A step-by-step programme

Foundation Ethics

It's difficult to reconcile what goes on in the world: why one war feels “acceptable” and another doesn’t, why trade is permitted with some countries but not others, where the line should sit, and how smart people can look at the same facts and disagree so consistently.

Ethics is the art of what is right and wrong. However the most common frameworks are siloed, difficult to execute against and rarely practical.

This is an attempt to turn Ethics into a language that makes it easier to understand the world and define what you believe is right and wrong. It shows how prioritising the same principles differently produces radically different conclusions.

Why is this important: In the future world of AI automation, how can we fully automate if we can't fully grasp our ethics. It is also very difficult to execute in life with clarity unless you have a pure understanding of your ethics.

Work through the steps in order. By the end, you should be clearer on what you believe, why parties diverge, and how to reason about policy trade-offs with fewer contradictions. If you're not familar with ethics my framework mixes together many ideas and ideologies but please read the descriptions of deontology and utilitarianism below. This will help clarify some of the language.

Start Step 1 →

Step 1: Your ethics

Step 2: Political party ethics

Step 3: Policy analyser

Step 4: Execution nuance

Step 5: Macro economics

Step 6: Trends and behaviours

Step 7: Compounding policy and ethics

Step 8: Economic psychology

Step 9: Moral psychology

Step 10: Foundation Ethics

Disclaimer

I’ve massaged definitions, oversimplified language, and reduced or omitted details to keep this framework digestible. It’s a minimal viable ethics framework—practical and effective—but it can be expanded into far more nuance and depth when needed.

Three core lenses

Deontology

Deontology are people's intrinsic rights. They are critical to stop atrocities. It protects people regardless of the output. It matters because it protects individuals from being used as a means, and forces clarity about lines you won’t cross.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism judges actions by their consequences/outputs: aim to maximise overall wellbeing and minimise harm. It matters because policy is unavoidably trade-offs at scale, and outcomes are what people actually live with.

Group ethics

This is an important distinction to understand. Group (A group of people) ethics are different to invidividual (an indvidual person) ethics. An example: A individual would not usually be responsibile for an atrocity committed by another individual. But a group of people could be accountable for a past atrocity even if they weren't alive during them as they are still feeling the benefits. By viewing ethics on a individual or a group level you end up with different points of view. We commonly swap between individual and group ethics, but in this framework we think it's important to seperate them out.