Is the exercise of virtue constrained by respect for autonomy?

 

In this posting I want to examine the relationship between virtue and autonomy.  In order to do so I will use Christian Miller’s ideas about the virtue of honesty. Miller suggests that sometimes the virtue of honesty seems to be inappropriate. For instance when

 “where lying would prevent severe harm, such as lying to save a Jewish family from the Nazis or to stop a terrorist attack.” (1)

One solution to such problems according to Miller is that one virtue outweighs another. Miller goes on to suggest that this weighting might be carried out by the virtue of practical wisdom.

“Thus in Nazi-at-the-door cases, practical wisdom might help decide between what honesty demands (telling the truth to the Nazi) and what compassion demands (protecting the Jewish family).” (2)

I find Miller’s treatment of the problem quite convincing but in what follows I will briefly outline an alternative solution before moving on to argue that the problem might be resolved by considering the relationship between autonomy and virtue.

First it might be suggested that our intuitive ideas of honesty need to be refined. It might be argued that telling a Nazi where a Jewish family isn’t acting virtuously. Telling the truth isn’t part of the virtue in all situations. Honesty is a situationist virtue. Perhaps when we define what actions are part of the virtue of honesty we must also define the domain in which these actions take place. Perhaps the above suggestion might apply to virtues more generally. Even though this might offer a possible solution to apparent clashes in virtues I won’t pursue it further here.

It might be argued someone can still be virtuous whilst telling white lies to children. For instance a mother might tell her child that he can’t go to McDonalds because she’s forgotten her purse. Honesty is a sitiationist virtue and doesn’t apply in this domain. I now want to consider h white lies and autonomy. In Against tact I argued that the telling of such white lies is not only wrong because it deceives people but also because it fails to respect them. It is respect which will concern us here. Respect in this scenario means seeing others as the kind of creatures who can govern themselves and who should be allowed to do so. Respecting persons means respecting their autonomy, in our example the mother can act virtuously, she cares for her child, and there is no need to consider respecting his autonomy as he isn’t yet autonomous.

I now want to consider the relationship, if any, between respecting the autonomy of autonomous agents and virtue. The concept of autonomy used here simply requires that an autonomous agent can make and implement the decisions by which she governs herself. This is a primitive account. For the instrumental virtues this relationship doesn’t really matter. However for the moral virtues it does. Let us accept that for a virtuous person acting morally matters. Acting morally isn’t simply acting, it is choosing to act for a reason. To be able to act morally someone must be able to choose, be able to govern herself, be autonomous. Let us accept that we can act virtuously towards young children and animals without the need to respect their auronomy, respecting autonomy doesn’t constrain virtue. The same isn’t true of our dealings with creatures capable of moral decision making. If we fail to respect the autonomy of some creature which is capable of acting virtuously then we are failing to recognise the importance of a capacity necessary for being virtuous. If someone believes that she is acting virtuously whilst failing to respect the autonomy of someone capable of acting virtuously then she believes she is acting virtuously and at the same time that the capacity to act virtuously doesn’t matter. This isn’t an easy position to maintain. If we aren’t prepared to maintain the above then we must accept that a virtuous person’s actions are constrained by a need to respect autonomy.

In the light of the above let us return to our example of the Nazi. Someone might argue that even if we accept the above that respect for the Nazi’s autonomy means that we must tell him the truth. If we lie to him we deprive him of the ability to make a moral decision depriving him of a chance to act virtuously however unlikely this might be. If we ignore probabilities how might we counter this argument? It might be suggested that if we used a different account of autonomy that this might help. For instance we might use Mill’s account of liberty to give us an account of autonomy

“the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” 3

Unfortunately if we adopt this account harm helps define autonomy and instead of morality being constrained by respect for autonomy, respect for autonomy is constrained by moral considerations. I would suggest the same is true of all concept of autonomy which contains a substantive element.

I want to argue that if we adopt a primitive account of autonomy that we can account for our intuitions about the Nazi because autonomy places constraints on the exercise of virtue. Let us accept that respect for autonomy means respecting the capacity to be autonomous. If we are honest with the Nazi then we aren’t respecting people’s capacity for autonomy because he will destroy that of theJewish family. Respecting people’s capacity for autonomy constrains our honesty. It might be objected that in this case we aren’t respecting the autonomy of the Nazi. We are denying him the possibility to make a moral decision by our lack of honesty. In response I would suggest that in cases when we can’t respect the autonomy of all the parties involved that we must respect the autonomy of as many people as possible and moral considerations play no part in our decision making.

In the light of the above I now want to suggest that the exercise of all moral virtues must be constrained by respect for autonomy if we want to live in a virtuous society, Perhaps Aristotle would have agreed even if his virtuous society was limited to a few men.

 

1. Miller, Christian, Honesty (p. 10). Oxford University Press.
2. Miller, Christian, Honesty (p. 118). Oxford University Press.
3. Mill J S. (1974) On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford University Press

Space Exploration and Game Playing

Recently SpaceX brought back four tourists from space. In this posting I want to examine what reasons could to given to support manned space exploration. Let us accept that we have reason to explore space because such exploration adds to human knowledge. However the information gained by this exploration could be gathered by robots. If human beings are not required to gather this information do we have other any reason for the manned exploration of space? Such an exploration will be much more difficult than envisioned some fifty years ago because human bodies find it hard to adapt to space travel which makes answering the above question important. In spite of these difficulties I will argue that we do have reason to pursue the manned exploration of space based on inner space, based on the human psyche.

In what follows space exploration will refer to manned space exploration unless stated otherwise, before I examine possible reasons for space exploration I will examine some reasons why we shouldn’t.

First it might be suggested that any resources devoted to exploring space would be better spent on projects on earth. I now want to present two arguments rejecting this suggestion. I accept that if we were now to devote a great number of resources to space exploration that it would be better if these resources were devoted to reducing need on earth. However at some time in the future it is feasible that science and technology will be able to satisfy all of our most basic needs even if some other less basic needs remain unsatisfied. In these circumstances In this situation I would argue that there is no reason why we shouldn’t devote some of our resources to exploring space.  It follows that whilst we have reason to delay exploring space that we don’t have reason to abandon it forever. My second argument for rejecting the suggestion that we shouldn’t explore space is based on personal autonomy. Let us assume that in the future some entrepreneur such as Elon Musk wishes to explore Mars. If we accept the argument above then we should delay her from doing so and redirect the resources involved to projects on earth. Clearly the entrepreneur’s autonomy has been overruled. Let us assume that instead she decides to buy a luxury yacht and private jet rather than devote her resources to some project with which benefits others more generally. If we accept the above there is no significant difference between such purchases and exploring mars. It follows if we are to remain consistent that we must either permit the exploration of Mars or prohibit the purchase of luxury goods. Let us accept that we should choose the second option. Let us also accept that morality is concerned with harm. If morality is solely concerned with preventing harm then it considers us in the same way as we consider our pets. Morality for human beings must treat us as the kind of creatures who can decide their own future and this of necessity involves respecting autonomy. It follows that our entrepreneur should be able to explore Mars.

