Ask The Moral Guy: Underage Driving

This is the first of what will hopefully become a regular addition to my blog: taking an ethical dilemma and explaining what I take to be the right thing to do. I obviously welcome any submissions you might have (go for it!), but for now I'll settle with the much more old-fashioned talking with friends and family and getting their suggestions. So, without further delay, the very first addition of Ask The Moral Guy:

For the last few months, I've been allowing my 14 year old son drive around in our apartment complex's parking lot, with me in the passenger seat. As you might guess, he isn't old enough to apply for a learner's permit, and so he would be in quite a bit of trouble if a cop were to catch us. Last week we nearly got into an accident with another car that would clearly have been the other driver's fault. At the time I was convinced that, if we did have an accident, I should switch places with my son and assume any fault. Would it be ethical for me to take the wrap for him?

--Anonymous

I admit, this is a tough one. The short answer, though, is that no, it would not be ethical to lie to the other driver or to the police about who was operating your vehicle.

In such a case, I can't deny that you're caught in a difficult situation (which I should point out is entirely of your own making): you have, on the one hand, an obligation to be truthful to the other driver as well as to the police; on the other hand, there are serious responsibilities that come along with being a parent, which includes looking after your child's best interests.

Still, while you are required to look out for your son, that obligation does not extend so far as to permit you to intentionally deceive other people about a crime just to make life easier for him. Let us not forget that while you, as the adult, should never have offered this opportunity, your son knew full well that he was breaking the law.

Finally, you should remember that your moral obligation doesn't stop at simply refraining from lying. Since you, as the adult and legal guardian, bear a significant portion of the responsibility for your child's predicament, you are also obligated to do what you can to minimize the affect this has on him, which might include helping to pay his fine, explaining to the police or a judge your involvement and, most importantly, apologizing to your son.

A Response!

In what is the first of what will hopefully be many responses on this page, Sadeghi commented on my discussion of (uh oh!) abortion. Since I want to encourage as much dialogue as possible on this site, I'm dedicating today's column to responding to him or her (hopefully, Sadeghi, you won't mind having your comment featured so prominently!).

Here's what Sadeghi had to say about the Violinist Example:

From an evolutionary perspective, you are not in the same position as the woman impregnated by rape. Perhaps the most basic instinct of man is to reproduce replicas of him/herself. Being that this baby carries half of the mother's genes, can we really say that the rape victim and I are in the same position? I have no biological connection to this disgusting violinist hooked up to me, yet I have reason to want to save the baby carrying my DNA.

While I'm not endorsing either side of the debate, I think Sadeghi's got an interesting point: in the case of pregnancy by rape, the woman has a particular, special relationship to the fetus--she's the mother. I'm not sure it's a consideration of evolution, as Sadeghi suggests, but nonetheless it's not hard to see how the parental relationship imparts certain obligations that wouldn't otherwise exist. Since in the example I posed previously you didn't have any special relationship to the talented violinist, there's certainly an important difference.

But it's moral philosophy! We can always amend our example: let's say that the violinist is your child; would you have an obligation then? That, I think, makes Judith Jarvis Thomson's example quite a bit more controversial, but I leave it to you to consider....

Objecting to Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory which argues, in its most general form, that a person is morally obligated to perform that action which maximizes overall utility, which, depending on what time of utilitarian you are, can be happiness, preference satisfaction, or whatever (happiness being the most common consideration). Consequently, utilitarians tend to believe that you are morally obligated to do that which maximizes the total amount of happiness. The most famous modern-day utilitarian is Peter Singer (he of the Animal Liberation fame), who just so happens to be a professor at my alma mater.

The theory seems pretty straight forward, and I think it has quite a bit of intuitive pull: a good deal of people will say unreflectively that what we're obligated to do is just that which causes the best outcome. Don't know whether or not to choose vanilla or chocolate ice cream? Pick the one that makes you happiest. What makes stealing wrong? It causes serious disruptions in the lives not only of the victims, but of society in general. After all, what would our country look like if everyone just took by force whatever they wanted?

There are quite a bit of objections to utilitarianism, generally focusing on some examples which, if you apply a utilitarian principle, lead you to some awfully weird conclusions. But instead I want to focus on the problem utilitarianism poses to the concept of friendship:

Every time I have a choice in how to act, there will be one action which maximizes the greatest amount of happiness, and according to utilitarianism, I am morally obligated to to perform that act. And if that's the case, then I am always required to do something, no matter what the situation.

With me so far? Okay.

Consider what it means to be friends with other people: you spend more time with them than you would a stranger; you do favors and help them out in a way you wouldn't do for others; their concerns matter much more to you than other peoples'. Utilitarianism, remember, always requires you to do some specific action. But wouldn't you better maximize happiness if you spent that Saturday afternoon tutoring underprivileged children instead of watching a movie with your pal? Or worked an extra shift to earn money to donate to Oxfam instead of consoling that buddy who just lost his job? If you buy into utilitarianism, there doesn't seem to be much of anything you could do that could constitute friendship. And so, it seems, the utilitarian has to give up on the idea of having meaningful relationships with other human beings, always obligated to sacrifice her own happiness for the greater good.

That, for me at least, is sufficient to say, Sorry, Jeremy Bentham, but you're nuts. No moral theory can seriously require I give up any human relationship. But that's just me.

Uh Oh, the A-Word!!!

What? One of the first posts and I'm already going after that most dreaded of ethical quandaries, that insufferably unanswerable issue which has for decades torn apart political blocs, turned family members against each other and even led to murder--Abortion?? Well, not quite...

