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Parfit's Moral Arithmetic and the Obligation to Obey the Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

George Klosko
George Klosko*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901, U.S.A.
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Extract

Though consequentialist theories of political obligation have been widely criticized in recent years, a series of arguments presented by Derek Parfit, in Reasons and Persons, are now believed to have given this position new life.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 191 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1990

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References

1 Parfit, D., Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1984)Google Scholar; this work cited hereafter as RP,in the text.

2 McMahon, C., ‘Autonomy and Authority,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (1987), 315-19Google Scholar; see below, Section III; also Walker, A.D.M., ‘Political Obligation and the Argument from Gratitude,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 17 (1988), 206-7.Google Scholar

3 This is a comparative, as opposed to an absolute, form of AU; I believe it is the stronger doctrine and so more worthy of attention. Reasons of space prevent discussion of this and other complex issues in utilitarianism. For discussion of the consequences of actions, see below, Section V.

4 Stimulating recent discussions of PO problems are Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Part I; and Ullmann-Margalit, E., The Emergence of Norms (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1977), Chap. II.Google Scholar It should be noted that, as Regan, D. points out (Utilitarianism and Cooperation [Oxford: Oxford University Press 1980), 62-3)Google Scholar the cases discussed throughout this paper are not PO cases in the technical sense. In PO cases the different participants have different maximands; in the cases under discussion we can assume common interest.

5 As the term is generally used, ‘public goods’ are characterized by non-excludability and ‘non-rival consumption,’ i.e., that one individual's consumption of a given good will not affect the amount available for others. The latter is not directly relevant to the concerns of this paper and so is not discussed.

6 This conclusion follows from the principle of fairness; see Klosko, G., ‘Presumptive Benefit, Fairness, and Political Obligation,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (1987) 241-59.Google Scholar

7 For the sake of simplicity, throughout this paper I discuss only what makes actions wrong. Only verbal changes would be required to expand the discussion to encompass what makes actions right.

8 In subsequent discussion, I generally ignore slight effects, discussing only imperceptible effects. But this has little bearing on my arguments.

9 Parfit is anticipated here by Barry, B., Political Argument (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1965), 328-30.Google Scholar

10 On thresholds, see Lyons, D., Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1965), 63-91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 It should be noted that the results of an election are susceptible to analysis in terms of SE logic as well. In addition to who wins or loses the size of the win, e.g., whether or not it is a landslide, can have significant implications for a country's future, while in a large society the vote of a single individual will make an extremely slight contribution to the outcome, either way. Thus it could be argued that absolute thresholds are less absolute than they appear. Though this is true, however, it has little bearing upon the argument of this paper. Though aspects of elections can be analyzed in SE terms, elections differ from SE cases in having other significant aspects that can be analyzed in SC terms. It is upon these aspects Parfit focuses; for present purposes other aspects can be passed over.

12 McMahon, ‘Autonomy and Authority,’ cited hereafter as ‘AA,’ in the text. For our purposes it is not necessary to discuss the wider context in which McMahon's discussion of political obligation is set.

13 It is worth noting that, if a consequentialist theorist wishes to argue from complex and/or long range effects of actions, then it is up to him to present convincing accounts of these. The fact that in many cases detailed descriptions of long range effects are highly speculative tells strongly against consequentialism, when it is extended beyond intuitively clear and simple cases. One possible way of dealing with apparently imperceptible consequences is ‘probabilistic risk assessment,’ as suggested by Shrader-Frechette, K., ‘Parfit and Mistakes in Moral Mathematics,’ Ethics 98 (1987) 50–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. According to Shrader-Frechette: ‘if one looks at allegedly imperceptible harms with fine enough medical and scientific know-how and instrumentation, then it is questionable whether there are any genuine effects of nonmental acts which are imperceptible’ (60). Even if this claim is true, however, the practical difficulties in producing convincing figures in many of the cases that interest us severely lessen the value of the approach.

