It doesn’t particularly “defy consequentialism” any more than listing the primary precepts of utilitarian consequentialist groups defys deontology.
But I don’t think the moral intuitions you list are terribly universal.
The closest parallel I can think of is someone listing contemporary american copyright law and listing it’s norms as if they’re some kind of universally accepted system of morals.
“ok, so you’re in a scenario a little bit like the films Armageddon or deep impact. Things have gone wrong but it’s a smaller rock and and all you can do at this point is divert it or not, it’s on course for new york city, ten million+ will die, you have the choice to divert it to a sparsely populated area of the rocky mountains… but there’s at least one person living there”
Most of the people who would normally declare that the trolley problem with 1vs5 makes it unethical to throw that one person in front of the trolley… will change their view once the difference in the trade is large enough.
1 vs 5 isn’t big enough for them but the idea of tens of millions will suddenly turn them into consequentialist.
“You are not required to save a random person”
Also, this is a very not-universal viewpoint. Show people that video of the chinese kid being run over repeatedly while people walk past ignoring her cries and many will declare that the passers-by who ignored the child committed a very clear moral infraction.
“Duty of care” is not popular in american libertarianism but it and variations is a common concept in many countries.
The deliberate failure to provide assistance in the event of an accident is a criminal offence in France.
In many countries if you become aware of a child suffering sexual abuse there are explicit duties to report.
And once you accept the fairly commonly held concept of “duty of care”, the idea that you actually do have a duty to others, and suddenly the absolutist property stuff largely sort of falls apart and it becomes entirely reasonable to require some people to give up some fraction of property to provide care for those around them just as it’s reasonable to expect them to help an injured toddler out of the street or to help the victim of a car accident or to let the authorities know if they find out that a kid is being raped.
“Duty” or similar “social contract” precepts that imply that you have some positive duties purely by dint of being a human with the capacity to intervene tend to be rejected by the american libertarian viewpoint but it’s a very very common aspect of the moral intuitions of a large fraction of the worlds population.
It’s not unlimited and it tends towards Newtonian Ethics but moral intuitions aren’t known for being perfectly fair.
The OP is basically the fairly standard basis of american-style libertarianism.
It doesn’t particularly “defy consequentialism” any more than listing the primary precepts of utilitarian consequentialist groups defys deontology.
But I don’t think the moral intuitions you list are terribly universal.
The closest parallel I can think of is someone listing contemporary american copyright law and listing it’s norms as if they’re some kind of universally accepted system of morals.
Johny thousand livers is of course an exception.
Or put another way, if you say to most people,
“ok, so you’re in a scenario a little bit like the films Armageddon or deep impact. Things have gone wrong but it’s a smaller rock and and all you can do at this point is divert it or not, it’s on course for new york city, ten million+ will die, you have the choice to divert it to a sparsely populated area of the rocky mountains… but there’s at least one person living there”
Most of the people who would normally declare that the trolley problem with 1vs5 makes it unethical to throw that one person in front of the trolley… will change their view once the difference in the trade is large enough.
1 vs 5 isn’t big enough for them but the idea of tens of millions will suddenly turn them into consequentialist.
Also, this is a very not-universal viewpoint. Show people that video of the chinese kid being run over repeatedly while people walk past ignoring her cries and many will declare that the passers-by who ignored the child committed a very clear moral infraction.
“Duty of care” is not popular in american libertarianism but it and variations is a common concept in many countries.
The deliberate failure to provide assistance in the event of an accident is a criminal offence in France.
In many countries if you become aware of a child suffering sexual abuse there are explicit duties to report.
And once you accept the fairly commonly held concept of “duty of care”, the idea that you actually do have a duty to others, and suddenly the absolutist property stuff largely sort of falls apart and it becomes entirely reasonable to require some people to give up some fraction of property to provide care for those around them just as it’s reasonable to expect them to help an injured toddler out of the street or to help the victim of a car accident or to let the authorities know if they find out that a kid is being raped.
“Duty” or similar “social contract” precepts that imply that you have some positive duties purely by dint of being a human with the capacity to intervene tend to be rejected by the american libertarian viewpoint but it’s a very very common aspect of the moral intuitions of a large fraction of the worlds population.
It’s not unlimited and it tends towards Newtonian Ethics but moral intuitions aren’t known for being perfectly fair.