The below is a guest analysis by Michael Andersen, a former high school IB Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge teacher currently serving as a volunteer Ethics Bowl coach at the Vancouver School of Arts & Academics here in Vancouver, Washington. It begins with a brief introduction, and goes on to present a very rich analysis with multiple valuable sources and summary explanations — a truly outstanding post. Thank you Michael for taking the time to write this, and for your generosity in sharing it! Every team that reviews it will definitely better appreciate the complexity of case 11, will come away with a new philosophical tool (Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion), and will no doubt have an advantage should they draw it during their bowl. Cheers to all, Matt
Our Ethics Bowl program at VSAA is new this year; however, I have coached Ethics Bowl teams to the Washington State and Oregon Bowls for several years in the past, as well as served as an organizer and judge at the Oregon Bowl. Due to a variety of factors, we can typically only meet once a week, and currently there is no philosophy course at VSAA in which students might receive more Ethics instruction to help them prepare for Ethics Bowl. Since we’re so pressed for time, and our students are new to this activity, I like to use your site and videos, together with Hank Green’s Crash Course Philosophy (1) and the Ethics and Critical Thinking videos at Wireless Philosophy (2) to help lay some groundwork. Thank you for the great work that you do! Our students and my fellow coaches appreciate your time and effort.
Thank you, too, for the invitation to offer some Guest Analysis. I posted the following case exploration to help our students think about the dilemmas inherent in case #11 “Billionaire Backfire.” Perhaps you can use some of this to stimulate thought for other teams, or use some of it as a springboard for your own post on the case.
To begin our reflection on case #11 “Billionaire Backfire,” consider the initial study questions:
When is someone morally praiseworthy for donating money to a charitable cause?
What makes this praiseworthy, when it is?
First, I encourage you to review the (9:46) video Crash Course Philosophy #39 on Moral Luck (3), in which Hank Green explains the difference between moral and causal responsibility, and the reasons we assign praise and blame. Also helpful is the (6:11) Wireless Philosophy video “Ethics: The Problem of Moral Luck” (4), which explores this topic with a few more examples to help you grasp some key issues with the concept of moral responsibility.
Case #11 has particular value for students at Vancouver School of Arts & Academics. The case’s second study question–How does one compare the value of artistic, cultural, or historical artifacts versus the value of human life or well-being?–seems relevant for students and their families interested in supporting the arts (vs. other ways that we could use our money). While some people like to view charitable donations as strictly a personal matter, when the amount donated by philanthropists is sizably large (“more than $1 billion,” as the case description reminds us), and when we live in a society where the gap between rich and poor is the highest in recent history, the prospect of channeling wealth toward a church restoration project over other–arguably more compassionate–ways of doing public good is bound to be contentious. Given the state of global wealth disparity, and the thousands of homeless and refugees desperate for basic necessities, one might sympathize with the question, Shouldn’t the care of these vulnerable people with this $1 billion in charity take priority over meticulously restoring a famous church?
Restoring an iconic building like Notre Dame undoubtedly has public value. And, while important for this case, let’s set aside for a moment the complex question Shouldn’t private donors be free to do what they wish with their own money? Some observers argue that in many countries (particularly in the U.S.) wealth and influence now is so unjustly concentrated in the hands of a tiny privileged elite that a campaign of moral and political pressure to correct this concentration of power is long overdue. Given the widespread public awareness of this disparity between rich and poor, between the powerful influence of a wealthy few and the relative powerlessness of so many vulnerable and destitute people, one can see how large charitable donations for cultural projects like the Notre Dame restoration might deserve some degree of moral scrutiny. (Part of this argument’s force depends on the current political and socio-economic context, with an implicit understanding that, in more stable times, moral scrutiny of such charitable acts might be less justified.)
