Hm, to my ear, prioritizing a friend just because you happen to be biased towards them is more circumstantial. It’s based on accidents of geography and life events that led you to be friends with that person to a greater degree than with other people you’ve never met.
That’s a good point. I think one plausible-sounding response is that while the friendship itself was started largely circumstantially, the reason you maintain and continue to value the relationship is not so circumstantial, and has more to do with your actual relationship with that other person.
It’s quite difficult to reconcile with my revealed priorities as someone who definitely doesn’t live up to my own consequentialism, yes, but I bite the bullet that this is really just a failure on my part (or, as you mention, the “instrumental” reasons to be a good friend also win over anyway).
If you do think it is a failure on your part, then belief that it’s the best thing you could be doing isn’t the reason, and isn’t one reason actually special concern for your friend or your relationship with them? I suppose the point is that you don’t recognize that reason as an ethical one; it’s just something that happens to explain your behaviour in practice, not what you think is right.
the reason you maintain and continue to value the relationship is not so circumstantial, and has more to do with your actual relationship with that other person
Right, but even so it seems like a friend who cares for you because they believe caring for you is good, and better than the alternatives, is “warmer” than one who doesn’t think this but merely follows some partiality (or again, bias) toward you.
I suppose it comes down to conflicting intuitions on something like “unconditional love.” Several people, not just hardcore consequentialists, find that concept hollow and cheap, because loving someone unconditionally implies you don’t really care who they are, in any sense other than the physical continuity of their identity. Conditional love identifies the aspects of the person actually worth loving, and that seems more genuine to me, though less comforting to someone who wants (selfishly) to be loved no matter what they do.
I suppose the point is that you don’t recognize that reason as an ethical one; it’s just something that happens to explain your behaviour in practice, not what you think is right.
Yeah, exactly. It would be an extremely convenient coincidence if our feelings for partial friendship etc., which evolved in small communities where these feelings were largely sufficient for social cohesion, just happened to be the ethically best things for us to follow - when we now live in a world where it’s feasible for someone to do a lot more good by being impartial.
Edit: seems based on one of your other comments that we actually agree more than I thought.
That’s a good point. I think one plausible-sounding response is that while the friendship itself was started largely circumstantially, the reason you maintain and continue to value the relationship is not so circumstantial, and has more to do with your actual relationship with that other person.
If you do think it is a failure on your part, then belief that it’s the best thing you could be doing isn’t the reason, and isn’t one reason actually special concern for your friend or your relationship with them? I suppose the point is that you don’t recognize that reason as an ethical one; it’s just something that happens to explain your behaviour in practice, not what you think is right.
Right, but even so it seems like a friend who cares for you because they believe caring for you is good, and better than the alternatives, is “warmer” than one who doesn’t think this but merely follows some partiality (or again, bias) toward you.
I suppose it comes down to conflicting intuitions on something like “unconditional love.” Several people, not just hardcore consequentialists, find that concept hollow and cheap, because loving someone unconditionally implies you don’t really care who they are, in any sense other than the physical continuity of their identity. Conditional love identifies the aspects of the person actually worth loving, and that seems more genuine to me, though less comforting to someone who wants (selfishly) to be loved no matter what they do.
Yeah, exactly. It would be an extremely convenient coincidence if our feelings for partial friendship etc., which evolved in small communities where these feelings were largely sufficient for social cohesion, just happened to be the ethically best things for us to follow - when we now live in a world where it’s feasible for someone to do a lot more good by being impartial.
Edit: seems based on one of your other comments that we actually agree more than I thought.