Kiwi Farms

First, A crash-course in moral philosophy.

Moral Philosophy is the study of what is right and wrong, and what those words really mean. There are two main (and quite broad) categories into which most post-medieval moral philosophy falls: deontology and consequentialism.

Deontology is the belief that actions carry moral weight. Deontologists believe that some actions are right, and some are wrong - importantly this is without context or considering the consequences of those actions. If X is wrong, X is always wrong.

The classic deontological moral text is The Ten Commandments. It says "Thou Shalt Not Steal". Not "Though shalt not steal, unless you're stealing bread for starving children", or "Though shalt not steal unless nobody notices" - the act of theft is morally wrong, and should not be done, ever. There are other, more nuanced versions - the New Testament's "Golden Rule" ("do unto others as you would have others do unto you") is one, as is Kant's "Categorical Imperative" ("do unto others as you would have everyone do unto everyone all the time").

Consequentialism is the belief that actions themselves are not moral or immoral, it is the consequences of those actions that carry moral weight. The best-known consequentialist movement is Utilitarianism, which posits that actions that promote "pleasure" are good, and actions that promote "pain" are bad. So stealing bread to feed starving children is the right thing to do, as would be killing a baby if you knew it would grow up to be a genocidal dictator.

The "Trolley Problem" is a classic thought experiment that separates which of these categories your beliefs fall into. Essentially it sets up a scenario in which a follower of each school would take an opposite decision - a deontologist would refuse to pull the lever because it would constitute an act of murder, a consequentialist would pull the lever to save the greatest possible number of lives.

Most moral philosophy since The Enlightenment has consisted of philosophers sperging back and forth as members of one or other of these groups. There is, however, a third category of moral philosophical thought - one that has been dormant, but not dead, for the last three centuries, and is undergoing a resurgence with the SJW movement -

Virtue Ethics

Virtue Ethics was the dominant school of ethical thought in Ancient Greece, particularly through Plato and Socrates, and has sporadically emerged from time to time since, notably through Nietzsche. Virtue Ethics differs from the other two schools in that it does not consider actions in any way when forming theories of right and wrong. Instead, it considers the root of right and wrong to lie in the motivations, character and thought-patterns of individual moral actors. For the Virtue Ethicist, actions and their consequences are not good or bad - people are good or bad. If their actions have any moral weight at all, it is only to the extent that those actions are in line with their beliefs and character. A good person will, by definition, do good things. But those good things that are done by good people are not good because of their nature or their consequences, they are good because a good person did them. Virtue Ethics is about good character being developed by self-reflection, mental discipline, self-improvement and purity of thought - internal processes, not external actions. As well as Ancient Greece, variations on these ideas were and are very popular in Eastern religions and philosophical schools as well, especially Buddhism, which teaches that the moral good comes from as much disconnection as possible from the physical world and developing inner purity instead.

Before we look at criticisms of Virtue Ethics, let's look at how it has taken over from the other schools as the core moral philosophy of the Left. To do that we need to look at Marx and the death of Free Will in Leftist philosophy.

Marxism, at least as written by Marx himself, is a very unusual political philosophy, because unlike almost all others it does not descend from a moral philosophy. Instead it descends from Economics, and claims to be scientific. That the proletariat will overthrow the bourgeoisie is not going to happen because it is a morally good thing (though most Marxists of course believe it is), but because unavoidable, inevitable economic forces will make it happen. Mass forces (economics, class and social structure changes) are greater than the wills and acts of individuals. We live in a society, after all. In fact the thoughts and beliefs of individuals are put down to their class environment - the rich believe right-wing ideas because those ideas say they deserve to be rich, the poor adopt left-wing ideas because those ideas say they do not deserve to be poor. Feminism has similar ideas about stereotypically "male" ideas becoming dominant because men are socially dominant, not because of those ideas necessarily being the best.

Combine this loss of free will with post-modernism, which came to ascribe almost all beliefs and ideas as "social constructs", not results of an individual's free will, and the idea of a link between someone's actions and their responsibility for those actions was all but severed. "Society made me do it" was the call of the progressive from the 1960's onwards, and feminists adopted the ideas of "patriarchy" and "internalised misogyny" - the idea was that people's actions were the results of social forces over which they had no control, or even awareness.

So if people have no control over their actions, then surely they cannot be held responsible for them? In that case, how can we tell who is right or wrong if people's actions (or their consequences) are no longer a guide?

The solution was to adopt Virtue Ethics instead.

From the 1960s onwards Virtue Ethics became a growing influence in left-wing academic circles in a movement known as the "aretaic turn". Once again, the idea that people are right or wrong, not actions, was gaining traction (and besides, the other ideas were clearly the inventions of white bourgeois men and were thus problematic). In a world where your actions were driven by mass social and economic forces, it was what you believed and how fervently you believed it that sorted the moral from the immoral. Identity, not actions. Feels, not reals.