Let us now consider a second suggestion as to why we shouldn’t explore space. Let us accept that the exploration of space would lead to the colonisation of space. It might be suggested that argues that the possibility of an intergalactic conflict with weapons which can cause suffering to billions are sufficiently serious to warrant caution when it comes to the colonisation of space. Perhaps scenarios such as those depicted in Star Wars or War of the Worlds are possible. However I will now argue that they are improbable. The source of most conflicts is a scarcity of resources. Let us assume that the galaxy has enough resources for our current human population even if we can’t exploit most of these resources. These resources will only become scarce if we colonise space and our population increases in some Malthusian manner. However it seems that as people become more prosperous the birth rate falls and we have less need to fear population increasing in this manner. It might then be argued that as we colonise space the population becomes more thinly spread leading to less competition for resources which lessens the probability of war. The colonisation of space far from increasing the probability of war might actually decrease it. It would seem we have little reason to accept the second suggestion

I have argued that whilst we might have reason to delay the exploration of space but we don’t have good reasons for not doing so in the long term. The question remains do we have any reasons to explore space? I will present four arguments as to why we do.

Let us accept that the exploration of space will make the colonisation of space possible. This possibility leads to an argument set out by Nick Bostron . He argues that from a utilitarian perspective that we should be concerned with the maximisation of worthwhile sentient lives. It follows that if we fail to colonise space that we fail to maximise these lives. Whether we should accept Bostrom’s argument depends on whether we should maximise the number of worthwhile sentient lives which in turn depend on which form of utilitarianism we accept. Do we accept a hedonic account or some form of preference satisfaction account. Preference satisfaction utilitarianism is about satisfying preferences for actual people and not about creating preferences which can be satisfied. If we accept a preference satisfaction account then preference utilitarianism alone doesn’t give any reason to colonise space. Let us accept a purely hedonic account of utilitarianism. If we do so we should accept Bostrom’s argument. Unfortunately if we do so we must also accept the repugnant conclusion. This means that we must accept that any reasonable degree of happiness experienced by some can be outweighed by a marginal degree of happiness experienced by a sufficiently large number of others. If we aren’t prepared to accept the repugnant conclusion then we reject a hedonistic account of utilitarianism and this means rejecting Bostrom’s reason to colonise space. The first argument fails.

The second argument is based on our need for resources which space can provide. Perhaps in the future earth runs short of some essential resources such as minerals. For the sake of argument let us assume this occurs. It might then be suggested that the exploration and colonisation of other planets or asteroids could supply earth with these resources. I am prepared to accept this suggestion. However it seems even if colonists could provide these resources that this could be achieved by robotic means, it follows that the second argument also fails.

Let us now consider an argument based on curiosity. I want to argue that the desire to explore space is a natural one and that if we fail to act upon that we are radically changing human nature. It might be objected that there is nothing natural about space exploration. If we do so my objector might point out that we are moving into a totally unnatural environment and one to which we are totally unsuited. I am prepared to accept that the space exploration would mean moving into an alien environment which is unnatural to us. However, human beings are basically tropical animals which moved in the past into hostile environments such as the artic even if these environments aren’t quite as unnatural as space. Moreover when I refer to human nature I’m not referring the nature we live in or our physiological features but to our psychological characteristics. Human beings are naturally curious animals and a failure to be curious would be contrary to our nature. Of course sometimes we need to adapt our nature. For instance perhaps we needed to adapt our nature in order to live in cities but I would suggest that if we lost our curiosity that we would lose something which is fundamental to being a human being. My objector might accept that curiosity is essential for human beings but proceed to argue that we can satisfy our curiosity by exploring space remotely. In response I would point out that we can have a natural curiosity about what it would be like for us to explore and colonist space which cannot be satisfied by remote exploration. I would suggest that this natural curiosity gives us a weak reason to ex[lore space.

Let us now consider an argument is based on the value of playing games. It might be objected that space exploration is a serious matter and shouldn’t be trivialised by being considered as a game. What do we mean by a game? A game is a course of action aimed at an outcome, this outcome can only be achieved subject to some accepted rules. This is a very broad definition. It would include football, a billionaire building his own house when she could employ a builder and space exploration provided this could also be done robotically. In what follows I will accept this broad definition of a game. Are games valuable? According to John Danaher,

“Games will be arenas in which human autonomy and agency can be nurtured and developed. They will provide opportunities for humans to think, plan, and decide; to cultivate moral virtues such as courage, generosity, and fair play; and to display ingenuity and creativity. This is not an unusual or alien idea. People have long argued that the value of sports, for example, lies in their capacity to develop such attributes and provide outlets for human agency to flourish.” (1)

I have argued that sport, which is always a game as defined above fosters certain virtues because competition involves some limited suffering, see Nietzsche, sport and suffering . Clearly space exploration can be regarded as a game and if we accept the above has some value.

Lastly I want to argue that space exploration would have essentialist value because it would be an achievement. Let us accept that achievement isn’t limited to games. In what follows I will adopt Gwen Bradford’s ideas of achievement. According to Bradford achievements are difficult requiring the exercise of our will and cognitive abilities. Space exploration would be difficult involving the exercise of these abilities and as a result would be an achievement. Doing difficult things fosters certain virtues such as perseverance and fortitude would giving space exploration some limited value in the same manner games might do. Bradford also introduces the idea of an essentialist value. If some capacity is essential to being a person then the exercise of this capacity is of value to persons. In what follows I will equate essentialist value with intrinsic value. Let us accept that the exercise of our will and cognitive abilities are essential to human beings and have intrinsic value. Someone with no will and incapable of some basic reasoning couldn’t be regarded as a person even if they could still be regarded as a human being. Moreover the more difficult a achievement is the greater the exercise of these capacities. Space exploration would be difficult requiring the exercise of these capacities and so be of intrinsic value.

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? Let us assume that space exploration becomes possible. Perhaps we have short term reasons not to explore space however in the long term we have real reasons to do so. Space exploration would have value even if this value isn’t due to the knowledge gained by going boldly forth to explore. These reasons might be summarised as follows,

• Not to explore space when we capable of doing so would to deny our natural curiosity, our nature, such a denial might damage us.
• Space exploration would foster certain instrumental virtues which are of value.
• Even if the achievement of exploring space has little value achieving it has value.

The value of space exploration might of course be outweighed by other things. Perhaps even by sport but this possibility seems unlikely due to the extreme difficulty space exploration would pose.

1. Danaher John, 2019, Automation and Utopia, Harvard University, page 231

Having Children, Happiness and Love

In a posting in practical ethics  David Edmonds suggests that having children might make people less happy. Simply bringing children into the world would seems unlikely to bring about a change someone’s happiness whilst raising children, being an active parent might. In the rest of this posting having children will refer to being a fully engaged parent and this includes non-biological parents. This suggestion seems to conflict with our intuitions about how most parents feel. Edmonds advances four reasons to account for this apparent conflict. In this posting I will examine Edmonds’ second reason. This holds that parents may be deluded as to their own happiness. This reason concurs with the views of Daniel Haybron who believes people are often mistaken as to what makes them happy because they are poor at affective forecasting (1). I will offer two suggestions as to why this apparent delusion might be illusory. Next I will consider Edmonds’ fourth reason in more detail. This reason holds that parents value something more than happiness. Lastly I will examine two reasons people might have for having children which are unconnected to parental happiness. 

Edmonds suggests that parents who think having children will make them happier might be deluding themselves. Haybron provides us with a reason as to why this delusion may be illusory. He suggests there are problems with defining happiness.

 “The trouble with the ordinary concept of happiness appears neither to be well defined nor univocal. Indeed there may be no “the” ordinary, but perhaps several, even many.” (2)

For instance, happiness might be defined either in the psychological sense as either positive affect or wellbeing and in addition to this division both of these senses might be subdivided further. This situation opens up the possibility that parents and researchers are simply using different definitions, talking about different things. It follows parents might not be deluded when they consider themselves as happy having children using their own idea of happiness but this wouldn’t be considered as happiness using the researchers’ definition. Accepting the above means the conflict highlighted by the study might well be illusory. A second possibility is that parents are not deluded and accept the researchers’ definition of happiness and concur with the researchers that having children makes them less happy in the short term. However, parents may believe having children will make them happier in the long term. Once again the conflict seems to be illusory as the researchers are concerned with happiness now whilst parents are concerned with happiness in the longer term.

