Hey Everyone,

I'm reading Singer's book "Applied Ethics" for the first time.

I've gotten to the point where he discusses Parfit's "bad mom" puzzle. In that puzzle, which I'm sure everyone is familiar with, two mom's mess up their kids by two different means. TMom1 is pregnant but refuses to take a pill that will prevent a birth defect. Mom2 is not pregnant but refuses to quit smoking for the requisite three months before getting pregant (I've changed it a bit to make it more realistic).

The birth defect in both cases is relatively slight, pehaps each baby is born without a left foot and has to be fitted for an artifical foot.

We would intuitively say that both moms did something equally bad. The first by not taking the pill, the second by getting pregnant before quitting smoking. However, when kid2 says to Mom2, "why didn't you wait until three months after you stopped smoking before getting pregnant," Mom2 says, "But then you wouldn't be alive at all. I'd have had a different kid, presumably with both feet, but that kid wouldn't be you kid2 so count your blessings."

My question is, why can't kid2 say that his mother failed to bear him or her suffiently good intentions? Isn't it natural to think that kid2 can still say that his mother intended to bring him into the world with less than a fair start?

This brings me the question of why utilitarians hold intent out of the equation. Why is that? It seems to me that if Mom2 didn't have a conversation with her doctor, or that Mom1 didn't know about the pill, we wouldn't think that their actions were morally blameworthy at all. It's only because of what they know under the circumstances that their behavior is ethically suspect in the first place.

Am I missing something? I'm sort of new at this so take it easy on me.

One thing people tend to not realize about consequentialism is that it doesn't suggest judging people based on the consequences of their actions. It suggests judging people based on the consequences of you judging them. I see no utility in judging someone based on something they had no knowledge about. As such, I wouldn't blame Mom1 or Mom2 for information that they didn't have.

Also, you can't take actions yourself based on knowledge you don't have. Because of those two things, for all intents and purposes, consequentialism is about the expected consequences. In fact, we tend to talk about increasing expected utility, rather than actual utility.

Don't worry, Parfit's Puzzle is a very tricky place to start discussing intent! I think DanielLC has given the right explanation though.

It seems to me that if Mom2 didn't have a conversation with her doctor, or that Mom1 didn't know about the pill, we wouldn't think that their actions were morally blameworthy at all.

If Mom1 and Mom2 were uninformed, they'd have good intent, but they'd merely be behaving incompetently. This sort of person has made the world worse but that doesn't mean we should blame them for it. We would be better served helping them to achieve what they rightly intend to achieve, rather than grumpily condemning their impotence.

If Mom2 gives her baby fetal alcohol syndrome without realising what she was doing, we might condemn public health campaigns for not informing her. We might suggest that she plans her family life further in advance and sees medical professionals about any serious health issues in her life, etc.

Parfit's Puzzle reminds me of Dawkins' introduction to Unweaving the Rainbow. It's a lovely and somewhat relevant passage:

DanielLC wrote:It suggests judging people based on the consequences of you judging them. I see no utility in judging someone based on something they had no knowledge about. As such, I wouldn't blame Mom1 or Mom2 for information that they didn't have.

Also, you can't take actions yourself based on knowledge you don't have. Because of those two things, for all intents and purposes, consequentialism is about the expected consequences. In fact, we tend to talk about increasing expected utility, rather than actual utility.

I'm not entirely sure I understand the first part. As for the second part, I see that point, but then what is the purpose of consequentialism as an ethical theory? Clearly, we have good reasons to assume that pain is bad and should be avoided and pleasure is good and should be obtained, all other things being equal. If people regularly do things that cause others pain or deprived other of pleasure, then that would be bad. We would want rules that generally promoted the sorts of interests outlined by this reasonable assumption (that pain should be avoided, etc.).

So, of course, in broad terms, we are all utilitarians, even if only in a limited sense. My point was that there must also be some role for intention and other notions that may justify voiding the results of a consequentialist thought-experiment.

This is because human agents are capabable of all sorts of different subjective states that accompany their actions. People can do things automatically (as when they get startled or hit on the knee), negligently, recklessly, or intentionally.

I haven't read Parfit directly. I plan to do so when I'm finished with Singer's book. But it seems to me that Parfit is leaving out an important part of the puzzle and making a paradox where there really isn't one. In other words, child2 has equal justification as child1 to say, "why did you intentionally do what you did"? It's no answer to say, "You don't have standing to raise that point because you wouldn't have even existed if I did do something else." What child2 is really saying is "your intentions were wrong." I don't see why the beneficiary of bad intentions doesn't have standing to bring up that point simply because he or she is the beneficiary of those bad intentions.

Imagine that there are three people, A, B, and C. A and B really hate C and want to kill him. A has a gun with one bullet in it and B has a knife. A, intending to shoot and kill C, fires at him but misses and hits B just a B is about to fatally stab C.

I think C has very good reasons to find fault with A's actions, even though A actually saved C's life. After all, A tried to kill C. The fact that through some strange accident he did C a favor doesn't seem to deprive C of good reasons to blame C for a bad act.

RyanCarey wrote:Don't worry, Parfit's Puzzle is a very tricky place to start discussing intent! I think DanielLC has given the right explanation though.

It seems to me that if Mom2 didn't have a conversation with her doctor, or that Mom1 didn't know about the pill, we wouldn't think that their actions were morally blameworthy at all.

If Mom1 and Mom2 were uninformed, they'd have good intent, but they'd merely be behaving incompetently. This sort of person has made the world worse but that doesn't mean we should blame them for it. We would be better served helping them to achieve what they rightly intend to achieve, rather than grumpily condemning their impotence.

