I’m looking for arguments for/against the following:
Human life, representing the only currently known vehicle for expressing volition, is logically prior to said volition. Accordingly, the protection of human life is of higher value than protecting volition.
An example of this idea is the scenario of a traveler coming across a demonstrably innocent person tied up in a desert. Since the bound individual will die without assistance, and the traveler now knows this, the traveler’s knowledge obligates him/her to untying the bound individual, even if the traveler doesn’t want to for whatever reason.
That’s an interesting response, and one I hadn’t thought of, but couldn’t one use the same reasoning to say that negative obligations are individualistic also and not binding between individuals?
A defense of them using likewise universalistic terms can probably be countered in the same way, yes. But instead of speaking of negative obligations, you can speak of justifable or unjustifiable actions. An act can only be justified through a process of argumentation, which has presuppositions that arguments therefore cannot contradict. Hans Hoppe attempts to show that all violations of the non-aggression principle are unjustifiable in this way – but this attempt is not uncontroversial. Stephan Kinsella has some links on this (the correct van Dun link is here), which reply to Murphy & Callahan’s critique.
This is a non sequitur, plain and simple. Only because you have volition because you’re alive doesn’t mean that the overlying ethical goal of each person should be the preservation of human life, even if it conflicts with volition. In terms of ethics, we know that you rightfully own yourself, which means that you rightfully own your own labor, which means that you rightfully own everything you “mix” your labor with. This means that all humans have undeniable property rights.
I’d like to parse what you’re saying more closely if you don’t mind, because I want to understand this. As I read your statement, you make the claim that logical priority doesn’t justify ethical valuation priority. You then back up this claim by saying ethical valuation is based on ownership. But doesn’t that raise the question of why ownership, which like volition can also only be expressed through human life, would be superior to that which logically precedes it?
I’d also like to clarify that the argument I’m analyzing doesn’t necessarily imply that preservation of human life should be an overarching goal. It simply claims that when a person is in a position where they are the only source of the preservation of a human life, that they are obliged to do so. I personally don’t like the implications of this, and I think there must be a flaw somewhere.
… I already pointed it out. You’re speaking in universals when obligations fall upon individuals – when individual acts are what may be called ethical or inethical, what may be found in correspondence with obligation or in rebellion against it.
A version of the famous value-paradox: human life depends critically on water for its maintenance, and has no dependency of any kind on diamonds – which are only ostentatious luxury. Accordingly, water must be of much higher value than diamonds. So why do diamonds sell for so much more than water?
Unless you have a ‘KILL EVERYBODY’ button that you can choose not to press, you are never acting to protect or endager ‘human life’. You can’t even say whether you protect it when you protect your own life, or the life of the stranger. What if you protect your own life only to go on to press the aforementioned button? What if the stranger does? Consumers never choose between all diamonds everywhere and all water everywhere, and neither can you conceiveably choose to put your volition aside(!) for the sake of all human life everywhere and everywhen.
No. This would be an obligation of goodness, but not an obligation of justice. Justice means do no harm and therefore only requires inaction. Goodness means do good if you can and requires action. Justice can and must be enforced, but enforcing goodness is self-defeating and thus an impossibility. Saving someone because you are forced to takes away all the nobility and goodness from the act. It kills virtue. There is no goodness involved in an action that did not follow from your own free will. It would be akin to a church forcefully extracting money from you in order to help their charities and make you a charitable person. It would be neither just nor good. Nor would it make you virtuous.
Your example is one where so much can be done for another for so little, so there is an enormously strong obligation of virtue to help out, so we all naturally see that the man should be saved. But it is stil a obligation of virtue not of law. The reason you should help out in this case is the goodness of your heart not the weight of the law. And a law that would force you to help out would be unjust.
In the way you’ve stated the argument, yes, I see a non sequitur. However, I’m stating the argument as only applying when someone’s actions are the sole way that another would continue living. To not assist another in such a situation would be to choose to disrespect human life, which is the source of choice in the first place. Perhaps I’m implying a binding nature to the argument when really it’s more of an issue of respect. I think that’s probably the main error. That makes me wonder if respect can ever be owed, or if it’s always just an arbitrary choice.