I now want to turn to the question whether even if parents believe having children might make them happy that there are more important things in life than happiness. I don’t want to deny the importance of happiness in making someone’s life go well but I will argue that there are more important things in someone’s life than being happy. This is by no means a new position for in the nineteenth century Mill famously argued that it is better to be a dissatisfied human than a satisfied pig. Unfortunately, in the absence of an accepted definition of exactly what happiness is there is a problem with even starting my argument. In order for my argument to proceed I must first provide a definition. Haybron defines happiness as the aggregate of all someone’s emotions and moods at any one time and if this aggregate is positive then he is happy and conversely if this aggregate is negative he is unhappy. Clearly not all emotions carry equal weight. For instance someone’s irritation at the buzzing of a fly is not as important as love for his spouse. The most important emotions are one’s we feel attuned to, engaged with and endorse. In the following I will accept Haybron’s definition because it concurs reasonably well with our everyday usage. The question now becomes are some things more valuable in life than just having an aggregate of positive emotions? I will now argue that possibly a sense of achievement and love are more important in life than simply being happy. I will then argue that parenting can give someone a sense of achievement and satisfies her need to love.

According to Gwen Bradford achievements above some minimum threshold are difficult and must be carried out competently (3).

She also suggests that there are certain capacities which are essential to being a human being and that exercising these capacities is of value to human beings. Exercising a capacity strengthens that capacity. Among these essential human capacities is having a will and the ability to reason. I would prefer to use the term person rather than human being because someone in a coma might have neither of the above capacities but nonetheless remains a human being. Let us accept Bradford’s position and agree that achieving has essentialist value to someone irrespective of whether the achievement itself is a valuable. Climbing a mountain for instance. It might then be argued that achievement might be of more value to someone than the happiness children might bring. It is completely plausible that someone might value having a career more than having children. I will now to argue that having children, parenting them, is an achievement. Let us accept that parenting children is sometimes difficult. Let us also accept that if we are to be good parents we need to be competent. For instance good parents ensure that their children eat a balanced diet and get adequate sleep. It follows that for most people being a parent is an achievement and is valuable to them. It further follows that if having children doesn’t make people happy or even makes them unhappy that achievement gives a reason to have children. However this reason like happiness must be balanced with other reasons we have to do things. Someone might value having a career more than having children. Moreover if having children makes people happy then achievement reinforces this reason. It might be pointed out that achieving itself makes us happy and this is one of the reasons we pursue achievements. I won’t pursue this point further here.

However even if we accept the above most children would be unhappy if they thought the only reason they made their parents happy was that they achieved something by parenting them. I would agree that their unhappiness was fully justified. Moreover most children would also be unhappy with the thought that they only existed because their parents thought that they would make them happy. Children aren’t commodities. Children want to be loved. Indeed I would suggest that most parents would be unhappy with the idea that the only value they gain from parenting is due to achieving. What is achieved by good parenting matters because parents love their children. What is achieved matter more than the achieving. I have argued elsewhere that not only do we want to be loved we have a need to love, see love me for a reason . The love I’m referring to isn’t romantic love but simply ‘caring about’ as defined by Harry Frankfurt. (4) I now want to argue that someone without the capacity to love isn’t really a person at all meaning a capacity to love is an essentialist capacity of persons in the same way as having a will and the capacity to reason. According to Frankfurt having ideals, “caring about” or loving is essential to being a person.

 “He can make whatever decision he likes and shape his will as he pleases. This does not mean that his will is free. It only means that his will is anarchic, moved by mere impulse and inclination. For a person without ideals, there are no volitional laws he has bound himself to respect and to which he unconditionally submits. He has no inviolable boundaries. Thus he is amorphous with no fixed shape or identity.” (5) 

Let us accept that capacity to love is essential to being a person and what someone loves helps define him, loving is tied to identity. I argued above that the exercise of an essentialist capacity has value because it strengthens that capacity. Loving has value both to the loved one and lover, loving children has value both to children and parents. Love gives us a reason to have children irrespective of whether they will make us happy or not. In cases when children make us happy love enhances this happiness. Sometimes our children make us unhappy. Some children might become seriously ill causing us distress to their parent but this doesn’t mean that they regret having them.  Some children might commit terrible crimes but their parents might still love them. I would argue that in such cases our unhappiness is due to our love. Love makes us vulnerable and ties us to the fate of our loved ones. If our loved ones flourishes we are happy and if our loved ones are harmed or causes harm we become unhappy. In cases in which our children make us unhappy love means that we retain a reason for having children. In cases in which our children make us happy love enhances our happiness. It follows irrespective of whether having children makes us happy we have reasons due to love to have children. Finally some people say that when a childless couple keep a dog that the dog is a substitute child. This is clearly false but the underlying reasons might share a common basis. Both parent and some pet owners have a need to love and a lesser need to be loved.

1. Daniel Haybron, 2008, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Oxford, page 231.
2. Haybron, page 43
3. Gwen Bradford, 2015, Achievement, Oxford University Press. . (
4. Harry Frankfurt, 1988, The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge University Press.
5. Frankfurt. 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press. Page 114

Achievement and the Value of Sport

In a previous posting I have argued that participating in sport has instrumental value because it fosters certain virtues, see Nietzsche sport and suffering . It fosters these virtues because competition makes sport difficult to some degree. In this posting I want to do two things. I want to examine Gwen Bradford’s ideas about achievement (1). In conjunction with this examination I will argue that because sport is difficult it also has intrinsic value.

How does Bradford define achievement? Bradford is only concerned with achievements that require some minimal amount of effort. For instance for most people the tying of their shoelaces wouldn’t be an achievement. According to Bradford achievements have two elements. They consist of a process and a product. For instance winning an Olympic medal would be a product. Running in the race to win the medal would be the process. In some cases the product might be part of the process. For instance for an amateur marathon runner running the race would be the process and the product of his achievement. Whether the product is an achievement depends on how it was caused. First the process must be difficult and the level of difficulty must be above some threshold. Secondly the achiever must cause his achievement.  However it isn’t enough that the agent causes the achievement. Someone can cause something due to being lucky but this wouldn’t be an achievement. An achiever must competently cause his achievement by being responsible for it. For someone to win a race because he competently causes his victory by training correctly would be an achievement, for someone to win a race because his competitors are disqualified for taking the wrong course wouldn’t be. Let us accept Bradford’s definition and that for something to be an achievement that it must have a product and a process with the process being difficult and competently caused by the achiever.

