I don't see why the idea of moral prohibition is "semi-mystical," much more than the concept of "moral reason." I don't think social-standing considerations or emotional reactions are inherent in the idea of moral prohibitions on behavior. The idea of a moral obligation to always do the optimal behavior seems excessively demanding. I suppose if we reject the idea of obligation and supererogation, then we don't have this counterintuitive conclusion, but those seem like real things to me and most people. For most utilitarians, it would seem, flipping the switch is a moral obligation, not merely the thing we have most moral reason to do. Most say "you SHOULD flip the switch." Your perspective seems a bit unique from my general impression, but you are obviously more familiar with this than me.
"It’s OK to be flawed—everyone else is too. We can all celebrate incremental improvements, and uphold norms to prevent moral backsliding (you should feel terrible, and suffer criminal punishment, if you gratuitously murder someone!)."
Most people treat murder and letting die as incredibly different from a moral perspective, but one feature of utilitarianism is that they are equally morally bad if the consequences are equal. This is also counter-intuitive for most. I don't understand why utilitarians shouldn't harshly condemn not donating to GiveWell and maybe even criminally punish people who do not if we treat these things as morally equivalent. Many people who donate to GiveWell seem to feel guilt that they don't give more; seems like we should be harshly condemning them instead of trying to assuage their guilt. People who only give 10% when they could give more are morally worse than most poor murderers.
> I don't see why the idea of moral prohibition is "semi-mystical," much more than the concept of "moral reason."
That's a good question. I think one thing that influences me here is that scalar reasons are familiar from other normative domains (e.g. prudence), whereas obligation seems unique to the moral realm (or artificial pseudo-"norms" like legal requirements). And I guess I'm skeptical that there really is any unique moral realm. I just think there are things that are worth caring about, and hence worth pursuing.
Worth noting that Scalar Consequentialists like Alastair Norcross have argued at length (and convincingly, to my mind) that the traditional notion of obligation makes no sense within a consequentialist framework -- e.g. due to positing thresholds of deontic importance that don't map onto correspondingly large differences in value.
And it's really just this latter claim that's most relevant to my purposes: *Consequentialists* should be suspicious of irreducible obligation-talk. It's fine if deontologists and others find the concept less mysterious. (Probably explains why they're drawn to deontology in the first place!)
Sure, but "should" in this context just means "what you have most reason to do". See my Deontic Pluralism paper for citations to, e.g., Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek explicitly claiming this (in *The Point of View of the Universe*, following Sidgwick's lead).
> I don't understand why utilitarians shouldn't harshly condemn not donating to GiveWell and maybe even criminally punish people who do not
Because such condemnation (let alone punishment) would have predictably bad consequences?
If you're wondering instead whether killing and letting die should be viewed as equally blame-*worthy* in principle, my 'Deontic Pluralism' post explains why this doesn't follow from the mere fact that we have equally strong reasons to prefer and choose the life-saving choice in either case.
“ . We just think you have most moral reason to do the optimal thing, that’s all. Far from being “crazy”, this claim is nearly trivial—who would deny it?”
If utilitarianism means that what is moral is what is optimal, this is circular reasoning. What distinguishes moral reason from other sorts?
If utilitarianism simply ranks things, and does not compel one to choose the higher ranked thing, that would mean that moral reasons don’t always overrule other sorts of reasons. But this then makes it ambiguous what one ought to do, or by what metastandard one should decide.
In other words, in this framework, the underlying moral reasons are doing all the work, and the utilitarianism is a trivial derivative. We ought to be discussing those moral reasons, and perhaps calling it moral reasonism, not utilitarianism.
