Friday, April 21, 2006
Murder
Most people presume that going out to the pub is not morally equivalent to murder. Even though you had the ability and the opportunity to put that tenner to saving lives, that you did not is totally distinct from embarking on a massacre mission. But I shall argue that pub-crawling is morally equivalent to mass murder. Think of this question as counterfactual dependency, if you had not gone to the pub but spent your money on a charity which has the capacity to save lives, some people would still be alive. Thus, in not giving to charity, you are causally responsible for their death.
But it seems bizarre to think that inaction has any causal efficacy at all, after all, how can you’re NOT acting make you causally responsible. Indeed, we tend to think that there is a moral distinction between an act and an omission. We generally presume that it is better (though not necessarily permissible) to omit to rescue someone who is drowning in a river, than it is to commit the drowning yourself. Indeed, Britain only has negative laws, not ‘Good Samaritan’ laws. But even though the law fails to make the distinction, it does not follow that omissions are morally justified.
Look at the following example,
a) Smith is in a room with a machine that is about to crush a child: it malfunctions but a curious Smith restarts the machine to see a ‘flat child’
b) Jones is in a room with a machine that is about to crush child but he refrains from pressing the ‘pause’ button because he is likewise curious
Now this seems to be a prima facie wrong act and all other considerations have been equalised (lack of prior intention/ subjective certainty/ risk); the two acts seem equally bad. Jones had the ability and the opportunity to act and stop the machine from crushing the child. But for his non-intervention, the child would have survived. So, in this way, Jones is causally responsible for the child’s death. There is no conceptual difference between the two cases. The only variable is that one includes a physical act but, as I will argue, physical acts are not themselves sufficient to justify the distinction between acts and omissions.
One might argue that acts illustrate willing; they illustrate a desire for X to occur. But omissions are a simply sub-class of action. An omission is likewise a performance of an inner act of will; prioritising another act. If an object is under one’s control and that harm is foreseeable and one chooses to act otherwise and thereby one can ascribe responsibility to the actor.
One might object that actions are identifiable, consisting in bodily movement in a specifiable space-time zone, and hence facilitate moral evaluation but whereby potential actor had ability + opportunity to prevent harm + clear that they did not, they are likewise causally and thereby morally responsible for the harm they could have prevented. Not stopping a harm, which one could have stopped, is equivalent to doing the harm oneself.
One might object that we don’t have positive duties, only negative ones and so that there is a greater obligation to refrain from killing than to saving someone but I would disagree.
Ok, let’s consider possible objections:
1. Dischargeability of duty
The negative duty not to kill can be fully discharged, in most circumstances, whereas the notion of positive duties, in setting a maximum ethics, cannot be fully discharged as there are more people to be saved than I can possibly save. So, if positive duties were as stringent as negative duties, then meeting moral obligations would entail a life plan whose only life plan was saving lives and this would constitute a denial of one’s autonomy to pursue life plans: reductio ad absurdum.
But, on closer inspection, each negative rule is morally and logically equivalent to their positive formulation (if it has one). Neither one is more infinite than the other; to declare that we have no duties to save life because it cannot be fully discharged is akin to interpreting ‘truth-telling’ rule as permanent banter. The rule should instead be reformulated: so that, if one says something, then one shouldn’t lie (to best of knowledge/belief); if one says something, then one should tell the truth. Likewise the rule against killing is not an absolute prohibition but rather anything easily avoidable. So, if one is in a position whereby one can reasonably do something to protect/ preserve the life of another then ought to do so.
Secondly, exhaustibility is not relevant. Yes, I admit that manifesting positive duties may be tricky on a global scale but this concern is not relevant to particular cases, like the drowning example, whereby one is in a position (ability + opportunity) to act. So, one cannot appeal to the general observation that it’s easier not to kill to justify why, when it is not easy, why we believe in an obligation not to kill, and to exhaust one’s resources if required.
Thirdly, it is better to help as many people as possible. If we actually look at what happens in the drowning case: a child dies, it makes no difference to the consequences how that happened. The fact is that it is a morally bad outcome. So, if we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance: we ought to do it; we have a duty to make the world as good as possible.
2. Probability of outcome
One might object that acts of murder have a higher probability of outcome than omissions (of murder). And so, given that intentional acts are done specifically in a way that maximizes the probability of the outcome and that probable death is preferable to certain death, omissions are thus different. Omissions make it logically possible for a victim to be saved by another, acts are thus different from omissions in this regard. So, failure to meet the duty of not killing cuts of the possibility of future life whereas failure to save leaves it open for someone else: in that it remains logically possible that they could be saved. So, my critic would argue that if life is the good, then failure to save does not logically preclude that Smith will enjoy that good, but failure not to kill Smith does logically preclude Smith enjoying the good. This supposedly justifies that the duty not to kill is more stringent.
But, there may cases whereby physically impossible for someone else to intervene: suppose the beach is deserted, I am the only one who could physically save the drowning child. So, even though it remains logically possible, this remark can’t have any moral significance because it is so overwhelmingly unlikely that someone else will intervene.
