Skepticism about saving the greater number

Philosophy and Public Affairs

Volumn 32, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 413-426

  Otsuka, Michael ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33644912269     PISSN: 00483915     EISSN: 10884963     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1088-4963.2004.00020.x     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. In all of the cases I discuss below, it should be assumed that all four of these conditions hold unless I indicate otherwise
2. This is a "no-conflict case" because saving the greater number does not come at the cost of saving the lesser number.
3. "Common-sense morality" is, I shall stipulate, that which is in full accord with widely shared intuitions about what one ought and ought not to do.
4. This is a "conflict case" because saving the greater number comes at the cost of saving the lesser number.
5. More precisely, she denies that you ought to save B&C on the grounds that they are greater in number than A. Some such skeptics as John Taurek recommend that you give each person an equal chance of being saved by, e.g., flipping a coin and saving A if it comes up heads and B&C if it comes up tails. Taurek would recommend that you save B&C if they win the coin toss while denying an obligation to save them on the grounds that they are greater in number. See John Taurek, "Should the Numbers Count?" Philosophy & Public Affairs(6) (1977):293-316, at pp.303-07
6. As shorthand, I shall call such skepticism numbers skepticism. Both Elizabeth Anscombe and John Taurek reject a duty to save the greater number in conflict cases. They do not, however, necessarily subscribe to all of the claims that conform to common-sense morality that I have attributed to the numbers skeptic in the second paragraph of this section.
7. See Elizabeth Anscombe, "Who is Wronged?" The Oxford Review no.5(1967): 16-17 Taurek
8. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), sec.5
9. Thomas Nagel, "Equality," in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1979), pp. 106-27
10. See Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998-), pp.229-41
11. In rejecting the aggregation of the claims of different individuals, Scanlon maintains that it is "central to the guiding idea of contractualism" and "one of the most appealing features of such a view" that "the justifiability of a moral principle depends only on various individuals' reasons for objecting to that principle and alternatives to it" (ibid., pp. 229-241)
12. See Frances Kamm, Morality,Mortality, vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1993), pp. 101 and 114-19
13. Recall that Taurek recommends that, rather than always saving the greater number in conflict cases, one flip a coin to determine whom to save. See n.5above.
14. Kamm and Scanlon have both argued that one can justify the saving of the greater number in conflict cases without aggregating the claims of different individuals. See Kamm, pp. 101 and 114-19, and Scanlon, pp. 229-41
15. I reject their argument in Michael Otsuka, "Scanlon on the Claims of the Many versus the One," Analysis60 (2000): 288-93
16. This particular charge of irrationality threatens not only philosophers such as Anscombe and Taurek who deny a duty to save the greater number in conflict cases. It also threatens the position of Scanlon, who affirms a duty to save the greater number in such cases. See n. 24 below.
17. The argument on the numbers skeptic's behalf that I have just sketched would meet some of the objections to numbers skepticism raised by Gregory Kavka, "The Numbers Should Count," Philosophical Studies 36 (1979): 285-94, at pp. 291-92
18. Jonathan Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives (New York: Penguin, 1977), pp.207-09
19. See also David Wasserman and Alan Strudler's response to Kavka on the numbers skeptic's behalf in their "Can a Nonconsequentialist Count Lives?" Philosophy&Public Affairs31 (2003): 71-94, at pp. 71-94
20. Taurek advances such an argument against aggregation. See Taurek, pp. 310-10
21. Of course, similar reasoning would condemn the saving of B alone or C alone
22. The numbers skeptic's commitments in the case I have just sketched are surprising for the following distinct reason. The numbers skeptic would maintain that saving B&C, while not obligatory, is to be preferred to saving A when the feasible set includes saving A&B and saving A&C. But she would deny that one must prefer saving B&C to saving A when the feasible set is reduced. This, however, is in violation of the following plausible principle: "If x is to be preferred to y when they are element of the feasible set S, then x must be preferred to y when they are elements of the feasible set T which is a subset of S." This principle is very similar to a principle of rational choice, which Amartya Sen calls basic contraction consistency, according to which "an alternative that is chosen from a set S and belongs to a subset T of S must be chosen from T as well."
23. See Amartya Sen, "Internal Consistency of Choice," Econometrica 61 (1993): 495-521, at p. 500
24. Cf. John Nash, "The Bargaining Problem," Econometrica 18(1950): 155-62, at p. 159.
25. See Section I above.
26. This follows from the numbers skeptic's affirmation of pairwise comparison. I assume throughout this discussion that the restoration of the use of two limbs is about twice as good for an individual as the restoration of one limb, of three limbs about three times as good, and of four limbs about four times as good. Those who regard this assumption as unrealistic should imagine other states of mobility and dexterity ranging from quadriplegia to complete use of all four limbs that bear the same relations to one another as I assume the aforementioned states bear to one another
27. Consider the preference for (iii) rather than (iv). The difference between these two options is the difference between a pill's going to someone in the group of three or being given to the fourth person. If the numbers skeptic elects not to direct her pill to someone in the group of three (i.e., if she chooses option [iv]), then that person in the group of three will lack the use of all four limbs. If she elects not to direct this pill to the fourth person (i.e., if she chooses option [iii]), then that fourth person will lack the use of only two of his limbs.
28. For a defense of this claim, see Derek Parfit, Equality or Priority? The Lindley Lecture (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1991).
29. Once again, this follows from the numbers skeptic's affirmation of pairwise comparison.
30. A common-sense aggregator is, I shall stipulate, someone whose views regarding aggregation are in full accord with widely shared intuitions about what one ought and ought not to do.
31. Scanlon, however, is tempted by the claim that one should not save the greater number from harm in cases such as this one in which the harm to each of the greater number, though serious, is less serious to a nontrivial degree than the harm to the one. He also acknowledges that it is difficult for him to resist this claim, given the individualistic commitments of his contractualism. (See Scanlon, pp. 239-41) If he is moved to embrace this claim, then his view will join the numbers skeptic's in falling prey to the intransitive cycle under discussion.
32. This example is based on an example of Stuart Rachels's. See his "Counterexamples to the Transitivity of 'Better-than'," Australasian Journal of Philosophy76 (1998): 71-83.
33. See also Larry Temkin, "A Continuum Argument for Intransitivity," Philosophy & Public Affairs 25 (1996): 175-210.
34. See Scanlon, pp. 238-39.
35. The numbers skeptic shares this particular belief with the common-sense aggregator.
36. Temkin, however, would maintain that the common-sense aggregator's intransitive cycle is not generated by means of any of the fallacies associated with sorites reasoning.
37. See Temkin, pp. 197-202.
38. For a general discussion of the sorites paradox, see Mark Sainsbury, Paradoxes, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), ch. 2.
39. Ken Binmore and Alex Voorhoeve offer this suggestion in "Transitivity, the Sorites Paradox, and Similarity-Based Decision-Making" (unpublished). For defenses of the moral significance of very small benefits or burdens.
40. Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), ch.3.
41. Michael Otsuka, "The Paradox of Group Beneficence," Philosophy & Public Affairs20 (1991): 132-49.