What Is the Factor That Is Really Important Here?
I am not convinced of the intrinsic worth of "letting" vs. "doing." It seems to me, that in all cases, there are other more weighty normative factors in play that make one action morally better than another, and it is not this factor which is actually doing any of the work. I don’t mean to deny the distinction...for I believe it is there, and it is a plausible thing to say afterwards; instead I deny its relevance, in light of its ability to explain the moral weight effectively. Think about this statement: I am willing to concede that pushing a person into a pond is morally worse than merely failing to save someone from drowning. Why is this so? Is your first answer "because in one situation involves killing and the other involves letting die?" Mine isn’t. That IS an answer, but it’s not the one that really provides the moral weight to the situation. If, outside of the conversation about "letting/doing" someone posited that scenario and asked why which one was worse, I would say: "It takes a whole different moral character and set of intentions to push someone into a lake, than it does to merely let someone already in the lake drown." Or, more simply, it takes a different kind of person to do one act over the other. The reason one act is worse than the other is because of the set of morally relevant factors behind what it takes to "do" as opposed to what it takes to "let". It is not the doing or letting in and of itself that effectually matters. (Notice that Richard Trammell’s piece is NOT on the moral significance of letting vs. doing, but the significance of "negative and positive duties" that go with letting/doing. Trammell himself had to go elsewhere to find what was really giving weight to the situation.)
The ultimate disutility of letting/doing is shown most vividly by Tooley’s diabolical machine example: "Imagine a machine which contains two children, John and Mary. If one pushes a button, John will be killed, but Mary will emerge unharmed. If one does not push the button, John will emerge unharmed but Mary will be killed. In the first case one kills John, while in the second case one merely lets Mary die" (qtd. In Trammell). In this case the ONLY factor that differs is that of letting vs. doing...and it does not make any either situation more appealing than the other. I argue, that any like case, where letting or doing is the sole factor of difference between the two options, one has absolutely nothing relevant to say of the moral worth of one situation over the other.
Even in cases like what I call "the bathtub objection" where there is a strong motive to kill someone and in one world the subject drowns the person, the other world they are merely very pleased to find them already drowning, and let them go. Trammell objects to cases of this type by saying that there is a "sledgehammer effect" or a simple overpowering of other factors. However, the very fact that letting vs. doing is so easily overpowered brings into question its actual relevance. For I believe it can be overpowered even in the case of pushing someone into a lake that I initially described. Actually, I think It can be overpowered in every case where the distinction occurs, because it is not the distinction itself that is morally relevant. Show me a case of two morally different acts where there is no other more compelling normative factor than letting vs. doing that might actually be doing the work of your prima facie intuition that makes the moral distinction. Show me a case where letting vs. doing is the only real factor of difference where one can actually say something of worth morally one way or the other.
Even if I were to concede letting vs. doing was of real moral significance, it would only be extrinsically so, and not a real intrinsic normative factor. For it could be argued that because it takes different characters etc. to do than it does to let, there must be some morally significant difference between the two. However, this only convinces me that letting vs. doing is instrumentally significant to determining other morally weighty factors. For, it remains to be convincing that knowing whether or not a person "let happen" or "did" is what actually moves our moral intuitions.
The ultimate disutility of letting/doing is shown most vividly by Tooley’s diabolical machine example: "Imagine a machine which contains two children, John and Mary. If one pushes a button, John will be killed, but Mary will emerge unharmed. If one does not push the button, John will emerge unharmed but Mary will be killed. In the first case one kills John, while in the second case one merely lets Mary die" (qtd. In Trammell). In this case the ONLY factor that differs is that of letting vs. doing...and it does not make any either situation more appealing than the other. I argue, that any like case, where letting or doing is the sole factor of difference between the two options, one has absolutely nothing relevant to say of the moral worth of one situation over the other.
