No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
It Ain't My World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2009
Abstract
It seems we have some obligation to aid some others, but it's unclear why, to whom, and to what extent. Many consequentialists claim that we are obligated to help everyone to the marginal utility point but they do so without examining why we are obligated to aid others at all. I argue that we must investigate the basis of our duty to aid others in order to determine the nature and extent of our obligation. Although some consequentialists, notably, Kagan, Singer and Unger, present arguments intended to justify some of consequentialism's most counter-intuitive demands, they take the less counter-intuitive demands for granted and justify the steeper demands on the basis of their relevant similarity to the more palatable ones. The result of this strategy is that many of consequentialism's steeper demands free-ride on a superficial similarity with less taxing demands. This allows consequentialism to broaden our obligations beyond the reach of justification. I examine three possible explanations of our duty to aid others, namely, intuition, fairness and self-interest, and argue that none of them justify consequentialism's runaway demands.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009
References
1 See Singer, P., The Expanding Circle (New York, 1981)Google Scholar; Trivers, Robert, ‘The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism’, The Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1971), pp. 35–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wilson, E., Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, MA, 1975)Google Scholar, among others.
2 See Kagan, S., The Limits of Morality (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Singer, Peter, ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), pp. 229–43Google Scholar; and Unger, P., Living High and Letting Die (Oxford, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, among others.
3 The Bystander Challenge differs from the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, which is centrally concerned with constraints against harm vs. duties to aid. See Quinn, Warren, ‘Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing’, The Philosophical Review 98 (1989), pp. 287–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kagan, Limits of Morality, ch. 3.
4 See Ripstein, A., Equality, Responsibility, and the Law (Cambridge, 1999)Google Scholar, for a theory regarding the scope and rationale of the fault system.
5 For a similar argument in favour of some distinction between doing and allowing, see Scheffler, Samuel, ‘Doing and Allowing’, Ethics 114 (2004), pp. 215–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Kagan, Shelly, ‘Causation and Responsibility’, American Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1998), p. 293Google Scholar. Cullity also claims that our obligation to aid others is based on the simple fact that they need aid, The Moral Demands of Affluence (Oxford, 2004), p. 191.
7 Railton, Peter, ‘Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (1984), pp. 166–7Google Scholar.
8 See Dunbar, R. I. M., ‘Neocortex Size as a Constraint on Group Size in Primates’, Journal of Human Evolution 20 (1992), pp. 469–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Washburn, S. L. and Moore, R., Ape Into Man (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.
9 Railton, ‘Alienation’, pp. 134–71.
10 Kagan, Limits.
11 Singer, ‘Famine’, pp. 229–43.
12 Unger, Living High. Unger need not be a consequentialist to make his arguments. However, for the purposes of this article, he is treated as such because his arguments and conclusions regarding extensive obligation are sufficiently similar to those of prominent contemporary consequentialists.
13 Kagan, Limits, preface; Singer, ‘Famine’, pp. 230–31; Unger, Living High, pp. 134 and 151.
14 Kagan, Limits, p. 249; Singer, ‘Famine’, pp. 229–30; Unger, Living High, ch. 2. Cullity is partially persuaded by this argument as well (Cullity, Moral Demands, chs 1 and 2).
15 The ‘equal consideration of equal interests’ standard, on which Singer seems to rely, begs the question against the bystander challenge, for unless I've accepted an impersonal perspective, I may resist giving equal consideration to equal interests. Instead, I'll give greater consideration to the interests of those closest to me. See Singer, ‘Famine’, pp. 229–43, and Singer, Peter, ‘Not for Humans Only: The Place of Nonhumans in Environmental Issues’, Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, ed. Goodpaster, K. E. and Sayre, K. M. (Notre Dame, 1979)Google Scholar.
16 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863), ch. II.
17 Slote, Michael, ‘Satisficing Consequentialism’, Proceedings and Addresses of the Aristotelian Society 58 (1984), p. 142Google Scholar.
18 Slote, ‘Saticficing’, pp. 139–64.
19 Murphy, Liam, ‘The Demands of Beneficence’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993), pp. 267–92Google Scholar.
