An excellent discussion that is very relevant to where we will go to replace the current, failing systems. Quite a large number of people have come to the conclusion that the social, political and justice concepts that we have built our current systems on are no longer viable. Using a careful structure of consequences, as you suggest, is an improvement but is also grounded only in subjective analysis. That may be the reality of any moral effort but it seems, to me at least, that this is exactly the open door for authoritarianism of either the human personality type or religious type (imaginary personality).

Two thoughts on this: 1) I’m attracted to James J Tippett’s response suggesting agreed obligations, e.g, caring, as the first basis of moral determination. But that must be accepted as the standard and is probably not really different than consequences of action. 2) I’ve come to think that we are not up to this challenge directly for evolutionary reasons (i.e. our inability to overcome emotional prejudging based on similarity) so should focus on AI as the ultimate solution. We need to build our judges, if you will, on agreed obligations, as an example, with human override only as a last possible resort. I can almost hear the cries of shock and outrage.