DOCSLIB.ORG

Rationalized Selfishness Or Reasonable Skepticism?: Objections to Singer and Unger on the Obligations of the Affluent

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Rationalized Selfishness Or Reasonable Skepticism?: Objections to Singer and Unger on the Obligations of the Affluent University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies Legacy Theses 2001 Rationalized selfishness or reasonable skepticism?: objections to singer and unger on the obligations of the affluent Nathoo, Al-Noor Nenshi Nathoo, A. N. (2001). Rationalized selfishness or reasonable skepticism?: objections to singer and unger on the obligations of the affluent (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/19200 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/41113 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Rationalized Selfishness or Reasonable Skepticism? Objections to Singer and Unger on the Obligations of the Affluent Al-Noor Nenshi Nathoo A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTV OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2001 O Al-Noor Nenshi Nathoo 2001 National Library Biiiothhque nationale I*I du Canada uisitions and Acquisitions el 9-Bib lographic Services services bibliographiques The author has granted a non- L7auteura accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pennettant a la Natiod Library of Canada to BibliothQue nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains owndpof the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMlise de celle-ci ne doivent etre imprids reproduced without the author7s ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract Peter Singer and Peter Unger suggest that the majority of the world's affluent act immorally in failing to contribute substantial portions of their earnings to the lessening of poverty-related suffering and premature death in distant nations. In this paper, I attempt to shed doubt on the plausibility of using, as defenses against such a claim, the assertions that: 1) development aid is ineffective or selfdefeating; 2) morality does not require us to weigh the needs of all equally from an impartial standpoint; and 3) the affluent have limited obligations to assist those physically and socially distant. I provide an argument for shifting the focus of such inquiries from providing aid to addressing injustice, and outline several additional areas of analysis that will be crucial in properly assessing the nature and magnitude of the obligations of the world's materially wealthy to its poor. iii Dedication To Shaheen, for her love Table of Contents &oroval Paae ii ... Abstract 111 Dedication iv Table of Contents v Introduction Limitations & Assumptions Singer: The Drowning Child Unger: The Envelope and The Vintage Sedan Distance and Experience Multitudes and Numbers Time and Sorts of Situation Morally Relevant Distinctions Cha~terI: Promising Objections 23 The Lifeboat 23 Carrying Capacity and the Lifeboat Analogy 25 The Malthusian Paradigm 28 The Problem with Food Aid 34 From Food to Development Aid 39 Impartial Morality From Subjective to Objective Impartiality in Principle Context-sensitive Subjectivity Obligations to the ~istant- Reciprocity Affiliation Loyalty Provincialism as Anachronism Cha~terII: From Svm~tornsto Causes Poverty in Context: Global Structures International Financial Institutions Whatever Happened to Keynes? Capital without Borders When Elephants Stomp the Ground Moral Implications of Systemic Failures In Defense of Justice Chanter Ill: The Cost of Livina Morallv 110 Looking Back 110 Sketching the Landscape Ahead 112 Ethics is too Demanding 118 Philosophers should not only interpret our beliefs; when they are false, they should change them Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons The cost of dinner for two in a moderately expensive New York restaurant, Thomas Nagel has remarked, is roughly equivalent to the per capita annual income of Bangladesh. Information from reputed international aid sources indicate that three dollars is likely a reasonable estimate of the average cost of purchasing, transporting and administering several packets of oral rehydration therapy, designed to stem dehydration caused by diarrhea, to a child in the developing world who, were it not for her appropriately consuming them, would otherwise likely become one of the approximately 30,000 children on the planet who die each day from easily preventable causes1. These statistics evidence a set of circumstances which raises a compelling moral question for the world's materially fortunate: what obligations does such a state of affairs impose, if any, on those who have access to the means by which to mitigate the suffering thereby caused - a category into which most peoples of the developed world fall? Two important works in the philosophical literature appear to have become benchmarks against which philosophical attempts at engaging the issue are often juxtaposed. Peter Singer left little scope for the leisure pursuits of the wealthy in the famed and controversial Famine, Amuence and Morality? Peter Unger's more comprehensive treatment of the question in Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence, more than two decades later, is dedicated in part to providing, via dissimilar means, argument for an identical conclusion. The central claim of both authors, and one which this work will take as its starting point, is that the citizens of the