Transcript Slide 1

Ethics VIII:
Morality & Advantage
David Gauthier: “Morality and Advantage”
• What is the relation between morality and advantage?
• Can duty be reduced to interest?
 Many argue that morality may require the agent to put
aside considerations of his or her own advantage.
• Gauthier contends, if morality is to contribute anything to our
advantage over and above prudence, it must offer something to
advantage that prudence cannot.
• Kurt Baier: “[B]eing moral is following rules designed to overrule
self-interest whenever it is in the interest of everyone alike that
everyone should set aside his interest.” (736)
 Morality is designed to overrule prudence when it is to
everyone’s advantage that it do so.
The Thesis
Thesis Under Consideration: “Morality is a system of principles such
that it is advantageous for everyone if everyone accepts and acts on
it, yet acting on the system of principles requires that some persons
perform disadvantageous acts.” (736)
• That is, each person would do better under this system than if:
i. No system is accepted and acted on; or
ii. A similar system is accepted and acted on, but which never
requires an agent to perform disadvantageous acts.
• “Disadvantageous acts” refers to acts which would be truly less
advantageous than any alternative (in both the long- and shortterm).
• Each person must gain more from the disadvantageous acts
performed by others than he loses from the disadvantageous
acts he performs himself.
The Thesis (cont’d)
• Gauthier hopes to show that the thesis could be true, but not
necessarily that it is true (that a system of morality could work
this way, but not necessarily that our current system does).
• Example: Suppose a simple system with only one rule: Everyone
is always to tell the truth.
 If the Thesis is correct, then on such a system, each person
will gain more from others’ truth-telling than she will lose
from those occasions where it would be to her advantage to
lie, but where she refrains from doing so.
 On the principle of the Thesis, whether or not one tells the
truth will have no effect on whether others tell the truth.
Nuclear Arms Example
Nations A and B are engaged in an arms race.
• Each possesses the latest in weaponry and
recognizes that a full-scale war would be
mutually disastrous.
• As such, A and B agree to a pact of mutual
disarmament rather that continue mutual
armament.
• A is considering whether or not to adhere to the pact.
 A assumes disarmament will have disadvantageous
consequences.
 A expects to benefit not from its own disarmament, but from
B’s acts.
 If A were reasoning simply in terms of its immediate
interests, A might decide to violate the pact.
A
B
Nuclear Arms Example (cont’d)
• Suppose B is able to determine whether or not A adheres to the
pact.
 If A violates, then B will take this into account when
considering its own actions.
 It would not be to B’s advantage to disarm alone, as B is in
the same position as A.
 So, if A violates the pact, B is likely to do the same,
dissolving the pact.
 Assuming A knows all this, its prudent course of action is to
adhere to the pact.
• Suppose B is unable to determine whether or not A adheres to
the pact.
A
B
Nuclear Arms Example (cont’d)
 If A judges adherence in some particular situation to be
disadvantageous, it will decide on the basis of prudence
and immediate interest to violate the pact.
 Since B is unaware, A’s decision to violate will not affect B’s
actions.
• Therefore, if A and B are prudent, they will adhere to the pact
when their actions would be detectable, and violate the pact
whenever their actions would be known.
 “[T]hey will adhere openly and violate secretly.” (738)
• The disarmament pact suits two aspects of the Thesis:
1) Accepting the pact and acting on it is more advantageous
for each, than having no pact at all.
2) It requires each to perform disadvantageous acts—acts
that run counter to considerations of prudence.
A
B
Nuclear Arms Example (cont’d)
• For the pact to fit the constraints of the Thesis, it must also be
the case that the requirement of performing disadvantageous
acts be essential to the advantage conferred by the pact.
 A and B must do better to adhere to the pact than to some
other pact under which each must disarm only when their
disarming is detectable.
• We can reasonably assume this to be the case:
A
B
 While A will gain by secretly retaining arms, it will lose by B
also doing so, and the losses may outweigh the gains.
 While prudence would require violating secretly, each may
well do better if both adhere under conditions of secrecy
than if both violate.
• Supposing this to be the case, the disarmament case is formally
analogous to a moral system, according to the Thesis.
Nuclear Arms Example (cont’d)
• Assuming each A and B have two choices—to adhere to, or to
violate the pact, there are four possible outcomes.
 We can rank these outcomes in order of preference for
each nation.
 (We can assume mutual violation is equivalent to no pact.)
• Mutual adherence is not the most advantageous for either.
