I am not sure that in number 4 the deontologist cannot avoid your counterexample. You write:
<i> "Some stranger takes some action that gives you the option to save their child or your own and also makes your child slightly better off. If you save their child, then everyone will be better off relative to a world where they hadn’t taken that action. Nonetheless, it seems wrong—if there are special obligations—to take that action."</i>
Off the top of my head, the deontologist mother could reply: "The special obligation that i must discharge is not that i physically be the one who saves my child. It is rather that i make it happen that my child is saved. This could happen even through an intentional omission of mine. So there is no problem to coordinate with the stranger to have him save my child -- in a more efficient way no less, which is another special obligation towards my child that i need to discharge,".
A few things: First, I don't think the John and Todd situation actually poses any serious challenge to a sufficiently developed conception of special obligations. It's just a general example of how first-order and second-order moral commitments might diverge. Both Todd and John ought to prefer that the other acts altruistically *precisely because joint altruism here would bring about the best possible benefits for their own children.* Their second-order commitment to honoring a special obligation gives them reason, in this situation, to adopt a first-order commitment to altruism or impartial benevolence. It would be pretty easy to construct a similar situation wherein someone acting on the first-order principle of maximizing outcomes regardless of familial ties ultimately results in everyone being worse off - in that case, their impartial benevolence held as a second-order moral principle would countenance adopting a first-order moral principle involving special obligations to family members. Utilitarians have discussed this plenty in terms of their own philosophy, so I'm not sure why it's an issue here.
Secondly, I think your analysis of the Bertha and Juan ends up in weird places because, as a utilitarian, your singular reliance on the concept of beneficence requires you to see a special obligation as a sort of "weighting" applied to beneficent judgments, rather than a reason in its own right to be considered alongside beneficence. In other words, it's not that "your special obligations to help avert small amounts of harm are greater than your special obligations to avert large amounts of harm." It's that your special obligation has a fixed strength that is at times capable of overriding the strength of your beneficent duty to reduce suffering and at other times is not. It seems obvious to me that Tim should definitely aid Bertha in this situation because, while his friendship may provide him with a legitimate reason to aid Juan, that reason isn't more powerful than his reason to prevent an extra ten trillion lifetimes worth of suffering. I'm not sure what's problematic about that view.
Finally, I'll just say that I think the second premise of the paradox of deontology (and, implicitly, in the same sort of argument you're making here) is ambiguous - it depends what you mean by "preferring a world." Imagine, for example, that I have the opportunity to murder a stranger in order to get one billion dollars. What does it mean to ask "which world I prefer?" If you conceptualize worlds apart from their causal histories, then you're just asking me whether I'd have one billion dollars and a dead stranger or a no money and a living stranger. Obviously, I would rather have a billion dollars. So in that sense, I "prefer" the world where I commit the murder - but then the second premise is basically just saying "If you prefer the consequences of an act, then you prefer the act" which is undoubtedly false for anyone who isn't a strict consequentialist. But if you incorporate the sorts of actions involved in producing the world *into* your conception of that world, then the premise is true but the third party would not necessarily rank those worlds in that order *if the third party had a non-consequentialist ethical framework.* But then again, even someone who believes in special obligations wouldn't necessarily endorse the idea that saving a loved one in a way that *prevents* two others from saving their loved ones is appropriate anyway.
So yeah, I don't think any of this is going to challenge a sufficiently thoughtful deontologist or virtue ethicist because they fundamentally don't share your view that ethical situations are best evaluated "from the standpoint of a third party" who lacks any of their own ethical commitments and only analyzes outcomes - I know everyone has different interests and it's not always worth it to spend time examining views you don't hold, but you should try to really explore more non-consequentialist ethical models in more detail if you want to construct arguments that really challenge them.
Why do I have reason to prefer that you satisfy your special obligation to your children? I'm not pursuing a world where special obligation satisfaction is maximized. If the world is full of people with distinct and often incompatible special obligations, then there is little reason to think that third parties will or should always root for you to satisfy your own.
I think the conclusion is being snuck into the initial premise. Whether you think your reasons should line up with a neutral observer's reasons for you hinges on whether you can have special obligations that a neutral party wouldn't share.
