I'm wondering how much overlap there is between apparent examples of reactive ethics and apparent examples of "expanding circle" moral weighting of others based upon metaphorical proximity to oneself. When people put a lot of effort into domestic political causes, it usually doesn't strike me as particularly reactive, but more like proac…
I'm wondering how much overlap there is between apparent examples of reactive ethics and apparent examples of "expanding circle" moral weighting of others based upon metaphorical proximity to oneself. When people put a lot of effort into domestic political causes, it usually doesn't strike me as particularly reactive, but more like proactive altruism toward their respective political tribe first, their own nation second (possibly also including a few other select "similar" nations), and the faraway rest of the world mostly out of the calculation.
I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but I certainly agree it's also possible to pursue local goals in a proactive (and not merely reactive) way.
So, I think it's clearly reasonable to treat one chicken as carrying less moral weight than one human, one spider as carrying less moral weight than one chicken, etc. What I'm suggesting is that many examples which we'd be tempted to explain as reactive ethics, might also be well-explained in terms of similar (although in this case morally indefensible) weighting of some humans over others.
After all, we have plenty of historical and current examples of people living in close proximity with others whose interests they heavily downgrade, don't we? What if Singer had posed his question in 1700 Louisiana, and it had been "white landowner's child dying in the swimming pool" versus "slave child dying in the canal"? Or what if we asked some conservative Brahmins in India, and gave some indication of the child's caste?
Sure, it's easy to come up with dissociations between the reactive/proactive question and the discrimination between groups question. I'm asking about the extent of real world overlap, and guessing it's considerable. Usually our morally downgraded outgroups are also the people we see less often face-to-face.
Ah, I see, thanks for clarifying! I'm maybe more optimistic about most people not having such outright indefensible moral goals nowadays (e.g. explicitly racist or nationalist ones), but it is an interesting question how often something like that may be playing some role.
I think one particularly strong argument for that sort of "under-expanded circle" being at work rather than reactive ethics is how much greater political effort -- and even passionate emotion -- people put into lesser domestic issues versus greater global ones, when most of the time they're not being reactive like in the drowning child example.
I'm wondering how much overlap there is between apparent examples of reactive ethics and apparent examples of "expanding circle" moral weighting of others based upon metaphorical proximity to oneself. When people put a lot of effort into domestic political causes, it usually doesn't strike me as particularly reactive, but more like proactive altruism toward their respective political tribe first, their own nation second (possibly also including a few other select "similar" nations), and the faraway rest of the world mostly out of the calculation.
I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but I certainly agree it's also possible to pursue local goals in a proactive (and not merely reactive) way.
So, I think it's clearly reasonable to treat one chicken as carrying less moral weight than one human, one spider as carrying less moral weight than one chicken, etc. What I'm suggesting is that many examples which we'd be tempted to explain as reactive ethics, might also be well-explained in terms of similar (although in this case morally indefensible) weighting of some humans over others.
After all, we have plenty of historical and current examples of people living in close proximity with others whose interests they heavily downgrade, don't we? What if Singer had posed his question in 1700 Louisiana, and it had been "white landowner's child dying in the swimming pool" versus "slave child dying in the canal"? Or what if we asked some conservative Brahmins in India, and gave some indication of the child's caste?
Sure, it's easy to come up with dissociations between the reactive/proactive question and the discrimination between groups question. I'm asking about the extent of real world overlap, and guessing it's considerable. Usually our morally downgraded outgroups are also the people we see less often face-to-face.
Ah, I see, thanks for clarifying! I'm maybe more optimistic about most people not having such outright indefensible moral goals nowadays (e.g. explicitly racist or nationalist ones), but it is an interesting question how often something like that may be playing some role.
I think one particularly strong argument for that sort of "under-expanded circle" being at work rather than reactive ethics is how much greater political effort -- and even passionate emotion -- people put into lesser domestic issues versus greater global ones, when most of the time they're not being reactive like in the drowning child example.