Singerian moral reasoning: difficulty 1
I think that I have found a weakness in Singer's moral reasoning. It seems to me to strike at the heart of what Singer considers to be moral thinking. In order to properly address this issue, we will have to go back to a fairly basic question of what moral thinking actually is.
Singer considers on p.12 of Practical Ethics the question of what ethical thinking actually is. He rightly concludes that one cannot specify moral thinking too much without begging the question in favour of some moral content. However, one thing he considers to be universal is that moral thinking involves stepping outside of self-interest. Indeed, James Rachels claims that egoism is not a moral theory on the grounds that it is not impartial1. I have often myself observed that morality seems more based on empathy than anything else. From this, Singer moves to what he regards as this kind of impartiality on p.13. However, it is already very strong, because he is talking about giving equal weight to the considerations of everybody affected by his actions. This means that in principle, for example, we have no more duty towards our own children than we do to the children of strangers--which is, if nothing else, anti-intuitive. Empathy does not require so strong an approach to impartiality. Even if we give some consideration to the interests of everybody affected by our actions, equal weight does not seem to be implied or required. Especially if the people or animals in question do not themselves have any expectation of help. After all, their problems are not your problems, and you need not concern yourself with everyone's problems in the world just to make a simple practical or moral decision.
One can therefore, at the very least, make a distinction between raw and cultivated preference utilitarianism. Singer is a cultivated preference utilitarian, because he is giving equal weight to everyone's "best" interests. For example, in the interview mentioned previously, he actually goes so far as to say:
It seems to me that, with minimal modification, this argument will work for animals as well. Think of the preferences an animal would have if it had the intelligence and knowledge of a human being who had undergone cognitive psychotherapy. Any such enlightened animal with cultivated preferences would surely prefer the treatment of a veterinarian. Such a preference would have to outweigh any preference on the part of the cattle owners to save money on veterinarians.
I think that that actually clarifies for me what makes that argument so bleeding-heart: it's paternalistic. We have to become the mummies and daddies of everybody else in the world, human or animal. We have to consider everybody else's best interests as though they were our own kids, even though it would seem better just to leave well enough alone. The requirements of impartiality do seem to me to require that we consider the interests of the cattle, however briefly. But it need not bring us to a cultivated notion of their preferences. We are not violating their raw preferences by not giving them inadequate veterinary treatment on the range. I think that that would be a nice thing to do for them, but it hardly seems terrible not to, when they would fare no better in the wild anyway.
That brings me to another point--which I'll develop in another section!
James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (4th Edition), McGraw-Hill Inc, Chapter 6.
Singer considers on p.12 of Practical Ethics the question of what ethical thinking actually is. He rightly concludes that one cannot specify moral thinking too much without begging the question in favour of some moral content. However, one thing he considers to be universal is that moral thinking involves stepping outside of self-interest. Indeed, James Rachels claims that egoism is not a moral theory on the grounds that it is not impartial1. I have often myself observed that morality seems more based on empathy than anything else. From this, Singer moves to what he regards as this kind of impartiality on p.13. However, it is already very strong, because he is talking about giving equal weight to the considerations of everybody affected by his actions. This means that in principle, for example, we have no more duty towards our own children than we do to the children of strangers--which is, if nothing else, anti-intuitive. Empathy does not require so strong an approach to impartiality. Even if we give some consideration to the interests of everybody affected by our actions, equal weight does not seem to be implied or required. Especially if the people or animals in question do not themselves have any expectation of help. After all, their problems are not your problems, and you need not concern yourself with everyone's problems in the world just to make a simple practical or moral decision.
One can therefore, at the very least, make a distinction between raw and cultivated preference utilitarianism. Singer is a cultivated preference utilitarian, because he is giving equal weight to everyone's "best" interests. For example, in the interview mentioned previously, he actually goes so far as to say:
One way to think about the preferences that we should be satisfying is the one suggested by Brandt in his book A Theory of The Right and The Good where he talks about the preferences you would have if you'd been through a programme of cognitive psychotherapy. So you'd have actually explored all of the reasons why you have the preferences that you have and you'd have rejected those that you felt were not really true to your real values. It's a fairly far-reaching suggestion for changing preferences, but that would really mean that people were fully informed not only about the external world but the ways in which they get manipulated by the Coca-Cola ads.
It seems to me that, with minimal modification, this argument will work for animals as well. Think of the preferences an animal would have if it had the intelligence and knowledge of a human being who had undergone cognitive psychotherapy. Any such enlightened animal with cultivated preferences would surely prefer the treatment of a veterinarian. Such a preference would have to outweigh any preference on the part of the cattle owners to save money on veterinarians.
I think that that actually clarifies for me what makes that argument so bleeding-heart: it's paternalistic. We have to become the mummies and daddies of everybody else in the world, human or animal. We have to consider everybody else's best interests as though they were our own kids, even though it would seem better just to leave well enough alone. The requirements of impartiality do seem to me to require that we consider the interests of the cattle, however briefly. But it need not bring us to a cultivated notion of their preferences. We are not violating their raw preferences by not giving them inadequate veterinary treatment on the range. I think that that would be a nice thing to do for them, but it hardly seems terrible not to, when they would fare no better in the wild anyway.
That brings me to another point--which I'll develop in another section!
Notes
James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (4th Edition), McGraw-Hill Inc, Chapter 6.
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