Being Good, But With Limits?

In the terms of Sen, I am at a great risk of over-simplifying. This Sen's essay involves much more than my blog represents. Letting everyone know.

“Rights and Agency” is an evaluation done by Amartya Sen on two different moral systems: welfarist consequentialism and constraint-based deontology. He discusses the inadequacies of each of these moral systems and speaks of an alternative approach, the goal rights system. Through this system, our morality is evaluated through agencies that view an action from different perspectives, and our freedoms, both positive and negative, are based on the final analysis of our moral decision.

Welfarist consequentialism is simply based on the social judgments of right or wrong through the consideration of consequences, more specifically, consequences of people’s welfare. All welfarist actions were for the benefit, whether in pleasure, happiness, or desires, of the majority (p 191). Constraint-based deontology determines morality by actions, and not the intentions and consequences that come from that action (p 189). There is no external or internal judgment. It simply is what it is. Sen believes there is too great of a separation of these two moral systems and a moral decision cannot be fully met, as in his example of Ali, the shopkeeper, and his friend Donna, who tries to save him from a bashing (p 191-193). From the welfarist consequentialist point of view, the consequences are more detrimental to the rest of the population for Donna to act to save Ali. From the constrained-based point of view, the act of breaking into someone’s private home is viewed as wrong and immoral. In the end, Donna cannot save Ali morally, regardless of what she does. Because these two moral systems do not create a moral end, so to speak, for Ali cannot be saved form the bashing, Sen’s alternative approach is a goal rights system.

A goal rights system recognizes different characteristics and contexts of a situation so an individual may decide to, and should, act morally. Different states of affairs are looked at by different criteria and the most moral action, in regards to action or inaction (positive and negative freedoms), can be decided on. If Ali was not getting bashed, but only his business was threatened, Donna would have no legitimate moral reason to break other rules, like breaking into Charles’s apartment (p 202). The criteria are based on the perspectives and interpretations of agencies, doers and viewers, with one of a few guidelines in mind: do only if you would let another person the same (p 205).

Why is it that our moral systems have such strict guidelines on what is moral? Without room for interpretation, very few of our actions can be completely moral and beneficiary to all. We must look at the context of the state of affairs, view it from all perspectives, personally and objectively, and decide if the action the situation entails is moral. Sen is right to say that “…considerations to any role [should be made] in outcome judgments” (p 221) and that we have the rights to decide on these considerations. The goal rights system is the acknowledgement of the possibilities of the different orientation of good and wrong.

Justice: Killing Old People & Revealing Sex-Scandals?

In “War and Massacre,” Thomas Nagel examines our ability to justify actions, both on a personal and a national level, through the lenses of absolutism (which focuses on actions), and utilitarianism (which focuses on ends). As an avid news reader and watcher, I could not help but relate Nagel's work to our world's current events. Over the course of the past five years, I have read the news every morning, and watched it in the evening with some consistent frequency. While the names and faces may change with each new day, there remain two unwavering story categories: war and politics.

First, let us discuss war: In an age of increased tension between our country and what seems like the rest of the world, war has been pushed to the forefront of global events. When I read the word “war,” I am, of course, reminded of Iraq--a war justified by some and reprimanded by others. Next, I think of Afghanistan, and our perpetual “war on terror”—8 years after the September 11 tragedy, several worldwide terrorist attacks later, and, as of today, 30,000 more troops committed to the cause—will we ever actually attain desirable results? If the cause is worth pursuing, how should we proceed? Naturally, the controversy and justification of torture is implied when discussing our fight against terror. Can we justify our actions of war and torture without taking accountability for their indirect outcomes (absolutism); or should we focus on creating the greatest outcomes possible, without overt regard to our actions (utilitarianism)?

Nagel presents us with a conundrum to help contextualize the struggle: is it justifiable to bomb an area, thus killing innocent civilians—namely “women, babies and old people”—if we are in fact killing a leading combatant? What if we don’t kill our target, but the civilian causalities cause enemy surrender? For an absolutist, the action of killing is one that ought never to be done; but can killing be justified if it, in turn, creates a greater good? Conversely, can the act of not killing be justified if it in turn causes greater harm? It is clear that the type of person we kill in war becomes increasingly important. There seems to be an unwritten standard of “foul play”—and killing innocent people violates that code.

Next, Nagel provides an example of a politician—I shall call him Dave--who believes that his opponent’s victory would arouse moral chaos and utter detriment to society. If Dave knows that he cannot undermine his opponent in political debate, but that he can effectively ruin his opponent’s chances of winning the race by revealing embarrassing personal anecdotes—think Facebook pictures, sex-scandals, high school blunders—should he do this? Can he justify this war?

In war, the absolutist’s self-prescribed forbidden actions, like killing, or killing the innocent--or in the case of the politician: attacking something outside the bounds of relevance—seem to occasionally disallow the absolutist from choosing the lesser of two evils.

Nagel ultimately says that the world is an evil place, and that clear moral standards which allow us to definitively justify war are yet to be “codified.”