Comment by logicchains

Given the recent push towards formally verifying mathematics, it's surprising how comparatively little effort's been put into formalising ethics. Fundamentally an ethical system is not that different from a mathematical one: there are some assumptions, some deductive rules, and a potentially infinite set of conclusions that result from applying those deductive rules to those assumptions. One particularly important property to verify about such a system is consistency: if it can prove conclusion "X", it should not also be able to prove conclusion "not X". An inconsistent system can prove anything, so is essentially useless for reasoning.