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0:00
"How to be a Good Person?" Now, I don't know you, but I'm pretty sure you're not a bad person. I have never had the displeasure of meeting someone who I would describe as truly evil. And the reason you're not a bad person is partly because of the reason you clicked on this video: Because you want to do good, at least some of the time. The question is, of course, how to do this. What even constitutes a good action? At the end of this video, you will not only know the answer to this question
0:27
but you will have a concrete and practical rule that tells you what the right thing to do is in any situation. To reach that would, we will need to start at the beginning. When talking about "being a good person" or "doing the right thing" we are inadvertently talking about ethics Now, when you just heard me say the word "ethics" you might have rolled your eyes or let out a bored sigh. Perhaps you are of the opinion that ethics is just about having pointless semantic discussions about dilemmas
0:53
that have no real answer anyway. I, however, wholeheartedly disagree. Before even beginning to think about answering the question "how" to do something you first have to answer the question whether you "should" whether you "ought to." Ethics, therefore, is the backbone of any and all actions which means that if we get ethics wrong the consequences could be grave. Imagine devoting years of your life to a certain project only to realise, after its completion
1:20
that you probably shouldn't have done that. So, first of all, we need to agree that there is an answer to be found. In other words, we have to agree that morality is not purely relative or a matter of perspective. Different cultures have different moralities and although we can understand why that is the case that does not mean that they are all equally right. Most of us find 'killing other people to eat their flesh' to be wrong but cannibal tribes living in the jungles might disagree
1:49
Most of us are against genocide but the culture of Nazi-Germany would have disagreed. If you are a "Moral Relativist," you wouldn't say that it was wrong of the people in Nazi-Germany to condone or commit genocide because you'd believe that the cultural normes dictate what is or isn't considered moral. Moral Relativism says that there are no objective moral truths. Eating human flesh in a cannibalistic tribe or owning slaves in 17th century Georgia
2:16
would have all been perfectly fine and moral at the time because that is what the culture decided was moral. However, this seems very strange. Morality might be a "social construct" but just because the concept may have been created by people does not mean that it's all just relative or arbitrary. Also, the fact that there is much discussion and disagreement about moral questions does not mean a moral truth does not exist. Some things are unquestionably right and others are unquestionably wrong
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and the difference is at least objective enough that a variation in culture can't just dispense with it. What is right or wrong is not simply relative or a matter of opinion or defined by tradition or what someone is used to. And so, as a first step, we ought to reject Moral Relativism and thus embrace Moral Absolutism. Now, believing that some things are right and others are wrong does not mean that we know what they are. That being said, people do try to decide
3:16
to decide for themselves what the difference is though they might think about ethics in very different ways. We will now be discussing three ways people thend to think about ethics in their daily lives. First of all, there are people who barely think about ethics at all. When question relating to these topics arise they will often simply follow their gut-feeling what feels right or wrong intuitively. This is, of course, dependent on a lot of factors
3:41
such as upbringing, temperament, social position wealth, health and mood which vary wildely not just from person to person but also from day to day or moment to moment for the same person. This means that someone might decide to tell the truth in one situation though if they encounter the exact same situation the next day but whilst having a different mood they might decide to tell a lie. It follows that we cannot find any objective morality here.
4:07
Morality should not be decided simply by the mood someone is in. That is merely another form of Moral Relativism which we have just rejected. This brings us to our second premise:
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Now, let us move on to the next category of people. These people have distinct moral principles on which they act. Let us examine this further by using an example. Imagine a boy named Alex. Let's say that Alex greatly values honesty and loyalty as a lot of us do. They are, in fact, Alex' core principles. Now, let's imagine that Alex has a friend at school called Jessica. After a particularly difficult exam Jessica tells Alex in confidence, as her friend that she has cheated on the test.
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Now, the next day, after grading their tests the teacher suspects Jessica of foul play and asks Alex outright whether Jessica has cheated on her exam. Now Alex faces a moral dilemma. What should he say to his teacher? As said before, Alex values both honesty and loyalty Alex believes he has to stay loyal to his friend who told him about her cheating in confidence. But on the other hand Alex also believes that he should answer the teacher honestly. In this theoretical example, there is no answer.
