My answer is that if instead of killing a fat man we were levying taxes, the tax probably incrementally harms a lot of people enough to cause at least one death when summed up over the whole tax base. If you’re not permitted to kill one innocent person to save five, you’re also not permitted to have nontrivial taxes. It’s just a case of seen versus unseen—the fat person is standing in front of you and you probably can’t ever figure out which person is killed by the tax—but seen versus unseen is a bias, not an ethical standard.
(My answer is also that in order to get this answer from me, you have to make enough unrealistic assumptions about the fat man scenario that I would never do that in real life.)
You’re still biting the bullet? Then lets do it. Replace the fat man with farmed babies. Doesn’t satisfy the secret condition but since only farmed babies are used, no one has to worry about getting kidnapped and having their organs harvested—so no worries about society collapsing into anarchy over fear. The utilitarian credentials of this world are impeccable—the loss of utility from killing farmed humans is way overshadowed by the advances in biomedical technology and research.
If you’re still willing to bite this bullet, I’m curious what you would say about my other objection. Even if utilitarianism is accepted as a global theory of ethics (evaluating what worlds are better than others), no utilitarian is self consistent enough to apply this theory to himself/herself. Does anyone actually think that the morally ideal life is one spent barely subsisting while focusing almost all of their efforts on others? Its quite easy to say yes from then comfort of your current life, to affirm a belief in belief, but to actually believe in this ideal and try to live up to it is much harder—not even Peter Singer comes close.
I’m not arguing for utilitarianism, I’m arguing against a specific objection to utilitarianism. I would object to the farmed babies scenario, but I wouldn’t object to it on grounds that would apply to the fat man scenario.
(If you think I’m arguing for utilitarianism, see my recent comment on immigration. I pointed out that letting in unlimited immigrants to increase their utility basically is the scenario of barely subsisting and spending everything to help others, except you’re demanding that the nation spend it instead of yourself.)
Okay, I’m not arguing that utilitarianism is self defeating or anything like that. Its perfectly self consistent, and I find its basic conclusions repellent.
My answer is that if instead of killing a fat man we were levying taxes, the tax probably incrementally harms a lot of people enough to cause at least one death when summed up over the whole tax base.
That seems iffy, money is fungible in a way that organs are not, and taxes are usually set up to be progressive. If you take a few more dollars from someone, they don’t avoid a life saving surgery to save money, they purchase one less starbucks latte or the like.
Its possible someone is spending 100% of their income on life-sustaining needs, but not that plausible.
It still works at the margins. There are people below some boundary who can’t afford some operation. There are also people above the boundary. With a large population, there must also be people at the boundary. Saying “they can just spend less on frivolous items” is equivalent to saying “there’s nobody at the boundary”, and there is.
Not to mention that even if nobody just cancels an operation because of a $50 tax bill, they might postpone a doctor’s visit a week, leading to an 0.1% greater chance of death, or postpone a car repair with the same result, or decide to buy the slightly more rickety ladder because their balance between price and safety comes at a slightly different point, etc. Over a large enough population someone will fall victim to that 0.1% chance and die.
Only if there are people who are spending less than the tax increase on leisure goods, this seems unlikely to me.
Not to mention that even if nobody just cancels an operation because of a $50 tax bill, they might postpone a doctor’s visit a week, leading to an 0.1% greater chance of death, or postpone a car repair with the same result, or decide to buy the slightly more rickety ladder because their balance between price and safety comes at a slightly different point, etc
But now cause is weaker- if people have less money they may choose to be riskier, sure. But now they are choosing the risk, which is a very different case then killing the man for his organs.
Only if there are people who are spending less than the tax increase on leisure goods, this seems unlikely to me.
The point is that there are people who aren’t spending anything at all. If there’s a gradation between people who aren’t spending anything at all and people who are spending a small amount, there have to be people in the middle who are just spending a tiny amount.
By your reasoning, even a large tax couldn’t possibly have this effect. Just divide the large tax increase into a series of smaller taxes and argue that each individual small increase has no effect. In fact, the smaller taxes will have an effect at some point, after you’ve added enough of them and the next one goes over some limit. Now, consider that there already are taxes—there will be people for which this new tax is the one that sends them over the limit.
if people have less money they may choose to be riskier, sure
If people have less money, then choosing a riskier option may be the rational thing to do. If it wouldn’t have been a rational thing to do if you hadn’t taken away their money, then the increase in risk is your fault. You can’t launder the effect of taking the money by saying that they chose to take the risk—you’re the one who changed the balance to favor a higher risk.