industrialized world have a moral obligation to contribute substantial portions of their earnings to lessening suffering and premature death from poverty-related causes? Thomas Nagel's remark is taken from Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 190. Oral rehydration therapy costs are gleaned from sources at UNICEF, The Rockefeller Foundation and Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, by and as cited in Peter Unger, Livina Hiah and Lettina Die: Our Illusion of Innocence, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 3-4. The number of child deaths worldwide due mainly to easily preventable causes are as cited in UNICEF, State of the World's Children 2000, (New York: UNICEF, 2000), p. 16. Peter Singer, 'Famine, Affluence and Morality", Philoso~hvand Public Affairs, Volume 1, Issue 3, Spring 1972. pp. 229-43. Reprinted with a postscript in W~lliarnAiken and Hugh La Follette, World Hunaer and Moral Obliqation, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977), pp. 22-36. Unger takes this conclusion one step further in positing a duty to resort, in defined circumstances, to acts of fraud, embezzlement and intentionally inflicted harm in the name of relief of greater suffering. That such a claim would meet with considerable and strenuous objection in the academic philosophy community, let alone the wider populace, is hardly surprising. Yet the sheer import of that conclusion, if it is indeed defensible, on our generally accepted understanding of what it means to lead a moral life in affluent societies, suggests that it is insufficient to dismiss such claims as tenuous or counterintuitive without more careful scrutiny. The following is an attempt to take up that challenge, albeit in modest proportion. My aim will be to selectively focus on several potentially powerful objections that have been leveled at Singer and Unger's central claim in an effort to determine whether these constitute reasonable responses or rationalizations of wrongful selfishness. As a portion of Singer's work implicitly, and Ungets work explicitly, is premised on the fallibility of these objections, an attempt to deconstruct them will assist in the partial evaluation of these authors' works, though this shall not by any means be the object of this enterprise. Nor will this project aim to provide, owing to limitations of space, any sort of overarching account of, or firm conclusion regarding, the obligations of the world's affluent to its poorest. It is nevertheless my hope that the exploration will shed more light of reason on the grave and daunting question of what it means for the materially well-endowed to live morally. I begin the investigation by issuing below important caveats to which to attend in a work of this nature and regarding a subject matter of such striking depth and complexity. A subsequent descriptive account of the arguments fomvarded by Singer in his seminal paper and several later works on the topic, as well as those of Unger in the pivotal first and second chapters of his relevant opus, lay the groundwork for the central normative analysis to follow. Chapter I provides a critical examination of three promising objections made at a general and theoretical level against such stringent accounts of our obligations as has been proposed by Singer and Unger. In particular, I examine: the common claim that famine relief and development aid are self-defeating; the metaethical concern that morality conceived as strict impartiality is untenable;
Load more

Recommended publications
  • (Review Published in the Times Literary Supplement, January 16 2015, 5833, Pp. 22-23) Peter Unger EMPTY IDEAS: a CRITIQUE OF
    (Review published in The Times Literary Supplement, January 16 2015, 5833, pp. 22-23) Peter Unger EMPTY IDEAS: A CRITIQUE OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY 258pp. Oxford University Press. £29.99 978 0 19 933081 2 by Timothy Williamson Metaphysics is back in fashion, at least in the analytic tradition that dominates English- speaking philosophy and is growing rapidly across the rest of the world too. It’s quite a turnaround. In the mid-twentieth century, the analytic tradition had two main strands: logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. The logical positivists dismissed metaphysics as cognitively meaningless, unverifiable by observation and logic. Ordinary language philosophers tended to be equally suspicious, diagnosing metaphysical speculation as the pathological result of using words outside the down-to-earth contexts that gave them meaning. But things have changed. These anti-metaphysical arguments rested on assumptions about meaning that have not withstood the test of time. Moreover, the resurgence of metaphysics was led by philosophers such as Saul Kripke and David Lewis, who wrote so clearly and intelligibly about essential properties (think Aristotle), possible worlds (think Leibniz), and the like that the charge of meaninglessness just would not stick. Contemporary analytic metaphysicians see themselves as theorizing boldly and systematically about the deepest and most general nature of reality. In Peter Unger’s view, they are deluded: far from resuming pre-Kantian metaphysics in the grand old style, they do little more than play with words. Their ideas are mostly empty. Indeed, he widens the charge to analytic philosophy more generally. Nor does he think better of non-analytic philosophy; he just has no time for it.