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However, in real life even when faced with difficult decisions we still have to choose. Alex can't "opt-out" of this dilemma. He can either choose to answer truthfully or he cannot. But what would Alex have chosen being in that situation, on the spot if his moral code of valuing honesty and loyalty does not give him the answer? Well, perhaps Jessica was actually not such a good friend anyway. In fact, maybe she even badmouthed him behind his back.
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Maybe, in this situation, Alex thinks it serves her right to be punished so he might tell the teacher the truth. But perhaps his teacher has been giving him bad grades and lots of extra homework all year and he is not at all inclined to help the teacher make her job easier. In that case, he might choose to lie. Of course, now Alex' moral code is no longer guiding his decision-making but rather the context of the situation his feelings for the people involved his mood.
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In other words: His gut; his intuition. So, as you can see although we at first we believed we moved on from one category of people who don't really think about ethics at all to people who follow a moral code made up of principles these two groups of people are actually one and the same: What is guiding them, when it comes down to it is above all, their intuition. What I've described in the second category is essentially a very simplified version
6:51
of the ethical theories of Principlism and Virtue Ethics. One of the main objections to Virtue Ethics as we have seen is that is offers us no guidance on what to do when two virtues or principles are in direct opposition of eachother This is because there is no hierarchy of importance between different virtues and even if there were why would that one virtue be more important than the other one? Are you not, once again, simply using your intuition to make those decisions?
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Another problem is that one has to wonder which virtues to choose to value. Loyalty and honesty? But why not, for example, say, courage? People also use their gut-feeling to choose even which principles to have meaning that not their principles, but their intuition still stands at the top of the hierarchy of their decision-making tree. It may even be the case that they, perhaps subconsciously already intuitively chose a certain action and immediately afterwards rationalize it
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using a virtue they can conveniently and retroactively file their decision under as if it were the virtue that ultimately led to their decision instead of their gut-feeling. Now, I'm not saying that someone's gut feeling can never be right but is it not arrogant to assume that your particular gut-feeling your intuition, the core of your being is by nature good? Why would it be? Making this assumption, which many people seem to do is actually quite dangerous.
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It leads to the misinterpretation of, for example, famous quotes, such as:
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Upon first reading this, most people, myself included immediately and arrogantly presume that they are the "good men" meant by the quote. and see it as a "call to action" But why would we be good men? Would Hitler not have looked at that quote and thought to himself: "I'd better increase the efficiency of those concentration camps if I want to prevent the Evil of the Jews from truimphing in this world!" How presumptuous, how dangerous, to assume one's own goodness by nature.
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No, no, what we need is a strict moral guideline a supreme rule, if you will which tells us what the right thing to do is regardless of our background, upbringing or mood. This brings us to our third premise:
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Luckily, there are two ethical theories which indeed have what we are looking for: A supreme norm a much-thought-over rule standing at the top of the hierarchy of decision-making. The theories that hold these golden rules are called "Utilitarianism" and "Deontology" Both Utilitarianism and Deontology follow a single simple rule which is more important than any other value, or rule, principle. However, both rules are vastly different from one another. Let us first discuss Utilitarianism
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which is derived from the word "utility." The supreme norm of Utilitarianism states that an action is right if and only if it maximises the total happiness, and minimises the total suffering in the world. Now, surely we can all agree that happiness is good and suffering is bad, yes? And not only does the rule of Utilitarianism recognize this it also states that we should not simply choose an action that causes more happiness than suffering
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but choose the action that causes the most net-happiness, or the least net-suffering. With every single decision, Utilitarianism considers the total net-balance between happiness and suffering and wishes to tip the scales toward happiness as much as it possibly can. This goes far beyond the happiness of a single individual but is rather about the total happiness of everyone affected by the decision. I say "everyone," but by that I mean of course all creatures who are capable of experiencing
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pleasure or pain. Beyond this, everyone is equal whether they be lawyer or taxi driver king or peasant man or woman human or dog liberal or conservative friend or foe. All are equal, except in how much happiness or suffering one would experience from the outcome of a certain action. Therefore, the happiness or suffering pertaining to the consequences of an action are the only value worth considering when making a moral decision according to Utilitarianism.