This post isn't a pro- or anti-abortion piece (I'm not even going to reveal my personal beliefs in the hopes that it won't affect anyone's thoughts on this argument), but rather one where I try to clarify what, exactly, it is that pro-lifers and pro-choicers are, or should be, arguing about:

Most people tend to think the life v. choice debate boils down to whether or not you agree with the following argument:

P1: A fetus is an innocent person with a right to life.
P2: Abortion causes the death of a fetus.
C1: Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.

If you're pro-life, you think this argument is sound; if you're pro-choice, you deny P1--that a fetus has a right to life.

I thought this was pretty much right on, until I read what is likely the single most anthologized writing on the subject of abortion: A Defense of Abortion, by Judith Jarvis Thomson. Thomson, for the purposes of the paper, grants a fetus has a right to life, and then goes on to argue that that still doesn't make abortion immoral under all circumstances. This highly surprising conclusion is motivated by (what else, in moral philosophy!?) a counterexample:

A famous violinist suffers a serious attack, and falls into a coma. The venerable Society of Music Lovers determines that you and you only can save this brilliant musician by being hooked up to him on some kind of medical contraption for nine months. These music lovers break into your home while you are asleep, drug you, take you to the hospital, and hook you up to the violinist. You wake up and demand to be unhooked, but the Society offers this argument:

P1: The violinist is an innocent person with a right to life.
P2: Unhooking you from him would cause the death of the violinist.
C1: Therefore, unhooking you from the violinist is morally wrong.

The example, of course, is meant to be a corollary to a woman's becoming pregnant by rape. Needless to say, this paper has been attacked & defended to death, but that doesn't mean it's not worth talking about: do you think this argument works? Are you really in the same position as woman impregnated by rape? Does allowing abortion in the case of rape open the door to permitting it in other circumstances?

I'll refrain from offering any opinions here, not wanting to beceome too controversial too early, but still (to anyone who's actually reading this), what do you think?

Moral Luck

The subject of moral luck (which just happened to be a major component of my senior thesis) was first discussed in an important paper written by Bernard Williams, appropriately titled "Moral Luck." He asks us to consider two similar circumstances:

Circumstance A: Fred overslept this morning and is very late to work. He gets in his car and decides to drive 30 mph over the speed limit to try to get to an important 9:00 am meeting on time. Just as he's rounding a particular turn on a road, a police officer sees Fred speeding, pulls him over and gives him a ticket.

Circumstance B: Bob also overslept this morning and is very late to work. He gets in his car and decides to drive 30 mph over the speed limit to try to get to an important 9:00 am meeting on time. Just has he's round a particular turn on a road, a small child darts in front of his path, and Bob's car strikes and kills that child. The police come and Bob is charge with involuntary manslaughter.

Question: Are we justified in treating Fred and Bob differently?

Initially I think most peoples' response is YES! Bob killed a child, Fred just drove too fast. Throw Bob to the wolves! But before we let Fred off the hook, consider this:

Fred and Bob did exactly the same actions for exactly the same reasons. They drove down the same road at the same speed at the same time under the same conditions. Neither Bob nor Fred had any control over whether or not a child would run onto the road, and so there's a real sense in which it was just a matter of luck that Bob hit a child and Fred got off light with a speeding ticket. Since neither person had any control over whether or not their actions caused someone's death, shouldn't their equal level of recklessness be treated equally?

Updates

Before I make my first substantive post, a couple of items:

1. My email address is themoralguy@gmail.com, which I've also listed in the "Contact Info" section of my blog. Feel free to send me an email about your thoughts, dilemmas you've faced or thought about, or just about anything else that's on your mind.

2. I've started a monthly poll which will likely be little more than a reminder that very few people read this blog. Still, check it out and vote early & often.

Introduction

Morality matters to me. From the time that I was very young, I have always been enthralled by the idea of right and wrong. That isn't to say that I think of myself as more righteous or moral than anyone else; maybe a better way to phrase it is to say that I'm more moral-minded than most: for whatever reason, I’ve always been intrigued about our obligations as human beings. And it's this motivation that's driven most of the important choices I've made in my life: my interest in the subject explains my taking part in Lincoln-Douglas debate and mock trial in high school; majoring in philosophy at Princeton; writing my senior thesis under Anthony Appiah on the subject of moral responsibility and blame my senior year; and heading off to Michigan Law as the next step to what will hopefully be a career in public service.

And so, out of this quasi-obsession with an academic subject few people rarely pay much attention to outside of their church, synagogue, mosque or temple, I’ve decided to write down some thoughts as they come up in my everyday musings.

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Two brief notes. First of all, a disclaimer: this isn’t religious blog, nor is it a political blog or even an activist blog. I’m not a fundamentalist or a rabid atheist, a left- or right-wing nut or obsessed with the plight of unborn babies or poverty in the 3^rd world (which of course doesn’t mean that the subjects won’t ever come up). I’m much more concerned with the everyday experiences people have with morality--the moral questions we face in our lives, and how we choose to deal with them.

Secondly, a brief look ahead to the kinds of posts I plan on writing: while I’m sure this will change as time goes on, I envision writing a number of different types of columns, from taking a look at everyday moral quandaries (which I admit won’t be much more than copy-catting The Ethicist), considering interesting quotes I stumble on, looking at current events which have a strong moral component, and perhaps some discussion about comments that (hopefully) show up on this page.

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And so I say welcome to you few, brave souls who have taken a moment out of your day to read this blog. It’s my hope that in considering the thoughts I’ve posted here, you will consider ideas you hadn’t before, and more importantly, come to have a deeper respect for the moral law--whatever you believe it to be.