14 This is not to deny that specific acts of disobeying the law can differ in their consequences, or that certain acts could well stimulate large numbers of other individuals to behave similarly, thereby leading to social collapse. The disobedient acts that most clearly fall into this category are public and dramatic. Examples are acts of civil disobedience by well-known figures, e.g., Martin Luther King, or flouting of the law by highly visible. people in positions of authority, e.g., the behavior of Richard Nixon during the Watergate years. (For a discussion of ‘stimulatory’ actions see, Narveson, J., ‘Utilitarianism, Group Actions, and Coordination,’ Nous 10 [1976] 173-94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 191ff.; and Glover, J., ‘It Makes No Difference Whether or Not I Do It,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 49 [1975] 171-90.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Along similar lines, dramatic crimes, such as the bank robberies of John Dillinger, can inspire numerous imitators, or a riot can be set off by a single act of flagrant disobedience under tense conditions, such as an inflamed situation of racial conflict. Under these and other, similar circumstances, the SC argument can justify obedience, so as not to risk setting off a slide into anarchy. However, acts of this sort are exceptional; though the SC argument can support obedience under such conditions, this does not approach a justification for general political obligations. In the large majority of cases the particular laws with which a citizen is asked to comply will neither offer opportunities for dramatic disobedience nor be under powder-keg conditions. In the PO cases that interest us, the citizen is asked to pay taxes, register for military service, comply with anti-pollution laws, etc. Not only will his compliance or non-compliance not dramaticially affect the behavior of numerous others, but it will not be noticed by them.

McMahon's discussion, too, concerns general political obligation. His rational anarchist considers whether to obey the law simpliciter, without reference to the kinds of special circumstances that would make SC logic applicable to his deliberations.

15 See below, n. 17.

16 C12 is similar to other principles invoked by Parfit, C10 and C11 (RP, 77-8), which need not be discussed here.

17 To be more precise here and throughout, in saying that the problem is to show that a given act is wrong because of its consequences I make an additional assumption that is not spelled out in the text. To make the cases under consideration more closely parallel the cases concerning political obligation that interest us we would have to posit some benefit from allegedly harmful actions. For instance, in regard to the torturers, we must assume that they gain personal gratification from their work. The problem is to show that the imperceptible effects of their torturing make their actions wrong in spite of this gain.

18 This important point is made by Gruzalski, B., ‘Parfit's Impact on Utilitarianism,’ Ethics 96 (1986) 779-82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, to whose discussion I am indebted. It is to be noted that Parfit does not have an adequate response in his ‘Comments,’ Ethics 96 (1986) 846-9; see below, n. 21. Because I believe that Parfit's sorites argument (RP, 78-80) is weak, I do not discuss it; on this see Gruzalski, 779-80.

19 Parfit, ‘Comments,’ 847; for emphasis on sets of acts, see RP,70-1, 77-8, 82-6.

20 For some similar cases, see RP,84-5.

21 In his 1986 ‘Comments’ Parfit cannot be said to argue for (C7). He writes: ‘An act can be right or wrong because of its effects, even if the effects of this particular act are imperceptible. These are not the only relevant effects. The act may be right or wrong because it is one of a set of acts which together have perceptible effects.

In my imagined case, what each torturer does makes no perceptible difference, but what they together do makes a great difference’ (847; his italics). These sentences constitute his main support of (C7), but they strike me as mere assertion. (I discuss one possible argument for [C7] in RP,below.) Though numerous examples indicate that acts with imperceptible consequences are clearly wrong when performed along with large numbers of similar acts, Parfit has not shown that they are wrong on consequentialist grounds.

22 Silverstein, H., ‘Simple and General Utilitarianism,’ Philosophical Review 83 (1974) 339-63Google Scholar; ‘Utilitarianism and Group Coordination,’ Nous 13 (1979) 335-60; Horwich, P., ‘On Calculating the Utility of Acts,’ Philosophical Studies 25 (1974) 21–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the terms ‘marginal’ and ‘contributory’ are taken from Regan, Utilitarianism and Cooperation, 13-17.

23 Citations in previous note; on ‘linearity,’ see Lyons, , Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism, 63–91Google Scholar.

