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Consequentialism and the Doing-Allowing Distinction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2009
Abstract
This paper takes a closer look at the incompatibility thesis, namely the claim that consequentialism is incompatible with accepting the moral relevance of the doing-allowing distinction. I examine two attempts to reject the incompatibility thesis, the first by Samuel Scheffler and the second by Frances Kamm. I argue that both attempts fail to provide an adequate ground for rejecting the incompatibility thesis. I then put forward an account of what I take to be at stake in accepting or rejecting the incompatibility thesis, namely the underlying conception of responsibility. There are, I contend, two relevant conceptions of responsibility, the globalist and the localist. In order for the compatibilist argument to go through, the globalist conception must be adopted. I aim to provide a formulation and defence of the dependency of the compatibilist view on the globalist conception of responsibility. I will not, however, argue for one conception of responsibility over the other.
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1 Note that the ranking principle ranks only acts. It does not tell us which acts are morally acceptable and which are not. Thus, the ranking principle is distinct from what might be called the maximizing principle, which states that one is morally required to perform the act that would result in the most overall good.
2 Scheffler, Samuel, ‘Prerogatives without Restrictions,’ Philosophical Perspectives, vi (1992)Google Scholar. A revised version of this article is published as an appendix to The Rejection of Consequentialism, Oxford, 1994Google Scholar. In this paper, I will be referring to the latter revised version. See Kamm, Frances, Morality, Mortality, vol. 2, Oxford, 1996Google Scholar, ch. 12. The compatibility of the consequentialist ranking principle with the relevance thesis is also suggested by , Kagan in his discussion of the ‘neo-moderate’ in The Limits of Morality, Oxford, 1989, pp. 186–203Google Scholar.
3 Instead of accepting Claim I, one might account for the difference between the weight of Fs appeal to cost in the Previous Pushing Case and his appeal to cost in the Non-Rescuing Case by accepting the following claim. Claim II. F s appeal to cost in the Previous Pushing Case has less weight than Fs appeal to cost in the Non-Rescuing Case because N's predicament in the former case, but not in the latter, is a foreseeable consequence of P's previous immoral behaviour. The idea is that by pushing N, in the Previous Pushing Case, P has behaved immorally and that it is this fact which weakens Fs subsequent appeal to cost. Notice that the emphasis here is not on the fact that P has pushed N, but on the fact that P has behaved immorally by pushing N and that N's predicament is a foreseeable result of P's previous immoral behaviour. This possibility, which I will not pursue in this paper, was pointed out to me in a discussion with Liam Murphy.
4 Scheffler, Samuel, The Rejection of Consequentialism, Oxford, 1982Google Scholar.
5 , Scheffler, ‘Prerogatives without Restrictions,’ The Rejection of Consequentialism, pp. 184 fGoogle Scholar.
6 , Kagan, The Limits of Morality, pp. 19–24Google Scholar.
7 , Kagan, ‘Does Consequentialism Demand Too Much?’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, xiii (1984), 251Google Scholar. Kamm, Frances made a similar objection in ‘Supererogation and Obligation’, Journal of Philosophy, lxxxii (1985)Google Scholar.
8 , Scheffler, ‘Prerogatives without Restrictions’, pp. 177–82Google Scholar.
9 Ibid., p. 179.
10 It should be pointed out that the above argument is meant to show not that Scheffler's hybrid view is inconsistent with the compatibility thesis, but only that Scheffler has not succeeded in showing that it is.
11 , Kamm, Morality, Mortality, vol. 2, p. 346Google Scholar.
12 Ibid., p. 347.
13 It should be pointed out that the account I give below of the compatibility thesis is not inconsistent with Kamm's view. My claim is simply that Kamm has not managed to provide such an account.
14 See Williams, Bernard, ‘A Critique of Utilitarianism’, in Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, Bernard, Utilitarianism: For and Against, Cambridge, 1973, pp. 77–105Google Scholar.
15 Localists may vary with regard to the degree of their localism. At one extreme, there are those who give local responsibilities absolute weight. According to such absolute
16 It should be emphasized that, when given a globalist interpretation, the claim that *we are more responsible for the things we do than the things we merely allow’ doesn't commit us to any sort of constraints against promoting the overall good. Compare, for example, a case where A (out of laziness) allows B to put himself in a situation in which he needs to be rescued, with a similar case where A brings B into a situation in which B needs to be rescued. It is clear that, according to the globalist conception of responsibility, A's debt to the overall good is greater in the latter case than in the former. But since the reference here is to A's debt to the overall good, A has no moral reason to prefer
17 It should be noted that the globalist view of responsibility allows for cases where the agent cannot repay his debt to the overall good. This would happen, for example, where the agent in question can at any future moment do what is best overall, without any cost to himself.
18 I am grateful to Oliver Conolly, Liam Murphy, and Thomas Pogge for their valuable comments on previous drafts.
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