(Not a philosopher, this is deliberately quick and snappy)
One response is to just deny the naturalist account (why is it required that every āgood wolfā or āgood personā try to do all four of those things?).
Another is to deny the claim that impersonal benevolence has to contradict being āsocial animalsā or ānurturing youngā. The average impersonally benevolent person who supports AMF is helping to nurture hundreds of young people, and probably making life āsocially betterā for entire villages (it seems good for village life when fewer children are sick or dying). If a wolf sacrifices itself for the pack, more wolves survive. Even if Viktor Zhdanov had no children (I donāt know whether this is true), he helped the human species thrive.
Another is to note that effectively zero people actually practice āimpersonal benevolenceā in the way Hursthouse describes it. If no one actually follows an ethical system, critiques of that system mean little. But if we look at people who try to be unusually impersonally benevolent (however imperfectly), I expect theyāll tend to be good parents and good neighbors. In my experience, the habit and practice of being kind to everyone, tends to inculcate kindness toward those close to you as well.
I feel that rejecting ethical naturalism necessarily implies rejection of moral objectivity. Thus we will have to accept ethical relativism, which amounts to moral nihilism.
There is a chapter of Strangers Drowning which tells the story of an American missionary who had worked in Africa with her family, including two young children. During their time there, her children was almost kidnapped by a mob. But she persisted and kept working there. Eventually, she had to come back to American for the benefit of one of her children, who has intellectual disability. But she felt bad about it breaking commitment to the church.
I think this example shows that indeed, for people who strive to be āimpersonal benevolentā, there would come a time to decide whose benefit comes first, the children or strangers? And the children may come to resent morality if the parents actually choose strangers.
Which of the four items on Hursthouseās list do you think are impossible to reject without embracing relativism? And why do you think those ideas are necessarily linked together?
I may be confused, but I donāt see why āethical naturalismā has to be tied to virtue ethics. It seems wholly consistent to me for people to believe in objective morality, and to believe that this morality is impartial benevolence. It also seems reasonable to believe that if everyone really tried to practice impartial benevolence, weād end up with a healthy and thriving society. Imagine a small village where all children are communally cared for by adults who love them equally ā must this be impossible or unnatural?
Thereās a chapter of Strangers Drowning which tells the story of Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to highly effective charities while raising children who seem healthy and happy (they just had their third!). This is very unusual even in rich countries, but is a perfectly reasonable strategy for people who can afford it. (I work with another family doing the same thing, and their children also seem happy and healthy.)
I think this example shows that you can strive to be far more āimpersonally benevolentā than most people while still providing for your family, with the result that hundreds of other families live better, happier lives.
Of course Hursthouseās account of ethical naturalism could be mistaken. (I am not totally satisfied with it either). But I just donāt see how morality can be seen as āobjectiveā without appealing to human nature in some way. (I know Derek Parfit has a book On What Matters defending moral objectivity. But I have not had the guts to dive into it.)
As for āimpersonally benevolenceā, I agree that it doesnāt necessary has to conflict with the well-being of oneās family. For example in Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality, Peter Railton argues that maybe to be it is may be the case that a do-gooder can do more good if he/āshe be a bit partialāIf you have a happy family, you may have a lot more energy to help strangers.
But I do think this is not necessarily always conflict free. For example, Peter Singer was once accused of being hypocrite because he and his sister put their mum with Alzheimerās disease in a caring facility, which cost a lot of money.
Singer has spent his career trying to lay down rules for human behavior which are divorced from emotion and intuition. His is a world that makes no provision for private aides to look after addled, dying old women. Yet he canāt help himself. āI think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult,ā he said quietly. āPerhaps it is more difficult than I thought before, because it is different when itās your mother.ā
Did helping his mum motivated Singer to do more good later in his life? Maybe. But it would be very hard to do the calculations.
The best answer here, the one that actually lets us try to live our lives by reasonable ethical principles, seems to me like āmorality isnāt conflict-free and humans arenāt perfectly consistentā. The whole point of EA is that standard āethicalā systems often fail to provide useful advice on how to live a good life. No one can be perfectly virtuous or benevolent; all we can do is act well given our circumstances and the options in front of us.
How does this interface with the question of objective morality? You can either say āmorality is objective and people are bound to fall short of itā, or āmorality is subjective and Iām going to do what seems best to meā. Either way, as a subjectivist who judges other people through the lens of my own moral opinions, Iām going to judge you by how your actions affect others, rather than by whether they all hang together in a rigorous system.
Thanks for the discussion! I realize that I was mostly explaining my own instincts rather than engaging with Hursthouse, but thatās because I find her claims difficult to understand in the context of how to actually live oneās life.
She is a virtue ethicist, so she believes the best way to live a good life to develop virtues in ourselves. The reason she gives it that being a virtuous person, on average, is the best bet to flourish, e.g., having good health, satisfying career, happy family, etc. But she rejects that āimpersonal benevolenceā is a virtue. Thus, for Hurshouse, a person can still be virtuous and live a good life even if she does not care at all about strangers whom she has never met. To be honest, this is the most problematic part I found in her thesis.
