Ethics question, continued

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1

I’m so sorry, but something has happened to the thread in which I just asked this:

Hey okay, so I’m finding the materials available here a little overwhelming…

I have a question that will help me understand the deontological approach to ethics. In this viewpoint, how would an agent make a decision where 1) inaction would cause harm, and 2) all available actions would cause harm? Harm being taken to mean restricting or removing individual liberties. One could come up with all kinds of practical examples of this, it happens all the time.

I can see where a consequentialist approach would be to mitigate harm by sort of spreading it around, or maybe picking a scapegoat, right? This would justify taking the initiative and voluntarily causing some sort of harm. But if I understand this correctly it seems to put the sovereignty of one entity above another…which sounds utterly against the whole concept of libertarianism.

Can someone point me in the direction of an author, book, or other resource that deals with this? I’ve skipped through my copy of the Ethics of Liberty without finding a section that seems to answer my question, and I’m not at all practiced in reading philosophy. I have a feeling this is a dumb question but as I say, I’m just trying to define my terms. Help!

I want to respond to Autolykos and continue to ask the question, but I can’t access the original thread without going to some sort of Canadian drug store.

Autolykos, I suspect you are questioning the validity of my original question. You’ve answered specifics with specifics. Do you believe that there are NEVER situations in which harm is inevitable? How do you come to this conclusion? I’m not saying my example was the greatest. It’s why I didn’t give one to start with. I want to ask a general question.

Also I believe you are confusing moral accountability with what I’m actually asking. I have no trouble assigning blame in this (or most) cases based on what I understand of a deontological approach. But in the situation of inevitable harm, I have trouble understanding how the deontological approach gives the agent a way to actually make a choice. Does it suggest that all choices are equal if they all require harm?

In actuality you NEVER have all the information. But if you believe in free will, you also believe that a rational decision can be made even when your options are limited and your information incomplete.

Again, I may be asking a stupid question. But please explain to me why it is stupid.

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sorry for interrupting,

There certainly are situations where harm is inevitable (won’t try to dvelve into specific examples for now), and in best cases, it’s between lesser harm to a greater. But that’s just natural world. If you cause someone harm, even if you didn’t intended that way, but had no choice, well then, bad for you, and you must be ready to face the consequences. Sure, the victim has all the rights to forgive you etc, but you can never escape personal responsobility.

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  1. We should not talk about arbitrary scenarios because we lack the tools to answer you with specifics. Give examples and we can help

  2. Actively causing harm is different from inactively causing harm (which I believe is preferable). You should never willingly do harm.

  3. I am pretty sure that even if some gigantic catastrophe were to occur, you can have voluntary cooperation.

4

There’s no interruption MaikU, it was an open question not a conversation…as to your thoughts: it sounds like you’re suggesting that deontological libertarianism accepts a hierarchy of harm by degrees but maybe in a different way than consequentialist libertarianism, and maybe that answers my question. Whereas Consequentialists judge the moral value of their actions by the RESULTS, and excuse rights-violations on that basis, Deontologists would ignore the effects and solely make judgements based on the degree of the original action?

So if I, as a consequentialist, steal your silver spoons and sell them to buy food to keep myself from starving, I feel more “okay” about it than I do under deontology? Less likely to seek a completely nonviolent solution, because the moral implications are less emphasized?

If I understand this correctly, how is consequentialist libertarianism anything other than an excuse to stop beating yourself up over the tough decisions, or to get out of the negative repercussions? Or seen another way I guess, how is deontological libertarianism anything other than an impossible goal to aim for without ever reaching? I mean every action can be judged as harmful to someone in some way.

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Oh hey, I think I’m getting this. So the difference might be found in what they expected the injured party to rightfully do about the action? Like a consequentialist would expect you to take the context into account, whereas the deontologist would figure it was the victim’s right to react as though the context didn’t matter?

6

Very bizarre. Did the original thread get hacked or what? Can a mod or admin look into this?

That’s right. There are never situations in which harm is inevitable. Nothing is inevitable.

The deontological approach presumes that harm is wrong. If one does not want to do wrong, then one won’t cause harm. Inaction does not cause harm, so it seems the decision is clear: if you believe that you would cause harm by acting (a certain way) in a given situation, and you don’t want to cause any harm, then you won’t act (that way) in that situation.