Let us now consider the value of achievement. Achievements as defined above are difficult and as I have previously argued doing difficult things has instrumental value because it fosters certain virtues. However achievements also seem to foster another type of value and I now want to consider this value. Bradford introduces the idea of an essentialist value. If some capacity is essential to human beings then the exercise of this capacity is of value to human beings. It is tempting to equate essentialist value with intrinsic value. In what follows I will regard essentialist value as intrinsic value. Bradford suggests that the exercise of the will is an essential capacity of human beings. Indeed if someone never exercised his will it would be difficult to see him as a person and he might be regarded as a wanton. Let us accept that doing something difficult requires effort and that effort involves someone exercising his will. It follows that if achievements must be difficult to some degree that achievements have intrinsic value for persons. In what follows I will restrict my discussion to persons rather than human beings. Some human beings might lack a will but this can’t be true of persons. Any person must have a will to some degree. This difference will matter later. Bradford also suggests that a capacity for practical rationality is an essential capacity for human beings. Once again some human beings might be unable to act rationally and I will restrict my discussion to persons. Someone who cannot use practical rationality cannot govern himself and so cannot be regarded as autonomous. It follows if someone who isn’t autonomous for at least some of the time that he cannot be regarded as person because practical rationality is an essential capacity for a person. It further follows if achievement must include the exercise of practical rationality that achievement has intrinsic value. Let us accept that achievements have intrinsic value because they involve the exercise of the will and practical rationality. Bradford further argues that combining the exercise of the will and rationality further increases this value, I will not pursue this further here. In what follows ‘value’ will refer to intrinsic value unless it is specified otherwise.

I now want to question whether using Bradford’s account sport can be considered as an achievement. This question matters because intuitively sporting achievements seem to be real achievements but Bradford’s account might make it appear that they aren’t. If they aren’t then perhaps we need to reject her account. There is no problem with the first element in Bradford’s account. Achievements must be difficult and sporting achievements are difficult so it follows that the first element in her account is satisfied. The second element is more problematic. In Bradford’s account for some outcome to be an achievement the achievement must be competently caused. According to Bradford an achiever competently causes an outcome if he has enough justified, true beliefs (JTBs) about his actions which cause the outcome. However Bradford herself admits that competence causation creates a problem if we are to regard some things as achievements.

“In fact, for some activities, their success may depend on not consciously entertaining any beliefs. I have in mind here in particular athletic activities, or other physical activities such as music performance or dance.” (2)

It would appear that because an athlete might not have JTBs about his activity during the process part of a ‘sporting achievement’ that ‘sporting achievements are aren’t genuine achievement.

Before accepting the above we should examine two questions. First might an athlete have had JTBs which competently caused his performance at some time? Secondly does the fact that an athlete isn’t consciously aware of any JTBs during his performance mean he doesn’t have any JTBs?

Let us consider the first question. Consider an author who had enough JTB’s to write a book who dies prior to its publication. Few would deny that his book was an achievement and this example seems to suggest that it isn’t necessary for some outcome to be considered as an achievement is that the achiever had enough JTBs at the time of the outcome. All that is necessary is that the achiever had enough JTBs at some time which caused the outcome. However caution is needed. In this example the time when the author’s achievement was recognised and when the achievement was accomplished needn’t be the same. Perhaps the achievement was accomplished during the writing or on the completion of the book rather than at the date of publication. If we accept the above then perhaps as achiever must have some JTBs which caused the achievement at the same time as it was achieved. However if we consider athletes and musicians it would seem that the time when an achievement is accomplished and recognised are the same.

Let us turn to my second question. Must an athlete consciously be aware of any JTBs during his performance? Let us accept that an athlete must have some JTBs which cause his achievement. For instance he must have JTBs about his training and diet. But is he consciously aware of them whilst accomplishing his achievement? I would suggest not. If an athlete is aware of enough JTBs prior to accomplishing his ‘sporting achievement’ and aware of them afterwards then I would suggest that he unconsciously has them during the process. I would further suggest that if an athlete has enough unconscious JTBs whilst accomplishing his ‘sporting achievement’ that his achievement is competently caused and provides it is also sufficiently difficult that it is a genuine achievement. If we accept the above then we can accept ‘sporting achievements’ as real achievements and have no need to reject Bradford’s account.

I now want to examine two consequences connected to the value of sporting achievement that seem to follow from accepting Bradford’s account.  First I will suggest that sporting achievements are generally less valuable than some other achievements. Secondly I will suggest any enhancement diminishes the value of sporting achievements. Intuitively my first suggestion seems correct. For whilst finding a cure for some disease and winning an Olympic medal are both achievements it seems natural to think that finding a cure for the disease is of the greater value. However caution is needed as much of the value of curing a disease is due to benefits it confers to others rather than the value of the achievement itself. In this posting I’m only interested in the latter. The question is whether finding a cure for a disease has greater achievement value than winning an Olympic medal. I will now argue that it has. Let us assume for the sake of argument that both achievements are equally difficult. I will now argue that the value resulting from competent causation is less in the case of winning the medal. Let us assume that more JTBs are needed to find a cure for a disease than to win an Olympic medal. This alone is not sufficient to guarantee greater value due to competent causation when discovering a cure for a disease. Whether something is competently caused might depend on the percentage of possible JTBs the agent has. Let us assume that the number of possible JTBs is much greater in finding a cure for a disease that the researcher has a lower percentage of JTBs than the athlete has about how to win his medal. It might be concluded that competent causation generates more intrinsic value for the athlete than the researcher. This conclusion would be mistaken. The value due to competent causation depends on how much rationality the achiever employs in exercising his JTBs and not on how many JTBs he possesses or the percentage of possible JTBs he possesses. Let us accept that sporting achievements usually require less JTBs and that less rationality is used in exercising them than is the case in many other achievements. It follows provided the degree of difficulty remains the same that sporting achievements tend to have less essentialist value than other achievements. This conclusion depends on the modifications I have made to Bradford’s account. I have substituted essential properties for persons instead of for human beings. Bradford suggests that the exercise of our physical abilities might be an essential property of human beings and as a result have intrinsic value in the same way as the exercise of the will and rationality. Sporting achievements might gain intrinsic value this additional way and as a result sporting achievements would not tend to have less value than other achievements. Nonetheless if we restrict essential properties to persons rather than human beings sporting achievement tend to have less achievement value than some other forms of achievement. Secondly let us consider whether enhancement lowers the value of sporting achievements. Using Bradford’s account doing something difficult increases the exercise of will. If someone uses enhancing drugs then he makes achievements less difficult. Making something less difficult means less need for the exercise of the will. It follows because the exercise of the will is one thing that contributes to the value of achievement that enhancement lowers the intrinsic value of sporting achievements. More generally sportspersons who cheat in order to win deprive themselves of some of the intrinsic value of sport. Much the same conclusions can be reached when considering cognitive enhancement. Cognitive enhancement, either by pharmacological or other means, makes the exercise of rationality easier even if the amount of rationality required remains the same. As I have argued above easier achievements require less exercise of the will and as a result are less difficult and possess less less intrinsic value. I would suggest that it also lowers the instrumental value but I won’t pursue this suggestion further here.

As we age what we can achieve becomes more modest. It might be suggested that as we age we should accept that achievement has less value in our lives. I am reluctant to accept this suggestion. In positive psychology the Perma model developed by Martin Seligman (3) includes accomplishment or achievement as an important element of our happiness. I now want to suggest that Bradford offers an incomplete account of the value of achievement because it doesn’t account for the long term value of achievements. According to her account achievements gain their intrinsic value because they fosters the exercise of the will and rationality. The value of this exercise persists after being exercised according to her account but this value would appear to be short term. Let us return to our researcher who found a cure for some dreadful disease. Years later he takes pleasure in his achievement because it prevents harm. He also takes pride in it because he achieved it. The fact he achieved something appears to have long lasting non-instrumental value. Pride means it matters to him that he achieved it and not someone else. If we accept Bradford’s account then his achievement no longer has any intrinsic value to the achiever because it no longer fosters the exercise of his will or rationality. However if someone takes pride in some past achievement he values it because it was his achievement in addition to valuing because of its benefits. It would seem that because Bradford’s account seems unable to account fully for pride in past achievements that it is an incomplete account. In the above I’ve slightly amended Braford’s account by substituting persons for human beings when considering essential or intrinsic value. I now want to argue that if we accept this amendment that we can account for the intrinsic value of past achievements. Let us accept that not all human beings are persons. Let us also accept that a person must care about something or else he has no real shape and is a defective sort of person. What he cares about define his values. Someone’s most important values are defined by what he is proud or ashamed of. Let us return to our researcher. As he ages he is pleased with his past achievement but he is also proud of having been an achiever. The fact he was an achiever is part of what defines him as a person and so is an essential part of him. It follows that past achievements can have essentialist or intrinsic value for persons.

