> The good old organ transplant case gives me a similarly extreme reaction; it just can’t be right to steal those organs!
These types of arguments (surgeon, sheriff...) were never convincing to me, since we need social trust for a society to function. The public's fear of being kidnapped if you get too close to a hospital would have disastrous consequences, far worse than whatever we gain from kidnapping people.
Instead, I have found that the most convincing arguments are the ones that tackle the "maximization" or "expected", parts of maximizing expected utility. For example: the 'repugnant conclusion', 'pascal's mugging', or my very own 'wagering calamity': https://bobjacobs.substack.com/p/the-wagering-calamity-objection-to
I think you're right that in reality it would generally be worse if people stole organs. Still it seems like even in idealized conditions, it would remain wrong, but that might just be because we have unreliable intuitions about highly idealized cases.
I agree that there are hard problems with the decision theory aspect, and maximizing expected value does lead to counterintuitive outcomes (the case you linked to being one). But I'm just tempted to bite the bullet (especially in finite cases). If you're interested, I recently defended fanaticism in decision theory:
"But any theory that isn’t consequentialist will necessarily end up sometimes favoring other considerations over the interests of subjects."
I mean... that's just clearly wrong. Contractualism - the normative theory put forward by Scanlon, one of THE most popular forms of deontology - says that all moral facts are grounded in the interests of subjects. Contractualism disagrees that you can AGGREGATE the interests of subjects, but they agree that all facts about what is right and wrong are grounded in the interest of at least one subject (the reason why a subject can reasonably reject a principle, on Contractualism, is because a) it's not in their interest and b) they have good reasons to think that their interests matter more than the benefit it would have towards other subjects))
So, while that view grounds principles for action in the interests of subjects, I still think it will sometimes end up favoring adherence to a principle over the interests of subjects.
I don't know whether this is how a contractualist would judge the footbridge case, but I assume they would want to say that you shouldn't push the fat man, but that you also shouldn't pull the fat man off the tracks if he fell on them by himself, since the fat man could reasonably reject the first, and the people on the tracks could reasonably reject the second. But while there is a difference in the principle you act on when you refrain from pushing, compared to when you pull him of the tracks, the actual interests thwarted/respected are the same. So the only way that you could come to a difference in action is if you weigh something (the principle of action) over the interests of the subjects involved. This is the case, even if the principle is originally grounded in people's interests. Though tell me if I'm misunderstanding/misrepresenting something! :)
I don't think the interests are the same at all. The fat man has an interest in not being used as a mere means to someone's end because it would degrade him as a person - this interest is violated in one case, but plausibly not in the other (you can only use someone "as a mere means" if you use them - but you cannot use someone without affecting them!)
Btw, this doesn't just seem like a conceivable response on behalf of the deontologist, but like a highly PLAUSIBLE one. People constantly care about not being degraded, totally independently of the actual negative consequences this has on their mental states.
I'm not so sure. I mean, I don't think I'd care much whether I was pushed by another person, or by a strong gust of wind, if I were the fat man. But that's not too important, we can just stipulate that it is in his interest to be respected.
We can then just stipulate that when you could pull him off the tracks, he had already been pushed by someone else.
In the first case, you shouldn't push him because he could reasonably object to the principle you act on, but in the second case you shouldn't pull him off the tracks, because the others could reasonably object to that.
But the interests of subjects in the cases are exactly the same after you push him in the first case, as before you pull him in the second case. So the only thing that could explain why you should not bring that combinations of interests about in the first case, while you should allow it to remain in the second case, is if you are weighing something else higher than the interests (i.e. the principle you are acting on).
This has the typical problem of the "mere means" objection of making the massive jump from using someone as a means to using them as a *mere* means and thus disrespecting them. The person who pushes the fat man isn't using him as a mere means - he's explicitly considering the fat man's interests as ends in themselves in the utility calculation. It's just that in this case, there are other interests that outweigh his.
