proximity [...] is obviously not morally important
People often claim that you have a greater obligation to those in your own country than to foreigners. I’m doubtful of this
imagining drowning children that there are a bunch of nearby assholes ignoring the child as he drowns. Does that eliminate your reason to save the child? No, obviously not
Your argument seems to be roughly an appeal to the intuition that moral principles should be simple—consistent across space and time, without weird edge cases, not specific to the circumstances of the event. But why should they be?
Imo this is the mistake that people make when they haven’t internalized reductionism and naturalism. In other words they are moral realist or otherwise confused. When you realize that “morality” is just “preferences” with a bunch of pointless religious, mystical and philosophical baggage, the situation becomes clearer.
Because preferences are properties of human brains, not physical laws there is no particular reason to expect them to have low Kolmogorov complexity. And to say that you “should” actually be consistent about moral principles is an empty assertion that entirely rests on a hazy and unnatural definition of “should”.
I do think this is correct to an extent, but also that much moral progress has been made by reflecting on our moral inconsistencies, and smoothing them out. I at least value fairness, which is a complicated concept, but also is actively repulsed by the idea that those closer to me should weigh more in society’s moral calculations. Other values I have, like family, convenience, selfish hedonism, friendship, etc are at odds with this fairness value in many circumstances.
But I think its still useful to connect the drowning child argument with the parts of me which resonate with it, and think about actually how much I care about those parts of me over other parts in such circumstances.
Human morality is complicated, and I would prefer more people ’round these parts do moral reflection by doing & feeling rather than thinking, but I don’t think there’s no place for argument in moral reflection.
I think there’s plenty of place for argument in moral reflection, but part of that argument includes accepting that things aren’t necessarily “obvious” or “irrefutable” because they’re intuitively appealing. Personally I think the drowning child experiment is pretty useful as thought experiments go, but human morality in practice is so complicated that even Peter Singer doesn’t act consistently with it, and I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t care.
OP is full of claims that are “obvious” and “clear”, which fail the intellectual turing test. Most people who are unconvinced by the drowning child thought experiment will not agree with the core premises. Making this whole exercise a bit pointless.
Your argument seems to be roughly an appeal to the intuition that moral principles should be simple—consistent across space and time, without weird edge cases, not specific to the circumstances of the event. But why should they be?
Imo this is the mistake that people make when they haven’t internalized reductionism and naturalism. In other words they are moral realist or otherwise confused. When you realize that “morality” is just “preferences” with a bunch of pointless religious, mystical and philosophical baggage, the situation becomes clearer.
Because preferences are properties of human brains, not physical laws there is no particular reason to expect them to have low Kolmogorov complexity. And to say that you “should” actually be consistent about moral principles is an empty assertion that entirely rests on a hazy and unnatural definition of “should”.
I do think this is correct to an extent, but also that much moral progress has been made by reflecting on our moral inconsistencies, and smoothing them out. I at least value fairness, which is a complicated concept, but also is actively repulsed by the idea that those closer to me should weigh more in society’s moral calculations. Other values I have, like family, convenience, selfish hedonism, friendship, etc are at odds with this fairness value in many circumstances.
But I think its still useful to connect the drowning child argument with the parts of me which resonate with it, and think about actually how much I care about those parts of me over other parts in such circumstances.
Human morality is complicated, and I would prefer more people ’round these parts do moral reflection by doing & feeling rather than thinking, but I don’t think there’s no place for argument in moral reflection.
I think there’s plenty of place for argument in moral reflection, but part of that argument includes accepting that things aren’t necessarily “obvious” or “irrefutable” because they’re intuitively appealing. Personally I think the drowning child experiment is pretty useful as thought experiments go, but human morality in practice is so complicated that even Peter Singer doesn’t act consistently with it, and I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t care.
OP is full of claims that are “obvious” and “clear”, which fail the intellectual turing test. Most people who are unconvinced by the drowning child thought experiment will not agree with the core premises. Making this whole exercise a bit pointless.