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? It is generally acknowledged that playing sport has value because of its health benefits and I have argued it also has instrumental value by fostering some virtues. However if we accept the above it also has intrinsic value. In addition it would seem that the intrinsic value of sporting achievements is generally less than that from other achievements. The above also suggests that the use of enhancing drugs lowers the value of sporting achievements. Lastly even if our capacity for achievements becomes more modest as we age our past achievements retain some intrinsic value to us as long as we remain as a person.

1. Gwen Bradford, 2015, Achievement, Oxford University Press.
2. Bradford, Kindle location 1360.
3. Martin Seligman, 2011, Flourish. Nicolas Brealey Publishing

Mental Illness and Voluntary Euthanasia

 

 Canada’s House of Commons has passed a bill which would allow to euthanasia for people suffering from mental illness and a terminal condition, see Bioedge . Let us assume that anyone suffering a great deal of pain and who only is expected to have only short time left to live has a right to assisted suicide provided that she can give competent consent. Let us now consider Andy and Sandra. Andy who has no mental health has an incurable illness from which he suffers greatly. Andy should have a right to assisted suicide. Sandra who has the same illness as Andy and suffers just as much also has mental health problems. It would seem to be unfair to deny Sandra the same right as Andy to end her suffering. What reason could be given to justify this apparent unfairness? It might be suggested that Andy is competent to give consent whilst Sandra isn’t. Let us accept the idea of informed consent is based on respect for autonomy, some might question this assumption, see the doctrine of informed consent and respect for autonomy . Accepting the above might mean the cases of Andy and Sandra differ because Andy can give competent consent to voluntary euthanasia whilst Sandra can’t because Andy is autonomous and Sandra isn’t. If we accept the above it would appear unfortunately that we must accept Sandra’s suffering. I now want to argue that we should permit voluntary euthanasia for some people suffering from terminal illness who also suffer from mental illness. I will accept that only autonomous persons can make a competent decision to accept voluntary euthanasia.

What do we mean by an autonomous decision? Autonomous decisions are decisions we govern ourselves by. What does autonomy in practice? Let us consider a substantive account of autonomy. According to such an account an autonomous decision isn’t simply one the agent freely makes and doesn’t harm others. Let us label such an account as a primitive account. According to a substantive account an agent can only make an autonomous decision if he fully understands any information relevant to his decision and then makes a rational decision based on his best interests. Moreover the substantive element of this account means his best interests are not simply his subjective best interests but must concur with some norms or objective list. If we accept such an account then it seems likely that most mentally ill people wouldn’t be competent enough to consent to voluntary euthanasia and as a result shouldn’t be offered the option. However if we accept a substantive account of autonomy then the substantive element means autonomous decisions must be good decisions. I now want to argue against accepting such a substantive account of autonomy. If autonomous decisions must be a good decisions because they must concur with some accepted norms then it might be questioned whether such an account of autonomy is really doing any useful work. A substantive account of autonomy puts itself out of business because we only need to consider good and bad decisions. We don’t need to consider autonomous decisions at all. Some concerned with medical ethics might be happy to accept the above because they attach great importance to acting beneficently. Do we value autonomy because it helps us make good decisions? I would suggest we don’t. I would suggest that we value autonomy because we value persons. We value being the sort of creatures that can make their own decisions. We don’t respect autonomy because it helps us make good decisions we respect autonomy because respect persons. Respecting persons requires that we accept their decisions and this includes bad decisions. It follows that respect for autonomy means we should accept a non-substantive account. It might be objected that we can respect someone’s autonomy by respecting most of her decisions, but not all, and this means we don’t need to accept a non-substantive account. In response I would point out respect isn’t a part time concept.

Let us accept that that we should permit voluntary euthanasia for persons suffering from terminal who are able to give competent consent. Let us also accept that any autonomous decision using a non-substantive account of autonomy should be regarded as a competent one. What might a non-substantive account of autonomy look like? A random or coerced decision isn’t an autonomous one. An autonomous decision might have no substantive element but the way it is made matters. Autonomy is connected to persons and a person, distinct from a human being, is defined by what he cares about. I would suggest what we care about must have some persistence. (1) It follows that not all freely made decisions are autonomous ones. I would also suggest what we care about depends simply on what we will rather that what it would rational for us to care about, if this wasn’t so we would be returning to a substantive account of autonomy.

What are the implications of adopting the above non-substantive account of autonomy for the mentally ill? Let us accept that mental illnesses differ. For the purpose of this posting I will assume that they can be split into two main types. Mental illnesses which induce mood swings and mental illnesses which cause delusional beliefs. I will consider the effects of both types on someone’s ability to make an autonomous decision.

First let us consider someone whose mental illness means she experiences large mood swings. Such mood swings mean that she has difficulty in making persistent decisions, making autonomous decisions. It follows she has difficulty in making competent decisions. It follows if someone’s mental illness leads to large mood swings that she shouldn’t be offered the option of voluntary euthanasia. The same conclusion cannot be so easily reached if someone’s mental illness leads to delusional beliefs. Her decisions even if they are based on these beliefs might have persistence, reflect her will and if so should be regarded as autonomous and hence competent. At this point it might be objected that it would be absurd to accept as competent any decision based on a delusional belief. In response I would point out that this occurs in medical practice now. Consider a Jehovah’s Witness who needs a blood transfusion without which she will die. She believes that if she permits the transfusion that she will not be admitted to heaven. Because of this belief she refuses the blood transfusion. Her decision would be regarded as a competent one under existing guidelines. However to most people including me such a belief is a delusional one. It seem that in practice a decision based on a delusional belief might be regarded as a competent one. Perhaps then if someone suffering from mental illness makes a persistent decision based on delusion his decision should be regarded as a competent one. Perhaps also someone whose mental illness causes delusions might be competent enough to agree to voluntary euthanasia.

It might be objected that whilst some people have long standing delusions which help define them as persons such as the Jehovah’s Witness. My objector might then point that some people suffering from mental illness might be treated for their mental illness causing them to lose their delusional beliefs. Their delusional beliefs don’t define them as persons. I accept my objectors point but might in turn point out for someone suffering from a terminal illness time is limited and a change in her delusions is unlikely. Someone with a limited expected life span who suffers from long term delusions might be partly defined as a person by her delusions. If such a person has a terminal illness she might well to able to make an autonomous, competent, decision to accept voluntary euthanasia and should be offered the option. My objector might raise another objection to the above. She might suggest that my division of mental illnesses into two main types is flawed. She might point out depression doesn’t fit easily into either type. Once again I am prepared to accept her point. If depression can be quickly cured then someone’s depression doesn’t play a part in defining her as a person. Someone suffering from short term depression might not be able to make competent decisions and should not be offered voluntary euthanasia. However some depression is deep seated and play a part in defining someone as a person. This might be especially true for someone suffering from a terminal illness with a limited expected life span. Someone suffering from a terminal illness with deep depression might well to able to make an autonomous, competent, decision to accept voluntary euthanasia and should be offered the option.

