Utilitarianism wins outright part 17

Let the children burn (sometimes)

In his intelligence squared debate, Gilles Fraser had two simultaneous misfortunes. First, he had to argue against effective altruism—a movement that is obviously good. Secondly, he had to argue against the brilliant William Macaskill, one of the most brilliant people I’ve had the good fortune of reading.

Fraser ended up largely agreeing about effective altruism being good in general. His main gripe was with the utilitarian philosophy. He gave a counterexample to utilitarianism which was the following, called CB.

In it, we see a child and a valuable painting in a burning building.  The painting could be sold to save many children from dying of malaria.  Utilitarianism prescribes that we take out the painting (all else equal), sell the painting, and allow the child to burn.  However, this strikes people as counterintuitive.  

In order to see why CB is less counterintuitive upon reflection than it appears to be at first, we can consider the scenario UTPAAC (use the painting as a crowbar).  In this scenario, we can either save the child or the painting.  However, there are hundreds of children in a burning building across the street.  The only way to save them is to take the painting, and use it as a crowbar, to pry open the door to the neighboring burning building.  Surely in this case we should save the painting.  

Then we compare two states of the world.  In the first, we can save hundreds of children in a burning building.  In the second, we can save thousands of children from malaria.  Surely the second one would be as good as the first.  Thus, if saving children from malaria is just as good as saving children from a burning building, and saving children from a burning building is sufficient grounds for leaving one child in a burning building, then we should save the painting, rather than the child. 

One might object that proximity and directness matters.  However, in this case we can consider UTPAACTPTB (use the painting as a crowbar to push the button).  In this scenario, we can either  save the child or the painting from a burning building.  If we save the painting from the burning building, we can use it to pry open the door to a second building, which contains a button.  If we press the button, doors will open up and hundreds of children in overseas burning buildings will be saved.  Surely we should use the painting to pry open the door and save the hundreds of children.  

One might object that selling the item makes it less virtuous.  However, we can modify the case again to be 

Trade: The painting can be traded for a crowbar, which can pry open a door, allowing you to press a button that saves hundreds of children.  In this case, we should sell it for the crowbar.  Thus, whether it’s traded is not a morally relevant feature.  

Additionally, we have several reasons to distrust our intuitions about this case.  

1 It’s very difficult to sympathize with nameless, faceless children, half a world away.  

2 The world we live in is morally very counterintuitive.  We did not evolve to be in situations very often in which we could save lives indirectly, by complex, third party exchanges.  

3 We have a bias for those near us, who we can directly see.  

4 Our judgement may be clouded by our self interest about particular cases.  If we accept that our duty to donate is sufficiently strong, that failing to do so is analogous to leaving children in burning buildings, this undermines our high moral views of ourselves.  

5 We may have a tribalist bias towards people closer to us, rather than people in other countries.