x – Come on, why would I care? It doesn’t hurt anybody.
y –.How do you know?
x – Because it’s private behavior.
y – All private acts harm no one?
x – And it’s consensual.
y – So all private consensual acts harm no one?
x-   That’s right.
y –  If you consent to me striking your head with a baseball bat in the privacy of this room, no one is harmed?
x – Well I….
y – If one severely abuses drugs or alcohol in the privacy of his home, he and his family are not harmed?
x – I’m not saying that.
y – The truth is neither privacy nor consent protect us from harm.
x –  Well… I guess I’ll have to admit to that.
y – Then what is it that leads you to say this behavior hurts no one?
x – I can’t see any harm done by it.
y –  So you judge by placing trust in your ability to know the consequences of an action?
x –  Well, yes. Don’t you?  If I conclude something will do no harm, then I’m fine with it.
y –  Ever throw a rock into the middle of a large pond?
x – Yes I may have, years ago.
y – When it hits the water, you see it ripple. Right?
x – Yes.
y – For how long?
x-  Oh, maybe a few seconds.
y – We see the ripple radiate in a circle for a few seconds before it gets smaller and disappears. Right?
x – Yes.
y – Did you know the water actually ripples throughout the entire pond – all the way to the shores – and that the entire top layer of the pond has been altered?
x – Really?
y – Yes, but we can’t see it as it happens. With our limited vision we can only see a few feet of water affected.
x – That’s right.
y – So too it is with our actions.  With our limited vision of mind we usually imagine just the immediate effects, those most concretely obvious to our minds. But that’s just the beginning of them. We are unable to foresee the wide scale consequences our actions have on ourselves and others, which, by the way, continue indefinitely like non-stop dominoes.
x – Seeing all that would be impossible.
y – That’s my point. Measuring ethics by consequences is a fatally flawed approach. Further, acts often have good ‘immediate’ effects and very bad ‘long term’ effects –  and vice-versa.
x – Then how do we judge behaviors, if not by foreseen consequences?
y – That is a very important question. We’ll save that for another time. At least now we agree that this ethical approach called consequentialism or utilitarianism is a very bad method by which to judge behaviors.                x – Okay. But I can’t imagine a better way . I look forward to our next dialogue.
y – Me too, but I’ll give you a hint. It is the way that virtually everyone judged good and bad acts before utilitarianism and relativism greatly influenced our society. It  comes to us intuitively. Instead of the main question being “Who does it hurt”, the question should be “Is it a good act?”
x – But how do you know a good act without knowing its consequences? I still can’t imagine.
y – And that’s the deeply disturbing part of this. Your generation knows no alternative to utilitarian and relativist approaches to ethics, which have become very popular, but only relatively recently. Ultimately these methods are led by our desires and disordered passions, and they end up causing confusion and slavery to vice. The quick answer to your question is the meaning of a ‘good’ act becomes intelligible by how it corresponds to the natural inclinations of human nature. This is called natural law. But we’ll have to discuss this next time. I’m late for my appointment.                                                                                                              x – Okay. I Look forward to it.