imagine visiting a sick friend at the hospital. If our motivation for visiting our sick friend is that we think doing so will maximize the general good, (or best obeys the rules most conducive to the general good, or best respects our duties), then we are morally ugly in some way.
If our motivation is just to make our friend feel better is that okay? Because it seems like that is perfectly compatible with consequentialism, but doesn’t give the “I don’t really care about you” message to our friend like the other motivations.
Or is the fact that the main problem I see with the “morally ugly” motivations is that they would make the friend feel bad a sign that I’m still too stuck in the consequentialist mindset and completely missing the point?
If our motivation is just to make our friend feel better is that okay?
Absolutely. Generally being mindful of the consequences of one’s actions is not the issue: ethicists of every stripe regularly reference consequences when judging an action. Consequentialismdifferentiates itself by taking the evaluation of consequences to be explanatorily fundamental – that which forms the underlying principle for their unifying account of all/a broad range of normative judgments. The point that Stocker is trying to make there is (roughly) that being motivated purely by intensely principled ethical reasoning (for lack of a better description) is ugly. Ethical principles are so general, so far removed, that they misplace our affect. Here is how Stocker describes the situation (NB: his target is both DE and Consequentialism):
But now, suppose you are in a hospital, recovering from a long illness. You are very bored and restless and at loose ends when Smith comes in once again. [...] You are so effusive with your praise and thanks that he protests that he always tries to do what he thinks is his duty, what he thinks will be best. You at first think he is engaging in a polite form of self-deprecation [...]. But the more you two speak, the more clear it becomes that he was telling the literal truth: that it is not essentially because of you that he came to see you, not because you are friends, but because he thought it his duty, perhaps as a fellow Christian or Communist or whatever, or simply because he knows of no one more in need of cheering up and no one easier to cheer up.
I should make clear (as I hope I did in the post): this is not an insurmountable problem. It leads to varying degrees of self-effacement. I think some theorists handle it better than others, and I think VE handles it most coherently, but it’s certainly not a fatal blow for Consequentialism or DE. It does however present a pitfall (internal moral disharmony) for casual readers/followers of Consequentialism. Raising awareness of that pitfall was the principle aim of my post.
Orthogonal point: The problem is certainly not just that the sick friend feels bad. As I mention:
Pretending to care (answering your friend “because I was worried!” when in fact your motivation was to maximize the general good) is just as ugly and will exacerbate the self-harm.
But many consequentialists can account for this. They just need a theory of value that accounts for harms done that aren’t known to the one harmed. Eudaimonic Consequentialism (EC) could do this easily: the friend is harmed in that they are tricked into thinking they have a true, caring friend when they don’t. Having true, caring friends is a good they are being deprived of. Hedonistic Consequentialism (HC) on the other hand will have a much harder time accounting for this harm. See footnote 2.
I say this is orthogonal because both EC and HC need a way to handle internal moral disharmony – a misalignment between the reasons/justifications for an action being right and the appropriate motivation for taking that action. Prima facie HC bites the bullet, doesn’t self-efface, but recommends we become walking utility calculators/rule-worshipers. EC seems to self-efface: it judges that visiting the friend is right because it maximizes general human flourishing, but warns that this justification is the wrong motivation for visiting the friend (because having such a motivation would fail to maximize general human flourishing). In other words, it tells you to stop consulting EC – forget about it for a moment – and it hopes that you have developed the right motivation prior to this situation and will draw on that instead.
Okay, I think my main confusion is that all the examples have both the motivation-by-ethical-reasoning and lack-of-personal-caring/empathy on the moral disharmony/ugliness side. I’ll try to modify the examples a bit to tease them apart:
Visiting a stranger in the hospital in order to increase the sum of global utility is morally ugly
Visiting a stranger in the hospital because you’ve successfully internalized compassion toward them via loving kindness meditation (or something like that) is morally good(?)
That is, the important part is the internalized motivation vs reasoning out what to do from ethical principles.
(although I notice my intuition has a hard time believing the premise in the 2nd case)
That sounds about right. The person in the second case is less morally ugly than the first. This is spot on:
the important part is the internalized motivation vs reasoning out what to do from ethical principles.
