{"id":23,"date":"2005-01-13T22:07:01","date_gmt":"2005-01-13T22:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phlogma.com\/?p=23"},"modified":"2006-02-25T14:42:21","modified_gmt":"2006-02-25T22:42:21","slug":"the-number-of-prinicples-and-which","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/moral-theory\/the-number-of-prinicples-and-which-23","title":{"rendered":"The number of principles and which"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mill argues for one principle that all others should subserve [in <a href=\"biblog\/?p=54\"><em>Utilitarianism<\/em><\/a>, Chapter 1].<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, there is not one principle but two. They are not reducible to one another and <em>neither<\/em>, again, as it turns out, is the principle of utility. For sure, utility is an important principle but it is one among a few others that is subordinate to these two. Utilitarianism is a method of praxis, not an explanatory theory. It is on the same level as Aristotelian virtue theory. It is a first-order rule of thumb for determining behavior in specific cases. A calculus of utility is <em>one <\/em>rational method for evaluating moral decisions at a level closer to the moral act itself. It is, as it were, a tool, a method of implementing moral convictions, but <em>not a source for them<\/em>.  Some version of <em>intuitionist-communitarianism<\/em> and <em>deontology<\/em> are the two, and the <em>only<\/em> two, genuinely explanatory and foundational moral theories. They alone can act as source for moral conviction. It is no accident that they correlate with gender, with the two ways in which consciousness is divided in our species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mill argues for one principle that all others should subserve [in Utilitarianism, Chapter 1]. As it turns out, there is not one principle but two. They are not reducible to one another and neither, again, as it turns out, is the principle of utility. For sure, utility is an important principle but it is one &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/moral-theory\/the-number-of-prinicples-and-which-23\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The number of principles and which&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-j-s-mill","category-moral-theory","category-utilitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}