Choices V: Good Arguments

In this blog I have been trying to provide a sound ethical basis for humane decision making. I won't review all the arguments I have been making because you can easily look back on this blog and I provide a brief summary in my last entry. What I want to say is that I have been trying to suggest that many of the reasons people use for *not* making humane decisions just don't hold up to ethical or empirical, for that matter, analysis. One might not be a humanist but in that case ... well ... that is another problem. But, if you find yourself quickly saying "well, I don't want to be a humanist, then, if I have to make humane decisions ..." you might want to think again and about the company you keep.

Most people, I think, want to be considered humane.  They make wrong decisions -- that is decisions that are not really humane -- because they make mistakes. They logic and ethics are faulty; not their intentions. After all, we laud humanism in our culture all the time. We congratulate those who make big donations to charities, applaud those who coach the minor sports team or run the youth group, admire those who work in soup kitchens. In other words, most people both admire humanism and want to be considered humanistic (sports figures start charities, political leaders join international relief efforts, celebrities have their causes).  If you don't want to be humanistic, pause and consider those ideologies that are not. Fascism and Soviet Communism spring to mind. Part of the reason I am writing this series of blogs is not simply to propagate my perspective but because I believe my perspective is widely shared but runs into problems because people don't think through the decisions that they are making and so end up making the wrong ones.

To close off this line of argument, let me suggest, too, that my arguments are not saying "we should all be soft bleeding-heart liberals." I am not even certain what that means, but I am not trying to say that one needs to help everyone who asks. There are good reasons -- as I said in my last entry -- to not help someone. For instance, we don't have to crowd fund a new TV for someone who is filthy rich. They can afford the new TV themselves. So, to close off, let me suggest some other things we might want to bear in mind as we make decisions.

First, context is important (filthy rich-TV example above). You might give your lunch to a homeless person and that is the right decision because (a) you can afford another lunch and (b) they cannot. But, you are not bound to give your lunch to anyone who walks up to you and asks for it.

Second, we do need to prioritize. I rejected the slippery slope argument in my last entry but I should expand upon it. The argument "because I cannot help everyone, I should help no one" is an ethical a fallacy for the reasons I enumerated in my last entry but that does not mean that we cannot establish priorities. Those priorities should, I would argue, relate (a) to our abilities and (b) to needs.

Abilities: I can help more people than my students. Hence, I should because I have more ability to do so. You could look at the matter this way: should we raise money for new hospital equipment from the poorest members of society? I'd answer yes, but I would then quickly add that the richer members of society should contribute more because they have the ability to do so. Abilities need not just be money. It could be time. Years ago, when I was on a previous sabbatical, my church asked if I could help someone. It required several afternoons working around their house  because they were ill and could not get the normal things done that they wanted to get done. I complained about this: who are these people wasting my sabbatical. But, they were not. They knew I had more time -- or, what I might call more flexible time -- and so called on me. I would not have made sense to call on my wife who was in her work in the afternoons.  She could not come. I could.

Abilities can also involve skills. As much as many of us might hate to admit this, there are simply things we cannot do. The person I was helping on my last sabbatical eventually got to a point where they were asking me to do things I could not do, or could do only if I took a great deal of time to do them. I soldiered through for one afternoon but told the secretary at the church ... you should get another person (I had an example) because they can do this quickly. What times me several hours, will take them 15 minutes. Abilities should not be used as an excuse to not do something ("oh, I am no good at cooking and so I waited for my wife/husband to come home from work and cook me supper even though they worked ten hours and I was watching TV"), but it is an important consideration. If a decision involves you doing something you cannot do or would just make worse ... that is something you should bear in mind. I can coach certain sports, but not others, for example. Thus, I have coached those sports I could and not those about which I know nothing.

Needs: I don't in any way mean to sound neo-con here. I know that the opponents of the welfare state frequently underestimate the level of need in society and I am not trying to do that. What I am saying is that we might have to prioritize and that there is nothing wrong with that. Let me use some examples I've previously used to illustrate this point. My house needs repairs: the roof and plumbing. I only have so much money. I might, therefore, start with my roof (because without it ... nothing else much matters for my house) and then, after I have saved more money, I address my plumbing. I have two cars that need repairs. I get one repaired while I save money for the other recognizing that this might mean I need to drive family members around some evenings because we only have one car and they each have things they do at night to which they need a drive.

In assessing needs we don't want to become prisoners of fad. Some charities, I am sure you have noticed, jump into the spotlight. There might be good reasons to disregard some of these charities (particularly if you have not checked them out). The latest fad is not the most pressing need.

Third, don't lose track of the human being. In other words, don't use shaky ethical foundations to allow you to avoid doing something good for someone. It is those ethics that I've tried to look at and illustrate their fallacies in the last several entries. Think about how you would like someone to treat you. Sometimes people say to me "I don't want to do X but I don't want to feel guilty." No one does, but if you feel guilty, about something you might want to think about why. In other words, if you are asked to do something and you say "no" and you feel bad about saying no, reconsider, using sound ethics. You might still end up saying "no" but you likely will not feel guilty. If you feel guilty all the time about everything ... well ... that is something about which we should talk. But, if you feel guilty when someone has a request of you and you've turned them down, that just might be a sign that you are, in fact, doing the wrong thing and some part of you knows it (hence, the guilt).

