“The climate movement doesn’t have a persuasion problem as much as we have a turnout problem,” says Nathaniel Stinnett of the Environmental Voter Project.
To the extent that any of us as individuals have any influence on the mad, chaotic world that we all have to live in, consequences are more important than intentions.
you can believe that, but it’s not objective fact. if you use this axiom to choose your actions, you run into a major epistemic problem: you can’t know the future, so you can’t actually know the consequences.
it’s also not a fair characterization of what deontological ethics proposes: it’s not that intention matters, it’s that the ethics are in the act itself, not in the effects it may have or exclusively the intent of the actor.
That’s certainly not a flaw in the philosophy. As it pertains to the voter, you’re not expected to know the future, but you do have a civic duty to be informed when voting. If you have made a good faith effort to understand the context of the choice and the most likely outcomes of the options available, you can’t be faulted for not foreseeing the exact outcomes that unfold. If nothing else, because you can’t possibly know exactly what the outcomes of the alternatives would have been. Ignoring the most likely outcomes in favor of the most desired outcomes is what seems unethical. “Letting perfect be the enemy of good” and all that.
I genuinely “Kant” see how someone can justify a moral framework where only the action has intrinsic morality and the consequences are completely irrelevant. Sure, the morality of an action should be considered, but ultimately, real-world choices have to be made from a holistic consideration of the entire situation.
Similarly, I also reject the idea of perfectly objective morality. There are extreme shades of grey, but never black and white. No action can be said to be universally good regardless of both intent and context, except in religious moral frameworks.
you can believe that, but it’s not objective fact. if you use this axiom to choose your actions, you run into a major epistemic problem: you can’t know the future, so you can’t actually know the consequences.
it’s also not a fair characterization of what deontological ethics proposes: it’s not that intention matters, it’s that the ethics are in the act itself, not in the effects it may have or exclusively the intent of the actor.
That’s certainly not a flaw in the philosophy. As it pertains to the voter, you’re not expected to know the future, but you do have a civic duty to be informed when voting. If you have made a good faith effort to understand the context of the choice and the most likely outcomes of the options available, you can’t be faulted for not foreseeing the exact outcomes that unfold. If nothing else, because you can’t possibly know exactly what the outcomes of the alternatives would have been. Ignoring the most likely outcomes in favor of the most desired outcomes is what seems unethical. “Letting perfect be the enemy of good” and all that.
I genuinely “Kant” see how someone can justify a moral framework where only the action has intrinsic morality and the consequences are completely irrelevant. Sure, the morality of an action should be considered, but ultimately, real-world choices have to be made from a holistic consideration of the entire situation.
Similarly, I also reject the idea of perfectly objective morality. There are extreme shades of grey, but never black and white. No action can be said to be universally good regardless of both intent and context, except in religious moral frameworks.