Virtue Ethics is at the core of the SJW movement (whether or not individual activists are fully aware of it). The phrase "the right side of history" is telling, as it reveals the deterministic nature of the SJW outlook. The Leftist belief system will inevitably win out, so you either get with the program (good) or oppose it (evil), in your heart. Actions don't matter (dindu nuffin, after all), whether you are good or bad is determined by what you are, not what you do. Swallowing the Kool-Aid is a one-way ticket to moral virtue, and you don't even need to leave your basement.

Criticisms of Virtue Ethics

In my view, Virtue Ethics went out of fashion for damn good reasons. Criticisms of it include:

- Everyone is the hero of their own story. We tend to believe that we are good people regardless of the evidence. Virtue Ethics allows people to entirely disregard their own actions and their consequences in their assessment of their moral character. Most Virtue Ethics relies on people making honest self-assessments, and people are really fucking bad at that.
- Whilst it may be possible (if you do manage to overcome your ego) to make an assessment as to whether your own character is virtuous, it is much harder to do that to other people, because all you have to go on are their words and actions, which are not theoretically relevant. Is a system of ethics where you cannot reliably judge if someone else is good or bad a useful or coherent one?
- What is the point of an ethical system that does not give guidance as to action, especially if you also have a deterministic worldview that minimises or negates the role of the individual, as Marxists and many Postmodernists do? Nietzsche believed in Virtue Ethics, but he also believed that the will of the individual was the most powerful force in the world. The Left believe in the collective, not the individual.
- Can an ethical system that ignores pain and suffering, and does not judge people's actions, really be either useful or coherent?
- Virtue Ethics is a narcissist's charter - once convinced of your own greatness, everything you do is by definition morally good, even if you are a rapist, a serial killer, or Onision.

Now we can start to understand those strange characteristics of SJW behaviour in a clearer light:

- Extreme authoritarianism - if you have goodness in your heart, you have moral authority over those who don't (i.e. those who disagree with you). They are the past anyway - oppressing them makes sure that the will of the virtuous wins over the will of the vicious.

- Intellectual elitism and a refusal to consider anyone else's perspective - again, anyone who has different ideas to you is of unsound character by definition, and their ideas are by definition poisonous and must be not just ignored, but preferably censored to protect the minds and good characters of others.

- An assumption that anyone they disagree with is not only wrong, but evil - because moral matters come from character, and your character is good, any opposing character is evil. Perfectly logical.

- "Rules for thee, not for me" style hypocrisy - anything a "good" person does is "good" by definition. Evil people (everyone who disagrees with you) need rules to keep them in check and guide them towards morality, but those rules are only necessary for those who have not already acheieved moral greatness like yourself. You don't need a guide to action. You are already a good person so you can do whatever you want and it won't affect your status.

- A fixation on identity politics rather than economic redistribution, jobs, welfare, healthcare, trade unions and ideas associated with the "Old Left" - because character, not action, is important. It's about who you are, not about actually doing things for people. The inevitable forces of economic and social change will sort those things out and bring about the good times, there's no need to actually do anything about them.

- A drive to "unperson" people they do not approve of, with no forgiveness, regardless of the target's apologies or attempts to put things right - once someone has been judged as immoral of character, their words and actions are no longer relevant, no matter how "good" they are. Evil resides in the heart, and no amount of action or apology can remove it. Evil must be purged, and those people must be utterly destroyed.

- An ability to justify anything they say or do, no matter how awful, because they are on the "right side of history" - this arises from a combination of the determinism of the SJW ideology and the belief that adopting that ideology is all that is necessary to be morally good. What you say or do is all therefore automatically in support of what is good, provided that your beliefs are strong enough. That is all that matters.

- A tendency not to take any actual action to make the world the way they want, just to express their opinion on it - the phrase "virtue signalling" is actually much more apt than most people realise. You must show the pureness of your beliefs, and therefore the goodness of your character, because that is the only way other people can realise that you are a good person. What you do isn't relevant (because it doesn't count towards your moral standing, and societal change is inevitable anyway), and so therefore it makes total sense not to actually do anything. Talking about how virtuous you are is quite literally the best possible use of your time.

- An inexplicable love of Harry fucking Potter - this requires further explanation:

Harry Potter does awful things. He lies, he cheats, he steals, he breaks and enters, he uses his magic to incapacitate and torment people, often out of petty vengeance. His actions have got countless people killed or made homeless, including many of his own friends, got his home trashed and the delicate social order between wizards and muggles has been smashed to bits, putting mankind in mortal danger. He wilfully ignores rules designed to keep people safe. He is petty, selfish, jealous and vindictive and often motivated by revenge, lust and rage.

But Harry Potter is the hero because he is on The Right Side of History.

Harry Potter is the Chosen One. He is predestined to defeat evil, and therefore anything he does, no matter how awful, no matter how much pain and misery it causes, is justified. Anything he does is good by definition because he is good at heart. Every crime Harry Potter commits is in service to his destiny, and his destiny is the ultimate good. Harry Potter has a pure and virtuous soul, and that is all you need to be morally good, and be the hero.

Harry Potter is the living embodiment of Virtue Ethics and that is why SJWs are obsessed with him.