The Misesian view of rationality, which I follow, does not require one to have “all the information” in order to act rationally. Indeed, the very phrase “act rationally” in the Misesian view of rationality is necessarily redundant, because “act” itself implies “rational”. All that the Misesian view of rationality involves is making (and presumably carrying out) decisions based on what one knows and/or what one believes to be true. Even a paranoid schizophrenic is rational in this sense.

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It’s off topic but I’d like to discuss that last comment. How do you distinguish between an agent operating by instinct and one operating by reason? If you don’t, then animals could be defined as having free will as well. And moral culpablity is in question too; would you, a deontologist, hold the paranoid schizophrenic to the same consequences as a normally functioning person?

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Yeah, I wanted to imply exactly that, in a case where harm is inevitable, the best way to do is to take consequentialist side. But this thing is just part of my view of morality. I am not a consequentialist per se, but I am not a hard deontologist either, even though I’d prefer objective morality (which I advocate, in fact). The point is, you can never escape consequentialist approach even if you believe in deontological ethics, because there are always situations with trade offs. One choice can make bigger harm than the other. And especially in extreme cases (I think we are talking about them now anyway) when there is no time to sit and rationaly think how to solve the problem, you gotta act according to your instincts. Many folks would disagree with me here however.

I’d like to be as clear as possible, I favor deontological ethics (principled set of rules) but also think, that it’s bad to ignore the consequences of your actions. Well, not bad, just that humans can not escape that, that how we are made up (aka evolved). It’s 5:53 AM here, so I should go to bed before I tell something stupid. Later will probably check and re-read what I wrote.

And yeah, absolutism in deontological libertarianism is impossible goal, I agree with you here. Sure, if I am correctly imagining what this term means to you. But I prefer reaching the impossible and getting the best results I can rather than stay with only pure consequentialism, which, by the way, to my mind, has also a “calculation problem” of a kind.

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Actually I’m not sure I think you can combine compatibilism and deontology all that well. Think about it: the compatibilist view must imply that free will exists by degrees, that when your choices are limited your free will is limited and therefore your moral culpability is limited.

But as I said before, I don’t think you can believe in free will and yet believe that you lose it when your options are all bad; as long as you have more than one option (and lets face it, you always do) you have the ability to originate your action; in that case you DO have free will and hence moral culpability. It doesn’t stop others from also being morally culpable in the scenario, if there is another aggressor acting too.

Plus my original question didn’t specify “when you have NO options but one”. That’s sort of a different question.

So I guess I fall onto the side of deontology, that harm is morally wrong even when you have your choice of bad options. You choose the lesser harm if possible, and expect to be treated as the aggressor that you are and, if the other guy is nice, maybe they won’t; but it’s their option, and I can’t ethically defend myself against THEIR self-defense if it’s appropriate for the action I took.

So I guess I should expect to have to pay for those spoons.

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Hey Autolykos, I still don’t see where we’ve arrived at “inaction does not cause harm”. There are certainly cases where my choice not to do something can be harmful to others. In fact inaction, if free will exists, can be treated as just a form of original action. I chose not to pay for those spoons, etc…this is a separate “action” from the taking of the spoons. It just happens to be, uh, a sort of inactive action.

Furthermore I still want to explore the idea that you can never ONLY have bad choices. If I can play this out on a chessboard it’s possible in our universe. It’s called checkmate. It’s a situation where the possibilities are strictly controlled. I still have many options, it’s just that they’re all equally bad.

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I distinguish between conscious and unconscious behavior. Rational behavior, in the Misesian sense, is simply conscious behavior. I think all animals do have free will, in the sense that we can’t predict (i.e. with absolute precision and with certainty) what an animal will do at any point in the future. Many animals are conscious, however - maybe even insects and the like have some form of consciousness.

Yes. If the paranoid schizophrenic murdered someone due to his delusions (as happened in Canada not too long ago), I would hold him liable for murder.

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If I choose not to (try to) rescue a drowning person, have I then killed him? My answer is no, because I didn’t put him in the situation where he started to drown. Had I not been there at all, he presumably still would’ve drowned.

You have more options than possible moves in the chess game.

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How do you conclude that conscious behavior is rational behavior? Also, how do you conclude that instinctive behavior is conscious behavior and therefore (by your reasoning) rational behavior?

I would not classify all animals or even most animals as conscious. As far as I can make out, the ability to think objectively is the best way to define rationality and only a couple of animals have shown this kind of possibility. Elephants, perhaps, and some primates. The test of self-awareness using the Mirror Test is what I’m thinking of: Wikipedia reminds me that bottle nosed dolphins and maybe some birds are able to pass this test.

