20's not plenty according to Kant

Applying a ethical theory to see if I support a road safety campaign

Round my way there's a campaign to get people to drive at 20 miles per hour in residential streets.

I want people to drive more slowly. It's no fun being run over. Although when I got 4x4d the mental scares of being called a 'middle aged man' in the local paper were worse than the physical injuries.

The campaign takes the form of mock speed signs - 20 in a circle. It is the nature of these signs, rather than the slow down campaign in general, that I 'asked' Immanuel Kant about and he's not so sure they are moral.

Categorical imperative - what if everyone did that?

Kant's test of good was that you must apply universally the general rule of your action. Would it be good if everyone acted like you? It's the moral justification parents reach for when telling children not to drop litter.

I think in this case there is a danger of confusing drivers with mock road signs. They are designed to look like normal speed signs. If every street produced their own different instructions, drivers would be speeding up, slowing down, turning left, not turning left at the whim of each resident, potentially.

This might be more dangerous.

* Note added later: Have I got this wrong? Kant's type of ethics isn't based on the consequences, it is based on reasoning in a vacuum. Someone clever help me out here? 

How The Times came to its gay marriage conclusion

The Times (UK) newspaper just came out in favour of gay marriage in a 5 March 2012 editorial.

I find this interesting not because of what view they took but because of how they came to their conclusion.

The Times said it would increase the sum of human happiness. They are therefore arguing from a uutilitarian moral view point.

Normally current affairs debate is characterised by intuitive, this feels right or wrong positioning. It is rare to find an underlying moral philosophy in Parliament or media.

Here's was one though.

Counting felicity

Utilitarianism says the morally right thing to do is that which increases the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Morality isn't the rules of a god (Archbishops opposed gay marriage), abstract Greek ideas of maximising your potential or any notion of absolute individual rights .

If it lessens pain and increases happiness it must be good.

Now utilitarianism has flaws such as the problem of how to measure all this (felicit calculus) and that of sacrificing the individual on the alter of society. It's a useful rule of thumb to consider stuff in the news though.

Mostly I'm pleased as it is so rare to see reasoning based on coherent moral philosophy, be it Bentham's or otherwise.