Even if you do think that there's some additional interest of the fat man in this case that involves being disrespected, it doesn't actually justify non-consequentialism because consequentialism can just take those interests into account too. We would just say that pushing the fat man has worse consequences than the fat man tripping because the fat man feels disrespected in this case in addition to being hit by a trolley. But we can still ask the question of whether the fat man's interest in not being disrespected is enough to outweigh four people's interests in not dying. Most people think it's wildly implausible that the former interest is stronger than the latter, and thus, you have to take something other than people's interests into account to justify prioritizing the former. Even if you do think that the fat man's interest in not being disrespected is so strong that it outweighs the interests of four people in not dying, we can just stipulate a scenario where this is not the case: Assume the fat man doesn't care about whether he is used as a means or not, or whether he is disrespected or not. He only cares about his own life and wellbeing. Yet theories that say it's wrong to push the fat man still say it's wrong even after this stipulation that makes his interests no different from the case of him tripping.
We could go even further. Suppose the fat man thinks that the coolest way to die is to be sacrificed by a utilitarian for the greater good. He'd still much rather be living than die this way, but given the choice between that and a normal death, even a normal death that happened to serve the greater good, he'd much rather be sacrificed. Now it's positively more respectful to the fat man's interests for him to be pushed off the bridge than for him to trip. Yet non-consequentialists still say it's wrong to push him (keep in mind, he'd still rather not die at all than be pushed).
ive been developing my own meta-ethics and normative theory which seems quite similar to yours. It stresses that morality is a spectrum, and we have moral duty to the positive end of the spectrum and moral duty against the negative end of the spectrum.
I agree that value is something fundamental to morality, so morality should be based on the values of subjects, but i limit these values to utility and disutility (disvalue).
I have also had similar concerns with pleasure and pain, though i took a more pain-centred approach: being stabbed and having an annoying itch on your shoulder have vastly different qualitative characters, making it almost seem like they should not be in the same category (pain).
if what is valued is the satisfaction of desires, do subjects always value satisfaction of desires, or only when they are considering certain desires they have? This seems to be a similar issue to your question of tacit or future desires. I have come across a similar issue but particularly with value, and I cannot seem to find any good resources on what subjective value actually is (maybe I am looking in the wrong places).
with the electrician example, i think there is a large degree to which you may disregard your moral intuitions. for me, unusual examples yield unintuitive results. to stretch our moral intuitions so far from ordinary experience may do more harm than good in determining what normative theories are successful. There are probably further degrees we could (and should) doubt our moral intuitions.
to your latter point about the demandingness of consequentialist theories, and as i have mentioned above, the view of morality as a spectrum, and then generalising our moral duties to one end of the spectrum, can greatly reduce this problem and this is the approach i take. I usually think of the example of giving £5.00 to a homeless man. clearly this is good, even if i had £5.01 in my pocket, and did not give the £0.01 to the homeless man to maximise utility.
(this was written as i was reading through the post, and i realise a lot of the things i said you brought up mere sentences later, so apologies for that)
I am an objective list (hybrid) consequentialist too! And I am using objective list in a bit broader way than just welfare goods list. I am including beauty in there, love or compassion (as a feeling). Also, I consider absolute perfection to be an intrinsic value such that 1 instance of it is required and more than 1 is not required. So, 1 is enough.
So, my consequentialism tells you to maximize a bunch of things like welfare obviously [pleasure (all kinds or almost all kinds), loving relationships or friendships, beauty appreciation - this includes music appreciation, video games, art, movies, cinema, tv shows, etc.], love or compassion (as a feeling), souls (each soul has intrinsic value), beauty (beauty is lowest in the hierarchy of objective list. Beauty still matters tho), absolute perfection (God existing immediately satisfies this, so we don't really need to focus on maximizing this one or creating at least 1 absolutely perfect being).
And I also believe in a bunch of disvalues that should be minimized. So, pain and deaths should be minimized. Only these two need to be minimized. There is no need to add anymore disvalues because the two are actually enough and are always paradigmatic.
Yes, Good news! I believe the counterexamples you mention can be defused by considering the second order effect of actions in a real world setting.
> The good old organ transplant case gives me a similarly extreme reaction; it just can’t be right to steal those organs!