    [Show full text]
  • Following the Argument Where It Leads
    Following The Argument Where It Leads Thomas Kelly Princeton University [email protected] Abstract: Throughout the history of western philosophy, the Socratic injunction to ‘follow the argument where it leads’ has exerted a powerful attraction. But what is it, exactly, to follow the argument where it leads? I explore this intellectual ideal and offer a modest proposal as to how we should understand it. On my proposal, following the argument where it leaves involves a kind of modalized reasonableness. I then consider the relationship between the ideal and common sense or 'Moorean' responses to revisionary philosophical theorizing. 1. Introduction Bertrand Russell devoted the thirteenth chapter of his History of Western Philosophy to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. He concluded his discussion with a rather unflattering assessment: There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better: If he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times (1945: 463). The extent to which this is a fair assessment of Aquinas is controversial.1 My purpose in what follows, however, is not to defend Aquinas; nor is it to substantiate the charges that Russell brings against him.
    [Show full text]
  • SKEPTICISM, CONTEXTUALISM, and DISCRIMINATION Jonathan Schaffer
    SKEPTICISM, CONTEXTUALISM, AND DISCRIMINATION Jonathan Schaffer The skeptic (following Peter Unger 1975) says that “knowledge” is an absolute term, requiring the elimination of all logical possibilities of falsehood. The contextualist (following David Lewis 1979, Fred Dretske 1981, inter alia) says that “knowledge” is a relationally absolute term, requiring the elimination of only the contextually relevant possibilities of falsehood. Which is the better hypothesis about “knowledge”? And what implications do these hypotheses about “knowledge” have for knowledge? I argue that (i) it is the skeptic who has the better hypothesis about “knowledge”; but (ii) both the skeptical and contextualist hypotheses presuppose our capacity for epistemically salient discrimination, where (iii) such discrimination reveals why skeptical scenarios fail to undermine our epistemic standing. There is a deeply anti-skeptical morale buried in the skepticism- contextualism dispute. 1. Skepticism, Unger Style The skeptic says that we know nothing, or at least far less than is usually supposed. The skeptic may target various domains and employ various arguments. I am interested in the sort of skeptic who targets knowledge about the external world, with the following argument: 1) One cannot know that one is not a brain-in-a-vat (or dreaming, or under the spell of Descartes’s demon, or in some other skeptical scenario in which appearances deceive); 2) If one cannot know that one is not a brain-in-a-vat, then one cannot know that one has hands (or any other mundane proposition about the external world); 3) Therefore one cannot know that one has hands (or any other mundane proposition about the external world).
    [Show full text]
  • Contextualism: an Explanation and Defense
    in J. Greco and E. Sosa, ed., The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Blackwell Publishers, 1999. This is a preliminary version; consult the final, published version for quotations. Contextualism: An Explanation and Defense Keith DeRose Yale University In epistemology, “contextualism” denotes a wide variety of more-or-less closely related positions according to which the issues of knowledge or justification are somehow relative to context. I will proceed by first explicating the position I call contextualism, and distinguishing that position from some closely related positions in epistemology, some of which sometimes also go by the name of “contextualism”. I’ll then present and answer what seems to many the most pressing of the objections to contextualism as I construe it, and also indicate some of the main positive motivations for accepting the view. Among the epistemologists I’ve spoken with who have an opinion on the matter, I think it’s fair to say a majority reject contextualism. However, the resistance has to this point been largely underground, with little by way of sustained arguments against contextualism appearing in the journals,1 though I have begun to see various papers in manuscript form which are critical of contextualism. Here, I’ll respond the criticism of contextualism that, in my travels, I have found to be the most pervasive in producing suspicion about the view. 1. What Is Contextualism? As I use it, and as I think the term is most usefully employed, “contextualism” refers to the position that the truth-conditions knowledge-ascribing and knowledge-denying sentences (sentences of the form “S knows that P” and “S doesn’t know that P” and related variants of such sentences) vary in certain ways according to the context in which they are uttered.
    [Show full text]
  • Rationalized Selfishness Or Reasonable Skepticism?: Objections to Singer and Unger on the Obligations of the Affluent
    University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies Legacy Theses 2001 Rationalized selfishness or reasonable skepticism?: objections to singer and unger on the obligations of the affluent Nathoo, Al-Noor Nenshi Nathoo, A. N. (2001). Rationalized selfishness or reasonable skepticism?: objections to singer and unger on the obligations of the affluent (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/19200 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/41113 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Rationalized Selfishness or Reasonable Skepticism? Objections to Singer and Unger on the Obligations of the Affluent Al-Noor Nenshi Nathoo A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTV OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2001 O Al-Noor Nenshi Nathoo 2001 National Library Biiiothhque nationale I*I du Canada uisitions and Acquisitions el 9-Bib lographic Services services bibliographiques The author has granted a non- L7auteura accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pennettant a la Natiod Library of Canada to BibliothQue nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats.