I like that Jesus and God got a shout out in this post. ;) And I like the thoughtfulness here, but here's my argument: Love is the essence of what life is really about. Charity toward strangers is good and important. But love at its best is personal, intimate, and emotional. Charity toward a stranger is beautiful, but it only flows in one direction (from the giver). The way most of us prefer to be loved is when there is a mutual exchange. I value you for who you are, and you value me for who I am. We know each other, we embrace each other, and we delight in each other. And we love each other so much we will give whatever we can for the happiness of the beloved. This kind of love is what we long for. And this is why some charitable endeavors (done from a distance), may relieve suffering, don't provide for the core need of humanity to experience love in the fullest sense. It is the intimate love that brings us fulfillment, so we should not diminish the glue that sticks us together. If everyone sacrificed for their family and friends the world would be better off than if everyone sacrificed for strangers. Why? Because we would all be valued in an intimate way, rather than in a utilitarian way. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
Which would the writer of this blog prefer: Your blog is read by 200 people who were assigned to read your blog and were reading from sheer obligation to "do the right thing." Or 100 people who read your blog because they think you are amazing, intelligent, insightful, compassionate, and are eager to hear your thoughts?
"In addition, this view implies that friendship is worse than Hitler. It’s plausible that if two people are only conscious for a very short time during a year and never interact, their friendship has very little intrinsic value, just as after one is dead, one’s friendship with them is not very valuable. But this means that if each year for 10^40 years a perfect person became conscious for one second, was given the option to benefit their friend a lot or a stranger a greater amount, and then went back to their slumber, they ought to benefit their friend on account of their special obligation. But this means that them creating the friendship would produce lots of disvalue—10^40 years worth of great disvalue—which makes their friendship plausibly worse than Hitler."
I'm confused as to why creating the friendship would produce disvalue. Wouldn't it just produce a very low amount of value? Or are you referring to the comparative disvalue of a world with the friendship + the 10^40 acts of special obligation vs. a world with 10^40 acts of greater benefit to a stranger (with the idea being that the more/less valuable the friendship, the more/less valuable the extra value of benefitting the friend)?
Hi Bentham.
I am not sure that in number 4 the deontologist cannot avoid your counterexample. You write:
<i> "Some stranger takes some action that gives you the option to save their child or your own and also makes your child slightly better off. If you save their child, then everyone will be better off relative to a world where they hadn’t taken that action. Nonetheless, it seems wrong—if there are special obligations—to take that action."</i>
Off the top of my head, the deontologist mother could reply: "The special obligation that i must discharge is not that i physically be the one who saves my child. It is rather that i make it happen that my child is saved. This could happen even through an intentional omission of mine. So there is no problem to coordinate with the stranger to have him save my child -- in a more efficient way no less, which is another special obligation towards my child that i need to discharge,".
Or am i missing something?
A few things: First, I don't think the John and Todd situation actually poses any serious challenge to a sufficiently developed conception of special obligations. It's just a general example of how first-order and second-order moral commitments might diverge. Both Todd and John ought to prefer that the other acts altruistically *precisely because joint altruism here would bring about the best possible benefits for their own children.* Their second-order commitment to honoring a special obligation gives them reason, in this situation, to adopt a first-order commitment to altruism or impartial benevolence. It would be pretty easy to construct a similar situation wherein someone acting on the first-order principle of maximizing outcomes regardless of familial ties ultimately results in everyone being worse off - in that case, their impartial benevolence held as a second-order moral principle would countenance adopting a first-order moral principle involving special obligations to family members. Utilitarians have discussed this plenty in terms of their own philosophy, so I'm not sure why it's an issue here.
Secondly, I think your analysis of the Bertha and Juan ends up in weird places because, as a utilitarian, your singular reliance on the concept of beneficence requires you to see a special obligation as a sort of "weighting" applied to beneficent judgments, rather than a reason in its own right to be considered alongside beneficence. In other words, it's not that "your special obligations to help avert small amounts of harm are greater than your special obligations to avert large amounts of harm." It's that your special obligation has a fixed strength that is at times capable of overriding the strength of your beneficent duty to reduce suffering and at other times is not. It seems obvious to me that Tim should definitely aid Bertha in this situation because, while his friendship may provide him with a legitimate reason to aid Juan, that reason isn't more powerful than his reason to prevent an extra ten trillion lifetimes worth of suffering. I'm not sure what's problematic about that view.