I don't see why the idea of moral prohibition is "semi-mystical," much more than the concept of "moral reason." I don't think social-standing considerations or emotional reactions are inherent in the idea of moral prohibitions on behavior. The idea of a moral obligation to always do the optimal behavior seems excessively demanding. I suppose if we reject the idea of obligation and supererogation, then we don't have this counterintuitive conclusion, but those seem like real things to me and most people. For most utilitarians, it would seem, flipping the switch is a moral obligation, not merely the thing we have most moral reason to do. Most say "you SHOULD flip the switch." Your perspective seems a bit unique from my general impression, but you are obviously more familiar with this than me.
"It’s OK to be flawed—everyone else is too. We can all celebrate incremental improvements, and uphold norms to prevent moral backsliding (you should feel terrible, and suffer criminal punishment, if you gratuitously murder someone!)."
Most people treat murder and letting die as incredibly different from a moral perspective, but one feature of utilitarianism is that they are equally morally bad if the consequences are equal. This is also counter-intuitive for most. I don't understand why utilitarians shouldn't harshly condemn not donating to GiveWell and maybe even criminally punish people who do not if we treat these things as morally equivalent. Many people who donate to GiveWell seem to feel guilt that they don't give more; seems like we should be harshly condemning them instead of trying to assuage their guilt. People who only give 10% when they could give more are morally worse than most poor murderers.
> I don't see why the idea of moral prohibition is "semi-mystical," much more than the concept of "moral reason."
That's a good question. I think one thing that influences me here is that scalar reasons are familiar from other normative domains (e.g. prudence), whereas obligation seems unique to the moral realm (or artificial pseudo-"norms" like legal requirements). And I guess I'm skeptical that there really is any unique moral realm. I just think there are things that are worth caring about, and hence worth pursuing.
Worth noting that Scalar Consequentialists like Alastair Norcross have argued at length (and convincingly, to my mind) that the traditional notion of obligation makes no sense within a consequentialist framework -- e.g. due to positing thresholds of deontic importance that don't map onto correspondingly large differences in value.
And it's really just this latter claim that's most relevant to my purposes: *Consequentialists* should be suspicious of irreducible obligation-talk. It's fine if deontologists and others find the concept less mysterious. (Probably explains why they're drawn to deontology in the first place!)
Thank you for the lengthy reply. Much appreciated.
A lot of this is covered in my previous post on 'Deontic Pluralism' (and the paper linked therein):
https://rychappell.substack.com/p/deontic-pluralism
> Most say "you SHOULD flip the switch."
Sure, but "should" in this context just means "what you have most reason to do". See my Deontic Pluralism paper for citations to, e.g., Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek explicitly claiming this (in *The Point of View of the Universe*, following Sidgwick's lead).
> I don't understand why utilitarians shouldn't harshly condemn not donating to GiveWell and maybe even criminally punish people who do not
Because such condemnation (let alone punishment) would have predictably bad consequences?
If you're wondering instead whether killing and letting die should be viewed as equally blame-*worthy* in principle, my 'Deontic Pluralism' post explains why this doesn't follow from the mere fact that we have equally strong reasons to prefer and choose the life-saving choice in either case.
Thanks!
“ . We just think you have most moral reason to do the optimal thing, that’s all. Far from being “crazy”, this claim is nearly trivial—who would deny it?”
If utilitarianism means that what is moral is what is optimal, this is circular reasoning. What distinguishes moral reason from other sorts?
If utilitarianism simply ranks things, and does not compel one to choose the higher ranked thing, that would mean that moral reasons don’t always overrule other sorts of reasons. But this then makes it ambiguous what one ought to do, or by what metastandard one should decide.
In other words, in this framework, the underlying moral reasons are doing all the work, and the utilitarianism is a trivial derivative. We ought to be discussing those moral reasons, and perhaps calling it moral reasonism, not utilitarianism.
People already covered all these exact points 150 years ago, by the way -- specifically Mill, in his book Utilitarianism, responding to detractors.
"all these exact points"
Lol, no. Mill did indeed make some excellent points, but he hardly exhausted the topic.
Maybe worth a re-read. These points are in there.
Can you link to where Mill made "all these exact points?"