This is a fair criticism, my construction of this post was fairly rushed and I did consider this as an issue with it myself. I think what I am trying to get at is that it is all well and good to throw doubt upon Singer’s principle with another thought experiment, but what is required of the philosopher is also to provide grounding or to think about grounding upon which the intuitions pointed to by a thought experiment are consistent—Singer does this, but I do not think that Timmerman does.
[What] is required of the philosopher is also to provide grounding or to think about grounding upon which the intuitions pointed to by a thought experiment are consistent.
Why can’t a philosopher just present a counterexample? In fact, it seems arguing from a specific alternative grounding would make Timmerman’s argument weaker. As he notes (emphasis mine):
I have purposefully not made a suggestion as to how many (if any) children Lisa is obligated to rescue. I did so to make my argument as neutral as possible, as I want it to be consistent with any normative ethical view ranging from moral libertarianism to a view that only permits Lisa to indulge in a comparably insignificant good a single time.
As an analogy, if you make a general claim such as: “All marbles are blue,” it’s enough to point to a single counterexample to show that that claim is false. I don’t also have to have my own view about what colors marbles come in.
Also, as a matter of interpreting Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Singer doesn’t justify his principles based on any inferences from the drowning child thought experiment. Instead, he only uses that thought experiment as an application of his principles, which he takes to simply be common-sense. And although Singer is himself a utilitarian, he doesn’t make any argument for utilitarianism in that paper, largely for the same reason as Timmerman! He wants diverse people to agree with him regardless of their grounding for the principles he discusses.
This is a fair criticism, my construction of this post was fairly rushed and I did consider this as an issue with it myself. I think what I am trying to get at is that it is all well and good to throw doubt upon Singer’s principle with another thought experiment, but what is required of the philosopher is also to provide grounding or to think about grounding upon which the intuitions pointed to by a thought experiment are consistent—Singer does this, but I do not think that Timmerman does.
Why can’t a philosopher just present a counterexample? In fact, it seems arguing from a specific alternative grounding would make Timmerman’s argument weaker. As he notes (emphasis mine):
As an analogy, if you make a general claim such as: “All marbles are blue,” it’s enough to point to a single counterexample to show that that claim is false. I don’t also have to have my own view about what colors marbles come in.
Also, as a matter of interpreting Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Singer doesn’t justify his principles based on any inferences from the drowning child thought experiment. Instead, he only uses that thought experiment as an application of his principles, which he takes to simply be common-sense. And although Singer is himself a utilitarian, he doesn’t make any argument for utilitarianism in that paper, largely for the same reason as Timmerman! He wants diverse people to agree with him regardless of their grounding for the principles he discusses.