This seems like "any free action that direclty affects another person's freedom must be justified on reasons." The golden rule and universalizability are just guides to examine the reasonableness of our actions.
Universalizable principles can be justified if they are specific enough., or at least given a reasonable interpretation. Its principles that need to be universalizable, not actions. You need principles. You can't judge actions on their own.
For instance, for voting, you may say that you have a duty to vote if you have a non-zero preference for one choice over the other. Yet you have no duty to do so if the chance of your vote affecting the election is lower than the chance that you'll die on the way to go vote. This principle may still be universalizable without justifying extreme behavior like no one voting.
It seems like you have to make the principles pretty specific to get them to be universalizable. “Duty to vote” is obviously wrong, “duty to vote as long as probability of affecting the election is sufficiently high” is a little better, but once you get specific enough for the principle to work reliably it just seems like you’re restating your underlying ethical system--and I don’t deny that those ought to be universalizable. E.g. for a utilitarian the principle might end up being “duty to vote iff voting increases net utility.”
Well for it to be an ethical system it has to be something that would justify restrictions on freedom. That requires universalizable principles for it to be accepted.
I think we should get the principles as specific as the justification requirement would allow them to be. If that leads to very complex rules, so be it.
For instance, the US constitution itself is simple but its constitutional law can fill up libraries. Hard cases will come up and it will be up to reason to lay down the justifications for the exceptions and the exceptions to the exceptions.
This seems like "any free action that direclty affects another person's freedom must be justified on reasons." The golden rule and universalizability are just guides to examine the reasonableness of our actions.
Universalizable principles can be justified if they are specific enough., or at least given a reasonable interpretation. Its principles that need to be universalizable, not actions. You need principles. You can't judge actions on their own.
For instance, for voting, you may say that you have a duty to vote if you have a non-zero preference for one choice over the other. Yet you have no duty to do so if the chance of your vote affecting the election is lower than the chance that you'll die on the way to go vote. This principle may still be universalizable without justifying extreme behavior like no one voting.
It seems like you have to make the principles pretty specific to get them to be universalizable. “Duty to vote” is obviously wrong, “duty to vote as long as probability of affecting the election is sufficiently high” is a little better, but once you get specific enough for the principle to work reliably it just seems like you’re restating your underlying ethical system--and I don’t deny that those ought to be universalizable. E.g. for a utilitarian the principle might end up being “duty to vote iff voting increases net utility.”
Well for it to be an ethical system it has to be something that would justify restrictions on freedom. That requires universalizable principles for it to be accepted.
I think we should get the principles as specific as the justification requirement would allow them to be. If that leads to very complex rules, so be it.
For instance, the US constitution itself is simple but its constitutional law can fill up libraries. Hard cases will come up and it will be up to reason to lay down the justifications for the exceptions and the exceptions to the exceptions.