Contra Huemer on utilitarianism part 3

A promise to keep

Content warning

Please do not read if you are planning on giving me money on your death bed that you hope I’ll deliver faithfully to your child, for reasons that will become apparent.

1 A not totally terrible action

The old man spoke to his contemporary, slowly dying. “My friend, you know I have never made a will.” His contemporary nodded. “I want you to tell everyone,” the man coughed, “I want you to tell everyone that when I am dead my money should be taken and delivered to the the top of mount Everest by Jim, who has a reasonable chance of death. He did, however, swear that he would do it.” His contemporary squirmed.

“Erm, why,” he asked, evidently deeply confused as the strange request.

“Well, that’s just reducible to psychological facts about me. I have a strange sort of desire. Also, my sons said they thought it would be really funny, though didn’t expect me to do it.”

His contemporary spoke more sullenly “my friend, surely you don’t mean that. Come, you must be addled, so near death.”

“No, no,” said the man. “I’m perfectly mentally fit. This extended short story wouldn’t really work if I were impaired now would it. Here, I’ll demonstrate. Probability of B given A equals the prior probability of B times the probability of A given B, over the probability of B. Oh also by the way, I’ve recently proven the Goldbach conjecture.” The man presented his proof of Goldbach’s conjecture in excruciating detail and it was correct.

“Okay, so you’re not addled,” said his contemporary. “Does anyone else know about this particular desire of yours.”

“No,” said the man. My children at one point just mentioned that they thought it would be funny. My children are already millionaires so they wouldn’t benefit from the money, the only way they’d benefit from it is if I put it at the top of mount Everest.”

“Well, even if they replied that it was funny, surely that doesn’t mean that they would actually want that to be the particular thing you’d do with your money, right.”

“No,” said the man. “I’ve actually derived from first principles that they’ll find it really funny. And before you doubt me, remember that I proved Goldbach’s conjecture very recently. In fact, I derived from first principles that they’d find it so funny that they’d chuckle about it for fifteen minutes every day.”

“But you said Jim will probably die.”

“Oh yes, and Jim provides for his family of five people, so they’ll probably die as well. However, Jim made a deal that he would bring it to the top of Mount Everest when I died, in exchange for one hundred thousand dollars. Jim was actually hypnotized to forget about it unless someone else brings it up, so Jim isn’t currently aware of my strange desire.”

The man coughed. “My friend, I will die within 30 seconds. Promise to me you’ll tell Jim to take my money up to Mount Everest.”

“I will.” Replied his contemporary.

The man died. His contemporary stepped out of the room. “Any last wishes or indication of what should be done with his money,” one person asked.

“He said it should be given to his sons,” the contemporary replied.

2 Replying to Huemer

You dear reader probably have the inclination that not following on his promise to save multiple people is, in the aforementioned case, justified. However, in this case, we’ve stipulated that you’re lying to a person on his death bed, in a way that would harm his son but likely save lives. Huemer thinks that a similar case provides a decisive counter-example to utilitarianism, writing “c. Deathbed promise

On his death-bed, your best friend (who didn’t make a will) got you to promise that you would make sure his fortune went to his son. You can do this by telling government officials that this was his dying wish. Should you lie and say that his dying wish was for his fortune to go to charity, since this will do more good?”

Yes! This is structurally analogous to the case I gave above. Why is it analogous? Well, a persons fortune can save many lives. The cost to save a life is about 4500 dollars. Presumably the mans fortune is more than 4500 dollars. Suppose that the mans fortune is a fairly modest 45,000 dollars. In this case, lying about the deathbed promise saves twice as many lives as sparing Jim from dying on the slopes of Everest. In both cases you are lying to a dying man to save the lives of many people, but in a way that fails to benefit his sons. This case is analogous to lying about lying to a murderer to prevent your room-mate from being murdered.

Utilitarianism gives us good reason to follow common moral heuristics like honesty. Being the type of person who adheres to promises nearly all of the time is conducive to utility. Thus, utilitarians can account for the value of the promise. If every-time a utilitarian made a promise they violated in cases where it maximized utility to do so, that general practice would not be conducive to utility.

Part 3 Another dialogue

The old man sat on his death bed and coughed. “My friend,” he said to his contemporary. “My wealthy sons do not need money. In contrast, ten daughters all have terminal illnesses that can be cured for 30,000 dollars total. However, I don’t like my daughters very much, so please give the money to my sons.”

“Why don’t you like your daughters,” asked the contemporary.

