> Objectively wrong acts are ones where a person with perfect knowledge would have been wrong to do them. If an act is objectively wrong, then a perfectly moral person who knew everything wouldn’t do it.
Are the acts described in your specific scenario actually objectively wrong?
A person with perfect knowledge knows that iff Perpetrator 1 does their act on Victim 1, then Victim 1's pain will in fact go down a level (+1 from Perpetrator 1's act and -2 from Perpetrator 2's act). But if Perpetrator 1 does not do their act, and Perpetrator 1 and 2 both behave identically, then Victim 1's pain will stay constant, which is worse than if the act were done.
So it seems like in this case you are enabling two subjectively wrong acts that are objectively fine since they both happen and more than cancel each other out.
Then isn't the answer just dependent on your assessment of the likelihood of them pressing the buttons?
If they both have a 50% chance, then its
1/4 chance of nothing happens
1/2 chance that of (+1 pain to one person * weak deontic multiplier) & -2 pain to another
1/4 chance of -1 pain to both.
So the only question is whether 1/4 * (-1 pain to both) + 1/2 * (-2 pain to 1) is more or less than +1 pain to one * the weak deontic multiplier.
So risk tolerance goes down as the deontic multiplier goes up. That kinda makes sense; the more utilitarian you are, the more willing you are to tolerate objectively wrongful acts that can raise utility in combination with other acts.
The actions are not at all correlated. So by choosing the actions, you're not choosing probabilities over states of affairs. You are *only* choosing whether to harm one person to benefit someone else.
Premise 6 is question begging however, no deontologist would agree to it.
Looking at the reason why a lack of consent would make it wrong
So… if you can’t obtain consent then you can’t do it, this isn’t an issue for them. You seem to imply they wouldn’t be harmed because you can’t get consent, I’m confused by this.
“Biting one bullet is alright, but it cannot be your sole diet.”- this is a great line
“Sometimes, however, if multiple people do bad things for larger benefits, this is in everyone’s interests. Intuitively, then, if you can facilitate such a situation, you ought to. But if those acts are individually wrong, then you shouldn’t facilitate them. Thus, the acts must not be wrong, and deontology must not be right. “
Why would it being in everyone’s interest mean you ought to? If those acts are individually wrong and you don’t accept the consequences as where to assess moral valence, the acts being individually wrong is the end of the story. It’s entirely fair for them to say that the acts are wrong and it’s wrong to facilitate them even if jointly they are net good. So this seems kinds of like it’s assuming at least that most people have consequentialist intuitions (I think this is right).
"no deontologist would agree to it," is false, many deontologists do.
You do get consent to you pressing the button. It's just that you don't get consent to each of the component acts making it up. Each person wants you to press the button, but doesn't want the perpetrator who would harm them to press it.
" this is a great line"
Thanks!
"Why would it being in everyone’s interest mean you ought to? If those acts are individually wrong and you don’t accept the consequences as where to assess moral valence, the acts being individually wrong is the end of the story."
There's only one act that you are considering: presing the button. That act simply makes everyone better off.
But is the button pressing act not harming other people? My understanding was that it was offloading some harm onto others at a discount, or is this is the wrong way to partition things?
Ok yeah I was focusing on the initial button, but regardless, it seems like this can still be addressed by a deontologist.
What may get out of that is adding uncertainty like the suitcase. Because deontology has issues within that like with the Russian roulette case, you’ll end up with a situation where sometimes it’s wrong and sometimes it’s right depending on if it happens to actually enable the layer thing that harms someone.
If you accept premise (4) to be generally true across moral theories, I could see it posing a problem for utilitarianism too, because I have to imagine there are actions that are bad on a consequentialist lens in isolation, but better to do when done together with another action.
Consider the following case: If group A boycotts a restaurant because they don’t sell cage-free eggs, the company isn‘t incentivized to move to cage-free eggs, but conditions for animals get worse because the company has less cash to do other, more minimal welfare reforms. The same goes for group B. However, if group A and B boycott the restaurant together, that’s enough to push the company to adopt a cage-free reform.
Under utilitarianism, group A’s action is bad, as is group B’s action. Suppose group A and B are wholly uncoordinated. Indeed, they’d be seriously bad actions, for preventing a more-moderate welfare reform from occurring. But it seems good to press a button to cause group A and B to act simultaneously in this way.
I assume the way to hold premise (4) while defending utilitarianism here is to argue that the justifications for why the actions are wrong even sequentially in (1) and (2) hold for deontology, but not for consequentialism. I’ll think about it, but I’m not sure that’s true, as the actions are still done in isolation and without knowledge of the other group. I think the easier path for the consequentialist is to reject premise (4).
That said, I see why it might be harder for a deontologist to reject premise (4). Hence, I’d prefer to formulate the argument by modifying premise (4) with a “if deontology is true...” prefix.
> Objectively wrong acts are ones where a person with perfect knowledge would have been wrong to do them. If an act is objectively wrong, then a perfectly moral person who knew everything wouldn’t do it.
Are the acts described in your specific scenario actually objectively wrong?
