Q: Where is hard line between moral preference to those with proximity to us and a universal morality?
A: My initial attraction to the study of morality was the promise of a universal ethics that would categorize actions into positive or negative and also determine what actions should morally be taken. The very plausibility of a scientifically rational and universalizable ethics is very much up for debate but if it wasn't to some degree considered a possibility then there would be no need for a discussion about ethics.
It would seem that while we have a duty not to kill others in order to further ones own interests, and yet this case seems to have a logical foil, which is self defense. In the self defense scenario it seems like you are allowed to defend yourself against an attacker, but this seems to directly violate the first principle of not harming another for one's own interests. So then we can amend the first principle to say that we can never harm others for our own interests unless those interests are very great?
That does not seem practical because it leave a huge grey zone regarding defining what a 'great interest' is. Could 'great interest' be a large sum of money?
A: My initial attraction to the study of morality was the promise of a universal ethics that would categorize actions into positive or negative and also determine what actions should morally be taken. The very plausibility of a scientifically rational and universalizable ethics is very much up for debate but if it wasn't to some degree considered a possibility then there would be no need for a discussion about ethics.
It would seem that while we have a duty not to kill others in order to further ones own interests, and yet this case seems to have a logical foil, which is self defense. In the self defense scenario it seems like you are allowed to defend yourself against an attacker, but this seems to directly violate the first principle of not harming another for one's own interests. So then we can amend the first principle to say that we can never harm others for our own interests unless those interests are very great?
That does not seem practical because it leave a huge grey zone regarding defining what a 'great interest' is. Could 'great interest' be a large sum of money?
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