I believe in a concept I've come to call the unity of ethics. The core thesis is this: people frequently believe that there is a dichotomy between candidate ethical beliefs such that one has to be a consequentialist who evaluates ethics purely in terms of the ends to be achieved, or a deontologist, who evaluates ethics purely in terms of of the means used to achieve ends of any kind. To this dichotomy, one might reasonably rebut that a third option is to be a virtue ethicist who evaluates ethics purely in terms of inculcating virtue and inoculating against vice. I think a stronger rebuttal can be offered. I think any candidate ethical system begins with a purported fundamental truth, and that ends, means, virtues, and any other ethical quality will simply describe and apply that truth in a different way.
An example:
System: Buddhism
Purported Fundamental Truth: Unsatisfied desire leads to suffering. Suffering is inherently bad.
What end should humans strive for?: The elimination of desire
What means should humans use to act?: Meditation, ascetism, isolation, pacifism
What virtues should humans seek to embody?: Peacefulness, mindfulness, restraint
In each mode of analysis, the same fundamental truth is examined to yield different (but non-contradictory) conclusions. Similarly, if we examine a phenomena such as ocean waves in different scientific terms, we will view the same phenomena in different ways (say, the refraction of light versus the turbulence of the water versus the energy of the wave) which are non-contradictory. To fully understand a phenomenon, whether ethical or physical, we should seek to understand it from different (real, non-contradictory) perspectives. An ethical system which ignores modes of analysis is incomplete. One which denies the possibility of other modes of analysis is likely wrong. Consider another candidate belief system:
System: Utilitarianism
Purported Fundamental Truth: Happiness is good, and suffering is bad.
Ends: Maximization of utility (roughly speaking, happiness) as a sum across all entities
Means: Whatever achieves the ends
Virtues: Whatever achieves the ends
We can see that Utilitarianism does not seek to apply its fundamental truth beyond the scope of setting a goal to achieve. The system in my view only has one advantage, which is that the purported fundamental truth appears to be intuitively correct. I think it is actually wrong (more on that in the future). Note that there is relatively little to connect the precise ends advocated to the purported fundamental truth. The strongest argument of which I am aware proceeds from the goodness of happiness to argue that happiness experienced by an entity other than a given agent is also good, and that to be morally good one must therefore pursue that happiness. I think this commits a tremendous sleight of hand, in which the individual pursuit of happiness is transmuted into a social pursuit of happiness merely due to the fact that the word "happiness" is used in both cases. While an individual knows that he likes his own happiness, it is not clear why he should regard it as good that another is happy. To argue that "good" is inherently divorced from any particular agent would be to totally assume the conclusion from the start - one would still need a convincing account of why hedonism is wrong (prior to adoption of the utilitarian ethic).
Another example:
System: Objectivism
Purported Fundamental Truth: Every organism must act to survive
Ends: Individual survival (also self-actualization or achievement)
Means: Reason, logic
Virtues: Integrity, honesty, ability
I think it should be quite clear that each aspect of ethics reveals distinct and complementary insights into a candidate ethical system. I close with a rough sketch of my own system.
System: Genetic Ethics
Purported Fundamental Truth: Organisms are shaped by evolution to pursue reproduction (in a broad sense) above all else
Ends: Propagation of one's genes
Means: Reason, emotion, social affiliation
Virtues: Kin-supportiveness, kindness, courage, foresight
