As I near my 40s, instead of focusing on continually refining my own moral or political views, I find myself more concerned with trying to explain how others have arrived at their own. That is - especially when social media has a tendency to amplify in-group vs. out-group dynamics - I want to see others with the dignity I wish others would grant me. So, here, I'd like to expound upon two families of concepts that I've found to be useful: intuitions and two broad approaches found in normative ethics.
Philosophers use the word "intuition" in a specific way that may not line up with how the linguistic community as a whole may use it. So, to be precise, when I use "intuition" I mean something like an instinct, primary response, or knee-jerk reaction. To speak of intuitions in this sense is not to grant them any special epistemic status. Rather, they are to be treated as raw data to be evaluated in light of other considerations. For instance, many of us have or have had the intuition that heavy things fall faster than light things - aerodynamic properties aside. Certainly, before Galileo, this was the accepted view that was advocated by the likes of Aristotle. Yet, we know that after thousands of years - though it is plausible to me that we are suffering from whitewashing on part of the ancient Greeks - it ain't true; all you have to do is try it for yourself using this things called empirical observation (crazy, huh?).
From moral psychology to normative ethics, intuitions play a crucial role. In the context of the former field, consider, for instance, people have an intuition that killing from afar in wartime is morally distinct from killing in close-quarters (I'm just reaching, here, so I could be wrong. Feel free to substitute a better example). Or, the context of the latter, the philosopher Peter Singer in The Singer Solution to World Poverty starts with the intuition that allowing a child to drown when saving them would result in little or no harm to yourself is morally wrong. As long as you accept that doing so is morally wrong, Singer illustrates what other commitments he thinks seem to logically follow (I actually had a student once who was like "nah" and I had no reply other than the incredulous stare).
I tend to think our moral intuitions - at least with respect to political differences - can be thrown into two buckets. To be sure, I'm not saying there are only two buckets (and now that I think about it, there is probably a virtue bucket a la Hume, but I won't talk about that), and I'm also not saying these buckets don't have holes and aren't leaking. To use another metaphor, it may be more apt to think of these sets of intuitions as circles in a Venn diagram, or as sets of close nodes in a large web of belief. Accuracy of metaphors, aside, the former bucket contains deontological intuitions, while the latter holds consequentialist intuitions.
Harking back to Kant, deontology is an approach to normative ethics that - crucially - sees morality as a function of something other than consequences in the world. The details of any given implementation aren't exactly pertinent to our discussion of intuitions, but one might consider Kant's test of universalizability as a guide for whether or not an act is moral. Logically speaking, we cannot, for instance, universalize the act of stealing from others, since if we all stole from others, it would nullify the concept of property such that the notion of stealing, itself, becomes meaningless (or at least so a freshman level understanding goes). In line with this approach, it seems to follow that other considerations with respect to consequences are irrelevant to the morality of a given act. So, according to Kant, lying is wrong even if lying would prevent a terrible harm (e.g., if a Nazi knocks on your door asking if you have seen someone they are looking for for genocidal purposes).
In the larger context of contemporary politics, I tend to see deontological reasoning play a part when people talk about certain rights that they consider to be inviolable. For instance, someone leaning towards the right / right-wing libertarianism may hold that taxation is theft and theft is always wrong; it doesn't matter if taxation would help people in need - the government has no right to take what is not theirs by force to give to someone else. I tend to think that thinking of taxation as theft as an intuition first, then a rationale second. That is, there is a strong intuition that the government is taking something that isn't theirs to take and from there is an attempt to give a rational basis for it.