If Mom2 gives her baby fetal alcohol syndrome without realising what she was doing, we might condemn public health campaigns for not informing her. We might suggest that she plans her family life further in advance and sees medical professionals about any serious health issues in her life, etc.

I understand that as well, and I thank everyone here for their responses since it helps me learn. But I still wonder what is the point of utilitarianism. If we don't blame people for making the world worse, where is utilitarianism going?

If we do blame them for intentionally making the world worse, then that seems like a highly modified version of utilitarianism, so much so that it seems not to be utilitarianism at all.

I like the Dawkins video. However, I'm not sure that our existence deprives us of a critique of the conditions of existence. One of the best reasons for not believing in God is that the conditions on earth are so often bad, not good. If we could question God about the bad conditions on earth it's hardly going to be satisfactory to for God to say (as he does say in the Book of Job), "You can't ask that question because you owe everything to me."

Shantonu wrote:"why did you intentionally do what you did"? It's no answer to say, "You don't have standing to raise that point because you wouldn't have even existed if I did do something else." What child2 is really saying is "your intentions were wrong." I don't see why the beneficiary of bad intentions doesn't have standing to bring up that point simply because he or she is the beneficiary of those bad intentions.

Is he really saying any such thing?

Here is an explanation that I found. The conclusions you gather about this child "blaming" his mother and she using this return argument, are they really there? He seems to agree both situations yield unethical results. Repugnant Conclusion

If utilitarian theory says one direction yields greater utility for the entire system, then that is the ethical choice. In this case, if the mother had a choice beforehand to wait to have the child, in order to have a healthier one, and if it was likely to yield greater utility overall, it was ethical to do that. If she was advised or knew of it and did not follow the 'correct' path, then yes, that is unethical. But yes, the system had to make the choice or rule and advise her. For example, the system would say, do not have children until you are examined and are fit to have them, or do not have children if you have been doing whatever it is that makes them have defects, because this will yield lower utility. If the examination is not required, that implies it is better to just have them without doing such a thing, as the actual benefit is not high enough to justify the extra resources. And if she results in a child with a defect, that was the best outcome available.

At any rate, no choice is in a vacuum, you have to consider all of the results. And in this case, this maligned child cannot complain he was disfigured because she chose to have him, it is up to all of society to expect higher utility from the choices of its citizens. And the system has to enforce the correct choices. The whole idea about one person "blaming" another because they got lower utility is meaningless, unless the system as a whole was lowered, and didn't need to be, and then yes, something unethical happened, and there were likely implications for more than one person for the better and the worse. What if someone ended up with good results from a bad choice, yet it was overall a poor choice. Should he 'blame" that person as well? The system does all of the blaming, not individuals.

The bullet and the knife example is more of the same. You are getting caught up in intent again. But if the system is designed perfectly, it will be able to tell which choice is the best, and notify the person beforehand what choice to take, and if the person does not do it, they are unethical. If the system told them not to shoot the person yet he tried to, and missed but it actually yielded higher utility OVERALL, then the system was not robust enough, and it needs refinement. More likely what happened in this case, is that, overall, with a limited system, statistics is used as an approximation, so it is 'usually' best not to shoot people, in order to keep utility high, so in this case even though the individual was saved, overall utility is raised by having a general rule not to shoot people. So I think you are once again disregarding the whole system in favor of the one person. But yes, it would be better to have a perfect system and to refine the law to say for example. If you are in a situation where you might try to shoot someone and instead you will miss and shoot another person that is about to stab him, therefore raising overall utility, then you should do that. But in no other case.

I think I come to the same conclusion anyway that you do, that the choice was unethical. But maybe for different reasons.

Anyway, that's what I feel about it, your mileage may vary.. =)

This is very interesting. I looked briefly at the site you referenced. It will take me a long while to research these points. I'm not sure that this is not just a problem for utilitarians and is really a general problem for "all who think there is a moral obligation to make the world better." But I have to reserve judgment on that until I've gone through the arguments in greater detail. Thanks for directing me to it.

Shantonu wrote:As for the second part, I see that point, but then what is the purpose of consequentialism as an ethical theory? Clearly, we have good reasons to assume that pain is bad and should be avoided and pleasure is good and should be obtained, all other things being equal.

If you assume you should be trying to accomplish things, you are already a consequentialist. You are not the only one here who didn't realize that there were other ethical theories. Many people believe that certain actions are good or bad regardless of circumstances. For example, the idea that stealing is always wrong (except when the government does it) or even disobeying a law is always wrong. A good example of the latter is when people argue that a law shouldn't be passed because it's unconstitutional.

Shantonu wrote:If we don't blame people for making the world worse, where is utilitarianism going?

It's about making the world better, not deciding who's fault it is that it's bad. Where would that get us?

I'm not sure that our existence deprives us of a critique of the conditions of existence. One of the best reasons for not believing in God is that the conditions on earth are so often bad, not good.

yes I think you're right.

If we do blame them for intentionally making the world worse, then that seems like a highly modified version of utilitarianism, so much so that it seems not to be utilitarianism at all.

See, Shantonu, judging is an act. And blaming tends to be destructive, so I'd rather spend more time praising and less time blaming. To allocate blame towards people who aren't seriously nasty would be contrary to utilitarianism. I can see how you think that we've interpreted utilitarianism in a way that is so unfamiliar as to not be utilitarian anymore, but I assure you that's not the case. What most people see and use to demonise utilitarianism is far too naive an interpretation.

So you've said that you think intent is also important, but so far you don't disagree with DanielLC and I when it comes to judging others in practise . So far you seem very utilitarian. So I wonder if we disagree about choosing our own behaviours. I would certainly rather:
> improve the world despite mean-spirited intent
> than worsen the world despite good intent
Which would you rather? (I'm talking about what you would choose to do, not how you would be judged)