A great game of ethics
by David Atkins
There are quite a few disadvantages to being homeschooled; under the wrong parents the results can be disastrous. But there are some incomparable advantages as well if it’s done right. One such advantage for myself and my brother was a training in rhetoric, dialectic and philosophy in our preteens that is usually taught, if at all, in college courses. Many educators would say that the young mind isn’t prepared for such things until at least high school, but that would be an error. What’s important is that the subject be taught in such a way that a growing mind can grasp it. Teenagers are more than capable of postgraduate critical thinking skills if educators believe they are.
For me, no philosophy was ever as interesting as the philosophy of ethics. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make the philosophy of ethics “fun.” The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals isn’t exactly light reading in any language. But there’s a great new flash game out there that can help introduce the subject in an interesting and accessible way. Not to spoil too much, but Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher introduces some basic dialectical skills, then asks the player to use dialectics to poke holes in the ethical worldviews of a sequence of philosophers from Protageras through Kant. It’s very well done, and even seasoned ethicists will have fun with the dialog and inside jokes. I wasn’t expecting much when I first played it, but I couldn’t stop playing through it until I had finished it.
If you’re new to the philosophy of ethics or have teenagers who don’t “get” philosophy, this will be a good eye-opener to an amazing world.
The only complaint I have is with the ending which I felt was something of a cop out, and I’m a little disappointed the game makers didn’t touch on evolutionary psychology, which is the biggest thing in ethical theory at the moment. But these are minor quibbles.
As for my take on the “answer” to the question of morals? While my view of basic human nature and government tends to lean Hobbesian, I don’t think a single philosophy of morals is capable of grasping morality because the morality of any given act depends on a variety of factors.
To my mind, evolutionary psychologists, Kant and Mill were all right in their own way. Most morality isn’t calculated–it starts and ends in the gut. (The so-called Trolley
Problem is the most famous illustration of this.) Few people sit there making complex calculations to maximize happiness or to align with universally applied moral principles. But that doesn’t make the gut instinct the right one. Morality is an approximation–starting in the gut, significantly shaped by culture, but checked and tempered by good intentions universally applied, with a calculated eye toward hopefully achieving good ends. An act that ends up doing good isn’t moral if it began with evil intent, nor can an act done with good intentions be considered moral if the actor could reasonably have foreseen that its consequences would be a net negative for the world. Culture helps shape many moral decisions in an inevitable way, but universal logical principles must override culture such that it is definitely possible for whole cultures themselves to be deemed immoral, at least in some ways. All of these principles play a part in the construction of morality.
The answer, in short, is that there’s no perfect answer. It’s a balancing act performed by imperfect people.
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