Fourth, think about what you would tell your children. Would you say "it is good to be greedy," "yes, fighting is fine as long as you win," or "I break the law when I know I won't be caught so you should do the same."

Finally, remember that most of the things we do where decisions are needed are collective actions. You are not being asked, for instance, to solve world hunger by yourself so don't pretend that you are to avoid contributing to the local food bank. You are not being asked to run the new school library by yourself so don't use that as a rationale to *not* contribute some books to it. Because we do things collectively, we can also call on others to help us out. Let me return to the Bob and Mary example I used in my previous entry. Bob and Mary are both hungry and need good. You only have enough food for one person. Do you spend your time trying to figure out to whom you should give the food or do you call a friend and ask "got any extra food?" Most of us do the former whereas we should do the latter. The fact that you need to make decisions does not mean that the decision you make cannot or should not include efforts to change others minds to get them making the right decision. The fiver you book in the kids hospital charity rubber boot (at least it is a rubber boot at Mont A) does not solve children's health problems but a whole bunch of loose change from a whole bunch of other people does.

To conclude: the decisions we make, make a different to other people. Rather than just making them, we should make them in an intentional way and with sound ethics. If we start making better decisions, our society will be better. And, surely that should be our goal.

Choices IV: The Slippery Slope

I'm writing a series of posts on the ethics of how we make choices. I've tried to argue that not all options are created equal: some choices are better than others and we can be guided in how we make these  choices by a set of ethical imperatives. I suppose that if one disagreed with my ethics (say, my humanism), than a great deal of what I have been saying does not make a great deal of sense. For instance, I tried to argue that inclusion is better than exclusion. If we  can make choices that include more people than otherwise would have been the case -- all other things being equal -- than we should adopt that approach. Likewise, I have tried to argue that arguments for exclusion based on tradition (we have always done things this way), don't actually hold up well and cannot provide a sound ethical basis for, say, excluding someone from a club or team. Tradition can be a guide to action but it cannot serve as an excuse (if there are other options) for harming someone. Finally, I also tried to argue against the "the word is a hard place" type of thinking. We hear this a fair bit, particularly with regard to children. I argued that this basis for decision-making failed because it fulfilled its own prophecy and was grounded in metaphysics (the "world is hard" perspective is grounded in unprovable perspective; not demonstrable fact.)

What is important here is that we are each of us confronted with the opportunity to make decisions most days. "Will I can so-and-so and see if they want to come to the movie with us?" "Should I drop so-and-so a line and see how they are doing?" "Should we see if so-and-so needs help with their homework?" Making these decisions most of the time is pretty easy for us but they all involve an ethics. Every time, for instance, that we believe the worst of someone without checking the facts ("Why is Bob late for work?"), we run the risk of making the wrong decision because our ethics are messed up. We all know that we should check our facts before making a decision ("I'm going to fire that guy because he is late!") because otherwise we could mess up ("Oh, you were in a traffic accident? You were hit by a semi?"). So decisions really are not all that important ("shall I have a cookie or ice cream for desert?"), but my point is that in the normal run of our lives we have the opportunity -- through our decisions -- to make the world better or worse for other people. How should we make those decisions?

The argument  I have been putting forward is that saying "we should do things in a humane way" is not good enough. What I need to show is that other modes of decision-making (hence, what I was discussing above) are not good enough; they have problems because if they did not my perspective would not have much to recommend it. It can be recommended, however, if it can be show to have (a) positive results that other modes of decision making do not have and (b) that other modes of decision making are flawed in such a way as to prescribe their general use (even if they might serve some uses in some  contexts).

To continue this argument, I want to point to another mode of flawed decision making. Periodically, myself and members of my family or friends will discuss some sort of decision. Sometimes, it will involve a financial outlay. You know what I am talking about "if we all throw in some money, we can do X." In these decisions someone will, sooner or later, use what we might call the "slippery slope" argument. If we do X, we will be asked to do Y, and then Z, A, B, C ... where will it end?" In other words, the decision that we will make will need to a never-ending stream of requests to continue to do the same thing (say, donate money to some worthwhile cause -- to donate the cause, I'd suggest, should be worthwhile as a beginning point of consideration!) for others. If I give Bob some money, I'll have to give Mary some, and then Jane and Steve ... and ... and ... and.

There is also an ethical component to this argument. Without coming right out and saying it, this argument implies a decision to help one person and not  another is a bit hypocritical. At the least it would be arbitrary. Thus, one is better of not helping anyone (and helping someone, from what I can tell, is the context within which this type of slippery slope argument generally arises).

Let me quickly address each of these objections because I think they are inter-related.