These types of arguments (surgeon, sheriff...) were never convincing to me, since we need social trust for a society to function. The public's fear of being kidnapped if you get too close to a hospital would have disastrous consequences, far worse than whatever we gain from kidnapping people.
Instead, I have found that the most convincing arguments are the ones that tackle the "maximization" or "expected", parts of maximizing expected utility. For example: the 'repugnant conclusion', 'pascal's mugging', or my very own 'wagering calamity': https://bobjacobs.substack.com/p/the-wagering-calamity-objection-to
I think you're right that in reality it would generally be worse if people stole organs. Still it seems like even in idealized conditions, it would remain wrong, but that might just be because we have unreliable intuitions about highly idealized cases.
I agree that there are hard problems with the decision theory aspect, and maximizing expected value does lead to counterintuitive outcomes (the case you linked to being one). But I'm just tempted to bite the bullet (especially in finite cases). If you're interested, I recently defended fanaticism in decision theory:
https://open.substack.com/pub/wonderandaporia/p/you-should-be-a-fanatic?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1l11lq
"But any theory that isn’t consequentialist will necessarily end up sometimes favoring other considerations over the interests of subjects."
I mean... that's just clearly wrong. Contractualism - the normative theory put forward by Scanlon, one of THE most popular forms of deontology - says that all moral facts are grounded in the interests of subjects. Contractualism disagrees that you can AGGREGATE the interests of subjects, but they agree that all facts about what is right and wrong are grounded in the interest of at least one subject (the reason why a subject can reasonably reject a principle, on Contractualism, is because a) it's not in their interest and b) they have good reasons to think that their interests matter more than the benefit it would have towards other subjects))
So, while that view grounds principles for action in the interests of subjects, I still think it will sometimes end up favoring adherence to a principle over the interests of subjects.
I don't know whether this is how a contractualist would judge the footbridge case, but I assume they would want to say that you shouldn't push the fat man, but that you also shouldn't pull the fat man off the tracks if he fell on them by himself, since the fat man could reasonably reject the first, and the people on the tracks could reasonably reject the second. But while there is a difference in the principle you act on when you refrain from pushing, compared to when you pull him of the tracks, the actual interests thwarted/respected are the same. So the only way that you could come to a difference in action is if you weigh something (the principle of action) over the interests of the subjects involved. This is the case, even if the principle is originally grounded in people's interests. Though tell me if I'm misunderstanding/misrepresenting something! :)
I don't think the interests are the same at all. The fat man has an interest in not being used as a mere means to someone's end because it would degrade him as a person - this interest is violated in one case, but plausibly not in the other (you can only use someone "as a mere means" if you use them - but you cannot use someone without affecting them!)
Btw, this doesn't just seem like a conceivable response on behalf of the deontologist, but like a highly PLAUSIBLE one. People constantly care about not being degraded, totally independently of the actual negative consequences this has on their mental states.
I'm not so sure. I mean, I don't think I'd care much whether I was pushed by another person, or by a strong gust of wind, if I were the fat man. But that's not too important, we can just stipulate that it is in his interest to be respected.
We can then just stipulate that when you could pull him off the tracks, he had already been pushed by someone else.
In the first case, you shouldn't push him because he could reasonably object to the principle you act on, but in the second case you shouldn't pull him off the tracks, because the others could reasonably object to that.
But the interests of subjects in the cases are exactly the same after you push him in the first case, as before you pull him in the second case. So the only thing that could explain why you should not bring that combinations of interests about in the first case, while you should allow it to remain in the second case, is if you are weighing something else higher than the interests (i.e. the principle you are acting on).
This has the typical problem of the "mere means" objection of making the massive jump from using someone as a means to using them as a *mere* means and thus disrespecting them. The person who pushes the fat man isn't using him as a mere means - he's explicitly considering the fat man's interests as ends in themselves in the utility calculation. It's just that in this case, there are other interests that outweigh his.
