethics and deontology, and there are a couple "layers" to it:

1.) In regards to how I relate to other people, it's mostly about deontology. I find the elements of virtue ethics that I endorse unproveable and for that reason, while they're no less important, I don't expect other people to agree with me on any of them. So that's where talk of "rights" comes in--I think "negative rights" are logically consistent with human nature and it is necessary to recognize them.

2.) I am a Christian, and a pretty conservative one at that when it comes to morality. The twist is that I don't necessarily expect those who aren't Christians to understand this view or follow it. I'd class this "layer"--the deeper one--as something very similar to virtue ethics. Thus, I do believe it would be wrong for me to rape, murder, and kill in the matrix. It would also be wrong for other people to do so, but they must first accept the premise of Christianity itself before actually understanding why I believe that. So I stick to #1.

That's why I simply haven't latched on to virtue ethics much. Our obligations to each other are rooted in our nature--morals that concern how people relate to each other can be understood. Virtue ethics I have always found rather dubious.

I'm not looking for a thorough defense or term paper, but I'd be intrigued about just the basics of why you think Virtue Ethics work, and how they can be explained. It might actually help me modify the way I argue for what I believe to be morally correct. Like, why would it be wrong to do those things in the matrix if no one is affected adversely by them?

Ah but in its purist form it is an unconditional yes. In its purist form conditionalism does not concern itself with any other perceptions of moral, simply the results of the action and whether or not the total possibilities in the world are increased. To use conditionalism in its purist form would be to remove any and all forms of *good/evil* from the perception of the mind. Such notions would no longer guide your actions in any sense of the word.

In other words, the concept of good and evil, would simply not exist.

However, not every person is of the same mindset and the concepts of good and evil have been drilled into our head since day one of our existence (in most places anyway). This means that a pure conditionalist will have more to think about since people are bound to disagree with his action and severe consequences could result from what he does.

On another note, would you agree with me that there is an exception to every rule?

Wow, this is a good thread.

@5 sick people vs. 1 healthy person

A consequentialist might argue that our analysis of the consequences of the act shouldn't stop at the survival of the 5 sick people. It's true that by killing the 1 healthy person, we generated a good consequence of saving 5 sick people. However, that's not all we generated.

This is some of the reasoning behind rules consequentialism. If everyone were morally permitted to take anything from others to fill a need, then we'd actually not generate increasingly good consequences or increasing utility. We'd generate the opposite.

In effect, consequentialism is more useful as an application to more specific moral systems by measuring their consequences. A strong feature of consequentialism is the recognition that moral judgments vary by circumstances instead of being strictly universal.

I also believe in a virtue ethic, like SAL, and believe you can analyze virtue imperatives consequentially. As a result, consequentialism works more like a meta-ethic than an ethic.

This would be a form of moral subjectivism.