    [Show full text]
  • 10 I Do Not Exist
    10 I Do Not Exist PETER UNGER It seems utterly obvious that the question 'Do I exist?' may be correctly answered only in the affirmative; of course the answer must be 'Yes.' Descartes, it may be said, made this idea the keystone of his philosophy, he found it so compelling. Hume, however, in his characteristically sceptical style, at least at times questioned the propriety of an affirmative reply. My teacher, Professor Sir Alfred Jules Ayer, to whom this essay is dedicated, customarily expressed himself in a conditional manner, which I find quite con­ genial: The sentence 'I exist', in this usage, may be allowed to express a statement which like other statements is capable of being either true or false. It differs, however, from most other statements in that if it is false it can not actually be made. Consequently, no one who uses these words intelligently and correctly can use them to make a statement which he knows to be false. If he succeeds in making the statement, it must be true. 1 Of course Ayer is right in pointing to the absurdity of a person's trying to deny his own existence. Prepared to pay this price, in this brief essay I mean to deny my own putative existence, a position which I take to be even more radical than Hume's. This is owing not to a desire to be more perverse than any of my predecessors, but, rather, to certain arguments which have occurred to me, and which seem quite far from any of their thoughts.
    [Show full text]
  • David Lewis: the Life of a Philosopher
    Page 1 Klesis - Philosophical Review - 2012: 24 - The philosophy of David Lewis David Lewis: the life of a philosopher Michele Salimbeni * (EHESS & Institut Jean-Nicod) David Lewis and Maggie the cat, at home, in 1989. Photo © Stephanie LewisI.n a sense, all life is told copy; is written to attack or defend * Michele Salimbeni preparing a thesis at EHESS whose title is possible, and Images Possible Worlds (under the direction of Frédéric Nef). His main research areas are metaphysics and ontology, including possible worlds from which he draws a new definition of the concept image. He is also writing the first biography (Italian and English) on David Lewis. To this end, he has recently met in Princeton, Stephanie Lewis has made available archives and materials necessary for the writing of this book will also be an introduction to his philosophy. He also is a director and screenwriter, he wrote and directed in Italy, his first feature film, Under-the-sky (2008) and various short films. He wrote, in addition, the scenario film I magi randagi Sergio Citti (taken from an original subject of Pier Paolo Pasolini), with which he won the Quality Award from the Ministry of Show and was nominated for the Nastro Argento as best Italian writer in 1997. He has worked with many directors including Andrzej Żuławski (on which he wrote the book Il cinema di Andrzej Żuławski, editions Res 2002). 11 Page 2 Klesis - Philosophical Review - 2012: 24 - The philosophy of David Lewis a world system, to define a method that we own Marguerite Yourcenar There are three rules for writing a biography, but Fortunately no one knows the Somerset Maugham I.
