Ethics of Consequences

In the context of action, it was concluded that an action is not ethical in and of itself, but the consequences of that action provoke a consideration of the ethics. In a fundamental sense, an ethical evaluation assesses the consequences of an action were good or bad - and from there, to work backward: if the consequences were good, the action was good.

It is possible to take another step backward: consequences arise from actions, which arise from decisions. In fact, it seems essential to do so. If ethics focuses entirely on actions that have already been taken, it has no value in guiding behavior. That is not to say that there is no point in analyzing pas actions: while the past cannot be changed, the lessons taken from it provide guidance for future decisions, which is the value of ethics.

It is also possible to take a second step backward: consequences arise from actions, which arise from decisions, which are made by people. This returns to the previous question of whether a person can be considered to be ethical, but arrives at the same tautology that led me to dismiss "person" as the subject of evaluation: a good person makes good decisions, which might imply that every decision made by a good person is a good decision.

While there remains the concept of the "good person," my sense is this is useful evaluation, as social existence depends on trust, and trust is earned over time by an individual who makes good decisions (based on the notion that a person's character guides them to act in a consistently good or bad manner) - but this bears further consideration. For the present, we focus on consequences, as each decision to act may be good or bad, independent of the person who makes that decision (i.e., a good person does not always make good decisions, but may make a bad decision, hence the good or bad rests in the decision, and not the person).

It must also be acknowledge that, thus far, "good" and "bad" have been considered in an overly vague and general sense. It is presumed that a positive or beneficial outcome is "good" whereas a negative or harmful outcome is "bad." It seems to me that these concepts are far more complex than that, but I will continue along that line of logic and return to the "essence" of good/bad at a later time.

So to revisit the second step backward: consequences arise from actions, which arise from decisions, which are made on the basis of motives. And while that seems logical, the chain of causation weakens: while we can consider the motives that drive a decision as a method for evaluating the ethics of the decision, the consequences of the action may not entirely jibe with the motives. That is to say that we can appreciate the desire to do good, but ultimately assess ethics not merely by the desire, but by the outcome. And even in evaluating decisions in advance of outcome, "good intentions" do not guarantee a good outcome, nor pardon the actor from any negative consequence of his action.

Ethics of Persons

In a previous post, I considered the ethics of objects, and arrived at the conclusion that ethics cannot correctly be applied to objects, in that an object is not inherently right or wrong, good or evil, except in its use.

The concept of "use" implies that there is an actor, who takes an action, that has consequences. Each of these components bears consideration - and for the present post, I will consider the ethics of the actor - the individual who undertakes an action - and consider whether the actor is subject to ethical consideration.

The question of whether a person is inherently good or evil was explored in classical (Greek) philosophy and perpetuates to this day in certain schools of religious doctrine. Such systems maintain that there are persons who are inherently good and persons who are inherently evil, and they should be considered as such regardless of what actions they undertake.

This line of thinking quickly degenerates into logical quagmire. Is a person good because they do good, or is the doing of good what makes a person good? If a good person does only evil, is that person still good? Is everything a good person does to be considered good? Is a person who does mostly good and some evil a good person or an evil person? The contradictions in these questions arise because the quality of good is applied to both the actor and the action, and is resolved by accepting that one of them is good or evil, and the other is unimportant to matters of ethics.

If we are to eliminate either actor or action as subject to ethical consideration, and assuming that the actor is the source of good or evil would suggest that a person who is good or evil is not subject to judgment - they simply are what they are and do what is in their nature to do, and will remain essentially good or evil. Such a perspective makes ethics moot, and as such must be considered of no value to ethics. The result is that the action, rather than the actor, is to be taken as subject of ethical consideration, but the action. This will be considered in further detail in the next post.

To make a distinction, the present inquiry is to the nature of a person as the source of good or evil rather than the character of a person, which represents something quite different: our expectations of their future behavior based on past behavior. There may be some merit to this assertion, and there may be some value to knowing the character of a person when predicting the course of action they may be expected to choose - but this bears separate consideration.