Rescue and harm: Discussion of Peter Unger's Living High and Letting Die

Legal Theory

Volumn 5, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 1-44

  Kamm, F M ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84990300989     PISSN: 13523252     EISSN: 14698048     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1352325299501018     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. Peter Unger, LIVING HIGH AND LETTING DIE (1996).
2. Unger contrasts his position on intuitions with what he calls negativism, at least insofar as he describes the latter as the complete denial that intuitions about cases reveal any moral truth. See id. at 13. In the same paragraph, however, he also describes negativism, not as a methodological principle about intuitions, but as the attempt to bring about consistency between seemingly conflicting intuitions by denying the duty to aid quite generally, rather than extending the duty to aid quite generally. This makes negativism a substantive position about aiding: We need not suffer any loss to reduce mortal loss. Substantive negativism also liberates us from what it takes to be negatively distorted (i.e., non-truth tracking) intuitions about cases, only it sees these as the ones that tell us to aid. These are the very ones that Unger thinks are positively (i.e., truth tracking) distorted.
3. I owe this summary description to Ghopal Sreenivasan.
4. Consequentialists have often accused nonconsequentialists of being inconsistent. For example, why, they ask, do nonconsequentialists say that we may redirect a trolley to save six from being killed by it when we foresee this will kill one, if we may not save six from the trolley by pushing someone in front of it? As we shall see, Unger repeats this criticism but goes beyond it. He tries to show that sometimes we would say it is permissible to push someone in front of a trolley to save six and sometimes we would say it is impermissible, and this (he claims) is a clear inconsistency. Insofar as he tries to change our responses to acts on the basis of altering what he believes are morally irrelevant features of the context, his technique is like “framing” used by cognitive psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. See my Moral Intuitions, Cognitive Psychology, and the Harming-versus-Not-Aiding Distinction, ETHICS, cviii (1998).
5. Unger, Consequentialists have often accused nonconsequentialists of being inconsistent note 1, at 37, n. 7.
6. In Famine, Affluence, and Morality, reprinted in WORLD HUNGER AND MORAL OBLIGATION 22-36 (W. Aiken & H. LaFollette eds., 1977); and Peter Singer, PRACTICAL ETHICS (2d ed. 1993).
7. For detailed discussion of that issue, see F.M. Kamm, 2 MORALITY, MORTALITY chs. 1-5 (1996).
8. The first step, I believe, is a sounder way than the second of seeing whether a factor has an effect in the original Sedan. This is because if a factor is “exported” into the Envelope Case, as in the second step, it may have no effect in its new context, but this will not show it had no effect on its home ground. (This is due to what I call the Principle of Contextual Interaction.) For discussion of these points, see Kamm, MORTALITY note 8.
9. Unger, MORTALITY note note 1, at 34.
10. Id. at 28.
11. See John Rawls, A THEORY OF JUSTICE (1971).
12. Liam Murphy, Institutions and the Demands of Justice. Unpublished paper presented at the New York University Colloquium on Law, Philosophy, and Social Theory, 1997.
13. Unger, Institutions and the Demands of Justice note 1, at 60-61.
14. Unger, Institutions and the Demands of Justice note note 1, at 41.
15. For more detail on this and other points in this article, see Kamm, Faminine Ethics, Institutions and the Demands of Justice note note note 6.
16. See Samuel Scheffler, THE REJECTION OF CONSEQUENTIALISM (1982).
17. Unger, THE REJECTION OF CONSEQUENTIALISM note 1, at 55.
18. I first tried to show this in my article Supererogation and Obligation, J. PHIL. (March 1985), reprinted in THE PHILOSOPHER'S ANNUAL (1985). For an expanded version, see Kamm, THE REJECTION OF CONSEQUENTIALISM note note 8, ch. 12.
19. Unger, THE PHILOSOPHER'S ANNUAL note 1, ch. 3.
20. Unger, THE PHILOSOPHER'S ANNUAL note note 1, ch. 5.
21. I focused on this “flip side” aspect of the Trolley Case in my first attempt to explain it. See F.M. Kamm, Harming Some to Save Others, PHIL. STUD. (November 1989).
22. Unger, THE PHILOSOPHER'S ANNUAL note note note 1, at 101-3.
23. Id. at 100.
24. The method of aptly combining cases, which Unger also describes, is just a way, I believe, of creating cases with several options. See id. at 106-14.
25. This is one of John Rawls's objections. See Rawls, The method of aptly combining cases note 19.
26. See Unger, The method of aptly combining cases note note 1, at 98.
27. Id.
28. I first discussed the lazy Susan cases in Harming Some to Save Others, Id. note 48. See also Kamm, Id. note 8, for additional discussion.
29. In his review of Unger's book, David Lewis accepts that varying grouping and protophysics accounts for our intuitions, but he denies that these factors are morally irrelevant. See EUREKA STREET, vi (1996). I deny that the factors account for our intuitions and that the factors are morally relevant.
30. For more on such status, see Kamm, review of Unger's book note 8.
31. I have described this principle in detail in id. and in Nonconsequentialism, in BLACKWELL'S GUIDE TO ETHICAL THEORY (H. LaFollette ed., forthcoming 1999).
32. See Philippa Foot, The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect, in VIRTUES AND VICES (1978).
33. In 2 MORALITY, MORTALITY, The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect note 8, I describe the major emendation to this description of the PPH, that sometimes diversion of people from threat or threat from people is not sufficient for the greater good; but, I claim, when it is nevertheless permissible to redirect, this is because (a) diversion produces what I call the “structural equivalent of the greater good,” and (b) while we divert only because the further effect occurs, we do not divert in order to produce that further effect.
34. See Unger, MORALITY note 1, at 121-3.
35. Unger notes that we might not redirect when on balance we only maximize utility by a smaller amount than a foot. I have discussed the question of what is an “irrelevant utility” in such cases (and in others as well) in detail first in BIOETHICS (1987), and in F.M. Kamm, 1 MORALITY, MORTALITY (1993), chs. 5-10.
36. Unger, MORTALITY note 1, at 126-8.
37. See Kamm, Harming Some to Save Others, MORTALITY note note 48, and Kamm, MORTALITY note note 8.
38. Unger, Harming Some to Save Others note 1, at 139f.
39. He says (p. 166).