What do you mean by this though?:
(although I notice my intuition has a hard time believing the premise in the 2nd case)
You find it hard to believe someone could internalize the trait of compassion through “loving kindness meditation”? (This last I assume is a placeholder term for whatever works for making oneself more virtuous). Also, any reason you swapped the friend for a stranger? That changes the situation somewhat – in degree at least, but maybe in kind too.
I would note, according to (my simplified) VE, it’s the compassion that makes the action of visiting the stranger/friend morally right. How the compassion was got is another question, to be evaluated on different merits.
I’m not sure I understand your confusion, but if you want examples of when it is right to be motivated by careful principled ethical reasoning or rule-worship, here are some examples:
for a judge, acting in their capacity as judge, it is often appropriate that they be motivated by a love of consistently respecting rules and principles
for policymakers, acting in their capacity as policymakers (far-removed from “the action”), it is often appropriate for them to devise and implement their policies motivated by impersonal calculations of general welfare
These are just some but I’m sure there are countless others. The broader point though: engaging in this kind of principled ethical reasoning/rule-worship very often, making it a reflex, will likely result in you engaging in it when you shouldn’t. When you do so involuntarily, despite you preferring that you wouldn’t: that’s internal moral disharmony. (Therefore, ethicists of all stripe probably tend to suffer internal moral disharmony more than the average person!)
Also, any reason you swapped the friend for a stranger? That changes the situation somewhat – in degree at least, but maybe in kind too.
Yes, the other examples seemed to be about caring about people you are close to more than strangers, but I wanted to focus on the ethical reasoning vs internal motivation part.
examples of when it is right to be motivated by careful principled ethical reasoning or rule-worship
Yes, consequentialism judges the act of visiting a friend in hospital to be (almost certainly) good since the outcome is (almost certainly) better than not doing it. That’s it. No other considerations need apply. What their motivation was and whether there exist other possible acts that were also good are irrelevant.
If someone visits their sick friend only because it is a moral duty to do so, then I would have doubts that they are actually a friend. If there is any ugliness, it’s just the implied wider implications of deceiving their “friend” about actually being a friend. Even then, consequentialism in itself does not imply any duty to perform any specific good act so it still doesn’t really fit. That sounds more like some strict form of utilitarianism, except that a strict utilitarian probably won’t be visiting a sick friend since there is so much more marginal utility in addressing much more serious unmet needs of larger numbers of people.
If they visit their sick friend because they personally care about their friend’s welfare, and their moral framework also judges it a good act to visit them, then where’s the ugliness?
… consequentialism judges the act of visiting a friend in hospital to be (almost certainly) good since the outcome is (almost certainly) better than not doing it. That’s it. No other considerations need apply. [...] whether there exist other possible acts that were also good are irrelevant.
I don’t know of any consequentialist theory that looks like that. What is the general consequentialist principle you are deploying here? Your reasoning seems very one off. Which is fine! That’s exactly what I’m advocating for! But I think we’re talking past each other then. I’m criticizing Consequentialismnot just any old moral reasoning that happens to reference the consequences of one’s actions (see my response to npostavs)
If our motivation is just to make our friend feel better is that okay? Because it seems like that is perfectly compatible with consequentialism, but doesn’t give the “I don’t really care about you” message to our friend like the other motivations.
Or is the fact that the main problem I see with the “morally ugly” motivations is that they would make the friend feel bad a sign that I’m still too stuck in the consequentialist mindset and completely missing the point?
Absolutely. Generally being mindful of the consequences of one’s actions is not the issue: ethicists of every stripe regularly reference consequences when judging an action. Consequentialism differentiates itself by taking the evaluation of consequences to be explanatorily fundamental – that which forms the underlying principle for their unifying account of all/a broad range of normative judgments. The point that Stocker is trying to make there is (roughly) that being motivated purely by intensely principled ethical reasoning (for lack of a better description) is ugly. Ethical principles are so general, so far removed, that they misplace our affect. Here is how Stocker describes the situation (NB: his target is both DE and Consequentialism):
I should make clear (as I hope I did in the post): this is not an insurmountable problem. It leads to varying degrees of self-effacement. I think some theorists handle it better than others, and I think VE handles it most coherently, but it’s certainly not a fatal blow for Consequentialism or DE. It does however present a pitfall (internal moral disharmony) for casual readers/followers of Consequentialism. Raising awareness of that pitfall was the principle aim of my post.