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Besides Utilitarianism, there is also Deontology, "Deon" meaning "Duty." Deontology follows a supreme norm that is referred to as the Categorical Imperative first thought of by Immanuel Kant. There are actually four ways in which the Categorical Imperative can be formulated each with their own different nuances, though Kant believed that each formulation ultimately boils down to the same thing. Here, we will be using the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative which goes as follows:
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"Never treat others as a mere means to an end, but always, at the same time, as ends in themselves." From this rule, it can be derived that acts such as stealing, lying, manipulating and murder are all categorically wrong. They have to be, because each of these actions implies that the rights and wishes and autonomy of another are not respected, even disregarded meaning that they are being used as a mere means to achieve a certain end.
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For example, by lying to someone whom you want to borrow money from you are taking away their ability to themselves make an informed decision about how to use their money and not taking into account their wishes, or respecting their autonomy as an individual simply to increase the odds of them giving you the cash. You would have reduced them to mere means to achieve the end of them giving you the money. The individuals that require moral consideration with this supreme rule
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are all sentient beings meaning all living being that are the experiencing "subject-of-a-life" with an individual welfare and intrinsic worth ought to be respected, regardless of their usefulness to others. The great thing that both these theories share, is that everyone gets the same treatment. A big problem with people following their intuition is that they naturally choose the ones they are close with over others even if others are many even if they have to violate the rights of others.
13:09
This sentiment is understandable, and maybe even admirable. We all intuitively would all rather kill someone else's mother than our own, right? But it is clear that there is no logical argument that justifies someone giving people they like or people from their inner circle special treatment over ones they don't like or who are not part of that inner circle. People form groups, and groups get into conflicts
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and the people from each group are willing to cause a lot of suffering to prevent those from their group to suffer a little or are willing to violate the rights of others for the sake of the rights of the people from their group to not be violated. This is not logical, neither Utilitarian nor Deontological, and certainly not a consistent way of thinking. It is the same as Alex choosing to lie for the simple reason that he is closer to Jessica than his teacher.
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And so the Corruption of Intuition is neatly avoided by both Utilitarianism and Deontology. So these two theories both sound very nice but what can be easily overlooked when presented like this is that Utilitarianism and Deontology do not play well together whatsoever. They are, in fact, in many ways, eachother's antithesis. This leaves us with a problem. We wanted a single supreme norm standing at the top of our decision-making hierarchy
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so that our ethical decisions would always be consistent and never be biased. Now, instead of one, we got two but when it comes to most ethical dilemmas, they disagree!
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Let me explain the duality between Utilitarianism and Deontology a bit further. Utilitarianism, being a consequentialist ethical theory places all moral weight with the consequences of an action while Deontology places all moral weight with the action itself and the intentions behind that action. A very succinct way of putting it, is that Utilitarianism and Deontology fundamentally disagree on the issue of whether the ends justify the means.
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The issue is that the Utilitarian would say that the ends always justify the means where no means is too horrible while the Deontologist would argue that the ends never justify the means no matter how great the ends.
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The following paradox is a very nice illustration of the problem Utilitarianism and Deontology are arguing over. The paradox goes as follows:
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This is a paradox because, in either case, Evil remains. A Utilitarian would rather commit evil to destroy a greater evil meaning causing suffering to end a greater suffering. A Deontologist would rather surrender to evil than to become it themselves which to a Deontologist would mean treating another as a mere means to an end of putting a stop to another person using someone else as a mere means to an end. Confusing, I know.
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The Utilitarian's defence may be that less suffering is of course better to which a Deontologist might reply that there would be no longer a moral difference between you and the original evil if both are willing to commit the same crimes for their cause. We can more concretely see this opposition when answering the following question using both theories:
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A Utilitarian would say "Of course! Better that two should live than one!" While a Deontologist would answer "No! Murder is wrong, no matter what!" Do the means of killing one person justify the ends of saving two? What about the ends of saving a thousand? The answers of the Utilitarian and Deontologist would stay the same. At his point you might wonder if it would not be better to combine both theories instead of choosing one.