    [Show full text]
  • The Philosophical Works of A. J. Ayer
    The Philosophical Works of A. J. Ayer 1930 Review of The Art of Thinking by Dimnet, in Oxford Outlook. 1933 'Atomic Propositions', Analysis, vol. 1, no. I, pp. 2-6. 1934 'The Genesis of Metaphysics', Analysis, vol. I, no. 4, pp. 55-8, repr. in M. Macdonald (ed.), Philosophy and Analysis. 'On Particulars and Universals', Proceedings of the Aristote­ lian Society, vol. XXXIV, pp. 51-62. 'Demonstration of the Impossibility of Metaphysics', Mind, vol. XLIII, no. 171, pp. 335-45, repr. in P. Edwards and A. Pap (eds), A Modern Introduction to Philosophy (Glencoe, Illinois Free Press; London: George Allen and Unwin, 1957). 1935 'Internal Relations', Supplementary Proceedings of the Aristo­ telian Society, vol. XIV, pp. 173-85. 'The Criterion of Truth', Analysis, vol. 3, nos I and 2, pp. 28-32. 'The Analytic Movement in Contemporary British Philos­ ophy', in Histoire de Ia logique et de Ia philosophie scienti.fique (Paris: Hermann). 1936 Language, Truth and Logic (London: Gollancz). 'The Principle of Verifiability, Mind, vol. XLV, no. 178, pp. 199-203. 'Concerning the Negation of Empirical Propositions', Erkenntnis, vol. 6, pp. 260--3. 'Truth by Convention', Analysis, vol. 4, nos 2 and 3, pp. 17-22. 'Freedom of the Will', The Aryan Path. Reviews of M. M. Lewis, Infant Speech; R. Aaron and A. Jocelyn Gibbs (eds), An Early Draft of Locke"s Essay; Alfred Noyce, Voltaire; all in the Spectator. 1937 'Verification and Experience', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. XXXVII, pp. 137-56. 'Does Philosophy Analyse Common Sense?', Supplementary Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. XVI, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • ELUSIVE KNOWLEDGE' David Lewis We Know a Lot. I Know What Food
    AustralasianAustralasian Journal Journal of ofPhilosophy Philosophy Vol.Vol. 74,74, No.4;No. 4; DecemberDecember 19961996 ELUSIVEELUSIVE KNOWLEDGE'KNOWLEDGE" DavidDavid LewisLewis WeWe knowknow aa lot.lot. II knowknow whatwhat foodfood penguinspenguins eat.eat. II knowknow thatthat phonesphones usedused toto ring,ring, butbut nowadaysnowadays squeal,squeal, whenwhen someonesomeone callscalls up.up. II knowknow thatthat EssendonEssendon wonwon thethe 19931993 GrandGrand Final.Final. II knowknow thatthat herehere isis aa hand,hand, andand herehere isis another.another. WeWe havehave allall sortssorts ofof everydayeveryday knowledge,knowledge, andand we havehave itit inin abundance.abundance. To doubtdoubt thatthat would be absurd.absurd. At anyany rate,rate, toto doubtdoubt itit inin anyany seriousserious andand lastinglasting way would be absurd;absurd; andand eveneven philosophical andand temporarytemporary doubt,doubt, under thethe influenceinfluence ofof argument,argument, isis more thanthan a littlelittle peculiar. ItIt isis a Moorean factfact thatthat we know a lot.lot. ItIt isis one of thosethose thingsthings thatthat we know better thanthan we know thethe premises of any philosophical argument toto thethe contrary. Besides knowing a lot that is everyday and trite, I myself think that we know a lot that is interesting and esoteric and controversial. We know a lot about things unseen: tiny particles and pervasive fields, not to mention one another's underwear. Sometimes we even know what an author meant by his writings. But on these questions, let us agree to disagree peacefully with the champions of 'post-knowledgeism'. The most trite and ordinary parts of our knowledge will be problem enough. For no sooner do we engage in epistemology - the systematic philosophical examination of knowledge - than we meet a compelling argument that we know next to nothing.
    [Show full text]
  • 316 Peter Unger. Empty Ideas: a Critique of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford University Press 2014. 272 Pp. $47.95 USD (Hardcover
    Philosophy in Review XXXV (December 2015), no. 6 Peter Unger. Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford University Press 2014. 272 pp. $47.95 USD (Hardcover ISBN 9780199330812). Although the main thesis of Peter Unger's Empty Ideas is stated a number of times throughout his book, I'll just state it as claiming that the whole of analytic philosophy of the last 60 years or so are ‘concretely empty’. Why does Unger, who has been so entrenched within the ‘analytic’ tradition, think that his thesis is correct? Well, I should first say that his book has nine chapters, and most are structured as follows: 1) Look at what is being done in philosophy (really, analytic metaphysics). 2) Look at how the debates, no matter however they fall, will always fall, correct or not, in such a way that the winning party will be offering ‘concretely empty’ ideas. Furthermore, sometimes in order for a debate to even get to correctness, it will require that the parties settle on ‘parochial claims’. Other times, at least it seems to me from Empty Ideas, that in order to get to a correct ideas requires that one endorse a form of dualism. This then raises the question of whether the implicit, perhaps sinisterly hidden, thesis of Unger's book is that dualism is the correct way to think about reality. Of course, if so, why doesn't he just state this as the thesis of the book? Getting back to the question of why Unger might think that the analytic tradition of the last 60 plus years is misguided despite him being within it, I will only gesture that he is comfortable about being honest with what he and his colleagues have been doing.
    [Show full text]