4: PHIL Introduction to Ethics
Out of e crooked mber of humani no saight ing was ever made. Immanuel Kant
Consequentialism, Deontology, & Doing Harm (III)
Compare Ch. 3, Normative Ethics, Shelley Kagan
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Doing vs. Allowing (contd)
A proposal: doing harm involves a physical act of some kind
whereas allowing harm involves the failure to perform a physical act of some kind
That is, we could use the familiar distinction between an act of
commission (doing harm) and an act of omission (allowing harm)
Will this characterization of the doing/allowing distinction
work?
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Little-Dutch-Boy
3
Aborted-Rescue
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Doing vs. Allowing (contd)
Little-Dutch-Boy and Aborted-Rescue seem to show that acts
of commission can be cases of a#owing harm
Can you think of any acts of omission that might rightly be
considered cases of doing harm?
What about Trolly-Driver if he does nothing? Or perhaps a
clearer case: parents that fail to feed their children. This is an act of omission, but wouldnt we say they ki#ed their children? Not just a#owed them to die?
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Doing vs. Allowing (contd)
So Kagans rst question how exactly shall we characterize
the distinction between doing and allowing?is more difficult than it might have first seemed
But assuming that the distinction could be worked out, the
second question remains: is it a morally relevant distinction?
Is doing harm really worse than allowing it?
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Pier 1: Allow a stranger to drown Pier II: Drown a stranger
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Famine Relief 1: Fail to send care package for famine relief Famine-Relief II: Send a poisoned care package
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Doing Allowing vs. (contd)
These cases certainly pump our intuition that doing harm is
worse than merely allowing it
And this explains our strong reaction to Chop-Up-Chuck: wed
have to do harm to Chuck in order to harvest his organs, but were merely a#owing the other ve patients to die
So it seems were on to something here. The doing/allowing
distinction seems to hold up well on reection
Or does it? How then do we explain the morality quiz results of
Trolley-Driver, Bystander, Cave I, Cave II. These are all cases in which the class showed a willingness to do harm when a#owing harm was the alternative option.
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Doing vs. Allowing (contd)
An objection
Pier I/Pier II and Famine Relief 1/Famine Relief II were
supposed to show that doing harm is worse than allowing it
But is that rea#y what they show? Consider the motives or intentions involved in these cases. Its
the intentions of the agent that are driving our moral judgments, not the doing/allowing distinction
Or so says the objector
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Inheritance 1:Allow cousin to drown in bathtub Inheritance II:Drown cousin in bathtub
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Intending Harm
Inheritance I and II arguably show that we were simply
confused in diagnosing our judgments about the Pier and Famine Relief cases
The doing/allowing distinction can seem morally relevant on
the surface, but closer examination shows that the agents intentions are what matters
Or so says the objector Defenders of the doing/allowing distinction may have some
responses here, but lets follow this new suggestion that it is intending harm that really matters, morally speaking
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