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After all, they both have a point, since there have to be times when the ends justify the means and when they don't, right? Would it not be better to adhere to both the Utilitarian rule and the Deontological rule as much as possible and when they clash decide ourselves which rule to follow? This sounds very reasonable, but we are overlooking something important. The means by which we would be deciding between the Utilitarian or Deontological stance in any given situation, would
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when it comes down to it, be nothing more than our intuition, our gut-feeling. Meaning that, once again, our intuition stands at the top of our decision-making hierarchy and we have not progressed any further from where we started. The rules of Utilitarianism and Deontology are meant to be supreme. However difficult the choice between them, choose we must. But then, which would be choose? The attentive listener may rightly ask at this point that
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since we do not have an ethical theory which we can follow yet choosing an ethical theory now would be done using only our intuition meaning that our intuition is still at the top of our decision-making hierarchy. This is a valid concern and one I can't completely resolve. However, choosing an ethical theory using your intuition now would mean never having to rely on your intuition again
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when making any ethical decisions beyond this point, which is still preferable to your intuition taking the lead every time a moral dilemma arises. After all, in individual moral dilemmas, a lot of emotions and other contextual factors cloud your judgement while, in this moment, without a specific dilemma, and with both of these two ethical theories laid bare our choice will be least affected by outside factors that ought to be unimportant.
18:30
So, choose we must, and we must choose before a moral dilemma arises and subsequently always adhere to the rule we have chosen. Basically, we have to choose now. A tall order, I know. Now, at this point I should probably tell you to stop watching this video and make up your own mind. So far, I have almost solely given logical arguments to get to this point. Most logical arguments that seek to either disprove Utilitarianism or Deontology however, fall short.
18:57
Most of them rely on taking the supreme rule in question to its extremes and then pointing out how absurd its conclusion is. But, to be honest, for the majority of regular issues you encounter in real life the logical counter-arguments don't really apply and sometimes seem a bit desperate. I really should tell you to just look inward and find your own answer but I can't help using this opportunity to make a plea for the theory that I firmly believe to be right.
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And, full disclosure: The ethical theory I personally subscribe to is Deontology. So, what follows is essentially an argument for Deontology, and against Utilitarianism which is largely rooted in my own personal biases. Do not take it as fact.
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I may have already given away my own opinion when talking about the quote from Edmund Burke:
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and how people arrogantly interpret this as a call to action meant for them. Utilitarianism more often calls to action saying that you should do something to create the createst happiness in the long run while Deontology more often tells you that you shouldn't do something for it would violate another person's rights. Now, we all want to be the "acting" hero in our own story we want to be vigilantes and save people from thieves and win prizes for finding a cure for cancer.
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But are these things really all that glorious? What about the circumstances of the purse snatcher? Or the lab animals being used for cancer research? Personally, I believe it to be much more admirable to constrain the malevolence within. Even if you can't bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people you can at the very least make sure that you yourself don't make things worse and reduce the suffering of the world that way. Now, that may not be "optimally utilitarian"
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but Deontology is more about giving a rule for the bare minimum you should do or shouldn't do, to be a good and decent human being. Once you meet the Deontological requirement, you can still think as a quasi-Utilitarian beyond that you just have limited means at your disposal since Deontology would stand above Utilitarianism in your decision-making tree. In contrast to Utilitarianism, which tells you that there is only one good choice
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Deontology still leaves room for virtuous action once the minimal requirement of its supreme rule has been met. It still leaves room for kindness and respect, in a way that Utilitarianism does not. After all, according to Utilitarianism if it does not serve the end of creating the greatest amount of happiness it simply can't be the right choice, even if it is kind or respectful. In the same way, Utilitarianism does not necessarily condemn acts or murder or torture
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for if the circumstances are such at it would serve the total positive happiness-over-suffering balance of the world the means by which that is achieved do not matter. I believe this to be wrong. There are, of course, also counter-arguments to Deontology. One of my favourite goes as follows:
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It relates to the dilemma we discussed previously: 1000 people being killed by someone else, and thus "being used" are a lot more "usings" than the one needed to prevent that: to pre-emptively "kill that killer."