My answer is that if instead of killing a fat man we were levying taxes, the tax probably incrementally harms a lot of people enough to cause at least one death when summed up over the whole tax base. If you’re not permitted to kill one innocent person to save five, you’re also not permitted to have nontrivial taxes. It’s just a case of seen versus unseen—the fat person is standing in front of you and you probably can’t ever figure out which person is killed by the tax—but seen versus unseen is a bias, not an ethical standard.
(My answer is also that in order to get this answer from me, you have to make enough unrealistic assumptions about the fat man scenario that I would never do that in real life.)
You’re still biting the bullet? Then lets do it. Replace the fat man with farmed babies. Doesn’t satisfy the secret condition but since only farmed babies are used, no one has to worry about getting kidnapped and having their organs harvested—so no worries about society collapsing into anarchy over fear. The utilitarian credentials of this world are impeccable—the loss of utility from killing farmed humans is way overshadowed by the advances in biomedical technology and research.
If you’re still willing to bite this bullet, I’m curious what you would say about my other objection. Even if utilitarianism is accepted as a global theory of ethics (evaluating what worlds are better than others), no utilitarian is self consistent enough to apply this theory to himself/herself. Does anyone actually think that the morally ideal life is one spent barely subsisting while focusing almost all of their efforts on others? Its quite easy to say yes from then comfort of your current life, to affirm a belief in belief, but to actually believe in this ideal and try to live up to it is much harder—not even Peter Singer comes close.
I’m not arguing for utilitarianism, I’m arguing against a specific objection to utilitarianism. I would object to the farmed babies scenario, but I wouldn’t object to it on grounds that would apply to the fat man scenario.
(If you think I’m arguing for utilitarianism, see my recent comment on immigration. I pointed out that letting in unlimited immigrants to increase their utility basically is the scenario of barely subsisting and spending everything to help others, except you’re demanding that the nation spend it instead of yourself.)
Okay, I’m not arguing that utilitarianism is self defeating or anything like that. Its perfectly self consistent, and I find its basic conclusions repellent.
That seems iffy, money is fungible in a way that organs are not, and taxes are usually set up to be progressive. If you take a few more dollars from someone, they don’t avoid a life saving surgery to save money, they purchase one less starbucks latte or the like.
Its possible someone is spending 100% of their income on life-sustaining needs, but not that plausible.
It still works at the margins. There are people below some boundary who can’t afford some operation. There are also people above the boundary. With a large population, there must also be people at the boundary. Saying “they can just spend less on frivolous items” is equivalent to saying “there’s nobody at the boundary”, and there is.
Not to mention that even if nobody just cancels an operation because of a $50 tax bill, they might postpone a doctor’s visit a week, leading to an 0.1% greater chance of death, or postpone a car repair with the same result, or decide to buy the slightly more rickety ladder because their balance between price and safety comes at a slightly different point, etc. Over a large enough population someone will fall victim to that 0.1% chance and die.
Only if there are people who are spending less than the tax increase on leisure goods, this seems unlikely to me.
But now cause is weaker- if people have less money they may choose to be riskier, sure. But now they are choosing the risk, which is a very different case then killing the man for his organs.
The point is that there are people who aren’t spending anything at all. If there’s a gradation between people who aren’t spending anything at all and people who are spending a small amount, there have to be people in the middle who are just spending a tiny amount.
By your reasoning, even a large tax couldn’t possibly have this effect. Just divide the large tax increase into a series of smaller taxes and argue that each individual small increase has no effect. In fact, the smaller taxes will have an effect at some point, after you’ve added enough of them and the next one goes over some limit. Now, consider that there already are taxes—there will be people for which this new tax is the one that sends them over the limit.
If people have less money, then choosing a riskier option may be the rational thing to do. If it wouldn’t have been a rational thing to do if you hadn’t taken away their money, then the increase in risk is your fault. You can’t launder the effect of taking the money by saying that they chose to take the risk—you’re the one who changed the balance to favor a higher risk.