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.
7 comments:
I think it's really interesting how more than one moral guideline discourages Donna from helping her friend. In this class, it seems we've learned that there are so many different approaches to ethics and different opinions on what the ethical choice would be. I find this really strange because, in general, I think most members of the class would agree that saving their friend "from a bashing" is the moral thing to do. I think the majority of the class would agree on most morals, even before taking this class which makes me think that Mill is correct: there must be a socially inculcated feeling that provokes our actions. And perhaps in our current society, that socially created feeling bypasses other rational approaches (I mean, just look at the way our government decides things) such as goal rights systems and welfarist consequentialism.
Ethics is definitely multifaceted in that there are so many different approaches to take. Ultimately,the goal rights system seems most appealing to me considering that there are several aspects to take into account. Thus, I don't think that morality can be based on a single standard since it is so complex. Conclusively, I have seen an evolution in thought processes as we moved from Aristotle to Kant and then to Mill through the course of this class and I believe that our social upbringing greatly impacts our perception of morality.
Throughout this class, all we have been talking about it being moral. Isn't Moral a fixation of the mind. I do not find this moral system to be ethical in itself. If We are meant to have justice and equality, why do we have one set rule for morality. Sometimes this one rule that we have may not be a great rule at all, it may lead to controversy and such controversy is not moral in itself. Will we ever have a universality system where we all can agree and there will be no shades of grey? I think not..
Though this the goal of rights system does make the most sense in regards to identifying the individual as an objective being, I still question a few things. How can every person be right, be moral, when there are so many conflicting ideals floating around? There still needs to be this disposition to do the moral action in question. How is it known that everyone has this moral disposition? and can it not be possible that this disposition might be influenced by external forces, like law and societal views? I feel as if this is just another set of rules (as mentioned in the comment above), maybe with a tad more emphasis on the individual's opinions. Th individual's disposition still needs some sort of influence, otherwise, there can not be structure in society.
Well Jacqui, it sounds to me that the questions you are asking of morality are all solved by Kant's philosophy of morality. Kant asked the same question, "how can everyone be right?" The answer to that is that they can't. That is why Kant insists that there be a universal moral philosophy. All of the "inadequacies" of all of these moral systems would not exist if there were one universal moral philosophy that did not base itself the the subjectivity of humans. Kant seems to solve all of our problems!
"Why is it that our moral systems have such strict guidelines on what is moral?"
We all know that morality is hard, and although Aristotle never addressed "morality", he knows what's up. Each moral system will have a moral right and a moral wrong in any situation. Aristotle says that to achieve virtue of character, we must practice acting virtuously. The same can be said of becoming a moral individual- we must make the morally right decisions, and practice making them over time, in order to have strong moral character.
I disagree with some of the things you wrote about constraint-based deontology.
“There is no external or internal judgment.”
Kant would say that our judgment on moral rightness comes from our internal reason.
“These two moral systems do not create a moral end”
The traumatic end of the situation is not the fault of the deontological system. It is the fault of the bashers not following the system.
“Without room for interpretation, very few of our actions can be completely moral and beneficiary to all.”
People could “interpret” the same situation in many different ways according to their biases where not all of these are moral. Additionally, aren’t the situations which require interpretation the ones in which someone is affected negatively in order to prevent another person or group of people being affected negatively, so how could they be “completely moral and beneficiary of all.” Having universal maxims to follow avoids interpretations and creates pure morality.
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