Uploaded December 2020 | Updated September 2026, 5 hours ago
This is the middle of three sessions on the Middle Way Network looking at the three classic approaches to morality in turn: virtue ethics, ethics seeking good consequences, and principle-based ethics. We will be asking what a Middle Way approach implies for what we consider to be ‘good’: is it becoming a better person, fulfilling good goals, or obeying the right principles? Or is it all of these? If so, how do we fit them together when they sometimes contradict each other?
The consequential way of thinking about ethics tries to help us make better judgements by thinking carefully about what would lead to better consequences, and making these our goals. This is the basis of utilitarianism, which is often the default way of making public decisions on contested issues in the modern world. Thinking rigorously about consequences based on evidence is often a good way of making us face up to conditions: for example, thinking about the pros and cons of vaccination in a way that weighs up the balance of evidence of its consequences . However, for individual judgements, what this approach often fails to take into account is that our goals are not fixed, and they are based on imperfect and changing information. Nor is it always clear what goals are the right ones. Other ways of thinking about ethics (using virtues or principles) may help us to adapt our goals by thinking about them in a different frame.
This video includes a talk by Robert M. Ellis, followed by a Q&A session, recorded from Zoom on 20th Dec 2020. For more information about the Middle Way Network, please go to middlewaysociety.org/events/middle-way-network/.
This is the middle of three sessions on the Middle Way Network looking at the three classic approaches to morality in turn: virtue ethics, ethics seeking good consequences, and principle-based ethics. We will be asking what a Middle Way approach implies for what we consider to be ‘good’: is it becoming a better person, fulfilling good goals, or obeying the right principles? Or is it all of these? If so, how do we fit them together when they sometimes contradict each other?
The consequential way of thinking about ethics tries to help us make better judgements by thinking carefully about what would lead to better consequences, and making these our goals. This is the basis of utilitarianism, which is often the default way of making public decisions on contested issues in the modern world. Thinking rigorously about consequences based on evidence is often a good way of making us face up to conditions: for example, thinking about the pros and cons of vaccination in a way that weighs up the balance of evidence of its consequences . However, for individual judgements, what this approach often fails to take into account is that our goals are not fixed, and they are based on imperfect and changing information. Nor is it always clear what goals are the right ones. Other ways of thinking about ethics (using virtues or principles) may help us to adapt our goals by thinking about them in a different frame.
This video includes a talk by Robert M. Ellis, followed by a Q&A session, recorded from Zoom on 20th Dec 2020. For more information about the Middle Way Network, please go to middlewaysociety.org/events/middle-way-network/.
