Скачать или смотреть The Ethics War Simplified

Consequential ethics and deontological ethics both have their strengths and weaknesses. Deontological ethics is noble in its consistency, but also fragile in its rigidity. It binds itself slavishly to the morality of actions regardless of what those actions might lead to. The rule itself is supreme, and consequences are dismissed as irrelevant. This unwavering loyalty may provide clarity, but it risks blindness to the devastation that can follow even the most principled choices.

Consequential ethics, by contrast, builds its strength on foresight. It judges morality by the outcomes of actions, claiming that the right choice is the one that leads to the best result. Yet its weakness lies in the limits of human vision. We cannot always know the outcome of a given action, nor can we predict the countless ripples of cause and effect that flow from it. Thus, its application is as limited as our ability to grasp the determinative outcomes of the world.

This tension becomes even sharper when we imagine gods. When gods are depicted as knowing the outcomes of all actions, they are inevitably portrayed as consequentialists. Their omniscience allows them to see what mortals cannot—the long arc of consequences that bend beyond human calculation. Within this frame, even atrocities are justified under the pretext that they will ultimately lead to a better outcome. Wars, plagues, and suffering can all be explained away as pieces of a greater design, invisible to the human eye but clear to the divine.

Yet this raises a troubling paradox. If deontological ethics risks moral blindness and consequential ethics risks ignorance, what happens when omniscience is invoked? In the divine sphere, consequentialism gains a terrible power. Atrocities are no longer moral failures but necessary steps in a cosmic calculus. The weakness of consequentialism (its dependence on uncertain knowledge) is erased, and what remains is an unchallengeable justification for anything, so long as it is claimed to serve a higher end.
In this light, the gods are not bound by rules of action but by the assurance of their foresight.

Both ethics seem to be operating at two different levels of complexity and function. We might even think of them as a low-function ethics and a high-function ethics: one is a set of rules generally aimed at goals, while the other is a flexible approach where actions are taken for the purpose of arriving at an outcome one believes to be good.

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