Eureka! This totally clears up a whole host of issues for me, because I haven’t been making the virtue/justice distinction. However, now I wonder, if justice is founded upon doing no harm, what could virtue said to be founded upon?
The New Testament says it is founded on goodness which is something that includes love, charity, forgiveness and so on. You do not need to be a Christian for that to strike you as something close to truth.
What you mean is that you have a methodologically universalist defense of negative obligations.
“You’ve revealed this argument as fallacious, but by doing so also reveal this other important argument as fallacious, and we can’t have that, therefore I’ll go back to wondering what the problem might be with my original argument.”
I’m a very committed student of the NT, but since 90% of people aren’t, I’m trying to find a more reason-based benchmark of virtue. If Christianity accords with reality, I think it must be possible to elucidate a foundation of virtue using secular argumentation (I’m not yet a full presuppositionalist).
I meant no offense, I’m just thinking out loud. I don’t appreciate the caustic and presumptive tone in response to my good faith attempts at understanding.
I do appreciate the “sideways” elucidation of the importance of an individualistic perspective regarding negative obligations, though.
First point. You have mentioned the term negative obligation three or four times. Could you explain how this term is to be understood?
It seems to me a mix of a negative right plus a positive right, i.e. an obligation on everyone else, to not have the negative right aggressed against. Please correct me if I have misunderstood you.
As others have pointed out the error in your statement is to consider human life and volition as absolute categories. Also, if human life is, as you have essentially claimed, prior to everything else in regards to the well-being of humans, it seems your statement could be rephrased as: Human life is of highest value to humans, thus protection of human life is protection from human volition. Why? Because the volition of every individual creates inequality (category). How? At any point in time, if an individual acts to attain a given material good, other than the good which is most effective in supporting human life (category), the individual is directing *the factors of production (*category) away from the production of the most effective good. Additionally, an act can only be considered an act if it is voluntary; if not, it is a reflex or an enforced action. And so there we have it:
Human life must be protected from actions that can harm human life, hence
Every act must be enforced to ensure this highest of all values, thus
No act can be voluntary except if it happens to be in perfect alignment with (1.) and (2.)
Thus your proposal is truly Orwellian in nature. Your are quite simply eccoing O’Brian’s words. To be truly free you just have to become one with the system. If you share the goals of Big Brother you will be free to do whatever you like.
Sorry to say, but this doesn’t make any sense. A “demonstrably innocent person tied up” and “obligates him/her to untying the bound individual, even if the traveler doesn’t want to for whatever reason.”
If the person is demonstrably innocent how can there be any doubt about him wanting to be untied? Also who are you to decide to untie him if he doesn’t want to be untied? In any case it doesn’t seem at all likely that a traveler would not untie such a person, after making sure that the person is indeed innocent. If however, for the sake of argument, we assume such a traveler to exist, so what? Are there no other travelers? If not, then what? Well it seems likely that was it to be known about a particular traveler that he leaves innocent people to die in deserts few would associate themselves with him. It seems as if you think this is not enough, i.e. that ostracism is not a “punishment.” But you forget one crucial point: The traveler wasn’t the one who tied the person to begin with. Is the true criminal, who is not even mentioned in your example, just supposed to go on killing innocents unpunished? This is exactly the kind of result we get when we dilute rights and speak in terms of obligations. The result is punishment of scapegoats, nonrestituted victims and free-roaming aggressors.
You correctly surmised how I define negative obligation. The phrase can basically be restated that it is imperative to do no harm.
I think your “Orwellian” analysis is spot on. It’s helpful to see the connection between absolute categories and individual enslavement.
Regarding your analysis of the traveler/bound individual analogy, I think if I’m reading you correctly you may have misunderstood. “Even if the traveler doesn’t want to” was referring to the traveler not wanting to untie the bound individual, not the bound individual not wanting to be untied. The bound individual’s desire was assumed to be a desire to be untied.
Further, ostracism could only come into play if people found out about the occurrence, and I assumed, probably too implicitly, that this was a very isolated area and no one would ever be the wiser. Also, though the tier definitely bears guilt regarding tying the tie-ee, the traveler’s inaction would effectively abet the criminal by ensuring his criminal desires were fulfilled, i.e., the slow death of the tie-ee.