Your argument is missing a step, namely the one where you show that those things really are very bad even though this sort of analysis suggests that they do little harm.
[categorical imperative]
It is possible that James doesn’t agree with Kant. But if he does, I suggest that he can clearly respond along these lines: “The maxim by which I propose acting is that of acting to maximize expected utility. If everyone does this then perhaps 1000 people will buy drugs from a criminal organization and hence enable it to commit a few more murders—but they will only do that if the good each of them is able to do by buying those drugs outweighs the (incremental) harm caused by their contribution to the criminal organization, in which case collectively they will do enough good to outweigh those extra murders. I am happy to live in a society that makes such tradeoffs.”
But perhaps you are imagining a version of James that would endorse buying the drugs even if that does no good at all, merely on the grounds that the harm done is small. I agree that this (straw?) James couldn’t respond along those lines, but I don’t see any grounds for thinking the real James takes that view. He hasn’t argued that getting a job for an organization that does good would do relatively little good, so there’s no value in it; he’s argued that getting such a job would do less good than earning a lot of money and giving much of it away.
“The maxim by which I propose acting is that of acting to maximize expected utility. If everyone does this then perhaps 1000 people will buy drugs from a criminal organization and hence enable it to commit a few more murders—but they will only do that if the good each of them is able to do by buying those drugs outweighs the (incremental) harm caused by their contribution to the criminal organization, in which case collectively they will do enough good to outweigh those extra murders. I am happy to live in a society that makes such tradeoffs.”
YES
“he’s argued that getting such a job would do less good than earning a lot of money and giving much of it away.”
YES the value being the difference between if the organization hired you compared to their next best alternative.
Your argument is missing a step, namely the one where you show that those things really are very bad
Criminal organizations murdering thousands people are not something very bad?
even though this sort of analysis suggests that they do little harm.
It is a reductio ad absurdum.
But perhaps you are imagining a version of James that would endorse buying the drugs even if that does no good at all, merely on the grounds that the harm done is small.
Buying drugs (well, let’s say marijuana) supposedly does good to the rational consumers who like them. Like buying child pornography or visiting child prostitutes in third world countries does good to pedophiles, and so on. All these people could use marginal analysis to argue that whatever harm they are doing is negligible and doesn’t outweigh their gains.
If you agree with them then clearly you have much different moral principles that I have.
A friend comes to you and says “I really like marijuana but recognize that my using it harms people because of the nasty drug trade. I am considering either (1) not using marijuana, or (2) using marijuana but giving $50,000 a year more than I normally would to charity. I will give to GiveWell’s top charity. The second option would give me a happier life. I trust your judgement. Which of these two options is morally better? ”
Uh? The proper analogy is that your friend says “I’m considering working at a minimum wage blue collar job and not donating anything or working as a drug gangster and giving $50,000 a year to GiveWell’s top charity. The second option would give me a happier life. I trust your judgement. Which of these two options is morally better? ”
Alright, I pick the drug gangster path, taking into account the fact that his being a drug gangster probably displaces someone else from selling to his customers and so the marginal harm of this career choice isn’t all that high.
(I see you’ve been downvoted. It wasn’t by me. I very seldom both downvote someone and bother to argue with them.)
Criminal organizations murdering thousands of people are not something very bad?
No, that isn’t what I said nor what I meant. The thing that might or might not be very bad is doing business with such a criminal organization, not the existence or the activities of the organization (which uncontroversially are almost certainly very bad things).
All these people could use marginal analysis to argue that whatever harm they are doing is negligible and doesn’t outweigh their gains.
Could they? I mean, obviously anyone can argue anything, but what’s relevant here is whether they could actually demonstrate that their benefit outweighs the marginal harm done. For that to be true in the case of a paedophile visiting a child prostitute, for instance, the relevant question would be: Has the paedophile’s extra pleasure exceeded the child’s extra suffering?