24 Silverstein, , ‘Utilitarianism and Group Coordination,’ 341Google Scholar

25 Harrod, R.F., ‘Utilitarianism Revised,’ Mind 45 (1936), 148Google Scholar (his italics)

26 Harrod, , ‘Utilitarianism Revised,’ 148 ffGoogle Scholar. I do not discuss utilitarian generalization (UG) in this paper, as it is not considered by Parfit. Nor do I believe that UG is able to solve SE problems. Though it is not possible to discuss UG in detail here, a few points can be made. To begin with, I do not believe that the famous argument of Lyons (in Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism), which criticizes UG for being extensionally equivalent to AU, is valid. Lyons’ argument has been criticized along various lines by Silverstein, ‘Simple and General Utilitarianism'; Horwich, ‘On Calculating the Utility of Acts'; Regan, Utilitarianism and Cooperation, Chap. 6.

However, although UG is not extensionally equivalent to AU, UG still fails because in certain cases AU is more consistent with our intuitions. The clearest cases here concern ‘minimizing’ conditions, actions (a) with imperceptible consequences, (b) which if generalized would produce great benefits, but (c) unless generally performed are likely to be greatly harmful to those who perform them. An example is publicly protesting against an odious, ruthless political regime, e.g., Nazi Germany. Unless very widely performed, such acts of protest are likely to lead to grievous consequences for individual protestors without perceptibly benefitting society. On this, see Gruzalski, , ‘The Defeat of Utilitarian Generalization,’ Ethics 93 (1982) 22–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (An additional, serious problem UG confronts is the problem of ‘competing descriptions'; on this, see Gruzalski, , ‘Utilitarian Generalization, Competing Descriptions, and the Behavior of Others,’ Canadian journal of Philosophy 11 [1981] 487–504CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But note the problems he encounters with different degrees of inconvenience, which are arbitrarily assumed to be equal, on 493-4.)

27 Other, similar cases are discussed in RP,70-1.

28 The absurdity in the double shooting arises from the fact that each shooter, though having performed an action causally sufficient to bring about Q's death, is held blameless. In assessing moral responsibility for an action the question of causal sufficiency is a crucial factor. The situation is different in the collective cases that interest us. Because each particular action in these cases is not causally sufficient to produce the given result, the question of moral blame is more problematic. Parfit's use of overdetermined cases to call into question the marginal view allows him to smuggle causal sufficiency and so absurdity into collective cases.

I should note that it is not clear the extent to which the reasoning in RPis affected by the equivocation, as it is not clear that Parfit’ s logic actually is:

A. the double shooting establishes (C7); and so: B. (C7) can be used to clear up the SE cases. However, Parfit presents no other argument to justify a concept of collective consequences in SE cases - other than the fact that such a view gives the desired results (see above, n. 21). It appears most likely that in RPParfit is misled by the flawed reasoning discussed above, in Sec. IV. In his 1986 ‘Comments,’ Parfit appears to rely directly on (C7), without adequate explanation; see above, n. 21.

29 The contributory view has been supported for this reason; see Singer, P., ‘Is Act-Utilitarianism Self Defeating?’ Philosophical Review 81 (1972), 102-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 See Regan, , Utilitarianism and Co-operation, 14-17, 231 n.6Google Scholar; Silverstein, ‘Simple and General Utilitarianism.'

31 I do not rule out additional counter-examples, which would work in SE cases, though the qualifications I introduce allow one to avoid the counter-examples most often found in the literature (see the last note). However, the possibility of additional counter-examples need not concern us, as the contributory view will be seen to fail, for other reasons.

32 As Regan (Utilitarianism and Co-operation) argues, this sort of case could be addressed by cooperative utilitarianism (CU); see also Narveson, ‘Utilitarianism, Group Actions, and Coordination.’ However, because CU depends upon the possibility of getting potential cooperators to engage in mutually advantageous cooperative efforts, it is not a practical possibility in many of the cases that interest us. In many important cases, especially those involving very large numbers of people, the behavior of others must be regarded in ‘the same way as brute natural phenomena’ (Regan, 207; see Chap. 12).

33 Hobbes, T., Leviathan, Macpherson, C.B., ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1968), Chap. 15 (215)Google Scholar

34 On the need to reinforce consequentialist theories with other moral notions, esp. a principle of fairness, see Lyons, Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism, Chap. 5; see above, n. 6.

I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to the editors of and anonymous referees for the Canadian Journal of Philosophy for valuable criticisms and suggestions. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the 1989 meeting of the American Political Science Association, in Atlanta. I am grateful for a University of Virginia Summer grant, which greatly facilitated my research.