In my previous posting I concluded that the only belief all must share in a flourishing society is that each of us should be free to do as seems best to himself provided by so doing he does not harm others. Some might find such a conclusion absurd. Surely they would argue a truly flourishing society must foster compassion and aid it’s less fortunate members. Intuitively if someone is about to commit suicide we should rush to stop him. However if my conclusion is accepted it casts doubts on this intuition. Prima facie my detractors appear to be right. Nonetheless in this posting I want to defend my conclusion.
Before defending my position I must make this position clearer. Firstly this freedom should be restricted to sane adults. I believe any adult should be presumed to be sane unless he can be shown to be insane. In addition I believe the grounds of insanity cannot be based on the outcome of someone’s decision. The fact we believe someone to have made a bad or irrational decision is not grounds for even ascribing temporary insanity to him. I do accept that the enormity of some decisions might render someone temporarily insane due to some connected factors; fear for instance. Nevertheless I believe any decision about someone’s sanity must be based on such factors and not the actual outcome of his decision. In the light of the above how should we react if we see someone about to commit suicide? In such a situation speed is usually essential and we do not have time to assess whether there are any factors that render our victim temporarily insane. For this reason we should usually act to save him. However if we not under the pressure of time and are aware that our potential suicide has no factors that would render him insane then we should not try to save him even if he would have been grateful later if we had. For instance I would argue we should not attempt to stop someone who suffers, from a chronic but not necessarily a terminal illness, from committing suicide. The above does not mean we should not care about the victim, I do. However I believe the freedom of a sane adult to do as he seems fit must be given priority to acting beneficently towards others.
My reason for believing we must accept all the decisions of most adults, even if we feel these decisions may be harmful to them when these decisions won’t harm others, is to respect autonomy. In what follows a freely made decision refers to a freely made decision that may be harmful to the agent and his decision won’t harm others. I would argue if we value autonomy we should accept the freely made decisions of others in order protect this autonomy. My objector might immediately raise two objections to the above. My objector might agree with me that we should protect our autonomy and that this might be achieved by accepting all our freely made decisions but he might then suggest this could be done more effectively by accepting only autonomous decisions. I believe his suggestion to be impractical. In everyday life it is simple to recognise a freely made decision. It is not simple to recognise an autonomous decision. Let us assume we respect all freely made decisions which will not harm the agent or others. But let us also assume in a situation which we think the agent’s decision may harm him we will only respect his decision if it is autonomous. In this situation if we are to act in caring way, be sympathetic or compassionate towards someone must we first go through something like the informed consent process to protect his autonomy? Caring is a disposition people have. This disposition is natural though I believe it can also be cultivated. The basis of caring is not a cognitive activity and applying an informed consent process in a caring context seems inappropriate. However my objector might raise a much more serious objection. He might agree autonomy should be protected but argue that I am wrong always to give priority to respecting autonomous decisions over caring. He might point out some autonomous decisions are trivial compared to someone’s real needs. Surely in such situations he might argue priority should be given to caring for someone over respecting his autonomous decision.
In order to answer this second objection we must ask why we value autonomy. It seems to me we should respect all autonomous decisions because we value respecting people. People are distinct persons. I would suggest if we fail give precedence to respecting the autonomous decisions of others over acting beneficently towards them that we fail to respect them as the kind of creatures who can make their own decisions, respect them as persons. My objector might argue that failing to respect all autonomous decisions whilst respecting most autonomous decisions does not mean we fail to respect others as the kind of creatures who can make their own decisions. He might further argue that those decisions, not respected for beneficent reasons, do usually flow from the agent’s real self. In reply to his second argument I would simply follow Berlin by pointing out what is important to us is not some idealised real self but my empirical or actual self (1969, Four essays on liberty, The Clarendon Press page 132). I would point out that failing to respect all autonomous decisions whilst respecting most autonomous decisions means we only respect other people as the kind of creatures who can make most, or even only some, of their own decisions. I’m by no means sure this is showing true respect for persons. Nevertheless I am prepared to concede for the sake of argument that it remains possible that respecting a person might mean respecting most of his decisions and acting a caring way towards him rather than respecting all the decisions he makes.
I will now consider a second reason why we should respect autonomous decisions. Decisions made at random or which are coerced in some way are not moral decisions. For all moral decisions the agent must feel the decision is his own. He cannot be detached or even semi-detached from his decision. It follows it is basic to the idea of morality that a moral agent identifies with his decision. I have argued that any decision an agent cares about, identifies with or is satisfied with is an autonomous decision, see some of my previous postings or Frankfurt (1988, The Importance of What We Care About, Cambridge University Press). It follows if we fail to respect someone’s autonomous decision that we narrow the domain of moral agents. Of course morality is not just concerned with moral agents. Children and animals are of moral concern even though animals and young children are not moral agents. Kant believed the heart of morality depends upon the ability of agents to make autonomous choices. I believe any narrowing of the domain of moral agency damages morality in general. Any system of morality in which the number of creatures of moral concern remains constant but in which the number of moral agents decreases is a weakened system. Any system of morality in which moral agents are only part-time agents, because some of their freely made decisions are constrained, is a damaged system. In the light of the above I would suggest any system of morality which gives precedence to acting beneficently over respecting all autonomous decisions makes moral agents only part-time agents and as a result is a damaged system.
Let it be accepted any flourishing society must be a moral society. I have argued any moral society must be based on respect for autonomy; we cannot have a truly flourishing society without universal acceptance of this fact. Unfortunately some people in a flourishing society might not accept the need to care for others. Equally unfortunately some people might reject beneficent care. We may deplore these facts but nonetheless if we want to live in a flourishing society we must be prepared to accept them. It follows caring about others cannot be a necessary requirement of a truly flourishing society, caring is of course desirable. Indeed a society that insists on compulsory caring for others or the compulsory acceptance of beneficent care is not a truly flourishing society. It further follows that the only requirement necessary for a flourishing society is that each should be free to do as seems best to himself provided by so doing he does not harm others.
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