We also see deontological reasoning utilized in discussions of free speech. Some consider freedom of speech as something that trumps other considerations. For instance, someone who hates Nazis might nevertheless argue that infringing on freedom of speech is a greater wrong that any resulting wrong that comes from the speech of those Nazis. While it think it is important for normative reasons to point out that if you think taxation is theft it seems to follow that the government has no right to, say, tax us for free and fair elections or, say, to tax us for the purpose of detecting incoming nuclear weapons (to which they may say "well, there are exceptions" and to which we may say "ok, so here are some other exceptions") and to point out that free speech is a nebulous idea to which there already some plausible restrictions such as why you can't yell "fire!" in a crowded building and to point out that people don't seem to understand the first amendment, for the purposes of explaining the thoughts and behaviors of others, it is prudent to focus on how these intuitions inform other related commitments.
Consequentialism, contrary to deontology, sees morality as a function what happens in the world. For instance, one might appeal to considerations of welfare as legitimizing taxation, since taxation may prevent greater harms such as letting the elderly die in poverty. The most notable flavor of consequentialism is utilitarianism, but we needn't be utilitarians to see the appeal of consequentialist intuitions. After all, it certainly seems that lying, contra Kant, can be a moral act if it prevents a great harm. Likewise, while some may see forgiving student debt as legitimizing bad decisions (I actually think student loans are predatory and exploitative, but I won't talk about that here), the consequentialist intuition and resulting rationale sees the morality of the act in light of alleviating a burden of students and the economy at large (by freeing up cash in the name of middle-class purchasing power (let's call this middle-out economics)).
In terms of understanding others, I think it is important to keep these sets of intuitions in mind. For instance, I recall a recent conversation where my friend couldn't understand how a right-leaning person could just let people suffer. To them, it seemed that such a person was wholly lacking any concern for others. Yet, if we take into account the strength of right-wing deontological intuitions (to be sure, there are deontology plays a part in left-wing politics, as well), this person may very well care a great deal about others - they just think that liberty (a particular conception of liberty based on negative rights), trumps all other considerations. Indeed, they may think that it is the responsibility of private citizens, organizations, and churches to take care of those in need.
Likewise, for those whose deontological intuitions are strongest in particular political contexts, it is important to see that your consequentialist friends don't believe that, for instance, providing incentive to game the system trumps the greater good. To give another, more specific example, consider needle exchanges for those battling addiction with intravenous drugs. Giving clean needles away is a proven way of preventing other harms resulting in needle sharing, despite our deontological friends thinking personal responsibility trumps these considerations.
To conclude, I hope I've provided at least some tools to better understand those who seem so far away from us politically and morally. Again, in another sense, it is important to engage with these intuitions in light of logic, but, as I've said in a previous blog post, I'm not sure that helps in understanding others.
I think I've come up with a really solid set of Deontological rules that are both intuitive and utilitarian when applied universally. The problem with a firm set of rules is only a problem if the set of rules are not perfect. If we can find situations in which the right action goes against the rules, the rules need to be tweaked to account for that situation. The examples you give do not prove that a perfect set of rules is wrong, but that the set of rules you are using are imperfect. The problem with consequentialism is that people can be easily fooled. If we tell all people that they need to figure out what the right action is in every circumstance, giving them little to no guidance, many will come to tragically wrong conclusions, which is even more tragic when considering that they intended to do good. Also, evil actors could intentionally deceive, or good actors mistakenly deceive, people into thinking that a certain action will have good consequences when in actuality it had negative consequences. It is much more practical to discover the perfect set of moral rules, teach that to people, and watch the good consequences roll in.
ReplyDeleteSome notes I have in regard to specific things said in your blog post:
a: We do not have an innate intuition about something like the speed at which heavy things fall. We do, however, have an intuitive sense of morality because our ancestors needed it for survival. Though we do need to be aware that our moral intuition evolved in tribes of under 150 people and account for that. For example we don't need to know the scientific equations of throwing a ball into a net, we have an intuition for it from trial and error, and the innate ability we inherited from our ancestors.
b: Our intuition about killing from afar during war vs killing up close is a hold-over from our evolutionary past. Killing outsiders aka war would be disadvantageous for someone to have moral qualms about. While killing your fellow tribesman would have negative consequences. But we now know we shouldn't murder, even strangers we are at war with from afar.
