I see your argument and understand the principles they are based in, however, it raises some difficulties for me. I am not a philosopher, or academic, so go easy on me. I also happen to believe your argument is from the heart, and trying to convince the reader that the troubles far from us deserve more attention than we give them.😉
In the emergent situation, how could any moral or ethical person make the SURE decision that their actions for the "others" would be completed. The person at the trolley switch could be hit by a bus before their act of charity is completed.
Another way to frame your argument is the example of high military command, where the sacrifice of few, to achieve a strategic good, is considered acceptable. This example has been discussed, by military folk since the beginning of warfare.
Your conclusion is in opposition to another commonly practiced emergency ethics skill, triage. Simply put, the nearby harms are the ones we have the highest probability of stopping. We, as human beings must address the harms nearest to us in order to be able to address the next closest harm. The alternative is to spread the resources of rescue to a point where they become ineffective. On a personal level, I cant maintain my own sanity if I try to right ALL of the wrongs, I have to keep focused on the problems I can affect.
As a military, and first responder type person, I try to do both, even when the odds are too long to contemplate. I train my subordinates to attempt the same. I believe your argument fails the real world test for another reason. Those of us on the front lines believe in luck, angels, and the impossible chance. We won't stop fighting for the lives of all four children in the water as long as hope remains.
A 50% chance of saving four people might be viewed as morally comparable to a near-certainty of saving two, for example. It would be worth taking such a chance over merely saving one person with confidence. (Though real-world cases certainly can be more difficult, if you don't know what probability value to give to your chance of success.)
But in the OP we're artificially assuming certainty in order to better focus on the underlying moral principles.
re: Triage, the ordering should not be by which harms are closest, but by (roughly) which you can do the most to alleviate. You can save a whole year of life (on average) for around $100 to GiveWell's Maximum Impact Fund. Locally, the same funds could only buy a few days of food.
On maintaining sanity: sure, we need to draw a line somewhere. But proximity is a bad way to do that (both inefficient, and very unfair to folks who aren't in rich countries, for starters). A better option, in my view, is to determine how much you're willing to give (e.g. 10% of your income), and then give that much in whatever way is most effective. Compare: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/19/nobody-is-perfect-everything-is-commensurable/
Framing non-emergency ethics as everyday ethics is misleading. Non emergency situations are not everyday or regular or easy. They require an even higher duty to act in a way that prevents rather than awaits emergency. The challenge is implementing this structurally and without added burdens in addition to daily missions to procure shelter, food, and company. Work should in virtue of itself prevent disaster not await it. Only in a world where our work awaits disaster do we need anything like effective altruism to clean up the mess.
In this way, emergency ethics aren’t the special situation, but rather normal reactions to improbable events: of course you save someone in trouble whether the baby or a community suffering from a tsunami across the pond. Instead some of the brightest minds today are optimizing a relatively minuscule pool of funds to support institutionalized, government approved, status quo maintaining entities rather than building a better world.
Richard Yetter Chappelle
I see your argument and understand the principles they are based in, however, it raises some difficulties for me. I am not a philosopher, or academic, so go easy on me. I also happen to believe your argument is from the heart, and trying to convince the reader that the troubles far from us deserve more attention than we give them.😉
In the emergent situation, how could any moral or ethical person make the SURE decision that their actions for the "others" would be completed. The person at the trolley switch could be hit by a bus before their act of charity is completed.
Another way to frame your argument is the example of high military command, where the sacrifice of few, to achieve a strategic good, is considered acceptable. This example has been discussed, by military folk since the beginning of warfare.
Your conclusion is in opposition to another commonly practiced emergency ethics skill, triage. Simply put, the nearby harms are the ones we have the highest probability of stopping. We, as human beings must address the harms nearest to us in order to be able to address the next closest harm. The alternative is to spread the resources of rescue to a point where they become ineffective. On a personal level, I cant maintain my own sanity if I try to right ALL of the wrongs, I have to keep focused on the problems I can affect.
As a military, and first responder type person, I try to do both, even when the odds are too long to contemplate. I train my subordinates to attempt the same. I believe your argument fails the real world test for another reason. Those of us on the front lines believe in luck, angels, and the impossible chance. We won't stop fighting for the lives of all four children in the water as long as hope remains.
Very Respectfully,
James Anderson
Chief Petty Officer
United States Coast Guard
Hi James, right, in any real-life situation one must discount due to uncertainty to determine expected value: https://www.utilitarianism.net/types-of-utilitarianism#expectational-utilitarianism-versus-objective-utilitarianism
A 50% chance of saving four people might be viewed as morally comparable to a near-certainty of saving two, for example. It would be worth taking such a chance over merely saving one person with confidence. (Though real-world cases certainly can be more difficult, if you don't know what probability value to give to your chance of success.)
But in the OP we're artificially assuming certainty in order to better focus on the underlying moral principles.
re: Triage, the ordering should not be by which harms are closest, but by (roughly) which you can do the most to alleviate. You can save a whole year of life (on average) for around $100 to GiveWell's Maximum Impact Fund. Locally, the same funds could only buy a few days of food.
On maintaining sanity: sure, we need to draw a line somewhere. But proximity is a bad way to do that (both inefficient, and very unfair to folks who aren't in rich countries, for starters). A better option, in my view, is to determine how much you're willing to give (e.g. 10% of your income), and then give that much in whatever way is most effective. Compare: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/19/nobody-is-perfect-everything-is-commensurable/
Framing non-emergency ethics as everyday ethics is misleading. Non emergency situations are not everyday or regular or easy. They require an even higher duty to act in a way that prevents rather than awaits emergency. The challenge is implementing this structurally and without added burdens in addition to daily missions to procure shelter, food, and company. Work should in virtue of itself prevent disaster not await it. Only in a world where our work awaits disaster do we need anything like effective altruism to clean up the mess.
In this way, emergency ethics aren’t the special situation, but rather normal reactions to improbable events: of course you save someone in trouble whether the baby or a community suffering from a tsunami across the pond. Instead some of the brightest minds today are optimizing a relatively minuscule pool of funds to support institutionalized, government approved, status quo maintaining entities rather than building a better world.