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The Blame Game: an Axiological Approach to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing

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The Blame Game: an Axiological Approach to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing THE BLAME GAME: AN AXIOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE DOCTRINE OF DOING AND ALLOWING A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Christine Cleary December, 2013 Thesis written by Christine Cleary B.S., Kent State University, 2009 M.A., Kent State University, 2013 Approved by Deborah Barnbaum_________________________, Advisor David Odell-Scott__________________________, Chair, Department of Philosophy Raymond Craig____________________________, Associate Dean, College of Art and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................. v INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER I. DOING AND ALLOWING HARM ..................................................................................... 4 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4 1.2 The Concept of Harm ....................................................................................................... 7 1.3 Contrast Strategy ............................................................................................................... 9 1.4 Rights-based Versions of the DDA ............................................................................. 12 1.4a Philippa Foot’s Version of the DDA ......................................................................... 13 1.4b Warren Quinn’s notion of the DDA .......................................................................... 23 1.4c Kai Draper ....................................................................................................................... 29 1.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 36 II. AXIOLOGY AND CONSEQUENTIALISM .................................................................... 37 2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 37 2.2 Recent Trends in Utilitarianism .................................................................................. 38 2.3a Traditional Utilitarianism and Axiology ................................................................. 44 2.3b Objection from Justice ................................................................................................. 49 2.3c Feldman’s Notion of Desert ........................................................................................ 50 2.3d Feldman’s Adjustment Method .................................................................................. 53 2.4 DDA and Consequentialism .......................................................................................... 59 iii iv 2.5 Value Account of the DDA ............................................................................................ 63 2.6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 69 III. A REVISED ACCOUNT OF DOING AND ALLOWING HARM ............................ 71 3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 71 3.2 Two Pictures of Harms .................................................................................................. 72 3.3 Feldman’s conception of desert and the DDA .......................................................... 75 3.4 Two Sides of Harm .......................................................................................................... 84 3.5 A Sliding-Scale of Badness ............................................................................................ 86 3.6 A Theory of Harm-Doing and Harm-Allowing ........................................................ 88 IV.CASE STUDIES ...................................................................................................................... 92 4.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 92 4.2 Cases .................................................................................................................................... 92 4.2a Case Study One: When the Doctor Gives a Deadly Dose ................................... 93 4.2b Analysis of Deadly Dose Case .................................................................................... 93 4.3a Case Study Two: Does “Do Everything” Include CPR? ....................................... 95 4.3b Analysis of “Doing Everything” Case ....................................................................... 96 4.4a Case Study Three: Two Cardiac Arrests, One Medical Team ............................ 99 4.4b Analysis of the Two Cardiac Arrests Case ............................................................100 4.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................103 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................104 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..............................................................................................................................106 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Deborah Barnbaum, for her endless dedication and support throughout this process. I could not have done it without you. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Linda Williams, Dr. Kimberly Garchar, and Dr. Manacy Pai, for their support and insightful comments. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their understanding and encouragement as I made this journey. My parents taught me the invaluable lesson of hard work and passion in everything I do. Finally, I would like to thank my philosophy friends who have been instrumental in my development, both as a student and as a person: Elaine Blum, Nathan Radcliffe, Laurence Skirvin, Matthew Dargaj, and Andrew Magrath. v INTRODUCTION The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing (DDA) is a moral principle that holds that harms done are morally worse than harms allowed. The objective of this thesis is to show that the much-disputed DDA is only viable with supplementation. The DDA has been considered a non-consequentialist principle, however, recent attempts to revive the principle have resorted to the use of axiology, the value theory used in consequentialism. The DDA relies on a binary picture of harms. This thesis claims that this binary picture of harms is the primary reason that the DDA is susceptible to objection. Through an axiological approach, the project of this thesis is to develop a sliding-scale theory of harms, which is more robust and less open to criticism. There have been two major approaches to explaining the DDA: deontology and consequentialism. The first chapter will discuss the denontological approach to the DDA. The deontological approach has been used by philosophers like Philippa Foot and Warren Quinn who hold that the DDA is a non-utilitarian principle. Both Foot and Quinn have used rights to explain the moral asymmetry between harm-doings and harm-allowings. Chapter one analyzes the rights-based defenses of the DDA put forth by Foot and Quinn. Both Foot and Quinn explain the DDA by appealing to the precedence of negative rights over positive rights. The precedence of negative rights over positive rights, though, is not immediately clear. Both Foot and Quinn have failed to provide an account of why negative rights are more stringent than positive rights. 1 2 Such incomplete accounts mean either that the DDA should be dropped as a principle or that rights are do not provide the best defense for the DDA. Kai Draper challenges the DDA and provides a rights-based alternative to the DDA. Draper defends his rights-based account of harms with value. His account provides an important development in explaining the DDA: value becomes an essential part of saving the DDA. Though Draper aims to get rid of the DDA, his account opens the door to the possibility of saving it through the use of value. The second chapter discusses the DDA and its relationship with consequentialism. This chapter examines how Fred Feldman responds to an objection from justice to utilitarianism by developing an axiology that is sensitive to desert. Feldman’s approach to this objection provides a methodology, which is useful to saving the DDA. Though Foot objects to consequentialism in general, and utilitarianism in particular, an axiological approach does not rely on strict consequntialism to defend the DDA. Axiology is distinct from consequentialism and can be used to provide a more robust theory of harms. In fact, Xiaofei Liu has recently defended a value-based approach to the DDA in response to Draper’s objection. Liu further develops Draper’s value defense. Liu’s defense, however, still relies on a binary picture of harms. The third chapter incorporates a theory desert to develop a sliding-scale theory of harm-doings and harm-allowings. Feldman’s axiological approach is used to analyze the traditional, binary version of the DDA and explain why it does not work. The next part of the chapter explains how moral responsibility for a harm creates desert of
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