c: I'm so sick of hearing about Kant and what he said about lying. We update all our knowledge, why are we still pretending that what someone said 200 years ago has any bearing on our better understandings of today. Ugh. Lying is not wrong in all circumstances, just as violence is not wrong in all circumstances. Lying in defense of the innocent is certainly acceptable. We are capable of having a set of moral principles and rules that are more sophisticated than "never lie". It is illegal to lie under certain circumstances, such as lying in a trial and causing an innocent person to go to jail. Or lying about someone in a way that incites violence against an innocent person. And then it's a commercial crime to lie in a way that defrauds someone, or harms someone's reputation, or does damage to someone. But we have the right to tell the truth as we understand it, unless it infringes on someone's privacy (such as a doctor or lawyer who has a professional responsibility to confidentiality). We are also limited in our speech because we can't threaten someone with bodily harm or incite violence against them. Then there are white lies that are neither illegal nor morally wrong.
DeleteLying to the Nazi at the door: right, protecting the innocent.
Advocating for genocide aka nazism: wrong, inciting violence
Calling someone a nazi when you know they aren't: wrong, lying to harm someone's reputation, causing them harm, and maybe even inciting attack.
Yelling fire in a crowded theater: If there is a fire it's right.
If there is no fire it's wrong, lying to cause damage and even cause bodily harm if it causes injury.
d: Coercive taxation is theft. And by coercive I mean they will arrest you or confiscate your property if you do not pay taxes. It is theoretically possible for a government to collect voluntary taxes, and they currently do have streams of income that are not coercive taxation. It doesn't matter what "good" that money is going towards, it is not a viable justification.
DeleteElection: It's fairly easy to come up with a system that allows for elections without requiring coercive taxation. Corporations let their stock owners vote without throwing anyone in jail to pay for it. I find this example simply bizarre.
Detecting incoming nuclear weapons: What good is detection if we can't do anything about it, anyway? Remember the false alarm in Hawaii? Everyone just stood around waiting for death. If I was going to voluntarily pay for nuclear attack insurance, I would want detection AND fallout sheltered provided to me like in the video game Fallout.
If we use an example our tribal brains can understand, we wouldn't lock up our neighbor in our basement if he refused to help pay for our fallout shelter. We might suggest they help us out in exchange for access in an emergency. But if they don't want to pay, fine, they aren't allowed in.
e: There can just as easily be a consequentialist argument against welfare. When considering the cost of the taxation, the amount of waste in the system, the unintended consequences such as pushing productive seniors out of the job market and mal-investment, we could easily come to the conclusion that everyone, on the whole, would be better off without a coercively funded welfare system. But many people fall into the trap of only looking at the obvious positive, intended consequences and not considering the harder to see, unintended, spread out harms.
DeleteStudent loan forgiveness: If the plan is to transfer the debt from individual people to the federal government, who will then coercively tax the citizens to pay off the debt, rewarding the predatory lenders and punishing those who didn't have student loans. Transferring loans from people who would never go to jail for failure to pay, and at worst would get their wages garnished. And transfer those loans to all taxpayers, garnish their wages at best and throw them in jail if they don't pay. It's easy to think that we could just wave a magic wand and put more money in people's pockets, but wealth has to be created, it can't be printed. And in the long-term it would cause moral hazard and mal-investment.
f: Needle exchange: Let's break this down to something our tribal brains can understand. We notice that our neighbor has a drug problem and we are worried they will catch aids from sharing needles. So we decide to offer them free needles. But then we decide that our other neighbor, who is against drug use and thinks our drug addicted neighbor should go to rehab and not be enabled, refuses to contribute to the clean needle fund. So you lock him in your basement as punishment. That's obviously evil. So why do you think it's ok for the government to do it? You might think you're doing good, but maybe someone else disagrees, and in order to coexist we need to respect those differences and use our mouth words instead of just locking people up for not doing exactly what we want them to do.
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