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? First that applied philosophy can be a messy business and that mental illness is a broad concept. It follows not all of those suffering from a terminal disease and mental illness should have the option of voluntary euthanasia.  However those who can make an autonomous decision should. The above highlights the difficulties legislators, such as those in Canada, face when drawing up laws covering voluntary euthanasia. Lastly the concept of autonomy employed should be a non-substantive one.

1.  Harry Frankfurt, 1988, The Importance of What We Care About, Cambridge University Press, page114.

Aspiration

 

People change over time. We become older, bigger and weaker. This posting isn’t concerned with physical changes but changes in what matters to us. We might become a professional sportsperson, a mother or even a priest. These changes often require us to adopt new values and these values help in defining the person we want to be. This posting is concerned with the way in which we acquire these new values. Agnes Callard argues that the way we change our existing values to new ones is by aspiring. In this posting I will firstly outline her idea of aspiration and will then examine an important question what motivates us to aspire.

This examination will be concerned with the choices about values which are connected to character, to the sort of person we are. Some choices are made without reflection, we simply choose the ice cream flavour we prefer. We reflect about other choices. If I want to help my grandchildren flourish I might reflect about how I might assist in this. I use reason to decide which course of action will help me achieve my aim. Now let us assume that I decide to make a major change to the way I live my life. For instance I might decide to become a vegetarian. I can do this for two reasons. I can do so because I believe it is the right thing to do or because I am attracted by the vegetarian lifestyle. If I do so for the first reason then my choice is a result of reflection based on my existing ethical values. It is possible to choose some of our values but I’m not sure that we can choose our ethical values. Let us now assume I make my choice because I’m attracted to the vegetarian lifestyle and that being a vegetarian is not something which I previously valued. In this scenario how do I make my choice? Do I simply decide as I did when choosing an ice cream?  Surely such a big decision shouldn’t be an arbitrary one? Perhaps my choice should be a reflective one based on reason. However a reflective decision is based on our values. If I decide to become a vegetarian then I am changing my values and it might be asked what values I base my decision on. It would seem that I have become dissatisfied with my old values but haven’t yet acquired new ones which could form a basis for my decision. Problems with acquiring new values have lead Agnes Callard to suggest that we acquire these values by aspiration.

What does Callard mean by aspiration? According to Callard,

“The aspirant sees that she does not have the values that she would like to have, and therefore seeks to move herself toward a better valuational condition.” (1)

The aspirant doesn’t decide on better values but tries to move himself towards these values. We usually think of someone as exercising his rational agency if he first considers his values and then decides what to do. Callard wants to reverse this order and say someone when aspiring still exercises his agency by deciding to acquire some different values and throughout the process of acquisition. I’m slightly unhappy about saying an aspirant decides to acquire new values. Aspiration is a process rather a decision perhaps it might be regarded as a smudged decision. Unfortunately there seem to be a problem with how the aspirant comes to aspire to these new values. Perhaps the aspirant glimpses these new values but if this is so what do we mean by glimpse? In the light of this difficulty I will now examine potential alternative means of acquiring new values, perhaps we might not need the idea of aspiration to explain how we acquire new values.

 

Let us accept that values are defined by what we care about. Let us further agree with Harry Frankfurt that what we care about is equivalent to what we love. Love means love in general and not just romantic love. Moreover according to Frankfurt the lover,

“is not free. On the contrary, he is in the very nature of the case captivated by his beloved and his love. The will of the lover is rigorously constrained. Love is not a matter of choice.” (2)

Let us assume that Frankfurt is correct when he asserts that the will of someone is constrained when he comes to acquiring new values. How then might he acquire these values? Perhaps he simply makes an arbitrary choice. I would be reluctant to accept this suggestion for surely acquiring new values which will form a basis for the way someone lives is different from making a choice about flavours of ice cream. It might then be suggested his choice is determined by his character which is linked to his values. This might happen in two ways. First it might be suggested the agent’s choice is determined by his existing character. However if we accept this suggestion it might be questioned whether our agent is really acquiring new values or merely maintaining his existing ones. Secondly it might be suggested that the agent glimpses some character he wants to become. Let us consider Satre’s classic example of someone choosing. He must choose between looking after an ailing mother or joining the French resistance. Did Satre really believe such a choice was completely free? If so we are back to ice cream. Perhaps Satre’s choice was really a choice about what sort of character the agent wanted to become. However the agent hadn’t become that character yet and as yet didn’t have the values of his chosen character. It appears to follow that such a person could best be described as an aspirant. 

It has been suggested above that it is impossible to choose new values based on our current ones. Perhaps our new values emerge from our current ones in some way. This might happen in two ways. Firstly if we seriously reflect on our current values and new values simply emerge. Let us return to our potential vegetarian. Among his current values is not causing unnecessary harm. However he doesn’t value not eating meat. One summer’s day he has time to reflect on his values. He considers causing harm in some detail and comes to believe eating animals harms them. He is well aware that it is unnecessary to eat meat for a healthy diet. He concludes that eating animals causes them unnecessary harm. He becomes a vegetarian and now values not eating meat. It might be suggested that a new value has emerged based on his reflection on his current values. What do we mean by emerged in this scenario? Does it mean he has chosen a new value? I would suggest it doesn’t. The agent has become aware of a value entailed by his current values and becoming aware of a value isn’t the same as choosing a new one. Secondly let us assume that our agent doesn’t reflect very much on his values but that these together with experience of life lead to the emergence of another value. This scenario is similar to the first one. The agent is becoming aware of a value rather than choosing a new one. It appears to follow that it is impossible for somebody to choose new values based on his current ones. Reflection can make us aware of values but it can’t help us choose new ones. Becoming aware of is process but it seems to a different sort of process to the one involved in aspiring. It is of course possible that it is impossible to choose any values by any means because we lack free will. In the light of the above it would seem that provided we can acquire new values and our agency plays some part in this acquisition that Callard’s ideas about aspiration might be helpful in explaining the process.

Unfortunately even if we accept the above a problem remains. Clearly desires can motivate us. According to Frankfurt the things we cares about or love also naturally motivate us. If we don’t act to further what we care about when this is possible then we don’t really care. Let us assume that when we aspire we hope to care about our new beliefs. But new beliefs we have yet to acquire can’t yet motivate. If we aspire to something what motivates us to aspire? Callard suggests that aspiration is a process and that during the course of the process we have a partial grasp of the values we are trying to acquire. Let us agree with Callard that these partially acquired values can motivate us to pursue the acquisition process further. Unfortunately the above problem can be amended. If someone aspires to new values what motivates him to initiate the aspiration process? 

Let us accept that Callard is correct when she suggests that we can’t use our existing values to acquire new values and that we do so by aspiring. However if we do so we must be able to offer an explanation of what initiates the aspiration process. I will now outline two possible explanation. First we aspire because we hope to acquire these new values. What do we mean by hope? Initially someone hoping might described as simply desiring some favoured outcome. Frankfurt points out desires don’t have to have persistence. Hoping seems to have some persistence. Perhaps then if someone hopes means he ‘cares about’ some favoured outcome and ‘caring about’ means that he takes steps to achieve this outcome. Unfortunately a problem remains. Hoping isn’t a mood with no focus. Hoping must be focussed on some specific outcome. If we use hope to explain what motivates us to acquire new values then it cannot be focussed on these new values because we haven’t yet acquired them. Perhaps the above explanation might be modified. Let us accept that one of an aspirants aims is to become a better person. If it is possible to hope to be a better person then this might help to explain what motivates aspiration. It might be objected that the aim of becoming a better person is too vague to be considered as the focus of someone’s hope. Let us now consider a second way in which we might be motivated to aspire. According to John Stuart Mill “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” Might our dissatisfaction cause us to aspire? Let us also accept that an aspirant is dissatisfied with his current values. It might then be argued that dissatisfaction with his old values rather than these values themselves motivates him to seek new ones. His dissatisfaction motivates him to try and acquire new values. His focus is broad but some of his attempts might allow him glimpse new values which motivates him to aspire further. Aspiration is a process and sometimes as he comes to see these values more clearly he will continue with the process whilst in other cases he might end it.