• As each ranks mutual adherence above
mutual violation, each gains less from its
B
own violation than it loses from the other’s.
adheres violates
A
B
adheres
2, 2
4, 1
violates
1, 4
3, 3
A
Nuclear Arms Example (cont’d)
Case (1): Adherence or violation is publicly known.
• Suppose each initially adheres to the pact.
• A notices that switching to violation moves its outcome from a 2
to a 1.
• But A realizes if it switches, B can also be expected to switch,
moving from 4 to 3.
• With both now violating, A’s outcome will
have moved from a 2 to a 3.
B
• So prudence dictates no change.
adheres violates
A
B
adheres
2, 2
4, 1
violates
1, 4
3, 3
A
Nuclear Arms Example (cont’d)
Case (2): Adherence or violation is secret.
• Although A does not know B’s strategy, it knows that if B
adheres, it is preferable that A violate.
 Likewise, if B violates, it is preferable that A violate.
• So regardless of what B does, prudence dictates A violate.
• B, of course, reasons the same way.
• This outcome, however, is mutually
B
disadvantageous, since mutual adherence
would be preferable to each over mutual
adheres violates
violation.
• So prudence alone will not
2, 2
4, 1
adheres
reap the maximum possible
A
advantage.
1, 4
3, 3
violates
A
B
Nuclear Arms Example (cont’d)
• It is to the advantage of each to make it possible for the other to
detect his own violations.
• Each must find it prudentially advantageous to ensure their
strategies are interdependent, but this will not always be possible.
A
B
• According to the Thesis, morality requires some to perform
Return to Morality
genuinely disadvantageous acts as a means to greater mutual
advantage.
• Those who are merely prudent will not perform the required
disadvantageous acts.
 So violating the principles of morality, they disadvantage
themselves.
 Each loses more by the violations of others than he gains
by his own violations.
Return to Morality (cont’d)
• Since one gains from the sacrifices of others, one cannot secure
the advantages of the moral system by himself.
• “If all men are moral, all will do better than if all are prudent. But
any one man will always do better if he is prudent than if he is
moral.” (739)
So, why should I be moral?
• If all are moral, all will do better than if all are prudent.
• But any individual always does better to be prudent rather than
moral, provided his choice does not determine others’ choices.
• “The individual who needs a reason for being moral which is not
itself a moral reason cannot have it.” (740)
Return to Morality (cont’d)
• The rationally prudent man is incapable of moral behavior.
• The “moral” man (the man who is moral according to the Thesis)
is prudent-but-trustworthy.
 One who is trustworthy adheres to a commitment he has
made, regardless of advantage.
 However, the prudent-but-trustworthy (or “moral”) man is
trustworthy only insofar as he sees the commitment as
advantageous.
Return to Morality (cont’d)
There are two characteristics commonly
associated with morality:
1) A willingness to make sacrifices; and
2) A concern with fairness.
• The “moral” man—being trustworthy—is
required to make certain sacrifices, but these
are limited in scope.
A
B
• Assume the government of A has developed a defense
rendering A invulnerable to attack by B, which can be installed
secretly.
 A now has to decide whether to take advantage by
installing its defense, violating its pact with B, and
establishing its dominance.
Return to Morality (cont’d)
• A reasons that:
 It will do better to violate no matter what B does; and
 It will in fact do better if both violate than if both continue to
adhere to the pact.
• A is now in a position to gain from abandoning the pact.
• Had this been the case from the beginning, A would never have
had reason to enter the disarmament pact.
• A is prudent-but-trustworthy—but is A
B
going to stick by the pact, now that it
adheres violates
no longer considers it
advantageous to do so?
3, 2
4, 1
adheres
A
B
A
violates
1, 4
2, 3
Return to Morality (cont’d)
• If A adheres to the pact in this situation, it makes a sacrifice
greater than any advantage it receives from similar sacrifices of
others.
 It must possess a capacity for trustworthiness greater than
that ascribed to the merely prudent-but-trustworthy.
• The (fully) trustworthy man (or nation) is the one willing to
adhere—and judges he ought to adhere—to his prudentially
undertaken agreements even if they prove disadvantageous to
him.
 “It is likely that there are advantages available to
trustworthy men which are not available to merely prudentbut-trustworthy men.” (741)
 Only (fully) trustworthy men who know each other to be
such will be able to rationally enter into such agreements.
A
B
Return to Morality (cont’d)
• “Our commonplace moral views do, I think support the view that
the moral man must be trustworthy. Hence, we have established
one modification required in the thesis, if it is to provide a more
adequate set of conditions for a moral system.” (742)
A
B