tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post3527301229959540353..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Birth Control and Business ChoicesAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-70314049627415445362007-06-13T09:23:00.000-06:002007-06-13T09:23:00.000-06:00Unexpected miracles and heart attacks do not retro...<I>Unexpected miracles and heart attacks do not retroactively make an evil act good.</I><BR/><BR/>Agreed, but not relevant. The point was that, given the definition of condemnation in play, A couldn't be condemned. Since that's the wrong result, there must be something wrong with the definition.<BR/><BR/><I>We act to fulfill the more and greater of our desires given our beliefs.</I><BR/><BR/>From this, we still couldn't conclude A did anything wrong. If he just wanted to eat two helpings of food more than he wanted to help B, or if he didn't actually believe that B would die without the food, then A acted correctly.ADHRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00854569640217600183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-77478923669718841352007-06-13T06:53:00.000-06:002007-06-13T06:53:00.000-06:00adhr said: Suppose that A and B are, once again, s...adhr said: <I>Suppose that A and B are, once again, starving. However, there's two portions of food, and each portion would be enough to keep A and B alive. A, being greedy, takes both portions of food and gorges himself. In short order, he dies (say the food was extremely fatty and he had a massive heart attack). B, being a lucky sort of person, miraculously finds another portion of food, which he eats and thus lives. By your test, though, it seems that A should not be condemned</I><BR/><BR/>We act to fulfill the more and greater of our desires given our beliefs. A and B both believed that there were exactly 2 servings of food. Believing this, A took B's food anyway, expecting this to result in B dying and A living; thus he is to be condemned. Unexpected miracles and heart attacks do not retroactively make an evil act good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-76378335058465040842007-06-12T10:56:00.000-06:002007-06-12T10:56:00.000-06:00The relevance of negative liberty is unclear to me...The relevance of negative liberty is unclear to me. We're talking about hospitals, which aren't moral agents, and so can't have liberty. Specialization, affordability, and availability are fair enough complaints, but they don't eliminate the responsibility of the hospital to do <I>something</I> in terms of service provision: such as ship the patient in question to the nearest institution that can provide the necessary care (in time-limited cases) or refer the patient to same (in cases with no pressing need). The parallel in the case of a pharmacy, then, would be to actually transport the customer to the nearest pharmacy in cases of pressing need, and refer the customer to the nearest pharmacy in all other cases.<BR/><BR/>Of course, this all operates at the institutional level; it does nothing to the claim that the pharmacist, by virtue of being a pharmacist, is obligated to fill prescriptions. If there were some division within pharmacy parallel to the specializations within medicine, then pharmacists could legitimately claim to limit themselves to only the role that they have assumed; since, AFAIK, there aren't such divisions, pharmacists don't have a justification for accepting the power associated with their role (dispensing medications) and denying the responsibility (to dispense prescribed medications). (FWIW, dentistry is not considered part of medicine. I'm not sure why; there's probably historical reasons.)<BR/><BR/>The purpose of the first counter-example was to show that the conditions of the condemnation test can be fulfilled and yet condemnation not be appropriate. Drawing straws is a (possibly) legitimate decision mechanism, but it doesn't solve the condemnation question, as the two issues are separate. It's possible, after all, that following the best decision mechanism available will still leave one vulnerable to condemnation, and that following the worst will still leave one above condemnation.<BR/><BR/>As far as the second case, the analysis of desire looks incomplete to me. If a good desire is defined in terms of fulfilling the desires of others, what is it that defines the desires others have? The way you use "tends" suggest to me that you may be thinking dispositionally -- so, a desire is a disposition to perform certain actions in certain circumstances. That would mean the definition of "good desire" applies to those dispositions to perform certain actions in certain circumstances such that the actions in those circumstances fulfill the desires of others. A "bad desire", then, would have to be a disposition to perform certain actions in certain circumstances such that the actions in those circumstances prevent the fulfillment of the desires of others.<BR/><BR/>You may also be thinking in terms of probabilistic causality -- so, a desire causes certain actions in certain circumstances with a particular probability. That would mean the definition of "good desire" applies to the cause of actions in certain circumstances such that the actions in those circumstances generally fulfill the desires of others. A "bad desire" would be the cause of actions in certain circumstances such that the actions in those circumstances generally prevent the fulfillment of the desires of others.<BR/><BR/>If either of these is right, though, the second case still stands as a counter-example. Looking at the dispositional analysis, A doesn't necessarily have a disposition to perform actions that deprive B of fulfilling his desire for food. All that's revealed is that he <I>did</I> perform an action that deprived B of fulfilling his desire for food; it doesn't follow from A's taking all the food that he is disposed to take all the food. <BR/><BR/>The causal analysis has a similar problem. Since the bad desire only causes actions that generally prevent the fulfillment of the desires of others, and the good desire only causes actions that generally fulfill the desires of others, it follows that the good desire <I>can</I> cause an action that, in a particular case, prevents the fulfillment of the desires of others (and <I>vice versa</I> for a bad desire causing a beneficial action). <BR/><BR/>If you eliminate the probabilistic terminology, and read the causal claims deterministically, that would save the result: A had a bad desire which did indeed cause him to do something that prevented B's fulfilling his desire for food. It's not plausible as a model of human action, though, as (for one) it's hard to see why A is blamed for doing what he did if his desire deterministically caused him to do it. We could blame A for having the desire (assuming desire-formation is not deterministically caused), but not for the action the desire caused; once the desire was in place, it was inevitable that the action would result.ADHRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00854569640217600183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-46584526713609364472007-06-12T08:52:00.000-06:002007-06-12T08:52:00.000-06:00...if the hostpital has certain special powers ass...