As we age it seems that we become less concerned with becoming better persons and aspiring and this offers some evidence to support the two explanations offered above. We become more content with our existing values and seek to maintain them rather than acquiring new ones. However many will be unconvinced that the desire to be a better person could initiate the aspiring process. Indeed I am not totally convinced myself. Perhaps then we should reconsider whether it is possible to acquire new values from our existing ones. Perhaps sometimes new experience in conjunction with our existing values might allow us to glimpse new values. Glimpsing these new values doesn’t mean that they are strictly entailed by our existing ones. For instance we might glimpse these new values by the use of analogy. Analogies are never perfect so new values might be suggested by our old values rather than strictly entailed by them. Moreover once we accept these suggested new values and reflect further on them then we might have to change or modify our previous existing values. In in science we are used to the idea of a paradigm shift. Newton’s laws allowed Einstein to develop relativity but once relativity became accepted Newton’s laws had to be modified slightly. Is a paradigm shift in values possible? If so it might be possible to acquire new values which are suggested by our old ones.

What conclusions can be drawn from the above discussion?  Firstly it is at least conceivable that our old values might suggest new ones by analogy and that if we acquire these new values we will be required to amend our old ones.  Secondly we can acquire new values by aspiring. It seems possible that the acquisition process is initiated by a desire to be a better person.

1. Callard, Agnes. Aspiration. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition, Location 192.
2. Harry Frankfurt, 1999 Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press. Page 135.

What do we mean by Evil?

Few people seem to actively enjoy doing evil acts yet evil seems to be widespread. In this posting I will examine what we mean by evil in order to explain this discrepancy. Evil is a word we use all the time, for instance terrorists and serial killers are often said to be evil. However if saying something or someone is evil is to be useful, to be more than condemnation, then we must be clear what we are talking about. In this posting I will attempt to define a useful definition of evil and I will argue that being evil isn’t a matter of degree, how bad we are, but is concerns with how we are motivated. I will draw a definition between someone who is actively evil and someone who is passively evil, This will lead me to conclude that someone needn’t commit any evil acts or even have a disposition to do so in order to be regarded as evil. Such a position might be regarded as an extreme one by some.

Evil is connected to harm. I will now introduce definitions of an evil act and evil person as suggested by Luke Russell. Russell defines an evil act as follows,

“An action is evil if and only if it is a wrong that is extremely harmful for at least one individual victim, where the wrongdoer is fully culpable for the harm in its extremity, or it is an action that is appropriately connected to an actual or possible extreme harm of this kind and the agent is fully culpable for that action” (1)

Russell defines an evil person as,

“You are an evil person if and only if you are strongly disposed to perform evil action and this disposition is now so firmly fixed that you ought to be treated as a write off.” (2)

These are thoughtful definitions and are a useful starting point for our examination. However accepting these definitions makes it is difficult to account for Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”. Moreover intuitively whether an act, however bad, is regarded as evil seems dependent on the definition of an evil person.

I now want to suggest a different account of evil. Sometimes an evil person is contrasted with a virtuous person. Very roughly speaking a virtuous person has a disposition to mostly do good. It might then be suggested that an evil person mirrors this and is someone who has a disposition to do evil. If we accept that an evil action is one which causes great harm for which the agent is culpable then we are accepting a definition akin to that of Russell. I now want to propose a different account of evil. According to David Hume

 “Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger”.

Perhaps such a person might be regarded rational, which I wouldn’t, but we would certainly regard her as evil. The above suggests that instead of having a disposition to do evil an evil person is simply someone who lacks any disposition to do good when she is capable of doing so even and when doing so would prevent extreme harm. Evil acts don’t require evil intentions but a lack of motivation to do the good. However such a definition is incomplete because using it someone who feels no moral pull because she is incapable of understanding any moral requirements would be regarded as evil. Surely we shouldn’t regard someone who is severely cognitively impaired as evil. Someone who causes great harm but cannot understand any moral requirements not to cause that harm is no more responsible for this harm than the harm caused by an earthquake. I would suggest that an evil action cannot be understood without reference to an agent understanding that the society she lives in has moral requirements even if she doesn’t feel the pull of these requirements. Moreover she must understand what these requirements entail. It is important to be clear that by the inability to feel any moral pull isn’t the same as the inability to understand moral requirements. It follows that if someone is to be regarded as evil that she must be capable of understanding some moral requirements. An evil person might be defined by the following two conditions.

An evil person is someone who lacks any disposition to do good when she is capable of doing so even when doing so would prevent extreme harm.

An evil person is someone who is capable of understanding moral requirements even if she feels no moral pull.

If we accept this definition then it is possible to define an evil action.

An evil action is an extremely harmful act which an evil person enacts or permits to be enacted.

Accepting these definitions means that we need to be able to understand what it means to be an evil person before we can classify some act as evil. It also means that someone need not be actively evil and she can be passively evil. It is possible to differentiate between active and passive evil. Lastly it means that hatred need play no part in evildoing.

This definition is similar to that of Simon Baron Cohen. Baron Cohen wants to redefine evil as the erosion of empathy. (3) This definition refers to evil acts rather than evil persons because whilst autistic people lack empathy to some degree this lack doesn't make them evil. Indeed many high functioning autistic people are attracted by rules and strongly feel the pull of morality. This pull could be due to ‘caring about’ as the defined by Harry Frankfurt or due to emotions unconnected to empathy. The above definition is slightly different from that of Baron Cohen and might be characterised by the inability or the erosion of the ability to feel the pull of morality rather than empathy.

Let us now examine some of the consequences of accepting the above definitions. According to Arendt Adolf Eichmann was an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat who was neither perverted nor sadistic, but ‘terrifyingly normal. His motive according to Arendt motive was simply to advance his career in the Nazi bureaucracy. According to Arendt’s account of Eichmann he didn’t enjoy his evil deeds and didn’t have a strong disposition to perform evil actions. It follows that we must reject either Russell’s definition of an evil person or Arendt’s account of Eichmann. Is the definition of an evil person outlined above more compatible with Arendt’s account of the banality of evil? If we accept this definition then an evil person doesn’t have to like to be attracted to evil she merely has to have no motivation not to do evil, she is passively evil. Perhaps Eichmann didn’t enjoy sending Jews to extermination camps but he had no motivation not to do so. It follows that Eichmann fulfilled the first condition of an evil person. I would further suggest that Eichmann must have understood that killing millions of people contravened moral standards. Someone might object to the above and suggest that the Nazis had introduced new moral standards. She might then suggest that the situation Eichmann found himself was responsible for his evil acts rather Eichmann himself. In response I would suggest the secrecy of the final solution suggests that the Eichmann was well aware that he was breaking moral standards and that even if the situation helped determine his actions that he felt no unease at doing so. This failure to feel any moral unease made him an evil man. Much of the above could be applicable in the case of Harold Shipman the British serial killer who murdered around 250 victims. Except for one case Shipman had no motive for murder and appeared to take no pleasure in his actions. However I would suggest the above definition isn’t completely compatible with Arendt’s views. Arendt suggested Eichmann was an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat I would suggest that someone who lacks any motivation to prevent harm when she is capable of doing so isn’t normal. Perhaps Eichmann was a bland bureaucrat but he wasn’t ordinary, wasn’t orfinary.

