When first my brother started talking about Mr. Harris' ideas and I thought maybe he was just misrepresenting them. They sounded like pretty poor arguments to me. Then I started reading some things from Mr. Harris in articles and his web site. I am not very satisfied with what he is writing so far. I want to hold out for his newest book, The Moral Landscape, but also wanted to comment immediately on something that I read.
It's called consequentialism. It is the theory that the moral rightness of your actions is not determined by your actions or your character but by the consequences of your actions. It is also known as "The Ends Justify the Means." This is a moral theory that Mr. Harris subscribes to. I do not.
I illustrate the fault of consequentialism with the following hypothetical situation. Say two brothers are celebrating Independence Day. They take their handguns into downtown Oklahoma City and fire dozens of shot wildly into the air. The first brother, in addition to some property damage, hits and disables a terrorist who is about to detonate a dirty nuclear bomb. He just saved millions of lives. The second brother hits a pregnant lady on her way to the hospital, killing her and her unborn child. He is a vile homicidal beast.
According to consequentialism, the actions of the first brother are morally right, because it turned out good. The second brother's actions are moral wrong, because they turned out badly. It does not matter that both brothers were in the same state of mind and doing the exact same thing, one of them is right and one of them is wrong. One of them is good and one of them is bad.
If we were all gods, this might be a good theory for us. However, as men, we cannot have absolute knowledge of the full consequences of our actions. We need a human method of determining the correctness of our actions. In my own personal belief, the best human method of determining the correctness of our actions is to evaluate the action itself. While it is true that bad intentioned people can hurt you doing the 'right' thing and good intentioned people can hurt you doing the 'right' thing, it is the only method by which people of limited knowledge can decide what actions are best to take, and be comforted when things don't turn out well.
Also, a society built upon consequentialism would probably eliminate most law, except tort law. As any action can be morally right, it has to be allowed. Citizens of this society would only be able to seek redress for actions that turned out wrong. Citizens concerned over lawsuits may very well take no actions at all for fear of incalculable results.
I urge anyone who takes a superficial interest in consequentialism due to the support it receives from famous authors to seriously consider it's consequences in general and how it would affect their own decision making.
2 comments:
this sounds like non-sense. i can't believe people would support such a chaotic mentality -.-
Here is another fine example of the nonsense created by consequentialism.
Dragan Stevic of Serbia is on vacation in Egypt. He got totally wasted, handed his beer to a friend and high dived into the ocean. He hit the water hard and exclaimed that the water was harder than he thought and twisted his ankle. He was so drunk that he had to go to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
What do you call a man like that? Well, of course you call him a hero. He twisted his ankle because he dived onto a lurking shark, killing it.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think of people who accidently do things 'heros'. A hero is someone who stands up in the face of adversity, overcomes their fears and do what must be done. Not a drunk who falls on someone.
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