It feels to me that the objection has some force, but might actually mean little in terms of what we should do. This is not a criticism of the objection, just a remark I want to expand on.
For example, if you’re going to visit a friend to comfort them, and you come across a child drowning in a pond, and saving the child would prevent you from comforting your friend, you should still save the child, at least in my view. Our positive moral obligations to others, strangers or not, humans or not, seem so great in the real world today that they should usually beat friendship considerations, so that “my friend is suffering; I want to help them feel better!” is actually just not a good enough reason on its own in the real world because the stakes are so high. We are in triage every second of every day.
A few other thoughts:
It seems that we tend to enter relationships for basically consequentialist but selfish reasons (e.g. enjoying their company, the way they make you feel, their support). You usually don’t become someone’s friend because you can benefit that person most. Is that worse than entering a relationship for impartial consequentialist reasons? For example, I will be a better person or meet my moral obligations to a greater extend because of my relationship with this person.
Is ending a relationship for selfish reasons (I don’t enjoy their company anymore, they don’t make me feel as good as they did before, they don’t support me as they did before, they haven’t met their obligations to me) worse than ending it for altruistic reasons (I am not the best person I can be with them or they hold me back from fulfilling my moral obligations to others, for which the stakes are far greater)?
My own view is that the virtue- and obligation-based reasons for entering or ending a relationship are usually far better than the selfish ones (except maybe if that person seriously mistreats you). Couples often remark on how they are better people with each other. “better person” still makes sense on a virtue consequentialist account, although it faces the objections you bring up in this post. Furthermore, in ending a relationship, you may be failing to meet some important obligations to that person that you didn’t have before you started the relationship, and maybe these should hold you back more than impartial consequentialism does.
Thanks for this!
It feels to me that the objection has some force, but might actually mean little in terms of what we should do. This is not a criticism of the objection, just a remark I want to expand on.
For example, if you’re going to visit a friend to comfort them, and you come across a child drowning in a pond, and saving the child would prevent you from comforting your friend, you should still save the child, at least in my view. Our positive moral obligations to others, strangers or not, humans or not, seem so great in the real world today that they should usually beat friendship considerations, so that “my friend is suffering; I want to help them feel better!” is actually just not a good enough reason on its own in the real world because the stakes are so high. We are in triage every second of every day.
A few other thoughts:
It seems that we tend to enter relationships for basically consequentialist but selfish reasons (e.g. enjoying their company, the way they make you feel, their support). You usually don’t become someone’s friend because you can benefit that person most. Is that worse than entering a relationship for impartial consequentialist reasons? For example, I will be a better person or meet my moral obligations to a greater extend because of my relationship with this person.
Is ending a relationship for selfish reasons (I don’t enjoy their company anymore, they don’t make me feel as good as they did before, they don’t support me as they did before, they haven’t met their obligations to me) worse than ending it for altruistic reasons (I am not the best person I can be with them or they hold me back from fulfilling my moral obligations to others, for which the stakes are far greater)?
My own view is that the virtue- and obligation-based reasons for entering or ending a relationship are usually far better than the selfish ones (except maybe if that person seriously mistreats you). Couples often remark on how they are better people with each other. “better person” still makes sense on a virtue consequentialist account, although it faces the objections you bring up in this post. Furthermore, in ending a relationship, you may be failing to meet some important obligations to that person that you didn’t have before you started the relationship, and maybe these should hold you back more than impartial consequentialism does.