Even if you do think that there's some additional interest of the fat man in this case that involves being disrespected, it doesn't actually justify non-consequentialism because consequentialism can just take those interests into account too. We would just say that pushing the fat man has worse consequences than the fat man tripping because the fat man feels disrespected in this case in addition to being hit by a trolley. But we can still ask the question of whether the fat man's interest in not being disrespected is enough to outweigh four people's interests in not dying. Most people think it's wildly implausible that the former interest is stronger than the latter, and thus, you have to take something other than people's interests into account to justify prioritizing the former. Even if you do think that the fat man's interest in not being disrespected is so strong that it outweighs the interests of four people in not dying, we can just stipulate a scenario where this is not the case: Assume the fat man doesn't care about whether he is used as a means or not, or whether he is disrespected or not. He only cares about his own life and wellbeing. Yet theories that say it's wrong to push the fat man still say it's wrong even after this stipulation that makes his interests no different from the case of him tripping.
We could go even further. Suppose the fat man thinks that the coolest way to die is to be sacrificed by a utilitarian for the greater good. He'd still much rather be living than die this way, but given the choice between that and a normal death, even a normal death that happened to serve the greater good, he'd much rather be sacrificed. Now it's positively more respectful to the fat man's interests for him to be pushed off the bridge than for him to trip. Yet non-consequentialists still say it's wrong to push him (keep in mind, he'd still rather not die at all than be pushed).
“Especially compelling to me is the case of the electrician (I don’t remember where this is from)”
I think it’s from Scanlon originally
Thank you!
ive been developing my own meta-ethics and normative theory which seems quite similar to yours. It stresses that morality is a spectrum, and we have moral duty to the positive end of the spectrum and moral duty against the negative end of the spectrum.
I agree that value is something fundamental to morality, so morality should be based on the values of subjects, but i limit these values to utility and disutility (disvalue).
I have also had similar concerns with pleasure and pain, though i took a more pain-centred approach: being stabbed and having an annoying itch on your shoulder have vastly different qualitative characters, making it almost seem like they should not be in the same category (pain).
if what is valued is the satisfaction of desires, do subjects always value satisfaction of desires, or only when they are considering certain desires they have? This seems to be a similar issue to your question of tacit or future desires. I have come across a similar issue but particularly with value, and I cannot seem to find any good resources on what subjective value actually is (maybe I am looking in the wrong places).
with the electrician example, i think there is a large degree to which you may disregard your moral intuitions. for me, unusual examples yield unintuitive results. to stretch our moral intuitions so far from ordinary experience may do more harm than good in determining what normative theories are successful. There are probably further degrees we could (and should) doubt our moral intuitions.
to your latter point about the demandingness of consequentialist theories, and as i have mentioned above, the view of morality as a spectrum, and then generalising our moral duties to one end of the spectrum, can greatly reduce this problem and this is the approach i take. I usually think of the example of giving £5.00 to a homeless man. clearly this is good, even if i had £5.01 in my pocket, and did not give the £0.01 to the homeless man to maximise utility.
(this was written as i was reading through the post, and i realise a lot of the things i said you brought up mere sentences later, so apologies for that)
this was a very nice read
Thank you! And thank you for the detailed comments :)
I am an objective list (hybrid) consequentialist too! And I am using objective list in a bit broader way than just welfare goods list. I am including beauty in there, love or compassion (as a feeling). Also, I consider absolute perfection to be an intrinsic value such that 1 instance of it is required and more than 1 is not required. So, 1 is enough.
So, my consequentialism tells you to maximize a bunch of things like welfare obviously [pleasure (all kinds or almost all kinds), loving relationships or friendships, beauty appreciation - this includes music appreciation, video games, art, movies, cinema, tv shows, etc.], love or compassion (as a feeling), souls (each soul has intrinsic value), beauty (beauty is lowest in the hierarchy of objective list. Beauty still matters tho), absolute perfection (God existing immediately satisfies this, so we don't really need to focus on maximizing this one or creating at least 1 absolutely perfect being).
And I also believe in a bunch of disvalues that should be minimized. So, pain and deaths should be minimized. Only these two need to be minimized. There is no need to add anymore disvalues because the two are actually enough and are always paradigmatic.