First, the fact that one cannot help everyone is not a reason to help no one. The two propositions don't, in fact, connect to each other at all. In the first place, one might not be being asked to help everyone. Imagine a scenario where someone says "let us help Bob." The counter -- slippery slope -- argument is "No because then we would have help Mary." The truth of the matter is that we don't know whether we would have the help Mary. Maybe she has solved her own problems. Maybe she does not want our help. Maybe the context is radically different (maybe Bob has fallen on hard times because the plant laid him off. Mary got laid off, too, but she might be filthy rich to begin with and so does not really need help). In other words, the argument that we cannot help Bob because Mary might also want help works with an unproven assumption: that Bob's and Mary's cases are exactly alike. Since that is an assumption, the fact that we would deny help to Bob on the basis of an assumption about Mary's life ... seems a tad odd.  Mary might be getting help from other people! In that case, we would be denying help to Bob on the basis of an unproven assumption that turns out to be wrong.

The other issue that is connected to this point but not inherently logically connected to it is: no one has asked you to help Mary. It might be for the reasons given above, it might be fore some other reason. Or, perhaps, it might be true that Mary needs help as well (I'll get to this point below). But, the issue under consideration is Bob. The issue under consideration, then, is should we allow another issue to detract from making the right decision with regard to Bob. Let me use an example to illustrate my point. Imagine that your house needed plumbing repairs. Would you say "gee, my electrical might also be shot so I guess I won't repair my plumbing." Would that make any sense? Instead of solving one problem about which you know, you elect to ignore that problem because you cannot address another issue that might not even be a problem?

What is also pertinent here is that the argument against helping Bob is not based on the merits of Bob's situation -- as with my plumbing analogy.  In fact, the "we cannot help Bob because we might also have to help Mary" argument avoids any engagement with the merits of Bob's case. And, it is at this point that I start to become a bit suspicious of those who are arguing against helping Bob. After all, there many ethically sound reasons not to help Bob. By trying to help him we might, for instance, create a bigger mess. The help we are proposing might not be the help he needs. His problems are not all that grave and it might help his maturity to solve them for himself. And, we could go on. In other words, the slippery slope argument is notable for its avoidance of the issues at hand. It distracts from those issues ("what about Mary') while avoiding any consideration of the merits of Bob's case. Any time someone does not engage a specific case ... I start to wonder about their commitment to that case in the first place.

Second, let's turn to the implied hypocrisy argument because this one, in my view, is stronger. Double standards are generally things we seek to avoid and for good reason. Ultimately, I think, I'd argue that we can be far too concerned with double standards because I am not at all convinced that there is that much symmetry in the world, but that is an argument for another day. Let us accept, for the sake of argument, that some level of consistency is good thing in our interaction with others. As an instructor, for instance, I tend go give my students the same types of assignments because it would be arbitrary for me to pick some students (in the same class) and give them more or less work than others for the same grade. I think, therefore, that the implied hypocrisy argument is one that merits consideration.

Yet, I also think it tends to fail because it is amenable to a weird logic. It assume that because you cannot do everything, you should do nothing. Now ... pause and think about that. Do you use that logic in any other realm of your life? I can't repair both my roof and my plumbing so I repair neither? That is a recipe for your house to fall down and in short order. Imagine you have two cars. Both need repairs so you repair neither? Would that make any sense? I am hungry but I can't eat  both donuts and a salad so I'll eat neither?

What is even more problematic about this argument from an ethical perspective is that it provides a recipe for inaction. If we cannot help Bob because Mary also needs help, we cannot help Mary because Bob also needs help. We could use an economic argument to show the facile nature of this proposition from a practical perspective. Imagine that there is some utility (some good) that comes from helping someone. Just to put a number of it, let us say that good could be measures. We get 100 units of goodness for helping someone. If I help Bob, I get 100 units of goodness. If I help Mary, I  get 100 units of goodness. But if I help no one, I get no units of goodness. Hence, helping no one actually does not make mathematical sense either. In economic terms, inaction reduces the amount of goodness in the world under the guide of being fair. Instead of having 100 units of goodness, we have none.

Another good point I want to make from an ethical perspective is that old proposition: do unto others. Generally, this proposition is good ethics. That is why, a friend of mine tells me, it exists in virtually all ethical and religious systems in the world. Instead of imagining this question from our perspective, let us try to understand it from Bob's perspective. Bob asks for help. We  turn him down because Mary needs help too. Would you want to be in Bob's shoes? Imagine yourself in that situation. Imagine that you really are in need. You are hungry and have not eaten. Do you want to be told "no I will give you no food because there is someone else who is hungry?"

The final ethical proposition to make is that the slippery slope argument fails because it limits possibilities. It begins from the assumption that we cannot help both Bob and Mary but what if we could? Let us go back to hungry situation. Bob and Mary are both hungry and we have one meal to give them. Should we give it to neither or divide it between them? In other words, the slippery slope argument does not address the problem, it *stops" us from thinking creatively about how to address the problem. In this example, neither Bob nor Mary might have everything that they want but they have something and they are no longer hungry. There are other options (we could pool all our food, each taking a bit less and feeding Bob, Mary, and us well).

So, the upshot is that this argument -- the slippery slope argument -- is worth considering and its worth thinking about but ultimately it fails and so does not refute the humane argument for decision-making that I have been making.