Great Expectations & The Scandal Of Moral Philosophy

I should clarify that the moral philosophy I’m espousing says (and only says) that outcomes or consequences to sentient beings are what ultimately matters. Full stop.

Note that this is not saying that it is always morally best to “maximize” or increase an average amount of positive outcomes. For example, you can agree that outcomes are what matters without jumping to the conclusion that you should kill one person in order to save five. In short, it does NOT say that the ends always justify the means (i.e., when the “means” includes bad outcomes for some).

This short-circuits many arguments traditionally deployed against outcomes-based moral theories (broadly called “consequentialist” theories). These arguments are designed to show that any kind of decision rule based on consequences can, in certain scenarios, run aground of our intuitions. The most famous of which is likely the Trolley Problem: it shows that we generally do NOT feel good about killing one person to save five (although this feeling varies across cultures and changes dramatically as the number of persons getting saved increases).

Rather than pretending to give a good answer and resolve dilemmas such as the Trolley Problem, the view sketched above instead indicates that we should be conflicted. When we have to generate a bad consequence to produce a good one, this view vindicates that these ethical dilemmas really are dilemmas. Why? Because all outcomes matter — saving five lives doesn’t erase the loss of the one.

But this might disappoint those who expect a moral system to tell them what is the right thing to do in (absolutely) every situation. This expectation is, I think, a scandal of moral philosophy, given how much ink has been spilled and the countless variations of “consequentialist” theories it has spawned. And its effect is not isolated to outcomes-based theories: it creates the same issue for theories based on principles and virtues. (For more on this scandal, see my post directly below.)

A moral theory cannot tell you which action is right if there is no action you can perform that is uniformly right. And with our limited abilities, it is not clear why we would ever think there would always or necessarily be a morally right action within our power to execute. Perhaps it is just the plain hubris of humans that created such a great expectation.

Why We’d Invent Them Anyways

As I alluded to earlier, saying that it is okay (morally) to break a principle may cause us to squirm in our seats a bit. However, this likely has nothing to do with the truth of the statement, but with the conditions in which we humans find ourselves. These three main conditions, which I’ll outline below, also happen to be the practical reason we still need principles, even if they don’t take moral precedence.

Knowledge: First, humans have very limited capacity in actually determining which actions will produce the best outcomes. And even if they correctly determine which decision will lead to the best outcome in the here and now, it is very tough to say what will be better five, ten, or twenty years from now.

For example, we may be correct when we decide it is best right now to lie in order to save little Johnnie from being punished for a small transgression. After all, Johnnie has recently gone through a trauma, and has experienced a lot of change as a result. An otherwise appropriately severe punishment at this point would be the equivalent of kicking someone while they’re down.

As clear as this may be in the present moment, it is much less clear whether lying for Johnnie (even in this one case) will be better in the long run for the rest of society, or even for Johnnie. We just don’t know. Even worse, such things may very well be unknowable.

So since we are (typically) in such a terrible position with respect to knowing what the outcomes of our actions will be, we need something to help guide us in the daily decisions we have to make. Here is where principles come to the rescue, because you don’t have to know much— just follow the rules!

If we are lucky, the rules to which we defer will generally cause good outcomes. Perhaps it’s not just a matter of luck: those rules that do not generally cause good outcomes are likely to be weeded out or amended through time (in an evolution via natural selection type manner). Indeed, there is likely much moral wisdom embedded in principles, which is why we shouldn’t break them willy-nilly (more on this in a bit).

Power: It is so obvious that it barely needs mentioning, but another big issue we face is that we have inadequate power to fully control outcomes, even if we have tremendous knowledge. The upshot of this limitation is that life will routinely arrange itself such that there is no action (or lack of action) that we can personally perform that will yield a uniformly positive outcome. (This aspect is what ultimately generates those ethical dilemmas mentioned before.)

In cases when our power is very limited, sometimes all we can do is try to make sense of our own actions / reactions, or perhaps only adjust our own state of mind. Following a principle in such a case may not actually help create a good outcome, but it at least helps us make sense of who we are and what we have done. Such a coherent narrative is crucial for avoiding deep states of cognitive dissonance and it is, I maintain, why philosophies such as Stoicism are and will always be appealing.

Kindness: The final reason we need principles is that we naturally have a bias towards ourselves whenever we consider outcomes. This is why duties (specifically) exist, in my opinion: they are there to keep us from privileging our outcomes over outcomes to others.

For example, consider the captain whose duty it is to “go down with the ship.” Obviously, if the ship is sinking, there is no added benefit from the captain drowning as well. But in terms of aligning the captain’s actions with the interests of others (i.e., the crew or passengers), this duty does its job. It means that the captain has to care as much (or more) about the lives of others as he/she does for his/her own.

Duties and principles help remind us that others count as much as we do. Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

This is also why the Golden Rule will always be looked upon as an admirable principle: it reminds us that other peoples’ outcomes are just as important as our own.