But perhaps we should scrutinize the underlying assumptions of the criticizing parties as well–if only to better grasp the merits of their critique. Our judgment about whether a philanthropist deserves praise (or blame) for charitable donations requires us to examine closely the giver’s motives and the charitable act’s consequences. The second paragraph of the “Billionaire Backfire” case description points to the motive of “solving larger socio-economic problems, like homelessness and poverty,” and effective altruism’s idea of “[doing] the most good.” This approach implies a type of utilitarian framework of evaluating the morality of actions. In this instance, what would matter most in the evaluation process are the consequences resulting from the billionaires’ charitable acts (i.e., what is attended to and what is neglected); and that we should strive for consequences that maximize happiness equally for everyone. But what actually happens if we always and everywhere prioritize efforts to maximize well-being equally for everyone? Will this guiding principle necessarily result in a better world?
One argument against the view that we should always strive to maximize happiness equally for the greatest number evolves out of a concern about the underlying utilitarian logic illustrated by Derek Parfit’s famous thought experiment of “The Repugnant Conclusion” (5). (NOTE: This links to the detailed and technical article @ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A simpler, more beginner-friendly overview of this thought experiment can be found in this short (5:59) video, where Co-Founder of the Center for Applied Rationality Julia Galef explains this idea: “The Repugnant Conclusion (a philosophy paradox)” (6). For ease of digesting the insight of Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion, I’ve attached below 4 screenshots from Julia Galef’s overview video that show the main graphs and premises of the Repugnant Conclusion.)
Undoubtedly, Derek Parfit’s thought experiment has stimulated a lot of commentary. The Repugnant Conclusion highlights an apparently unacceptable implication of utilitarian logic and its underlying assumptions for directing moral action–at least in cases where that logic exclusively drives policy decisions affecting real-world population management and wealth distribution. The kind of moral intuitions that this thought experiment interrogates are worth examining carefully, especially for young people concerned with future world conditions, family planning, and exercising altruism effectively.
The Repugnant Conclusion thought experiment relates to “Billionaire Backfire,” especially with Guiding Question #2: How does one compare the value of artistic, cultural, or historical artifacts versus the value of human life or well-being? Assume for a moment that we’re tempted to address this question guided by the principle of maximizing happiness equally for the greatest number. Given the wealth disparity context noted above, and the desperate condition of so many vulnerable citizens and refugees, it seems to follow from this utilitarian approach that we should pressure wealthy philanthropists in cases like this to channel their charitable money toward what effective altruists suggest–that is, “doing the most good” (e.g., addressing “homelessness or water quality over rebuilding Notre Dame”). The motive of maximizing happiness equally for the greatest number would also seem to apply to the priorities of taxpayer money directed at domestic welfare and foreign aid programs.
Applied consistently over time, shifting our charity and welfare priorities in this way seems to result (on first glance at least) in fostering a world that looks like Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion, barring some competing directive about population control. Observers of cases like “Billionaire Backfire” often frame the moral tension we feel here as “emphasizing quality of life, even for a privileged few” vs. “equally meeting basic needs for all” (which, many assume, results in population growth). As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on this concept says, “…any loss in the quality of lives in a population can be compensated for by a sufficient gain in the quantity of a population; that is, it leads to the Repugnant Conclusion” (Section 1). (5)
While there is some evidence to suggest that stabilizing vulnerable populations through aid and investment slows down their population growth (7), recent history shows that the world’s population has skyrocketed with widespread access to more material goods and the curtailing of diseases, predators, and lack of basic resources that formerly kept the human population in check. Concerns about always prioritizing quantity of people served through basic welfare over quality of life measures are thus understandable–even if our knowledge about the link between the two is still hazy. So, upon closer examination, determining exactly how we should measure and compare possible good outcomes in a “happiness calculus” appears not to be such an easy problem to solve. Experience has shown that governments and private benefactors can’t solve all of the world’s problems, and clearly there are limits to what charitable donations can accomplish with systemic problems like homelessness and water quality.
These insights lead to the question: What is lost if society generally demands that sizable charitable donations always benefit basic welfare needs over other possible goods? Again, the author of the Stanford Encyclopedia article for this topic helps explain the concern here:
Any finite number of lives in population A can therefore be outweighed by a sufficiently large number of lives in Z because the gain in the quantity of lower values outweighs the loss of certain higher values. However, some theorists—including Parfit—have suggested that this axiological assumption is mistaken. …The idea is that one type of good α can be superior to another type of good β, in the sense that any amount of α is better than any amount of β or that some amount of α is better than any amount of β.