Orthogonal point:
The problem is certainly not just that the sick friend feels bad. As I mention:
But many consequentialists can account for this. They just need a theory of value that accounts for harms done that aren’t known to the one harmed. Eudaimonic Consequentialism (EC) could do this easily: the friend is harmed in that they are tricked into thinking they have a true, caring friend when they don’t. Having true, caring friends is a good they are being deprived of. Hedonistic Consequentialism (HC) on the other hand will have a much harder time accounting for this harm. See footnote 2.
I say this is orthogonal because both EC and HC need a way to handle internal moral disharmony – a misalignment between the reasons/justifications for an action being right and the appropriate motivation for taking that action. Prima facie HC bites the bullet, doesn’t self-efface, but recommends we become walking utility calculators/rule-worshipers. EC seems to self-efface: it judges that visiting the friend is right because it maximizes general human flourishing, but warns that this justification is the wrong motivation for visiting the friend (because having such a motivation would fail to maximize general human flourishing). In other words, it tells you to stop consulting EC – forget about it for a moment – and it hopes that you have developed the right motivation prior to this situation and will draw on that instead.
Okay, I think my main confusion is that all the examples have both the motivation-by-ethical-reasoning and lack-of-personal-caring/empathy on the moral disharmony/ugliness side. I’ll try to modify the examples a bit to tease them apart:
Visiting a stranger in the hospital in order to increase the sum of global utility is morally ugly
Visiting a stranger in the hospital because you’ve successfully internalized compassion toward them via loving kindness meditation (or something like that) is morally good(?)
That is, the important part is the internalized motivation vs reasoning out what to do from ethical principles.
(although I notice my intuition has a hard time believing the premise in the 2nd case)
That sounds about right. The person in the second case is less morally ugly than the first. This is spot on:
What do you mean by this though?:
You find it hard to believe someone could internalize the trait of compassion through “loving kindness meditation”? (This last I assume is a placeholder term for whatever works for making oneself more virtuous). Also, any reason you swapped the friend for a stranger? That changes the situation somewhat – in degree at least, but maybe in kind too.
I would note, according to (my simplified) VE, it’s the compassion that makes the action of visiting the stranger/friend morally right. How the compassion was got is another question, to be evaluated on different merits.
I’m not sure I understand your confusion, but if you want examples of when it is right to be motivated by careful principled ethical reasoning or rule-worship, here are some examples:
for a judge, acting in their capacity as judge, it is often appropriate that they be motivated by a love of consistently respecting rules and principles
for policymakers, acting in their capacity as policymakers (far-removed from “the action”), it is often appropriate for them to devise and implement their policies motivated by impersonal calculations of general welfare
These are just some but I’m sure there are countless others. The broader point though: engaging in this kind of principled ethical reasoning/rule-worship very often, making it a reflex, will likely result in you engaging in it when you shouldn’t. When you do so involuntarily, despite you preferring that you wouldn’t: that’s internal moral disharmony. (Therefore, ethicists of all stripe probably tend to suffer internal moral disharmony more than the average person!)
Yes, the other examples seemed to be about caring about people you are close to more than strangers, but I wanted to focus on the ethical reasoning vs internal motivation part.
Thanks, that’s helpful.
Yes, consequentialism judges the act of visiting a friend in hospital to be (almost certainly) good since the outcome is (almost certainly) better than not doing it. That’s it. No other considerations need apply. What their motivation was and whether there exist other possible acts that were also good are irrelevant.
If someone visits their sick friend only because it is a moral duty to do so, then I would have doubts that they are actually a friend. If there is any ugliness, it’s just the implied wider implications of deceiving their “friend” about actually being a friend. Even then, consequentialism in itself does not imply any duty to perform any specific good act so it still doesn’t really fit. That sounds more like some strict form of utilitarianism, except that a strict utilitarian probably won’t be visiting a sick friend since there is so much more marginal utility in addressing much more serious unmet needs of larger numbers of people.
If they visit their sick friend because they personally care about their friend’s welfare, and their moral framework also judges it a good act to visit them, then where’s the ugliness?
I don’t know of any consequentialist theory that looks like that. What is the general consequentialist principle you are deploying here? Your reasoning seems very one off. Which is fine! That’s exactly what I’m advocating for! But I think we’re talking past each other then. I’m criticizing Consequentialism not just any old moral reasoning that happens to reference the consequences of one’s actions (see my response to npostavs)