20 Railton, ‘Alienation’, pp. 157–64.
21 Railton, ‘Alienation’, p. 161.
22 See Appendix A.
23 Unger, Living High, p. 151.
24 Unger, Living High, p. 134.
25 Unger, stated explicitly, in conversation, New York University, spring 1997.
26 Verbatim conversation between Unger and myself, at New York University, spring 1997.
27 Kagan, Limits, p. 188.
28 Kagan, Limits, p. xi.
29 Kagan, Limits, pp. 1–2.
30 Kagan, Limits, pp. 69–71.
31 Herman Melville, ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’ (1853).
32 Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. III, sect. 10.
33 Kagan, Limits, p. 2; Unger, Living High, pp. 10–13.
34 Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. I, sect. 18.
35 Kagan argues against what he takes to be an unjustified bias in favour of oneself, Limits, chs 7 and 9.
36 Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. I, sects. 12–14.
37 Kagan, Limits, pp. 39–45.
38 See Brock, Dan, ‘Defending Moral Options’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (1991), pp. 909–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Quinn, ‘Doing and Allowing’, pp. 309–12.
39 Williams, Bernard, ‘A Critique of Utilitarianism’, Utilitarianism For and Against, ed. Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, B. (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 77–150Google Scholar. See Appendix B.
40 I thank Paul Hurley for raising this objection.
41 See Railton, ‘Alienation’, pp. 134–71.
42 See Railton, ‘Alienation’, p. 162.
43 Kagan, Limits, pp. 41–4. (‘It is true, of course, that for any given individual his having an option makes it more likely that his interests will be promoted. But it is equally true that for that same individual, the fact that others will have options makes it less likely that his concern will be met. On balance, it will not be a reasonable trade’, Kagan, Limits, p. 44.)
44 For arguments against the desirability of moral sainthood, see Wolf, Susan, ‘Moral Saints’, The Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982), pp. 419–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Requiring devotion to the overall good will probably improve the state of those who are worst off, in accordance with Rawls's difference principle. See Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 70–5Google Scholar. But, the difference principle isn't uncontroversial. See Dworkin, Ronald, ‘The Original Position’, University of Chicago Law Review 40 (1973), pp. 500–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hare, R. M., ‘Rawls' Theory of Justice’, Reading Rawls, ed. Daniels, N. (Stanford, 1989), pp. 81–107Google Scholar; Nagel, Thomas, ‘Rawls on Justice’, Philosophical Review 82 (1973), pp. 220–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And, it's not clear that the contractarian principle of justice in social institutions would be chosen as a principle governing individual social interaction.
45 This discussion proceeds without anyone getting on any trolleys. Much as I favour public transportation, I've opted to resist discussion of trolley cases because, by now, I think that sort of discussion obscures more than it clarifies. Of course, principles ought to stand up to the cases they encounter but it's unclear to me that taking our trolleys farther and farther off course does much to illuminate our thinking. Thus, I steer clear of trolleys in favour of more pedestrian examples.
46 Kagan, Limits, pp. 294–6; Singer, ‘Famine’, p. 230; and Unger, Living High, pp. 33–6.
47 I thank Elizabeth Anderson for pointing this out.
48 I am profoundly indebted to Paul Hurley and Dion Scott-Kakures for insightful comments and discussions on numerous drafts of this article. For very helpful comments and discussions, I am very grateful to Jonathan Adler, Elizabeth Anderson, Ann Davis, Jeanine Diller, Zev Gruman, Alex Rajczi, Charles Young, and the members of the Claremont Philosophers Work-in-Progress group.
49 See Anderson, E., Value in Ethics and Economics (Harvard, 1993)Google Scholar.
50 See Railton, Peter, ‘Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (1984), p. 162Google Scholar.
51 www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/07/08/conjoined twins.
52 See Anderson, Value, pp. 59–60, and Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Harvard, 1971), pp. 140 and 181Google Scholar.
53 See Weinberg, Rivka, ‘Procreative Justice: A Contractualist Account’, Public Affairs Quarterly 16 (2002), pp. 415–16Google ScholarPubMed.