Hi Richard! I always enjoy reading these posts, even though I think they are often unfair to deontology. In the case of this post, I thought I could point out an example of something that bugged me.
In the fourth paragraph, you represent deontologists as caring more about "moral abstractions" than saving lives. In response, you "[S]urely lives matter more than moral abstractions". There are many instances where I would be inclined to agree with you on that point. But there are other cases where I'm not so sure. Consider a case where a doctor is reasonably certain that one treatment option will save the patient's life, but the patient (who has decision-making capacity) refuses that treatment. Respect for the patient's autonomy requires the doctor to let the patient die. Many people tend to think that the doctor would act wrongly if she were to act against the patient's wishes and give her the treatment without consent. This is true even if that choice leads to the patient dying. Isn't this a case where a moral abstraction (respect for autonomy) gets more weight than human life?
I construed the principle in terms of respect for autonomy, and I presume that you would find other ways of justifying the doctor's decision to refrain from treating the patient. Perhaps you could point out the harms that would result from doctors treating patients paternalistically, the harms that would result from them ignoring consent, and so on. I'd be fine with that, but it would seem to me that concern about those potential harms is yet another moral abstraction. In a one-off scenario, the doctor is not considering all the possible consequences of doctors acting in such a way, she is simply considering what she should do in this situation. It seems to me that she would act wrongly if she were to treat the patient without consent, even if that means letting the patient die.
The second point I would make (and I apologize for having such a long comment), is that your argument against deontology seems to press a point that could equally be pushed against consequentialists. You ask what argument they have other than "I find the verdicts more appealing." Don't the arguments for consequentialism bottom out in a similar way? You say that lives matter more than moral abstractions. Why think that? Presumably, it's because you find that verdict more appealing. It often seems abhorrent to let people die for the sake of moral abstractions. Pointing to such unappealing verdicts is one way to justify consequentialist principles. So this seems like a place where someone could offer a "partners in crime" response to your objection. That's my first response to this argument. My second response is that many deontological theories (like Kant's) do not come about from appealing to intuitions about cases. They come from principles that are the result of arguments (as the mere means principle is grounded in arguments in Groundwork II). We might think those arguments fail, but I think it's fair to say that those principles come from arguments rather than intuitions about cases (the same could be said for Korsgaard who creates her own version of those arguments).
Anyway, I always enjoy reading these even when I disagree with certain points. One lesson I've learned from your blog is that there might well be deontologists who hold the cartoonish versions of the principles you are attacking, but I have realized that I am most certainly not one of them. In your most recent post, I realized that I am one of the "radical deontologists" who is strongly opposed to much of what goes on in the status quo, and I agree with your concerns about the deontologists who do not share our goals (e.g., effective altruism, factory farming of animals, etc.). Just wanted to share my objections! Perhaps we can chat about them in New Orleans!
I agree I'm painting with a broad brush here, and since my implicit target is really something more in the vicinity of "commonsense deontology" (the sort of view that I come across a lot more in public discourse), it makes sense that more principled views—like your own Kantianism—would have an easier time dodging or addressing the challenge.
Re: autonomy: I guess that doesn't strike me as a *mere* "moral abstraction" in the pejorative sense employed in the post. Rather, I take it to be motivated on the broadly Millian grounds that we should trust other people to be the best judges of their own interests, and resist the hubris of substituting our (less reliable) judgment for their own. Even if that leads to the patient dying, we should not wish the patient to be forced to live in a condition that they judge to be *not worth the costs*. (Talk of "lives mattering" is rhetorically powerful when we can safely assume that the people themselves *want* their life to be saved; but strictly speaking it is their *interests* that matter, not mere clinging to biological survival per se.)
So I agree that this complicates the question of which moral concepts amount to (pejorative) "abstractions" and which it makes sense to care about. Ultimately, that's a substantive question that can't be uncontroversially "read off" of the surface features. It's something I'd expect different theorists to disagree about. But while autonomy strike me as a respectable case, other more distinctively "deontological" properties—e.g. associated with deontic constraints—seem harder to justify caring about non-instrumentally. (Always happy to reconsider if anyone wants to make a case for them, though!)
Re: "partners in crime"/"appeal": I agree that intuitive appeal plays some role on any view (including my own). But I think it's important to *also* be able to appeal to more theoretical considerations, like considering what moral theory would be in everyone's best interests (from behind a veil of ignorance) to see implemented, etc. There's a kind of *rational appeal* to that, which I think carries more weight than just validating our immediate emotional reactions when thinking about cases.
And yes, agreed that Kantians aren't subject to this criticism — their view is based on principled arguments, not just pattern-matching to intuitions about cases.
My only problem with this article is the footnote 2. You cite Ezra Klein who was recently talking about how the left needs to compromise more with the right-wing to win the elections. Currently, a democratic socialist (or likely a social democrat) who is much more left than people like Biden and Kamala Harris got elected and not by a thin margin.
Some voters probably didn't vote for Kamala because of her centrism. Kamala was also approaching to conservatives like Cheney. I see people like Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias continuously talking about or at least implying that the left should compromise with the right-wing. But their strategy has not worked now. And I should mention this - the current MAGA right-wing is flatly fascism and historians and scholars like Jason Stanley, Robert Paxton agree with that. But even compromising with the fascists has not made the centrists win elections.