“A few reasons,” replied the man. “First, they’re very far away. I care less about people the farther away they are. Second, I have a lot of daughters, so each one matters less. Third, there are lots of other people who could in theory help my daughters, but are not doing so, so why should I. Fourth, they’re adopted, so they don’t have my super cool genes.” “And before you ask,” he added “here’s a decisive proof of Goldbach’s conjecture.”

“Promise me you’ll do this,” the man demanded.

“I promise,” replied his contemporary.

With adept timing, the man died. His contemporary emerged. “He wanted the money to be given to his daughters,” he said.

Part 4 This is actually a really good analogy if I say so myself and I do say so myself therefore, it’s a really good analogy (by modus ponens)

In the above case, the contemporary broke a promise to save the lives of ten people. However, the action seems clearly justified. In both cases, the fact that they’re far away, there are many people who can be helped, others could help in theory, and that they are not a family member is not morally relevant.

Why are our intuitions so far off? Well for one, even after hearing that we can save a child’s life for less than the cost of a cheap car, it’s very difficult to internalize that. Thus, when we think of donating, it’s hard to emotionally resonate with the full value of the action.

Part 5 Look, I know you’re probably getting tired of the analogies but I think they’re fun and some of you do too and also they illustrate why Huemer’s objection is wrong. So here’s another analogy, just bear with me on this one, much love, Bentham’s Bulldog.

The man approached his contemporary. “First things first, I’m not addled, here’s a proof of Goldbach’s conjecture yadda yadda,” he said.

“Second, here is all of my money. Please put it very deep in your pockets such that it would take about two minutes to get it out, given your enormous mazelike pockets. Deliver it to my sons and their family and don’t stop for anything, not even drowning children. Promise me this.”

“I promise,” said his contemporary, who was hoping for more dialogue like he’d had in the previous scenarios (he was an actor from Los Angeles). The man died, right after he’d given his 30,000 dollars to his contemporary.

His contemporary started to drive to give the money to the man’s sons families (not to be confused with the Manson family). On his way (shocker, I know) he saw 37 drowning children in a shallow pond. There was a button that was fairly deep under the water, a button which he could press to flip up the shallow pond, saving all 37 children. However, he would have to wade into the water, ruining the money and breaking his promise. “Hmm, this Bentham’s Bulldog guy makes a pretty compelling case for violating promises sometimes,” he said, before jumping into the water and saving the thirty seven children.

Part 6 Some more analysis of why the previous case is pretty analogous and also the above guy was not totally awful

The above scenario makes it clear that he should ruin the money and violate his promise to save many lives. It’s not clear what the morally relevant difference is between this and Huemer’s scenario.

Maybe the disanalogy is that the action is more direct. However, even if his jumping in the water was the only way to press a button that would save people on the other side of the world, it still seems like he should jump in. Maybe the disanalogy is that the scenario was unexpected. Well, people who make that disanalogy should read more carefully, because I specifically stipulated that the promise included not stopping for drowning children. These imaginary straw-men need to stop straw-manning my position.

Maybe the disanalogy is that other people have the ability to save the lives of the people who are dying of malaria. However, that doesn’t seem to matter. Suppose that there are other people who are standing by and doing nothing. Surely, he should still jump in.

Maybe the disanalogy is that there are endless people who could be saved, but it’s impossible to save them all. However, even if there were lots of extra drowning people, it doesn’t seem like that would weaken the obligation to save the 37 children.

Perhaps we think that the relevant difference is that only a very callous person would ask another to promise to ignore drowning children. However, even if in Huemer’s case the person is callous, it doesn’t seem to undermine the intuition. Additionally, the argument above was intended to show that failing to donate the money to givewell is a seriously wrong action, akin to ignoring drowning children. Finally, even if we suppose that the people on their death beds are saintly and have dilligently devoted their entire life to helping others, the intuition still applies.

Huemer might reply that in other cases where no one’s life is on the line—for example if the amount donated is only twenty dollars—the analogy disappears. However, in this case, a utilitarian wouldn’t endorse violating the promise. Being an honest person makes things go best. Honestly should only be violated when the stakes are large. If there were only twenty dollars worth of stakes, it wouldn’t be worth lying.

Sidenote: If you’re considering giving me any money that you hope me to faithfully deliver to your child when you’re on your death-bed, ignore everything I wrote, I deeeeeeeeefinitely would never violate the death bed promise :).

Sidenote 2: The reason I responded to Huemer’s objections out of order was because I got mixed up and was so invested in responding to this one that, by the time I realized I was out of order, I decided to finish this post.

Sidenote 3: The views expressed here are my own and do not reflect utilitarians broadly. I’m sure all of them would never in a million years break a promise made on a death bed to donate money.