(Not a philosopher, this is deliberately quick and snappy)
One response is to just deny the naturalist account (why is it required that every āgood wolfā or āgood personā try to do all four of those things?).
Another is to deny the claim that impersonal benevolence has to contradict being āsocial animalsā or ānurturing youngā. The average impersonally benevolent person who supports AMF is helping to nurture hundreds of young people, and probably making life āsocially betterā for entire villages (it seems good for village life when fewer children are sick or dying). If a wolf sacrifices itself for the pack, more wolves survive. Even if Viktor Zhdanov had no children (I donāt know whether this is true), he helped the human species thrive.
Another is to note that effectively zero people actually practice āimpersonal benevolenceā in the way Hursthouse describes it. If no one actually follows an ethical system, critiques of that system mean little. But if we look at people who try to be unusually impersonally benevolent (however imperfectly), I expect theyāll tend to be good parents and good neighbors. In my experience, the habit and practice of being kind to everyone, tends to inculcate kindness toward those close to you as well.
I feel that rejecting ethical naturalism necessarily implies rejection of moral objectivity. Thus we will have to accept ethical relativism, which amounts to moral nihilism.
There is a chapter of Strangers Drowning which tells the story of an American missionary who had worked in Africa with her family, including two young children. During their time there, her children was almost kidnapped by a mob. But she persisted and kept working there. Eventually, she had to come back to American for the benefit of one of her children, who has intellectual disability. But she felt bad about it breaking commitment to the church.
I think this example shows that indeed, for people who strive to be āimpersonal benevolentā, there would come a time to decide whose benefit comes first, the children or strangers? And the children may come to resent morality if the parents actually choose strangers.
Which of the four items on Hursthouseās list do you think are impossible to reject without embracing relativism? And why do you think those ideas are necessarily linked together?
I may be confused, but I donāt see why āethical naturalismā has to be tied to virtue ethics. It seems wholly consistent to me for people to believe in objective morality, and to believe that this morality is impartial benevolence. It also seems reasonable to believe that if everyone really tried to practice impartial benevolence, weād end up with a healthy and thriving society. Imagine a small village where all children are communally cared for by adults who love them equally ā must this be impossible or unnatural?
Thereās a chapter of Strangers Drowning which tells the story of Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to highly effective charities while raising children who seem healthy and happy (they just had their third!). This is very unusual even in rich countries, but is a perfectly reasonable strategy for people who can afford it. (I work with another family doing the same thing, and their children also seem happy and healthy.)
I think this example shows that you can strive to be far more āimpersonally benevolentā than most people while still providing for your family, with the result that hundreds of other families live better, happier lives.
Of course Hursthouseās account of ethical naturalism could be mistaken. (I am not totally satisfied with it either). But I just donāt see how morality can be seen as āobjectiveā without appealing to human nature in some way. (I know Derek Parfit has a book On What Matters defending moral objectivity. But I have not had the guts to dive into it.)
As for āimpersonally benevolenceā, I agree that it doesnāt necessary has to conflict with the well-being of oneās family. For example in Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality, Peter Railton argues that maybe to be it is may be the case that a do-gooder can do more good if he/āshe be a bit partialāIf you have a happy family, you may have a lot more energy to help strangers.
But I do think this is not necessarily always conflict free. For example, Peter Singer was once accused of being hypocrite because he and his sister put their mum with Alzheimerās disease in a caring facility, which cost a lot of money.
Did helping his mum motivated Singer to do more good later in his life? Maybe. But it would be very hard to do the calculations.
The best answer here, the one that actually lets us try to live our lives by reasonable ethical principles, seems to me like āmorality isnāt conflict-free and humans arenāt perfectly consistentā. The whole point of EA is that standard āethicalā systems often fail to provide useful advice on how to live a good life. No one can be perfectly virtuous or benevolent; all we can do is act well given our circumstances and the options in front of us.
How does this interface with the question of objective morality? You can either say āmorality is objective and people are bound to fall short of itā, or āmorality is subjective and Iām going to do what seems best to meā. Either way, as a subjectivist who judges other people through the lens of my own moral opinions, Iām going to judge you by how your actions affect others, rather than by whether they all hang together in a rigorous system.
I like your answer. Thanks for all the replies!
Thanks for the discussion! I realize that I was mostly explaining my own instincts rather than engaging with Hursthouse, but thatās because I find her claims difficult to understand in the context of how to actually live oneās life.
She is a virtue ethicist, so she believes the best way to live a good life to develop virtues in ourselves. The reason she gives it that being a virtuous person, on average, is the best bet to flourish, e.g., having good health, satisfying career, happy family, etc. But she rejects that āimpersonal benevolenceā is a virtue. Thus, for Hurshouse, a person can still be virtuous and live a good life even if she does not care at all about strangers whom she has never met. To be honest, this is the most problematic part I found in her thesis.