A second consequence of accepting the above definition is that someone might be an evil person but never actually do any evil acts, an evil person might never be an evildoer. This consequence accords well with Nicolas Bommarito’s idea of inner virtue and vice. Such a thought seems to run counter to our intuitions. However it seems possible that someone might have a generous disposition but that she has never been generous because she lives in an extremely deprived circumstances. Let us recall that an evil act must be an extremely harmful one. It seems possible then that someone might live in circumstances in which the opportunity for doing extremely harmful actions doesn’t exist. In such circumstances someone might not be an evildoer but would remain an evil person if she had a disposition to do evil even if she never acted on it. However my definition is more radical than this, Someone can be an evil person even if she never acts evilly or doesn’t have any disposition to act evilly provided she doesn’t have any disposition to do good when she is capable of doing so in order to prevent extreme harm. According to David Hume “all that is necessary for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing” but if we accept the above Hume’s ‘good men’ are actually passively evil. Consider someone who sees a frail person fall in the street and struggle to get up and has no motivation to help him then she should be regarded as an evil rather than simply heartless. Omissions can point out evil. Perhaps if Eichmann had been born in different times he would have been an ordinary bland, bureaucrat who did no evil but nonetheless he would have remained an evil person.

According to the definition of evil we have adopted an evil person feels no moral pull but must understand moral requirements. This leads to the third consequence of accepting the above definition. Someone can only be regarded as evil in reference to the moral standards they lived in. Moral standards aren’t changed easily which I have suggested is one reason for the Nazi’s secrecy about the Holocaust. Nonetheless moral standards do change over longer periods of time. Let us consider slavery. Slavery is a great wrong today and in our time anyone who kept a slave would be regarded as an evil person. Let us now consider the Bristol slave trader Edward Colston. Let us accept that he was a racist but was he also an evil person? If he felt the moral pull and understood the moral requirements of his time then perhaps he wasn’t. The question then becomes was slave trading morally acceptable in his times. This is no means clear. Let us move on to consider an easy case, let us consider Aristotle. Let us assume that Aristotle kept slaves if our assumption is correct was he an evil person? If he felt the moral pull and understood the moral requirements of his times then he wasn’t. I would suggest that keeping slaves was morally acceptable in ancient Greece. In the light of the above it would seem that we should judge people as evil or not according to how they responded to the moral requirements of their time.

The fourth consequence of accepting the above definition means that even if a good person can act badly that she cannot act evilly. Evil acts are defined as extremely harmful actions performed by evil persons. Accepting the above seems to run counter to our intuitions and appears to give us a strong reason to reject the above account of evil. In Bernard Shaw's St Joan a soldier is let out of hell for one day because he does a good thing by giving Joan a straw cross. An evil person does a good thing.  Surely if evil people can do good things then good people can do evil things. The Milligram experiment shows good people can do very bad things but is doing very bad things the same as acting evilly? Before answering this question we must provide a rough definition of what we mean by a good person. In what follows a good person will simply be defined as someone who has a disposition to do good in most situations For the sake of argument let us assume that a good person can act evilly. What reasons can be advanced for a good person acting evilly? Firstly a good person might have a failure in cognition and fail to see that she is acting evilly. Secondly her disposition to do mostly good might be overwhelmed by other forces allowing her to act evilly. Let consider the first of these explanations. Perhaps a good person feels the pull of morality in general way but fails to fully understand what a particular moral norm requires of her. For instance someone might understand the moral norm not to be cruel to others but fail to include animals among those others. Let us assume she is cruel to animals. Let us accept she acts badly but it would seem hard to describe her actions as evil. More generally it would seem hard to describe someone’s action as evil when she fails to fully understand the moral implications of the action. If this wasn’t true then it would be possible to describe the actions of someone who is severely cognitively impaired as evil. Such a description seems to run counter to our intuitions. It follows that a good person cannot act evilly because of a failure in cognition.

Let us now consider the second explanation of how a good person can act evilly. It might argued that a good person can act evilly if her moral sentiments are overwhelmed by other forces. For instance a soldier’s moral sentiments might be overwhelmed by rage at some atrocity and she in turn commits a further atrocity. According to Seneca rage is a form of madness. If so when someone’s disposition to do good is overwhelmed by rage she is cognitively disabled and we are able to use the first explanation above to show she isn’t acting evilly. However let us assume that whilst someone’s disposition to do good is completely overwhelmed that she remains aware she is acting badly. Can someone who can do no other said to be responsible for her actions? Can some act be regarded as evil if the agent cannot be held to be responsible for her actions? If the answers to these two questions are both negative then good people can act badly but it would be wrong to describe those whose disposition to do good are over whelmed by other forces as acting evilly. Such a conclusion might have satisfied Socrates. Perhaps whilst good person can act badly she can’t act evilly.

The fifth consequence of accepting the above means we might question whether terrorists are really evildoers. Terrorists should rightly be regarded as cruel and callous but should they also be regarded as evil? Terrorists have some sort of moral code even if we might regard it as a warped one. If being evil depends on a complete lack of any moral pull then it follows that terrorists aren’t evil. Such a conclusion might not be totally unwelcome for perhaps terrorists might be reformed by changing their moral concepts even if this change is extremely difficult bring about, such a change might not be possible with evildoers such as Eichmann.

The sixth consequence of accepting the above definitions means we can’t label any organisation as evil. This seems counterintuitive. We can’t label the Nazi party or a terrorist organisations as evil even if they foster evil. Dictators and party members may be evil but the party can’t be evil for to be evil some creature must be capable of understanding moral requirements.  Organisations can’t understand moral requirements and so can’t be evil.

Definitions should increase our understanding or be useful. Does the above definition do either of these? Firstly the fact that an evildoer doesn’t feel any moral pull doesn’t excuse her evil actions. If someone knowingly does evil and could have acted otherwise then she can be held accountable for her actions. However if the cause of evil is a failure to feel any moral pull then this might be regarded as a mitigating factor. Secondly one way to combat evil might be to look at how people fail to acquire a sense of moral pull. Children naturally acquire some feeling of morality from their parents and society. Perhaps extremely deprived or abusive childhoods erode a child’s ability to acquire moral sentiments. Good parenting and education might help children acquire these sentiments. Unfortunately some people might not acquire these sentiments for physical reasons. Perhaps a low level of these sentiments might be boosted by pharmacological means. In ‘unfit for the Future’ Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu argue that there is a need for moral enhancement in order to counter the existential dangers. (4) Perhaps more limited targeted pharmacological enhancement might be used to prevent some people from becoming evil, see psychopaths and moral enhancement. Lastly the society we should try to make our society one which decreases the likelihood of evil manifesting itself. I suggested above that whilst Eichmann might have remained an evil man but that in a better society that his evil might not have manifested itself.

1. Luke Russell, 2020 Being Evil, Oxford University Press, page 87
2. Russell, page 114
3. Simon Baron-Cohen, 2011, Zero Degrees of Empathy, Allen Lane, page 4.
4. Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu, 2012, UNFIT FOR THE FUTURE, Oxford University Press.