Empiricism, Integrity and Consensus
I like the adumbration from the last section of an empirical approach to ethics. It seems to me to constitute a good argument for why one would want to practise what one preached. Some philosophers seem to me to be completely blasé about the subject, but two of whom I know stand out as believers in personal integrity: Ayn Rand and Peter Singer.
Ayn Rand famously wrote:
Ayn Rand always aimed at practising what she preached. For example, she claimed that evil must never receive any form of sanction, and she even refused to attend the Bolshoi Ballet on the grounds that the money she paid for her ticket would only go to fund an evil dictatorship. One can argue the extent to which she actually succeeded in practising what she preached. For example, although her philosophy extolled the virtues of independent thought, she would grow vehemently hostile at the least sign that anyone thought differently from her. Nevertheless, that in principle she aimed at loyalty to her moral principles seems clear enough.
Peter Singer himself has famously written that everyone who can do so should give at least ten percent of their income to charity. He himself donates twenty to thirty percent of his salary to Oxfam and UNICEF. He has always aimed to live an ethical life as he believes it is to be lived, and does indeed appear to be an integral man. However, some did accuse him of hypocrisy when his mother contracted Alzheimer's disease yet he did not euthanize her, despite his claim that involuntary euthanasia was justifiable in "certain special circumstances". Whether he obeyed his own ethics here is a subject of debate, but again, there seems little doubt that he always aimed to do just that.
Practising a belief with integrity, however, is no guarantee that that belief will form part of a consensus. Singer's and Rand's ethics are quite diametrically opposed, since Singer's ethics endorses altruism, while Rand's endorses egoism. Nevertheless, integrity would weed out certain seemingly undesirable theories, such as inductive skepticism in epistemology and certain extremes of both altruism and egoism in ethics. But this would not in itself be sufficient to arrive at a non-coercive convergence of opinion, assuming that such would be desirable. It's probably worth addressing that issue in another section.
Ayn Rand famously wrote:
My personal life is a postscript to my novels; it consists of the sentence: 'And I mean it.' I have always lived by the philosophy I present in my books--and it has worked for me, as it works for my characters. The concretes differ, the abstractions are the same.
Ayn Rand always aimed at practising what she preached. For example, she claimed that evil must never receive any form of sanction, and she even refused to attend the Bolshoi Ballet on the grounds that the money she paid for her ticket would only go to fund an evil dictatorship. One can argue the extent to which she actually succeeded in practising what she preached. For example, although her philosophy extolled the virtues of independent thought, she would grow vehemently hostile at the least sign that anyone thought differently from her. Nevertheless, that in principle she aimed at loyalty to her moral principles seems clear enough.
Peter Singer himself has famously written that everyone who can do so should give at least ten percent of their income to charity. He himself donates twenty to thirty percent of his salary to Oxfam and UNICEF. He has always aimed to live an ethical life as he believes it is to be lived, and does indeed appear to be an integral man. However, some did accuse him of hypocrisy when his mother contracted Alzheimer's disease yet he did not euthanize her, despite his claim that involuntary euthanasia was justifiable in "certain special circumstances". Whether he obeyed his own ethics here is a subject of debate, but again, there seems little doubt that he always aimed to do just that.
Practising a belief with integrity, however, is no guarantee that that belief will form part of a consensus. Singer's and Rand's ethics are quite diametrically opposed, since Singer's ethics endorses altruism, while Rand's endorses egoism. Nevertheless, integrity would weed out certain seemingly undesirable theories, such as inductive skepticism in epistemology and certain extremes of both altruism and egoism in ethics. But this would not in itself be sufficient to arrive at a non-coercive convergence of opinion, assuming that such would be desirable. It's probably worth addressing that issue in another section.
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