Given what I read so far from you, my only criticism or feedback so far is that - you are wonderful in utilitarianism, normative ethics, meta-ethics, but you aren't that good on empirical stuff like knowing the murderous history of liberal democracies and the horrible actions done by both American liberals politicians (democrats) and American conservative politicians (republicans). And that, you accept anti-communist propaganda spread by capitalists and fascists near totally or even fully.
For many brown people (people from the global south.. the people effective altruist care about so much right now), the United States has not even been an overall neutral country. It is considered a capitalist, selfish empire which overthrew any foreign government that cared for its citizens genuinely (like not letting a poor nation nationalize its oil so that USA can get good cheap oil deals).
Read the book - "The Jakarta Method" by award winning journalist Vincent Bevins.
It's odd that you would make assumptions about my historical knowledge, since that's not something we've ever discussed.
I'm not really interested in acting as a proxy for your disputes with Klein and Yglesias. My normative claim in that footnote was that *winning through compromise* is better than *losing with purity*. If you have different empirical views about what you think would lead to political success and/or good policies, that's fine. (Though it would be silly to treat New York City as representative of the broader US electorate.)
I assumed that because I saw hints of social liberalism from you given your writings, discussions, people you follow and listen to. Your degrees are also in philosophy and not in history and I don't see any of your writings talk about massive historical injustices liberal democracies have committed which again hinted that history is not a field you are much into even as a hobby.
Perhaps, I am wrong, and you do know about lots of anti-communist murders, anti-socialist death squads, overthrowing or murdering of democratically elected leaders in foreign countries, the debunking of black book of communism, CIA trying to murder Fidel Castro lots of times, Israel (with full US support) causing issues for Palestinians the day it was formed and now committing genocide in Palestine, and many more horrible things liberal democracies have committed.
Regarding broader US electorate, in multiple polls, people throughout the US favor universal healthcare and generally social democratic or socialist leaning policies (more socialist than centrist democrats like Klein and Yglesias are cool with).
Zohran, by pollsters, was considered unlikely to win even in NYC. But he did win.
Did you read Ezra Klein's article saying that Charlie Kirk practiced politics the right way by the way?
It really does show the disconnect social liberal podcasters and intellectuals seem to have with ground reality.
Hi Richard! I always enjoy reading these posts, even though I think they are often unfair to deontology. In the case of this post, I thought I could point out an example of something that bugged me.
In the fourth paragraph, you represent deontologists as caring more about "moral abstractions" than saving lives. In response, you "[S]urely lives matter more than moral abstractions". There are many instances where I would be inclined to agree with you on that point. But there are other cases where I'm not so sure. Consider a case where a doctor is reasonably certain that one treatment option will save the patient's life, but the patient (who has decision-making capacity) refuses that treatment. Respect for the patient's autonomy requires the doctor to let the patient die. Many people tend to think that the doctor would act wrongly if she were to act against the patient's wishes and give her the treatment without consent. This is true even if that choice leads to the patient dying. Isn't this a case where a moral abstraction (respect for autonomy) gets more weight than human life?
I construed the principle in terms of respect for autonomy, and I presume that you would find other ways of justifying the doctor's decision to refrain from treating the patient. Perhaps you could point out the harms that would result from doctors treating patients paternalistically, the harms that would result from them ignoring consent, and so on. I'd be fine with that, but it would seem to me that concern about those potential harms is yet another moral abstraction. In a one-off scenario, the doctor is not considering all the possible consequences of doctors acting in such a way, she is simply considering what she should do in this situation. It seems to me that she would act wrongly if she were to treat the patient without consent, even if that means letting the patient die.
The second point I would make (and I apologize for having such a long comment), is that your argument against deontology seems to press a point that could equally be pushed against consequentialists. You ask what argument they have other than "I find the verdicts more appealing." Don't the arguments for consequentialism bottom out in a similar way? You say that lives matter more than moral abstractions. Why think that? Presumably, it's because you find that verdict more appealing. It often seems abhorrent to let people die for the sake of moral abstractions. Pointing to such unappealing verdicts is one way to justify consequentialist principles. So this seems like a place where someone could offer a "partners in crime" response to your objection. That's my first response to this argument. My second response is that many deontological theories (like Kant's) do not come about from appealing to intuitions about cases. They come from principles that are the result of arguments (as the mere means principle is grounded in arguments in Groundwork II). We might think those arguments fail, but I think it's fair to say that those principles come from arguments rather than intuitions about cases (the same could be said for Korsgaard who creates her own version of those arguments).
Anyway, I always enjoy reading these even when I disagree with certain points. One lesson I've learned from your blog is that there might well be deontologists who hold the cartoonish versions of the principles you are attacking, but I have realized that I am most certainly not one of them. In your most recent post, I realized that I am one of the "radical deontologists" who is strongly opposed to much of what goes on in the status quo, and I agree with your concerns about the deontologists who do not share our goals (e.g., effective altruism, factory farming of animals, etc.). Just wanted to share my objections! Perhaps we can chat about them in New Orleans!
