Dog blog 6 - Multi-dimensional morality

Multi-dimensional morality

Recently, I've been thinking about how much time people have to make decisions about things. And, being the Dog, particularly about decisions which have significant moral content.

Like the philosophical classic: kill 1 person to save 50? Or, a more day to day example, what about lying? Or, whether to give blood? Or stop eating burgers? Or other meat? Or what about giving part of your income to charity? Or - seriously - giving up Heinz tomato ketchup and going for supermarket own brand?

This also made me think about the way we make practical moral choices. Do we look at that kind of decision making too three dimensionally?

Three dimensions

When we're wondering what to do in a situation, I think we often take into account: (1) ourselves, (2) the person(s) our decision will immediately effect, and (3) what the wider society might make of it.

There's overlaps between (1) , (2) and (3). And a lot of things to think about in each. In (3) for example, what counts as the "wider society"? Is it, for example, your neighbours, the police, the media, the people in the village, town or city you live in? Or everyone on the planet? Are you thinking about men, or women, or both? Or people of a particular social class? Or people of a particular religious belief? What about animals?

A fourth dimension?

All that's pretty complicated. But I think it's even more complicated than that. I think we need to bring in at least another element: time.

Time

The clock is always ticking when you're thinking about something. Does the amount of time you have to think about it matter?

I think it does. Richard Hare thought so too. If you haven't heard of him, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-level_utilitarianism to see what he has to say about this sort of thing.

Trains

Back to the "philosophy classic": the kill 1 to save 50 examples. You know the ones. They usually involve trains. You have to make a split second decision: do you switch the train over to the other track?

Or take a more day to day example. Do you lie to your friend if she's just asked you out for a beer tonight? You like her loads but, quite honestly, you'd rather stay in and watch telly. And you don't really feel like talking about ethics with her. Again. And you saw her last Tuesday. You've also a strong suspicion that she fancies you - and you definitely don't feel the same way. And you're going to have to have an awkward conversation at some point very soon...

No time to think about it

You don't have a lot of time to weigh up the consequences. Your consideration of dimensions (1) to (3) is likely very limited. And you're probably just thinking about dimensions (1) and (2), if you're being honest about it.

What if there's more time?

Say you do have more time. What if you've got a few hours to think about your decision? Or a few days? Or months?

You'd have much more time to weigh things up. You'd also have more time to think about any similar cases. And just chat about the whole thing with your pals. And any really sensible people if your pals are a bit silly. Or, to be quite blunt, they're just not really that interested in you or your so called "problem".

You could also find out what the probable consequences of your actions might be. Google is handy for that sort of thing.

Cutting corners

And, maybe if you had a lot of time, or were just really clever, you could even come up with your own Theory of Justice. If you weren't so clever, or didn't have the time or, to be honest, you just couldn't really be bothered, you could cut a few corners and speak to someone else who'd come up with their own Theory of Justice - and maybe shamble together your own view from that.

Or, instead, you might come to the view (and not just because you were being lazy and wanted to cop out) that it's difficult to come up with a very good watertight moral theory - and all you're doing is really offering your own point of view about things. Which I think was Bernard Williams's point of view about points of view. Here's one of his lectures:

Bernard starts his lecture about 7 mins into this clip. In Part 4, he gives his point of view on Peter Singer's point of view. And in Parts 6 and 7, he talks about Star Wars, Independence Day, Close Encounters and alien invasions. Interesting stuff.

Is the Golden Rule all that golden?

So where does time take us in practical moral decision making? For me, for now, just to this (Dogs take small steps): I think that the longer we have to think about decisions, the less defensible they are for lack of time (at least).

Which makes me wonder, if you bring time into the mix, does it affect the idea held by quite a lot of people that you can make universal claims about what do in every case? The Golden Rule for example (put yourself in other's shoes; or - "how would you like it if they did that to you?"). How useful is that rule for time critical decisions - are you really comparing like with like? Are you and the other person(s) (into whose shoes you're putting yourself in) really on the same timeline?

It seems to me that, at least in some cases in which you're short of time, the final decision may be more defensible than it would be for someone who had more time. If that's right then, necessarily, different claims different persons make about the same thing could be similarly, if not equally, morally defensible.

Tricky stuff.