But here you are suggesting that it's not just about what you should hope but what perfectly moral third parties should hope. But they should want you to violate your special obligations--after all, they have no special obligations to your family member. But it seems weird to think both that you should save a loved one over a stranger an…
But here you are suggesting that it's not just about what you should hope but what perfectly moral third parties should hope. But they should want you to violate your special obligations--after all, they have no special obligations to your family member. But it seems weird to think both that you should save a loved one over a stranger and also that god should be sitting in heaven chanting "save the strangers," over and over again.
Yeah, interesting. That may partly be because we imagine that God wouldn't *order* you to do something unless you really have to. But maybe it seems strange enough to think you should prioritize your loved one even while God just (quietly) *wishes* you would do otherwise. Perhaps we think that ideal agents should respect our moral reasons. So although God would generally prefer that the strangers be saved (via natural causes, say), he does not prefer that *you* (wrongly) save the strangers.
Here's a plausible principle: if some ideal agent wants you to take action A rather than B, they wouldn't want you to try to do A but accidentally do B. But this is incompatible with special obligations. In addition, if God's desires should respect our moral reasons, then, because special obligations are collectively self-defeating, god will sometimes want people to take actions which leave everyone worse off.
In addition, we can create a paradox of special obligations similar to your paradox of deontology. Consider three states of affairs.
w1) you save your loved one, but this prevents two other people from saving theirs.
w2) you save your loved one but a random unanticipated side effect is that two other people can't save theirs.
w3) the other two each save their loved one.
> represents preferability from the standpoint of a third party.
w3>w2≥w1. Therefore, w1<w3, but w3 is just w1 where you don't save your loved one and the other two do instead.
Ultimately, I think that deontic constraints rise or fall together.
Yeah, that's a puzzle -- I'll have to think more on it!
On collective self-defeat, I think Parfit was right that special obligations need a carve-out for those situations. You should help the strangers if others would then better help your own loved ones.
But here you are suggesting that it's not just about what you should hope but what perfectly moral third parties should hope. But they should want you to violate your special obligations--after all, they have no special obligations to your family member. But it seems weird to think both that you should save a loved one over a stranger and also that god should be sitting in heaven chanting "save the strangers," over and over again.
Yeah, interesting. That may partly be because we imagine that God wouldn't *order* you to do something unless you really have to. But maybe it seems strange enough to think you should prioritize your loved one even while God just (quietly) *wishes* you would do otherwise. Perhaps we think that ideal agents should respect our moral reasons. So although God would generally prefer that the strangers be saved (via natural causes, say), he does not prefer that *you* (wrongly) save the strangers.
Here's a plausible principle: if some ideal agent wants you to take action A rather than B, they wouldn't want you to try to do A but accidentally do B. But this is incompatible with special obligations. In addition, if God's desires should respect our moral reasons, then, because special obligations are collectively self-defeating, god will sometimes want people to take actions which leave everyone worse off.
In addition, we can create a paradox of special obligations similar to your paradox of deontology. Consider three states of affairs.
w1) you save your loved one, but this prevents two other people from saving theirs.
w2) you save your loved one but a random unanticipated side effect is that two other people can't save theirs.
w3) the other two each save their loved one.
> represents preferability from the standpoint of a third party.
w3>w2≥w1. Therefore, w1<w3, but w3 is just w1 where you don't save your loved one and the other two do instead.
Ultimately, I think that deontic constraints rise or fall together.
w3>w2
Yeah, that's a puzzle -- I'll have to think more on it!
On collective self-defeat, I think Parfit was right that special obligations need a carve-out for those situations. You should help the strangers if others would then better help your own loved ones.