Hi Tim, thanks for your comment!
I agree I'm painting with a broad brush here, and since my implicit target is really something more in the vicinity of "commonsense deontology" (the sort of view that I come across a lot more in public discourse), it makes sense that more principled views—like your own Kantianism—would have an easier time dodging or addressing the challenge.
Re: autonomy: I guess that doesn't strike me as a *mere* "moral abstraction" in the pejorative sense employed in the post. Rather, I take it to be motivated on the broadly Millian grounds that we should trust other people to be the best judges of their own interests, and resist the hubris of substituting our (less reliable) judgment for their own. Even if that leads to the patient dying, we should not wish the patient to be forced to live in a condition that they judge to be *not worth the costs*. (Talk of "lives mattering" is rhetorically powerful when we can safely assume that the people themselves *want* their life to be saved; but strictly speaking it is their *interests* that matter, not mere clinging to biological survival per se.)
That said, I also have some sympathy for views on which a kind of autonomy is seen as being absolutely central to people's interests and how we should count them. See: https://www.goodthoughts.blog/p/autonomy-consequentialism
So I agree that this complicates the question of which moral concepts amount to (pejorative) "abstractions" and which it makes sense to care about. Ultimately, that's a substantive question that can't be uncontroversially "read off" of the surface features. It's something I'd expect different theorists to disagree about. But while autonomy strike me as a respectable case, other more distinctively "deontological" properties—e.g. associated with deontic constraints—seem harder to justify caring about non-instrumentally. (Always happy to reconsider if anyone wants to make a case for them, though!)
Re: "partners in crime"/"appeal": I agree that intuitive appeal plays some role on any view (including my own). But I think it's important to *also* be able to appeal to more theoretical considerations, like considering what moral theory would be in everyone's best interests (from behind a veil of ignorance) to see implemented, etc. There's a kind of *rational appeal* to that, which I think carries more weight than just validating our immediate emotional reactions when thinking about cases.
And yes, agreed that Kantians aren't subject to this criticism — their view is based on principled arguments, not just pattern-matching to intuitions about cases.
Hope to see you soon!
My only problem with this article is the footnote 2. You cite Ezra Klein who was recently talking about how the left needs to compromise more with the right-wing to win the elections. Currently, a democratic socialist (or likely a social democrat) who is much more left than people like Biden and Kamala Harris got elected and not by a thin margin.
Some voters probably didn't vote for Kamala because of her centrism. Kamala was also approaching to conservatives like Cheney. I see people like Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias continuously talking about or at least implying that the left should compromise with the right-wing. But their strategy has not worked now. And I should mention this - the current MAGA right-wing is flatly fascism and historians and scholars like Jason Stanley, Robert Paxton agree with that. But even compromising with the fascists has not made the centrists win elections.
Given what I read so far from you, my only criticism or feedback so far is that - you are wonderful in utilitarianism, normative ethics, meta-ethics, but you aren't that good on empirical stuff like knowing the murderous history of liberal democracies and the horrible actions done by both American liberals politicians (democrats) and American conservative politicians (republicans). And that, you accept anti-communist propaganda spread by capitalists and fascists near totally or even fully.
For many brown people (people from the global south.. the people effective altruist care about so much right now), the United States has not even been an overall neutral country. It is considered a capitalist, selfish empire which overthrew any foreign government that cared for its citizens genuinely (like not letting a poor nation nationalize its oil so that USA can get good cheap oil deals).
Read the book - "The Jakarta Method" by award winning journalist Vincent Bevins.
It's odd that you would make assumptions about my historical knowledge, since that's not something we've ever discussed.
I'm not really interested in acting as a proxy for your disputes with Klein and Yglesias. My normative claim in that footnote was that *winning through compromise* is better than *losing with purity*. If you have different empirical views about what you think would lead to political success and/or good policies, that's fine. (Though it would be silly to treat New York City as representative of the broader US electorate.)
I assumed that because I saw hints of social liberalism from you given your writings, discussions, people you follow and listen to. Your degrees are also in philosophy and not in history and I don't see any of your writings talk about massive historical injustices liberal democracies have committed which again hinted that history is not a field you are much into even as a hobby.
Perhaps, I am wrong, and you do know about lots of anti-communist murders, anti-socialist death squads, overthrowing or murdering of democratically elected leaders in foreign countries, the debunking of black book of communism, CIA trying to murder Fidel Castro lots of times, Israel (with full US support) causing issues for Palestinians the day it was formed and now committing genocide in Palestine, and many more horrible things liberal democracies have committed.
Regarding broader US electorate, in multiple polls, people throughout the US favor universal healthcare and generally social democratic or socialist leaning policies (more socialist than centrist democrats like Klein and Yglesias are cool with).
Zohran, by pollsters, was considered unlikely to win even in NYC. But he did win.
Did you read Ezra Klein's article saying that Charlie Kirk practiced politics the right way by the way?
It really does show the disconnect social liberal podcasters and intellectuals seem to have with ground reality.
Just see the comment section here - https://youtu.be/UaeoDlLNnok