Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Searching for secular altruism

For a long time, I have had a privately held philosophy that I have refrained from sharing with other people out of the fear that they would think I'm a bit crazy. It all stems from my belief that my ethical system ought to be completely universifiable, that is, applied fairly to all rational agents in an equal way, in an effort to create some ideal "perfectly universifiable" system. When I jot the arguments down, I will (most likely) have two premises:

1.) Morality is subjective in a special sense. It is not completely arbitrary; however, what is good is relative to what its perceiver interprets as good.
2.) Any ethical system still must be universifiable.

I believe these premises ultimately lead to the following conclusions, though I have yet to share my arguments and what I believe may change:

i.) If the golden rule is, "Do unto others as you wish to be done unto you," this system upholds a new "better golden rule": "Do unto others as they wish to be done unto them." We'll just call this rephrasing of the rule the golden rule.
ii.) But remember, one's morality must be universifiable to be coherent. This applies to you and I both. To be ethical and universifiable, one must want by being ethical a.) what is valued by them and, by making that ethic universal, b.) what is valued by others for others. (note to self: No other hypothetical moral system can be made universally equitable so effectively).
iii.) When two rational agents encounter a situation in which the golden rule cannot be upheld for both of them due to physical constraints, they should approximate it as well as possible in a way that is equitable and fair.
iv.) As far as a person does not act equitably by upholding the golden rule, they are not behaving as ethical agents. A person who completely ignores this rule, e.g., a sociopath, is not an ethical agent and as such does not have value. The sociopath should not be punished or rewarded but merely treated as part of a system and either dealt with expediently or exploited without prejudice.
iv.) Thus, to the extent that someone wishes good to be done unto them, and universalizes that desire, or believes in such, they are valued, and worthy of receiving good treatment;
v.) And to the extent others do not, they are not assigned negative value but are merely awarded no value.

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