<I>...if the hostpital has certain special powers associated with its role, and if these powers come with the responsibility to provide all levels of care required of patients, then it woul follow that the hospital had also done wrong.</I><BR/><BR/>There are several reasons not to require a hospital to provide all levels of care.<BR/><BR/>(1) Liberty. The presumption should be in favor of allowing people to do as they wish unless a compelling interest can be shown in the alternative. The burden of proof is on those who will seek to limit freedom. <BR/><BR/>(2) Affordability. If we were to require that a hospital in Miles City, MT provide the same level of care as the Mayo Clinic, there would be no hospital in Miles City, MT.<BR/><BR/>(3) Specialization. A dentist's office should not be required to offer brain surgery as another medical procedure.<BR/><BR/>(4) Availability. Restrictions and requirements will simply reduce the number of options available. One might think that a law that requires all individuals to provide services A and B will make both more widely available. Yet, in many cases, the requirement that individuals provide services A and B will simply close the doors to those who provide only A or only B.<BR/><BR/>If a particular pharmacy is the only pharmacy for a significant distance, then there may be a compelling interest in forcing it to make all pharmaceutical options available. However, if this legislation proves to have the effect of simply closing down this sole pharmacy, then this is not helping.<BR/><BR/>As for your first counter-example, the standard moral solution in this type of case would be to simply draw straws for the food - leaving the decision as to who lives or dies up to chance. I do not see how this provides a counter-example.<BR/><BR/>Your second counter-example does require more specificity in my statements than the space of a blog allowed.<BR/><BR/>In desire utilitarianism, a person deserves condemnation if he performs an action that a person with good desires would not do. Good desires are maleable desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others.<BR/><BR/>In your second case, A, being greedy, performs an action that people generally have reason to condemn. It may be, in this case, that B gets lucky. However, in general (an in real-world situations where morality must function) he acts on maleable desires that would tend to thwart the desires of others.<BR/><BR/>The owners of this pharmacy exhibits attitudes that will tend to thwart the desires of others. If this harm was due to an oversite that anyboy could make, then condemnation would be appropriate. However, in this case, a person with good desires would not adopt this attitude unless forced into it - would give the benefit of the doubt to options that benefit others and accept options that harm others only under a burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt.<BR/><BR/>These standards are not met in this circumstance, making condemnation appropriate.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-38789522938947851772007-06-12T08:07:00.000-06:002007-06-12T08:07:00.000-06:00Alonzo,Interesting piece. I think there's another ...Alonzo,<BR/><BR/>Interesting piece. I think there's another way to frame the problem, though, which gives a quicker judgement against the conduct of the pharmacy. A pharmacist who owns his store fills two roles, not just one. That is, he's not only a store-owner, who can sell whatever he wants, but also a pharmacist, who is granted a particular special power -- dispensing medications -- with concordant responsibility -- to dispense medications as they are prescribed by a physician. If the pharmacist doesn't want to live up to the responsibility, then I see no reason to allow him to retain the special power. Consider, by analogy, the psychiatrist who refuses to prescribe psychotropics, not because he believes they don't work, but because he just chooses not to. There's a case to be made there, I think, that the psychiatrist has given up the responsibility associated with his role as physician, and should thus be restricted in that role.<BR/><BR/>If that's right, then of the comparisons you draw, only the hospital remains apt, and I would suggest that, if the hospital has certain special powers associated with its role, and if these powers come with the responsibility to provide all levels of care required by patients, then it would follow that the hospital had also done wrong. (For what it's worth, in my experience if a particular hospital can't provide a needed treatment, they will arrange treatment at the nearest centre that can, at least in acute cases.)<BR/><BR/>I also have a worry about your condemnation test: <BR/><BR/><I>When people act so as to make the lives of others worse off than they would have otherwise been, and uses poor reasoning to defend their action, it is perfectly legitimate to condemn them for it.</I> <BR/><BR/>It seems vulnerable to counterexamples. Suppose A and B are both starving, such that each will die if they do not eat immediately. Suppose also that there is food available, but only enough to preserve either A's life or B's life, but not both. If A eats the food, then he will make B worse-off, by killing him; similarly, if B eats the food, then he will make A worse-off, by killing him. If both A and B eat the food, then they will make each other worse-off (and, indeed, themselves worse-off) because, <I>ex hypothesi</I>, there is not enough food to keep them both alive. I don't see what reasoning could justify any of the options available to either A or B, i.e., eat the food and let the other die, share the food and both die, or let the other have the food and die oneself. So, it seems that A and B, although trapped in a horrible situation not of their own making, will automatically be condemnable no matter what they do. This strikes me as wrong: the situation is sufficiently tragic that neither A nor B should be condemned, no matter what they do.<BR/><BR/>The above suggests the test is not sufficient; I believe I can also show that the test is not necessary. Suppose that A and B are, once again, starving. However, there's two portions of food, and each portion would be enough to keep A and B alive. A, being greedy, takes both portions of food and gorges himself. In short order, he dies (say the food was extremely fatty and he had a massive heart attack). B, being a lucky sort of person, miraculously finds another portion of food, which he eats and thus lives. By your test, though, it seems that A should not be condemned: B is not actually worse-off than he would have been (if he had eaten one of the two original portions, he would have lived; instead, he ate the third, miraculous portion of food, and lived; the outcomes are the same on either possibility), even though A's reasoning (if there was any) could not be considered good. However, that A took more than he needed, when B's need was as acute as his, suggests that A <I>should</I> be condemned. So, the test is not a necessary condition, either.ADHRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00854569640217600183noreply@blogger.com