Finally, I'll just say that I think the second premise of the paradox of deontology (and, implicitly, in the same sort of argument you're making here) is ambiguous - it depends what you mean by "preferring a world." Imagine, for example, that I have the opportunity to murder a stranger in order to get one billion dollars. What does it mean to ask "which world I prefer?" If you conceptualize worlds apart from their causal histories, then you're just asking me whether I'd have one billion dollars and a dead stranger or a no money and a living stranger. Obviously, I would rather have a billion dollars. So in that sense, I "prefer" the world where I commit the murder - but then the second premise is basically just saying "If you prefer the consequences of an act, then you prefer the act" which is undoubtedly false for anyone who isn't a strict consequentialist. But if you incorporate the sorts of actions involved in producing the world *into* your conception of that world, then the premise is true but the third party would not necessarily rank those worlds in that order *if the third party had a non-consequentialist ethical framework.* But then again, even someone who believes in special obligations wouldn't necessarily endorse the idea that saving a loved one in a way that *prevents* two others from saving their loved ones is appropriate anyway.
So yeah, I don't think any of this is going to challenge a sufficiently thoughtful deontologist or virtue ethicist because they fundamentally don't share your view that ethical situations are best evaluated "from the standpoint of a third party" who lacks any of their own ethical commitments and only analyzes outcomes - I know everyone has different interests and it's not always worth it to spend time examining views you don't hold, but you should try to really explore more non-consequentialist ethical models in more detail if you want to construct arguments that really challenge them.
Why do I have reason to prefer that you satisfy your special obligation to your children? I'm not pursuing a world where special obligation satisfaction is maximized. If the world is full of people with distinct and often incompatible special obligations, then there is little reason to think that third parties will or should always root for you to satisfy your own.
I think the conclusion is being snuck into the initial premise. Whether you think your reasons should line up with a neutral observer's reasons for you hinges on whether you can have special obligations that a neutral party wouldn't share.
How should i as a relative normy change my beliefs in regard to this? How do you think it affects your actions?
I like that Jesus and God got a shout out in this post. ;) And I like the thoughtfulness here, but here's my argument: Love is the essence of what life is really about. Charity toward strangers is good and important. But love at its best is personal, intimate, and emotional. Charity toward a stranger is beautiful, but it only flows in one direction (from the giver). The way most of us prefer to be loved is when there is a mutual exchange. I value you for who you are, and you value me for who I am. We know each other, we embrace each other, and we delight in each other. And we love each other so much we will give whatever we can for the happiness of the beloved. This kind of love is what we long for. And this is why some charitable endeavors (done from a distance), may relieve suffering, don't provide for the core need of humanity to experience love in the fullest sense. It is the intimate love that brings us fulfillment, so we should not diminish the glue that sticks us together. If everyone sacrificed for their family and friends the world would be better off than if everyone sacrificed for strangers. Why? Because we would all be valued in an intimate way, rather than in a utilitarian way. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
Which would the writer of this blog prefer: Your blog is read by 200 people who were assigned to read your blog and were reading from sheer obligation to "do the right thing." Or 100 people who read your blog because they think you are amazing, intelligent, insightful, compassionate, and are eager to hear your thoughts?
"In addition, this view implies that friendship is worse than Hitler. It’s plausible that if two people are only conscious for a very short time during a year and never interact, their friendship has very little intrinsic value, just as after one is dead, one’s friendship with them is not very valuable. But this means that if each year for 10^40 years a perfect person became conscious for one second, was given the option to benefit their friend a lot or a stranger a greater amount, and then went back to their slumber, they ought to benefit their friend on account of their special obligation. But this means that them creating the friendship would produce lots of disvalue—10^40 years worth of great disvalue—which makes their friendship plausibly worse than Hitler."
I'm confused as to why creating the friendship would produce disvalue. Wouldn't it just produce a very low amount of value? Or are you referring to the comparative disvalue of a world with the friendship + the 10^40 acts of special obligation vs. a world with 10^40 acts of greater benefit to a stranger (with the idea being that the more/less valuable the friendship, the more/less valuable the extra value of benefitting the friend)?