Even in cases like what I call "the bathtub objection" where there is a strong motive to kill someone and in one world the subject drowns the person, the other world they are merely very pleased to find them already drowning, and let them go. Trammell objects to cases of this type by saying that there is a "sledgehammer effect" or a simple overpowering of other factors. However, the very fact that letting vs. doing is so easily overpowered brings into question its actual relevance. For I believe it can be overpowered even in the case of pushing someone into a lake that I initially described. Actually, I think It can be overpowered in every case where the distinction occurs, because it is not the distinction itself that is morally relevant. Show me a case of two morally different acts where there is no other more compelling normative factor than letting vs. doing that might actually be doing the work of your prima facie intuition that makes the moral distinction. Show me a case where letting vs. doing is the only real factor of difference where one can actually say something of worth morally one way or the other.
Even if I were to concede letting vs. doing was of real moral significance, it would only be extrinsically so, and not a real intrinsic normative factor. For it could be argued that because it takes different characters etc. to do than it does to let, there must be some morally significant difference between the two. However, this only convinces me that letting vs. doing is instrumentally significant to determining other morally weighty factors. For, it remains to be convincing that knowing whether or not a person "let happen" or "did" is what actually moves our moral intuitions.
posted by Tommy G! at
6:03 PM
2 Comments:
I am very tempted by what Tom says here. I have had trouble making the distinction between letting/doing (especially in the case of letting die/killing) and being 100 percent about the answer I gave. I was always left with a morally dirty feeling afterwards, like a sense of guilt no matter if I chose “same” or “different.” I think that in many cases there is a distinction, but I am inclined to agree that this distinction is not as great as I originally thought it to be nor is it as great as it is often made out to be. I would say that I am a deontologist (of some varying flavor, maybe mint chocolate chip hmm) but I am of the camp that thinks there many moral factors that come into play, many constraints, and that they all weigh differently, (and in different circumstances too!)
Another example of where the distinction fails to hold up, or at least fails to be most important, is in one of the situations we discussed in class. Here is my spin on it; a father and his daughter are at the park. It is a quiet afternoon; no one is around, and it is a rural area. A crazed man comes into the park with a gun. The crazed man points his gun at the daughter. He is in very close range, he will not miss. He says to the father that he will kill the daughter no matter what. The father, while the man looks over at the child, has to decide whether he should pull out his own gun and kill the man, or if he should keep his own hands “clean” and let his daughter die. It seems to me that the father will choose, and should choose, to kill the man to save his daughter. Say that there is no chance that the father will miss. There is no chance that the man will see what the father is doing (he is a quick and excellent marksman.) In this situation, the father’s obligation to protect his daughter and his love of his daughter (the near and dear constraint) are moral factors that have enough weight to outweigh the “killing versus letting die” constraint. It seems that it becomes almost a pointless constraint in this situation. It merely fades away underneath the weight of the other factors.
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Jen Ming, at 6:01 PM
I think that is makes sense that the distinction between killing and letting die does not in fact have any intrinsic moral weight. However I am willing to accord that distinction moral weight when various intentions or conditions are attached to them. Lets see where this goes. If someone is drowning and there is a life preserver well within your reach that you could throw to the person and thus save that person's life not doing so would not be letting die but rather killing Especially in such a case as there is malicious intent towards the person. One might as well have pushed the person off the pier.Alright so maybe this distinction doesn't have any weight whatsoever. But intentions do, I think. If one has a desire for malevolence to befall a particular person and out of "indifference" does not act, then that person is culpable, just as much as he he had personally inflicted harm on the person. By your non-action you have in fact inflicted harm upon this person. This only seems to work in cases of ill-will or ill intent. Indifference though strikes me as a form of ill will and a particularly insidious type at that. It gives the pretense of not hurting anyone whilst in fact it seems be the cause of moral stagnacy and inaction in times of need. Inaction allows for moral wrongs to go unchallenged and that in itself is inherently wrong. This still seems incomplete. errg. Letting in certain cases may be appropriate and doing in other cases might be appropriate depending on the circumstances. I'm not entirely sure yet what I want to think about this. But I definitely think that there is less weight to the distinction between letting and doing than others might imply.
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Oakwise, at 10:36 PM
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