I think I disagree on this. Precisely the large blind spot on modern moral philosophy is the lack of interest the institutional approach. It is morally different not to go as a volunteer to a just war than evade being drafted.
Now, analytical moral philosophy has given a disproportionate weight to individual choice in ideal situations (vg. the trolley problems) while human action occurs in a network of social and institutional relations. The institutional blindness of contemporary utilitarianism (see here an exception) is especially related to the cult of “impartiality” as a supreme value. In a frictionless world where social relations are analogous to those between helium atoms, all hominids are equal, and the President of the United States in the 1940s should have considered Japanese or German casualties with the same regret as those of the soldiers he commanded. But it turns out that existing hominids are more like water molecules (attracted by the powerful van der Waals forces of strong reciprocity) than the quasi-ideal gas helium atoms of abstract philosophy. The moralization of human existence has occurred through the creation of incentive schemes generating social surplus and distributing it in such a way that the social organization itself was reinforced in the process.
It sounds like you may just be more interested in political philosophy (and related topics) than ethics? That's fine, but doesn't seem like a reason to prefer the axiology/deontics lens over the revision I'm proposing here.
But there is a critical ethical dimension. Do you think that given the same “just war” it is morally equivalent to not going as a volunteer of evading the draft? There is a feedback loop between ethical obligations and the institutional stage of the society. Too Hegelian?
I agree that institutions make a difference, I'd just tend to explain it instrumentally. (It can change the epistemic situation - as in jury verdicts vs vigilante justice - and it can have a psychological influence, as when it's easier to go along with an institutional expectation than to volunteer.)
It is not that I disagree what the distinction you make here; what I say is that there is an important axis beyond "value"/"instrument": the axis of social coordination, and its basis in strong reprocity.
Say you buy into eternalism/fourdimensionalism/block universe theory, as per majority of metaphysicians/philosophers of science on PhilPapers (and presumably the majority of physicists post-Einstein too). Given this viewpoint, perhaps it's more natural or plausible to say that the primary objects of evaluation is just unfoldings of the Universe. That is, continuous fourdimensional spacetime worms, be it the entire Universe unfolding over time or "History" (as Parfit might call it) or just the Mark worm or the subset/subworm that is all-of-sentient-life. I might then object to your approach as follows: "you make an unfounded distinction between ends and means. You shouldn't separate ends which are fundamentally worth caring about (or intrinsically desirable) and then evaluate means in terms of that. Instead, you should evaluate Unfoldings as a whole, where each unfolding (or "means"? But that's weird to say if the unfolding itself is an end, cf. Setiya on "atelic activities" or Aristotle's Ethics page 1, where he suggests that activities can be intrinsically choiceworthy) has a certain degree of intinsic desirability or preferability or choiceworthiness or weight-of-reasons-going-for-it. Answering the Socratic Question of "How should one live?" would then amount to, for you, picking the unfolding (out of the many unfoldings which—because of your lack of omniscience of deterministic forces at play—appear to you to be all possible—even though literally only 1 is) which maximises desirability/value. If you take this fourdimensionalist viewpoint, then the distinction between ends and means seems to lose its grip. And both states of affairs and actions are just certain chunks of unfoldings.
(Btw, Such a temporally extended entity (like a fourdimensional continuous chunk/organism) seems to me the most proper object of *flourishing*. So perhaps evaluating unfoldings in terms of flourishing should be prior, atop of which we may still use our old jargon of rightness of actions or value/desirability of states of affairs." What do you think?
I think I disagree on this. Precisely the large blind spot on modern moral philosophy is the lack of interest the institutional approach. It is morally different not to go as a volunteer to a just war than evade being drafted.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aCEuvHrqzmBroNQPT/the-evolution-towards-the-blank-slate
Now, analytical moral philosophy has given a disproportionate weight to individual choice in ideal situations (vg. the trolley problems) while human action occurs in a network of social and institutional relations. The institutional blindness of contemporary utilitarianism (see here an exception) is especially related to the cult of “impartiality” as a supreme value. In a frictionless world where social relations are analogous to those between helium atoms, all hominids are equal, and the President of the United States in the 1940s should have considered Japanese or German casualties with the same regret as those of the soldiers he commanded. But it turns out that existing hominids are more like water molecules (attracted by the powerful van der Waals forces of strong reciprocity) than the quasi-ideal gas helium atoms of abstract philosophy. The moralization of human existence has occurred through the creation of incentive schemes generating social surplus and distributing it in such a way that the social organization itself was reinforced in the process.
It sounds like you may just be more interested in political philosophy (and related topics) than ethics? That's fine, but doesn't seem like a reason to prefer the axiology/deontics lens over the revision I'm proposing here.
But there is a critical ethical dimension. Do you think that given the same “just war” it is morally equivalent to not going as a volunteer of evading the draft? There is a feedback loop between ethical obligations and the institutional stage of the society. Too Hegelian?
I agree that institutions make a difference, I'd just tend to explain it instrumentally. (It can change the epistemic situation - as in jury verdicts vs vigilante justice - and it can have a psychological influence, as when it's easier to go along with an institutional expectation than to volunteer.)
It is not that I disagree what the distinction you make here; what I say is that there is an important axis beyond "value"/"instrument": the axis of social coordination, and its basis in strong reprocity.
Say you buy into eternalism/fourdimensionalism/block universe theory, as per majority of metaphysicians/philosophers of science on PhilPapers (and presumably the majority of physicists post-Einstein too). Given this viewpoint, perhaps it's more natural or plausible to say that the primary objects of evaluation is just unfoldings of the Universe. That is, continuous fourdimensional spacetime worms, be it the entire Universe unfolding over time or "History" (as Parfit might call it) or just the Mark worm or the subset/subworm that is all-of-sentient-life. I might then object to your approach as follows: "you make an unfounded distinction between ends and means. You shouldn't separate ends which are fundamentally worth caring about (or intrinsically desirable) and then evaluate means in terms of that. Instead, you should evaluate Unfoldings as a whole, where each unfolding (or "means"? But that's weird to say if the unfolding itself is an end, cf. Setiya on "atelic activities" or Aristotle's Ethics page 1, where he suggests that activities can be intrinsically choiceworthy) has a certain degree of intinsic desirability or preferability or choiceworthiness or weight-of-reasons-going-for-it. Answering the Socratic Question of "How should one live?" would then amount to, for you, picking the unfolding (out of the many unfoldings which—because of your lack of omniscience of deterministic forces at play—appear to you to be all possible—even though literally only 1 is) which maximises desirability/value. If you take this fourdimensionalist viewpoint, then the distinction between ends and means seems to lose its grip. And both states of affairs and actions are just certain chunks of unfoldings.
(Btw, Such a temporally extended entity (like a fourdimensional continuous chunk/organism) seems to me the most proper object of *flourishing*. So perhaps evaluating unfoldings in terms of flourishing should be prior, atop of which we may still use our old jargon of rightness of actions or value/desirability of states of affairs." What do you think?