In the case of a mentally ill human acting on the basis of their delusion, you’d want to verify that they can make objective decisions. I know someone, for instance, whose medications cause him to see illusions a lot; bugs on the wall, people looking dead and rotten, and so forth. It’s terrible for him of course, and can cause him to make assumptions that aren’t true like “my kitchen is full of bugs so I can’t eat in there today”. But he has the ability to make objective analyses, therefore he can either go to a restaurant or reason with himself that he’s seeing an illusion and he should just go in and make a sandwich. He’s morally culpable. A person who can’t make that call, though, has gone past the point of having free will in my opinion.

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I don’t. It’s a premise, not a conclusion.

I thought I said that instinctive behavior is unconscious behavior. Sorry if that was unclear. But this is just another premise.

Okay, so you define “rational” differently from how I define it. That’s fine, but it means we won’t understand each other when that word is used in our discourse.

Again, I simply define “rational” differently. It also sounds like the same is true for “free will”. All definitions are premises, not conclusions.

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I pretty much entirely disagree with your analysis of the drowning man thing. Once you know about the situation you have a choice, and your choosing is an original action that requires you to accept moral culpability. You didn’t create the situation; in fact you rarely create the situations you’re reacting to in daily life; you only create your own reactions to them. Especially in the case you mentioned there IS no moral culpability until you come along and observe the person drowning, it was an accident based on the laws of nature and nobody’s fault until you ignored the event.

Now in chess, all options are possible moves. If it’s the king in checkmate the game ends solely because the game depends on the king; but the same situation occurs with other pieces too. If that happens with my knight or bishop I still have to make a choice and it’s still going to be a bad one but the options are still possible moves.

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I follow what you’re saying about our definitions being different, but I have outlined the rationales for my premises. I’d like it if you could do the same, because they’re just not making sense to me.

I should also point out that the Mirror Test I mentioned might demonstrate consciousness but I’m not actually convinced that it demonstrates the ability to make objective choices, so I’m still not sure that you could consider an elephant to have free will based on the results of that test.

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Apparently our definitions of “morality” also differ. I’d say that I have no a priori or prima facie moral culpability for the drowning person, because I didn’t put him in that situation. Not (attempting to) help him is in no way the same as putting him in that situation in the first place. If it was an accident, then it’s never anyone’s fault, even after I ignore the event.

Of course, you’re not required to agree with me.

My point was that life is bigger than a chess game. Perhaps a good choice for you, when facing checkmate in a chess match, is to punch your opponent in the face.

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Ok, we don’t agree. Your last statement was funny, but not a resolution to that particular problem. I don’t think your premises are capable of giving you a way to answer my original question, so personally I don’t think they are valid. But to each is own, and from now on I’ll go armed to the chess board.

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Where have you outlined the rationales for your premises? Sorry if that sounds obtuse.

Also, if your premises have rationales, are they really premises?

I, for one, am not concerned with the results of that test.

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My premises were:

  1. that free will exists; I didn’t rationalize this because my question was about how you’d react GIVEN this premise and a deontological libertarian approach. I don’t think I’ll meet many on this board who disagree with it, though.

  2. that it is possible to be in a situation where all choices involve initiating harm: I used chess to demonstrate that this is possible.

  3. that the existence of free will depends on the ability to make rational choices: You’re right, I didn’t express the rationale, but here goes. Irrational actions like instinct or the actions of an agent that cannot percieve value differences are not “free” because it is impossible that the agent do otherwise than as they do. The old Frank Herbert definition of “being human” works if we assume the bene gesserit are testing for free will; the ability to make a choice that supersedes instinctive choices due to an objective analysis of value, tests for free will.

  4. that regardless of original accountability, once an agent must make a choice about any incident they assume moral culpability for their action. In this case I referred to the laws of nature and the actions of other agents: as I mentioned, we never operate in a vacuum of solely our own choices. We operate in a world in which lots of agents, conscious and unconscious, set up situations for us. Each choice is separately originated and can be judged on that basis; to think otherwise would invalidate free will. If premise #1 was a requirement of the question, then this premise also looks like a requirement to me.

Certainly you could argue against all my premises by arguing against the existence of free will. But I’ve illustrated reasons for them. There are probably other arguments against them too, but you haven’t provided any that seem to hold up to analysis.

You seem to believe that you don’t need a reason to accept a premise, or that a premise is valid regardless of how well it explains reality or holds up to logic. This opinion strikes me as lazy and it means that your answers to my original question have no real value.