For this to be a successful instance of your argument, you need to show two things: (1) that the paedophile’s extra pleasure really does outweigh the child’s extra suffering, and then (2) that despite that what s/he does is a bad thing. It seems to me that #1 is going to be extremely difficult, to say the least. (Which is why almost everyone is opposed to the prostitution of children.) And if #1 is wrong then #2 doesn’t arise. (And the easier question of whether what the paedophile does is a bad thing simpliciter is irrelevant to our argument here, because if #1 is wrong then this isn’t an instance that an argument like James’s could justify.)
Choosing the sexual abuse of children as the instance to work on here, by the way, is probably an effective rhetorical move in many places because it makes it difficult for someone to disagree with you without looking like an advocate for sexually abusing children. On LW, however, the audience is sufficiently clear-thinking that I am not worried that many people will jump to that wrong conclusion, which means you just get to look like someone who’s trying to pull a sleazy rhetorical move. Which is probably why you’re getting downvoted. A more productive (and, on LW, probably more effective) approach is to avoid such hot-button topics rather than embracing them—or (if they’re genuinely essential to the argument you’re making) to distinguish clearly between asking “why doesn’t your argument justify X?” and insinuating that your discussion partner actually does approve of X.
(I see you’ve been downvoted. It wasn’t by me. I very seldom both downvote someone and bother to argue with them.)
I don’t care about votes, anyway.
No, that isn’t what I said nor what I meant. The thing that might or might not be very bad is doing business with such a criminal organization, not the existence or the activities of the organization (which uncontroversially are almost certainly very bad things).
These organizations can only exist as long as there are people doing business with them.
Could they? I mean, obviously anyone can argue anything, but what’s relevant here is whether they could actually demonstrate that their benefit outweighs the marginal harm done. For that to be true in the case of a paedophile visiting a child prostitute, for instance, the relevant question would be: Has the paedophile’s extra pleasure exceeded the child’s extra suffering?
Well, the paedophile could argue that the child hooker in the streets of Bangkok is going to remain an hooker whether he visits him/her or not. After all, he is only displacing another customer, who, as far as he knows, could treat the child prostitute worse than he would. Even there is no other customer on that particular day, the life of the child prostitute isn’t going to become noticeably different on the margin. Does this make the visiting the child prostitute morally justifiable?
On LW, however, the audience is sufficiently clear-thinking that I am not worried that many people will jump to that wrong conclusion, which means you just get to look like someone who’s trying to pull a sleazy rhetorical move. Which is probably why you’re getting downvoted.
I think you have an over optimistic opinion of the audience here. People just tend to up-vote things that confirm their beliefs and down-vote things that challenge them.
A more productive (and, on LW, probably more effective) approach is to avoid such hot-button topics rather than embracing them—or (if they’re genuinely essential to the argument you’re making) to distinguish clearly between asking “why doesn’t your argument justify X?” and insinuating that your discussion partner actually does approve of X.
I didn’t insinuate that people who are making “marginal ethics” arguments here are paedophiles who visit child prostitutes. I made a reductio ad absurdum argument to show that marginal ethics can lead to absurd ethical positions, at least in the opinion of those who believe that visiting child prostitutes is immoral.
Your argument is missing a step, namely the one where you show that those things really are very bad even though this sort of analysis suggests that they do little harm.
It is possible that James doesn’t agree with Kant. But if he does, I suggest that he can clearly respond along these lines: “The maxim by which I propose acting is that of acting to maximize expected utility. If everyone does this then perhaps 1000 people will buy drugs from a criminal organization and hence enable it to commit a few more murders—but they will only do that if the good each of them is able to do by buying those drugs outweighs the (incremental) harm caused by their contribution to the criminal organization, in which case collectively they will do enough good to outweigh those extra murders. I am happy to live in a society that makes such tradeoffs.”
But perhaps you are imagining a version of James that would endorse buying the drugs even if that does no good at all, merely on the grounds that the harm done is small. I agree that this (straw?) James couldn’t respond along those lines, but I don’t see any grounds for thinking the real James takes that view. He hasn’t argued that getting a job for an organization that does good would do relatively little good, so there’s no value in it; he’s argued that getting such a job would do less good than earning a lot of money and giving much of it away.