Supposing there are lots of people on the beach, each ignorant as to another’s plans. If they each have equal responsibility, individual responsibility is not any less than if there was only one of us. So duties cannot be less stringent because if we fail in the duty it is physically possible rather than physically impossible for another to bring about the good. It may be still be physically possible for others to bring about the good but this does not justify why the duty not to drown is greater than the duty to save him from drowning.
Clearly, positive duties are no more stringent than their corresponding negative duties, hence we cannot rely on it to justify the acts and omissions doctrine.
The acts and omissions doctrine thus seems utterly lacking in backbone. There is nothing which is conceptually required of one that could itself justify a moral distinction between acts and omissions.
One might object that this just seems insane, we intuitively regard there as being a big distinction between acts and omissions. The following examples illustrate this point,
In ‘shield’, an arrow is coming towards Bob and he moves Jane infront of himself, in the arrow’s path. Bob kills Jane to saves himself. So, if it were not for Bob’s actions, Jane would still be alive. Bob makes a difference and seems to be a bit naughty.
In ‘no heroics’; there is an arrow coming towards Jane and Bob stays out of the way; he does not leap in front, to save Jane. So Jane dies. This seems ok. Bob wasn’t responsible for the arrow in the first place and so he surely cannot be blamed for not intervening here, surely, or so one would presume, this is not morally equivalent to murder.
In differentiating between the two cases, one presumes a difference between moral obligation and superogatory acts, i.e. presuming the negative duties are more stringent than their positive correlatives. But I have already collapsed this distinction. To be clear, in both cases, Bob’s behaviour affects Jane. But for his behaviour, in both cases, Jane would still be alive. In both cases, his behaviour makes him causally responsible for her death.
I think it’s also useful to look at why we make the intuitive distinction acts and omissions. Actions generally result from harmful intervention, which reflects a malicious motive, whereas failure to act suggests mere indifference but whereby the only variable is killing or letting die, these general remarks hold no weight. When other things are equal, acts of killing/ letting die are morally equivalent. Another reason why we are intuitively inclined towards the acts and omissions distinction is that we suppose a hierarchy of duties, but I have shown that negative duties are no more important than positive ones. We are also inclined towards the acts and omissions distinction due to contingently associated factors. The idea of a massacre, unlike hearing of people dying quietly at home, undermines our feeling of security and so we tend to regard acts as more heinous than omissions. But the doctrine of acts and omissions cannot be explicitly argued for on basis of side-effects.
So, just to recap, there is no conceptual difference between an act and omission. There is nothing which is conceptually required of one, but not the other, that itself makes a moral difference. Instead, we must look at what is common to both. Both acts and omissions have causal efficacy.
Most people presume that going out to the pub is not morally equivalent to murder. Even though you had the ability and the opportunity to put that tenner to saving lives, that you did not is totally distinct from embarking on a massacre mission. But I shall argue that pub-crawling is morally equivalent to mass murder. Think of this question as counterfactual dependency, if you had not gone to the pub but spent your money on a charity which has the capacity to save lives, some people would still be alive. Thus, in not giving to charity, you are causally responsible for their death.
But it seems bizarre to think that inaction has any causal efficacy at all, after all, how can you’re NOT acting make you causally responsible. Indeed, we tend to think that there is a moral distinction between an act and an omission. We generally presume that it is better (though not necessarily permissible) to omit to rescue someone who is drowning in a river, than it is to commit the drowning yourself. Indeed, Britain only has negative laws, not ‘Good Samaritan’ laws. But even though the law fails to make the distinction, it does not follow that omissions are morally justified.
Look at the following example,
a) Smith is in a room with a machine that is about to crush a child: it malfunctions but a curious Smith restarts the machine to see a ‘flat child’
b) Jones is in a room with a machine that is about to crush child but he refrains from pressing the ‘pause’ button because he is likewise curious
Now this seems to be a prima facie wrong act and all other considerations have been equalised (lack of prior intention/ subjective certainty/ risk); the two acts seem equally bad. Jones had the ability and the opportunity to act and stop the machine from crushing the child. But for his non-intervention, the child would have survived. So, in this way, Jones is causally responsible for the child’s death. There is no conceptual difference between the two cases. The only variable is that one includes a physical act but, as I will argue, physical acts are not themselves sufficient to justify the distinction between acts and omissions.
One might argue that acts illustrate willing; they illustrate a desire for X to occur. But omissions are a simply sub-class of action. An omission is likewise a performance of an inner act of will; prioritising another act. If an object is under one’s control and that harm is foreseeable and one chooses to act otherwise and thereby one can ascribe responsibility to the actor.
One might object that actions are identifiable, consisting in bodily movement in a specifiable space-time zone, and hence facilitate moral evaluation but whereby potential actor had ability + opportunity to prevent harm + clear that they did not, they are likewise causally and thereby morally responsible for the harm they could have prevented. Not stopping a harm, which one could have stopped, is equivalent to doing the harm oneself.
One might object that we don’t have positive duties, only negative ones and so that there is a greater obligation to refrain from killing than to saving someone but I would disagree.