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The answer to this is that usings cannot be added. The way I concretely look at it is as follows: Every life has infinite moral worth. Whether 1 or 1000 sentient beings lose their lives an infinity of worth is lost in both cases. In the same way, if I would have to put a "number" on the amount of "wrong" that is done when the Deontological rule is disregarded that number would be "infinite" as well making every transgression of the rule infinitely, and therefore absolutely and always:
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And to myself from middle school: No, "infinity + 1" does not exist, that is still infinity. The counter-counter-argument to this is that, if people's worths can't be added then that means there is also no reason to save five people instead of saving one even if there is no active killing involved. "If the numbers don't matter, then the numbers seemingly don't count in either way" is how the argument goes. My reply to that is, of course, what I said before:
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Once you meet the Deontological requirement that you are not using anyone as a mere means you can still act quasi-Utilitarianly. The important thing is that you don't put Utilitarianism and Deontology on the same footing, is all. You can still take happiness and suffering into account in your decision-making but first you must have discarded all possible means that use others as a mere means. With the means you have left, you can still attempt to increase happiness
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and thus think in a "utilitarian-like" way. It just won't be increased maximally. Although, one has to wonder whether increasing happiness maximally is even feasible. This is seriously doubtful for two reasons: One is that pain and pleasure are impossible to measure and thus impossible to compare between people, because they are both too subjective. Another is that for each decision, there are so many possibilities that it is impossible for us humans
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who are not omniscient, to know of all existing possibilities let alone know which one increases happiness maximally. I can imagine you are tired of my voice right now. I realise this has been quite a long and dry monologue from me and although I think I have explained my reasoning well enough I worry that even if you accept these arguments as being logical meaning that you won't have anything against them they might not have properly convinced you to actually want to change your mind.
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And so, just before I make my final argument let me show you some arguments that speak for Deontology and against Utilitarianism, from other people than "just me" from a whole range of mediums.
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This has to be the most beautifully succinct way of formulating the argument against Utilitarianism. The last few clips also closely relate to a quote form Karl Popper:
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If and when you fail to reach the end you justified so many means for you will be crushed. Because it was all for nothing. All the evil you caused, all the wrongs you committed will never be turned into rights. In contrast, Deontology values every single step along the way and takes care to make sure that each individual step you take is the right one. Now, that of course means that the steps are a lot smaller than the leaps a Utilitarian makes and reaching a happy end will be a lot harder
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if you can't use the same methods as the evil you fight against. But falling, and failing, and never reaching the "happily ever after..." is not so bad if at the end you can look back on the road you have walked that beautifully constructed road of right and just actions and be proud even if the road never reaches the destination it was paved toward. The destination is an ideal a utopia that can never be achieved because there will always be people
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who continue to use others as a mere means to an end whom you yourself cannot stop with the limited means at your disposal but at the same time it's an ideal that you in a way do attain with every action and which is present in every person. Because the person is the end. Every person is an end in themselves.
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And this brings us to our fourth and final premise:
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These four premises together form a so-called "deductive argument" meaning that, if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true And the conclusion is that you should never treat another sentient being as a mere means to an end but always, at the same time, as an end. Now, because the video is already quite long I did not extensively go into some things that were a bit beside the point of reaching this conclusion. I can therefore imagine that you still have some questions
31:25
for example regarding Deontology. I have not discussed all counter-arguments to the theory here nor have I discussed the different variations of the Categorical Imperative and why I prefer the second formulation. Maybe some clarification is also warranted into the matter of why not just people, by all sentient beings require equal moral consideration when following the Deontological rule. For this last one I also recommend looking up "Tom Regan"
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since he's the one who correctly made the adjustment to the rule that not just humans, but also many animals require the same moral consideration. If you are interested in these topics, maybe I could make a follow-up video answering these and other questions you might have. But, in any case, for now: Thank you so much for watching this very long video. I hope you will decide to follow the Deontological rule starting... from now.
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