YES
YES the value being the difference between if the organization hired you compared to their next best alternative.
Criminal organizations murdering thousands people are not something very bad?
It is a reductio ad absurdum.
Buying drugs (well, let’s say marijuana) supposedly does good to the rational consumers who like them. Like buying child pornography or visiting child prostitutes in third world countries does good to pedophiles, and so on.
All these people could use marginal analysis to argue that whatever harm they are doing is negligible and doesn’t outweigh their gains.
If you agree with them then clearly you have much different moral principles that I have.
A friend comes to you and says “I really like marijuana but recognize that my using it harms people because of the nasty drug trade. I am considering either (1) not using marijuana, or (2) using marijuana but giving $50,000 a year more than I normally would to charity. I will give to GiveWell’s top charity. The second option would give me a happier life. I trust your judgement. Which of these two options is morally better? ”
Uh? The proper analogy is that your friend says “I’m considering working at a minimum wage blue collar job and not donating anything or working as a drug gangster and giving $50,000 a year to GiveWell’s top charity. The second option would give me a happier life. I trust your judgement. Which of these two options is morally better? ”
Alright, I pick the drug gangster path, taking into account the fact that his being a drug gangster probably displaces someone else from selling to his customers and so the marginal harm of this career choice isn’t all that high.
Ok, we clearly have irreconcilably different values.
(I see you’ve been downvoted. It wasn’t by me. I very seldom both downvote someone and bother to argue with them.)
No, that isn’t what I said nor what I meant. The thing that might or might not be very bad is doing business with such a criminal organization, not the existence or the activities of the organization (which uncontroversially are almost certainly very bad things).
Could they? I mean, obviously anyone can argue anything, but what’s relevant here is whether they could actually demonstrate that their benefit outweighs the marginal harm done. For that to be true in the case of a paedophile visiting a child prostitute, for instance, the relevant question would be: Has the paedophile’s extra pleasure exceeded the child’s extra suffering?
For this to be a successful instance of your argument, you need to show two things: (1) that the paedophile’s extra pleasure really does outweigh the child’s extra suffering, and then (2) that despite that what s/he does is a bad thing. It seems to me that #1 is going to be extremely difficult, to say the least. (Which is why almost everyone is opposed to the prostitution of children.) And if #1 is wrong then #2 doesn’t arise. (And the easier question of whether what the paedophile does is a bad thing simpliciter is irrelevant to our argument here, because if #1 is wrong then this isn’t an instance that an argument like James’s could justify.)
Choosing the sexual abuse of children as the instance to work on here, by the way, is probably an effective rhetorical move in many places because it makes it difficult for someone to disagree with you without looking like an advocate for sexually abusing children. On LW, however, the audience is sufficiently clear-thinking that I am not worried that many people will jump to that wrong conclusion, which means you just get to look like someone who’s trying to pull a sleazy rhetorical move. Which is probably why you’re getting downvoted. A more productive (and, on LW, probably more effective) approach is to avoid such hot-button topics rather than embracing them—or (if they’re genuinely essential to the argument you’re making) to distinguish clearly between asking “why doesn’t your argument justify X?” and insinuating that your discussion partner actually does approve of X.
I don’t care about votes, anyway.
These organizations can only exist as long as there are people doing business with them.
Well, the paedophile could argue that the child hooker in the streets of Bangkok is going to remain an hooker whether he visits him/her or not. After all, he is only displacing another customer, who, as far as he knows, could treat the child prostitute worse than he would. Even there is no other customer on that particular day, the life of the child prostitute isn’t going to become noticeably different on the margin.
Does this make the visiting the child prostitute morally justifiable?
I think you have an over optimistic opinion of the audience here. People just tend to up-vote things that confirm their beliefs and down-vote things that challenge them.
I didn’t insinuate that people who are making “marginal ethics” arguments here are paedophiles who visit child prostitutes. I made a reductio ad absurdum argument to show that marginal ethics can lead to absurd ethical positions, at least in the opinion of those who believe that visiting child prostitutes is immoral.