Three Ways to Decide
Consequences, duties, and character
Three Ways to Decide
When facing a hard choice, philosophers offer three lenses. Consequentialists judge an act by its results: did it do the most good? Deontologists judge it by duty: did you follow the right rule, whatever the outcome? Virtue ethicists ask about character: what would a good, wise person do? Each captures something the others can miss.
“We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.”
Where this sits in the course
“Three Ways to Decide” is lesson 1 of 5 in How Should We Act?, a course about turn from what is true to what should be done.. The lessons are sequenced rather than a menu, so this one assumes what came before it.
How Should We Act? is itself one of 18 courses in thinkr. The set opens with what philosophy is, moves through the Stoics and the Eastern traditions, then into what can be known, what exists, how to act and how power works — closing on practical reasoning you can use in an argument this week.
In the app this lesson is followed by 4 exercises that check whether the idea actually landed — and every answer, right or wrong, is explained rather than scored. That is the part a written page cannot reproduce.