Ok, let’s consider possible objections:
1. Dischargeability of duty
The negative duty not to kill can be fully discharged, in most circumstances, whereas the notion of positive duties, in setting a maximum ethics, cannot be fully discharged as there are more people to be saved than I can possibly save. So, if positive duties were as stringent as negative duties, then meeting moral obligations would entail a life plan whose only life plan was saving lives and this would constitute a denial of one’s autonomy to pursue life plans: reductio ad absurdum.
But, on closer inspection, each negative rule is morally and logically equivalent to their positive formulation (if it has one). Neither one is more infinite than the other; to declare that we have no duties to save life because it cannot be fully discharged is akin to interpreting ‘truth-telling’ rule as permanent banter. The rule should instead be reformulated: so that, if one says something, then one shouldn’t lie (to best of knowledge/belief); if one says something, then one should tell the truth. Likewise the rule against killing is not an absolute prohibition but rather anything easily avoidable. So, if one is in a position whereby one can reasonably do something to protect/ preserve the life of another then ought to do so.
Secondly, exhaustibility is not relevant. Yes, I admit that manifesting positive duties may be tricky on a global scale but this concern is not relevant to particular cases, like the drowning example, whereby one is in a position (ability + opportunity) to act. So, one cannot appeal to the general observation that it’s easier not to kill to justify why, when it is not easy, why we believe in an obligation not to kill, and to exhaust one’s resources if required.
Thirdly, it is better to help as many people as possible. If we actually look at what happens in the drowning case: a child dies, it makes no difference to the consequences how that happened. The fact is that it is a morally bad outcome. So, if we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance: we ought to do it; we have a duty to make the world as good as possible.
2. Probability of outcome
One might object that acts of murder have a higher probability of outcome than omissions (of murder). And so, given that intentional acts are done specifically in a way that maximizes the probability of the outcome and that probable death is preferable to certain death, omissions are thus different. Omissions make it logically possible for a victim to be saved by another, acts are thus different from omissions in this regard. So, failure to meet the duty of not killing cuts of the possibility of future life whereas failure to save leaves it open for someone else: in that it remains logically possible that they could be saved. So, my critic would argue that if life is the good, then failure to save does not logically preclude that Smith will enjoy that good, but failure not to kill Smith does logically preclude Smith enjoying the good. This supposedly justifies that the duty not to kill is more stringent.
But, there may cases whereby physically impossible for someone else to intervene: suppose the beach is deserted, I am the only one who could physically save the drowning child. So, even though it remains logically possible, this remark can’t have any moral significance because it is so overwhelmingly unlikely that someone else will intervene.
Supposing there are lots of people on the beach, each ignorant as to another’s plans. If they each have equal responsibility, individual responsibility is not any less than if there was only one of us. So duties cannot be less stringent because if we fail in the duty it is physically possible rather than physically impossible for another to bring about the good. It may be still be physically possible for others to bring about the good but this does not justify why the duty not to drown is greater than the duty to save him from drowning.
Clearly, positive duties are no more stringent than their corresponding negative duties, hence we cannot rely on it to justify the acts and omissions doctrine.
The acts and omissions doctrine thus seems utterly lacking in backbone. There is nothing which is conceptually required of one that could itself justify a moral distinction between acts and omissions.
One might object that this just seems insane, we intuitively regard there as being a big distinction between acts and omissions. The following examples illustrate this point,
In ‘shield’, an arrow is coming towards Bob and he moves Jane infront of himself, in the arrow’s path. Bob kills Jane to saves himself. So, if it were not for Bob’s actions, Jane would still be alive. Bob makes a difference and seems to be a bit naughty.
In ‘no heroics’; there is an arrow coming towards Jane and Bob stays out of the way; he does not leap in front, to save Jane. So Jane dies. This seems ok. Bob wasn’t responsible for the arrow in the first place and so he surely cannot be blamed for not intervening here, surely, or so one would presume, this is not morally equivalent to murder.
In differentiating between the two cases, one presumes a difference between moral obligation and superogatory acts, i.e. presuming the negative duties are more stringent than their positive correlatives. But I have already collapsed this distinction. To be clear, in both cases, Bob’s behaviour affects Jane. But for his behaviour, in both cases, Jane would still be alive. In both cases, his behaviour makes him causally responsible for her death.
I think it’s also useful to look at why we make the intuitive distinction acts and omissions. Actions generally result from harmful intervention, which reflects a malicious motive, whereas failure to act suggests mere indifference but whereby the only variable is killing or letting die, these general remarks hold no weight. When other things are equal, acts of killing/ letting die are morally equivalent. Another reason why we are intuitively inclined towards the acts and omissions distinction is that we suppose a hierarchy of duties, but I have shown that negative duties are no more important than positive ones. We are also inclined towards the acts and omissions distinction due to contingently associated factors. The idea of a massacre, unlike hearing of people dying quietly at home, undermines our feeling of security and so we tend to regard acts as more heinous than omissions. But the doctrine of acts and omissions cannot be explicitly argued for on basis of side-effects.
So, just to recap, there is no conceptual difference between an act and omission. There is nothing which is conceptually required of one, but not the other, that itself makes a moral difference. Instead, we must look at what is common to both. Both acts and omissions have causal efficacy.
