As written the Martian case actually has a wrinkle that may actually sneak in some extra game-theoretic moral intuitions: the sixth Martian is avoiding the lever, choosing to allow five of its fellows to die that it might live. So it’s morally culpable (if to an understandable degree!) in a way that “punishing” it feels less bad, perhaps especially to a certain kind of traditional deontologist, but also (as in the transplant case) game-theoretic considerations that may be considered by utilitarians. In the other direction there may be hesitancy in interfering with a (literally) alien cultural practice whose purposes you don’t understand.
Of course if you specify the sixth Martian has not awoken either the punishment intuition presumably disappears, and if you specify the ritual sacrifice came about for some bad reason (a cruel Martian emperor decreed it for its amusement, or whatever), then these might disappear, so this is all a quibble that doesn’t detract from your main point.
For most of my life I've been a (partially conflicted) believer in natural rights, but lately I've been pushed more and more toward utilitarianism and am now teetering on the brink -- and this post of yours contributed greatly to bringing me to this point.
However, there are a couple topics about which I am having trouble embracing the utilitarian viewpoint, which I would love to see you write a post about:
1. Just Deserts: (This example is from Huemer) You have a tasty cookie that will produce harmless pleasure with no other effects. You can give it to either serial killer Ted Bundy, or the saintly Mother Teresa. Bundy enjoys cookies slightly more than Teresa. Should you therefore give it to Bundy?
I suppose utilitarians might say that you could give the cookie to Teresa to avoid incentivizing serial killing, or because other people might see you give the cookie to Bundy and derive dissatisfaction from their sense of justice being violated (even if their conception of justice is incorrect), but these responses would dodge the point -- most people have the intuition that giving the cookie to Ted Bundy is fundamentally wrong beyond any downstream consequences simply because Ted Bundy doesn't *deserve* the cookie.
2. Restitution: Consider Abe, Bob, and Cindy. Abe owns a bike. However, Bob would get more utility from the bike than Abe. Bob steals the bike from Abe (with no intention of using the bike to aid in committing more crimes). Cindy is wealthy and could buy Abe a new bike with minimal utility loss to herself.
Putting aside the important deterrent effects of having laws against stealing and the fact that stealing is usually wrong, utilitarianism would seem to call for letting Bob keep the stolen bike and having Cindy buy Bob a new bike. Yet, this strikes most people as unfair -- Bob stole the bike so he should be required to return the bike to Abe (or buy him a new one that is just as good).
While I can appreciate that in other alleged counter-examples such as Organ Harvester we cannot so easily set aside our intuitions about the broader implications and our status quo and other biases, I'm not confident that response would be satisfactory in this example. Or is it?
Would you say that property rights are just a social construct and so Abe in fact had no greater moral claim to the bike than Bob did? Would our intuitions or the morally justified resolution change if we stipulated that Bob first asked Abe politely for the bike and Abe refused and only then did Bob take it?
^ I would be eager to read a post of yours addressing these two topics!
Lastly I would also be interested in reading your thoughts on a utilitiarian legal framework -- is private ownership of the means of production justified, and if so to what extent? What should the law require with respect to redistributive justice? I am aware that many utilitarians embrace common sense moral norms in many cases (https://utilitarianism.net/utilitarianism-and-practical-ethics/#respecting-commonsense-moral-norms), but I need more detail!
This is great! I've been thinking about this issue a lot, and thinking that we need to do a better job of drawing real-world cases where the stipulations actually line up with our intuitions, but I suppose that making the case alien can help too!
For what it's worth, I always felt that step (2) of your recipe was only ever in there because utilitarians insisted ("insisted"). Roughly: the non-consequentialist says "ah, but what about a transplant case?" and the utilitarian replies "well, it would have bad downstream consequences, etc." and thus the non-consequentialist sighs and adds, in order to continue the discussion with the utilitarian, "yes, but it would be a one-off, it would never get out, etc."
What the non-consequentialist should instead say is "but what explains why it's wrong—I'm quite certain—is nothing to do with the downstream consequences, whatever they might be, but instead that it does something terrible TO the healthy patient."
Put differently, for the non-consequentialist, step (2) is, intuitively, an irrelevance—they might also concede that it happened on a Tuesday and that the healthy patient's name was Jeff.