A person with perfect knowledge knows that iff Perpetrator 1 does their act on Victim 1, then Victim 1's pain will in fact go down a level (+1 from Perpetrator 1's act and -2 from Perpetrator 2's act). But if Perpetrator 1 does not do their act, and Perpetrator 1 and 2 both behave identically, then Victim 1's pain will stay constant, which is worse than if the act were done.
So it seems like in this case you are enabling two subjectively wrong acts that are objectively fine since they both happen and more than cancel each other out.
Their actions are totally independent.
Then isn't the answer just dependent on your assessment of the likelihood of them pressing the buttons?
If they both have a 50% chance, then its
1/4 chance of nothing happens
1/2 chance that of (+1 pain to one person * weak deontic multiplier) & -2 pain to another
1/4 chance of -1 pain to both.
So the only question is whether 1/4 * (-1 pain to both) + 1/2 * (-2 pain to 1) is more or less than +1 pain to one * the weak deontic multiplier.
So risk tolerance goes down as the deontic multiplier goes up. That kinda makes sense; the more utilitarian you are, the more willing you are to tolerate objectively wrongful acts that can raise utility in combination with other acts.
This is definitely an interesting hypothetical.
The actions are not at all correlated. So by choosing the actions, you're not choosing probabilities over states of affairs. You are *only* choosing whether to harm one person to benefit someone else.
It seems like the person pressing the button to enable the actions is choosing probabilities over states of affairs. No?
I agree the people doing the actions are merely making the choice you describe.
Premise 6 is question begging however, no deontologist would agree to it.
Looking at the reason why a lack of consent would make it wrong
So… if you can’t obtain consent then you can’t do it, this isn’t an issue for them. You seem to imply they wouldn’t be harmed because you can’t get consent, I’m confused by this.
“Biting one bullet is alright, but it cannot be your sole diet.”- this is a great line
“Sometimes, however, if multiple people do bad things for larger benefits, this is in everyone’s interests. Intuitively, then, if you can facilitate such a situation, you ought to. But if those acts are individually wrong, then you shouldn’t facilitate them. Thus, the acts must not be wrong, and deontology must not be right. “
Why would it being in everyone’s interest mean you ought to? If those acts are individually wrong and you don’t accept the consequences as where to assess moral valence, the acts being individually wrong is the end of the story. It’s entirely fair for them to say that the acts are wrong and it’s wrong to facilitate them even if jointly they are net good. So this seems kinds of like it’s assuming at least that most people have consequentialist intuitions (I think this is right).
"no deontologist would agree to it," is false, many deontologists do.
You do get consent to you pressing the button. It's just that you don't get consent to each of the component acts making it up. Each person wants you to press the button, but doesn't want the perpetrator who would harm them to press it.
" this is a great line"
Thanks!
"Why would it being in everyone’s interest mean you ought to? If those acts are individually wrong and you don’t accept the consequences as where to assess moral valence, the acts being individually wrong is the end of the story."
There's only one act that you are considering: presing the button. That act simply makes everyone better off.
But is the button pressing act not harming other people? My understanding was that it was offloading some harm onto others at a discount, or is this is the wrong way to partition things?
Your button press harms no one and benefits two people by enabling the other two button presses whic together benefit everyone.
Ok yeah I was focusing on the initial button, but regardless, it seems like this can still be addressed by a deontologist.
What may get out of that is adding uncertainty like the suitcase. Because deontology has issues within that like with the Russian roulette case, you’ll end up with a situation where sometimes it’s wrong and sometimes it’s right depending on if it happens to actually enable the layer thing that harms someone.
If you accept premise (4) to be generally true across moral theories, I could see it posing a problem for utilitarianism too, because I have to imagine there are actions that are bad on a consequentialist lens in isolation, but better to do when done together with another action.
Consider the following case: If group A boycotts a restaurant because they don’t sell cage-free eggs, the company isn‘t incentivized to move to cage-free eggs, but conditions for animals get worse because the company has less cash to do other, more minimal welfare reforms. The same goes for group B. However, if group A and B boycott the restaurant together, that’s enough to push the company to adopt a cage-free reform.
Under utilitarianism, group A’s action is bad, as is group B’s action. Suppose group A and B are wholly uncoordinated. Indeed, they’d be seriously bad actions, for preventing a more-moderate welfare reform from occurring. But it seems good to press a button to cause group A and B to act simultaneously in this way.
I assume the way to hold premise (4) while defending utilitarianism here is to argue that the justifications for why the actions are wrong even sequentially in (1) and (2) hold for deontology, but not for consequentialism. I’ll think about it, but I’m not sure that’s true, as the actions are still done in isolation and without knowledge of the other group. I think the easier path for the consequentialist is to reject premise (4).
That said, I see why it might be harder for a deontologist to reject premise (4). Hence, I’d prefer to formulate the argument by modifying premise (4) with a “if deontology is true...” prefix.
But then B's actions conditional on A's wouldn't be wrong. So it has to be that they're each wrong conditional on the other ones.