Ethics

Most people reject utilitarianism when they first hear about it. The idea that we should maximize happiness for the greatest number sounds cold. Calculating. Inhuman. But watch how people actually make decisions. You’re choosing a restaurant for your family. You pick the place where everyone will be reasonably happy, not the one that makes you ecstatic but your partner miserable. You’re deciding whether to play music. You keep it low because the neighbors are sleeping....

Science can measure how much dopamine your brain releases when you eat chocolate. It can’t tell you whether you should eat the chocolate. This distinction matters more than most people realize. We live in a world that treats scientific knowledge as the highest form of truth. And for describing what exists, science is unmatched. It maps reality with stunning precision. But “what is” isn’t the same as “what matters.” Science tells us that humans and ants are both carbon-based life forms following evolutionary imperatives....

David Hume noticed something strange about moral arguments. People describe how things are, then suddenly jump to how things should be. No bridge between them. “Divorce rates are rising. Therefore, we should make divorce harder.” “Humans evolved to be competitive. Therefore, capitalism is natural and good.” “This is how we’ve always done it. Therefore, we should keep doing it this way.” The gap is real. Facts about the world don’t automatically generate moral conclusions....

People roll their eyes at the trolley problem. Five people tied to tracks, runaway trolley, you can pull a lever to divert it but then it kills one person instead. Who designs these scenarios? But here’s the thing: you already solved trolley problems today. You drove past someone walking in the rain instead of stopping. You bought coffee instead of donating that money. You chose to read this instead of calling a friend who’s been lonely....

I was reading a debate about animal rights the other day when I noticed something strange. The argument went like this: factory farming causes tremendous suffering to animals. Animals are sentient beings capable of pain. Therefore, we shouldn’t eat factory-farmed meat. It sounds reasonable enough. But there’s a peculiar little jump happening in that final step — one that a grumpy Scottish philosopher named David Hume spotted nearly 300 years ago....