As written the Martian case actually has a wrinkle that may actually sneak in some extra game-theoretic moral intuitions: the sixth Martian is avoiding the lever, choosing to allow five of its fellows to die that it might live. So it’s morally culpable (if to an understandable degree!) in a way that “punishing” it feels less bad, perhaps especially to a certain kind of traditional deontologist, but also (as in the transplant case) game-theoretic considerations that may be considered by utilitarians. In the other direction there may be hesitancy in interfering with a (literally) alien cultural practice whose purposes you don’t understand.
Of course if you specify the sixth Martian has not awoken either the punishment intuition presumably disappears, and if you specify the ritual sacrifice came about for some bad reason (a cruel Martian emperor decreed it for its amusement, or whatever), then these might disappear, so this is all a quibble that doesn’t detract from your main point.
Richard,
For most of my life I've been a (partially conflicted) believer in natural rights, but lately I've been pushed more and more toward utilitarianism and am now teetering on the brink -- and this post of yours contributed greatly to bringing me to this point.
However, there are a couple topics about which I am having trouble embracing the utilitarian viewpoint, which I would love to see you write a post about:
1. Just Deserts: (This example is from Huemer) You have a tasty cookie that will produce harmless pleasure with no other effects. You can give it to either serial killer Ted Bundy, or the saintly Mother Teresa. Bundy enjoys cookies slightly more than Teresa. Should you therefore give it to Bundy?
I suppose utilitarians might say that you could give the cookie to Teresa to avoid incentivizing serial killing, or because other people might see you give the cookie to Bundy and derive dissatisfaction from their sense of justice being violated (even if their conception of justice is incorrect), but these responses would dodge the point -- most people have the intuition that giving the cookie to Ted Bundy is fundamentally wrong beyond any downstream consequences simply because Ted Bundy doesn't *deserve* the cookie.
I've heard of "desert-adjusted" utilitarianism (DAU) (https://utilitarianism.net/near-utilitarian-alternatives/#desert-adjusted-views), which seems to address the issue head-on. Do you think DAU is the correct framework?
2. Restitution: Consider Abe, Bob, and Cindy. Abe owns a bike. However, Bob would get more utility from the bike than Abe. Bob steals the bike from Abe (with no intention of using the bike to aid in committing more crimes). Cindy is wealthy and could buy Abe a new bike with minimal utility loss to herself.
Putting aside the important deterrent effects of having laws against stealing and the fact that stealing is usually wrong, utilitarianism would seem to call for letting Bob keep the stolen bike and having Cindy buy Bob a new bike. Yet, this strikes most people as unfair -- Bob stole the bike so he should be required to return the bike to Abe (or buy him a new one that is just as good).
While I can appreciate that in other alleged counter-examples such as Organ Harvester we cannot so easily set aside our intuitions about the broader implications and our status quo and other biases, I'm not confident that response would be satisfactory in this example. Or is it?
Would you say that property rights are just a social construct and so Abe in fact had no greater moral claim to the bike than Bob did? Would our intuitions or the morally justified resolution change if we stipulated that Bob first asked Abe politely for the bike and Abe refused and only then did Bob take it?
^ I would be eager to read a post of yours addressing these two topics!
Lastly I would also be interested in reading your thoughts on a utilitiarian legal framework -- is private ownership of the means of production justified, and if so to what extent? What should the law require with respect to redistributive justice? I am aware that many utilitarians embrace common sense moral norms in many cases (https://utilitarianism.net/utilitarianism-and-practical-ethics/#respecting-commonsense-moral-norms), but I need more detail!
Thank you.
This is great! I've been thinking about this issue a lot, and thinking that we need to do a better job of drawing real-world cases where the stipulations actually line up with our intuitions, but I suppose that making the case alien can help too!
For what it's worth, I always felt that step (2) of your recipe was only ever in there because utilitarians insisted ("insisted"). Roughly: the non-consequentialist says "ah, but what about a transplant case?" and the utilitarian replies "well, it would have bad downstream consequences, etc." and thus the non-consequentialist sighs and adds, in order to continue the discussion with the utilitarian, "yes, but it would be a one-off, it would never get out, etc."
What the non-consequentialist should instead say is "but what explains why it's wrong—I'm quite certain—is nothing to do with the downstream consequences, whatever they might be, but instead that it does something terrible TO the healthy patient."
Put differently, for the non-consequentialist, step (2) is, intuitively, an irrelevance—they might also concede that it happened on a Tuesday and that the healthy patient's name was Jeff.