So, this link has politics in it, for which I apologize, but I’m going to trust you all to ignore the specific names and parties involved and just look at the underlying argument.
Because this argument right here? This is exactly why the Empire’s moral philosophers really hate utilitarians and pragmatists, all rolled up into one repulsive bundle of “it’s okay to throw someone under the bus for the nebulous long-term greater good”.
Don’t even get them started on Hume and the whole “we can/do suspend justice whenever the situation makes it hard for us” line. Not only can there be a call to justice in situations of extreme scarcity, that’s exactly when you need it most.
(Incidentally, this is why the local solution to the trolley problem is to grab the nearest utilitarian and wedge them under the wheels, on the grounds that they have implicitly declared themselves okay with that outcome.)
I think I’m just more offended by the hypocrisy involved. Yes, I know all politicians are slightly better than whores (mostly because they tend to make more money), but most cheap whores have standards and try to enforce them. Vague accusations from thirty-five or more years ago with no physical evidence and no information to back it up, but to hurt someone you hate by proxy? Crucify him with ropes, right in front of the Oval Office! Detailed accusations from someone that has a reputation for being grabby, who actually worked for the accused? Burn the accuser!
I wasn’t going to vote for Biden before, I’m definitely not going to vote for him now, and encourage all of my friends to vote the same. Admittedly, in California, I would do better to vote for Zombie Margaret Thatcher, so there youg.
I think implicitly conceding in advance all claims of hypocrisy is just one of those things that goes along with pragmatist ethics. (Or, at least, arguing that you’re not a hypocrite because you always act in accordance with your ethics of the moment; it’s just that they change a lot.)
A point contra haereticos eldraei could be made that, if one’s beliefs about the “is” part of the “is-ought” distinction can (and should!) be continuously updated according to the best available evidence, then why not also beliefs about the “ought” part as well, in exactly the same fashion (at least on the level of metaethics, consequentialism is more or less this).
Now, of course this view would not gain much popularity with the Imperials but a more interesting question is, would they be willing to weigh their beliefs against these or similar in a disputation?
My guess is that the Eldrae would argue that revising “ought” is reserved for specialists who extensively study ethics, not the vast majority of the Empire who are simply practitioners of said theory. Given their 8 millennia of history the low-hanging fruit in the ethics sphere has probably been mined to bedrock and any further refinements are going to come from concerted organisational effort from major institutes, etc.
Of course this assumes the “human-traditional” problems associated with delegating stuff to specialists isn’t a problem there because their specialists are also practitioners, unlike some of ours.