Suppose that what happens as we move down the alphabet from the high-quality population A to the low-quality population Z is that the best things in life are gradually lost. For instance, as Parfit has suggested, the first step from A to B involves the loss of Mozart’s music; in the move from B to C Haydn’s music is lost; in the move to D Venice is destroyed; and so on down the alphabet. All that is left in the final move to Z is “muzak and potatoes”. The claim is that the lives in the beginning of the sequence involve goods that are superior to the goods involved in the lives at the end of the sequence.
The loss of the most worthwhile things in life cannot be compensated for by any gain in the quantity of muzak and potatoes. Consequently, whatever the number of people in population Z, there will be less welfare, or less valuable welfare, in this world as compared to population A and thus the Repugnant Conclusion is blocked. (Section 2.2 Questioning the way we can compare and measure welfare)
At this point, we’re left to ponder some refining questions: What is the most good we can do? and Is it always better in the long run to prioritize meeting basic necessities for a lot of desperate people than to invest resources into artistic or cultural projects that might benefit fewer people–and even then as an aesthetic or inspirational benefit? These are not easy questions even for professional philosophers.
What do you think? Do we diminish the spirit of charitable giving if such gifts are always subject to an effective altruism calculus? Is serving the basic needs of vulnerable people always preferable to fostering culturally beneficial goods?
Looking more closely at the utilitarian directive, you might ask: Do the main versions of utilitarianism actually REQUIRE us to prioritize public or private funding for basic necessities (food, clean water, healthcare, housing) over and above funding for artistic or cultural projects like arts education, restoration of historical or culturally significant artifacts, etc.?
One way many utilitarians try to answer this is by treating the interests of ALL humans (or, more radically, all sentient beings capable of suffering) EQUALLY, and by ranking those interests like Abraham Maslow did with his Hierarchy of Needs. We need basic necessities (water, food, shelter, clothing) first before we can begin to appreciate art or the inspirational value of a historic church like Notre Dame. Others argue that all that is required from a utilitarian approach is maximizing NET happiness. (I won’t go into the weeds here on this, but if you’re curious and want more detail, I’ve linked the Wireless Philosophy Ethics playlist below (2) so you can watch the three short utilitarian vids there, which explore this point with helpful examples.) If only NET happiness matters, then perhaps a minority of people being made extremely happy by funding arts and cultural projects (i.e., those that have privileged access to them) is enough to maximize overall happiness, even though the lives of a bigger group of people are made only marginally happy, due to limited access to basic necessities.
Another relevant question here is: Will a commitment to maximizing happiness equally for everyone NECESSARILY result in Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion? Perhaps it’s possible to subscribe to utilitarianism’s general mandate for moral action, emphasizing equal access to happiness for the greatest number, but that WON’T necessarily result in the growth of “billions and billions” of people (i.e., “World C or Z”), all less well-off than World A’s one billion flourishing people. To make such a case, you would need to research what actually results from spreading wealth around the globe more equally, through foreign aid, debt relief, charity, investment, etc. Do populations actually shrink as a result of such assistance, or is the result closer to Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion?
You might also wonder if we can avoid this whole Repugnant Conclusion problem by just abandoning utilitarianism’s commitment to maximizing happiness for the greatest number, opting for a different moral framework like Virtue Ethics, Care Ethics, Deontology (Kantian Duty Ethics), or something else. For that angle, I’ll save words here and direct you to the final paragraph of Section 1 of the Stanford Encyclopedia article “Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion” (5).
Finally, a concern I have about this discussion is the tendency of participants to focus on the human happiness picture exclusively. Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion thought experiment doesn’t address the importance of animal welfare, as if the Moral Status of Animals were merely an inconvenient afterthought (8); nor is Biodiversity (9) or Biodiversity Preservation (10) factored into the overall flourishing of any of these hypothetical worlds. In our real world, decades of scientific investigation has clarified how the ecosystems of the Earth (upon which all life depends) are more fragile and threatened than we previously thought. Related research has also taught us much more about animal suffering at the hands of humans (in factory farms, for example). Now that we know so much more about their biology, emotions, and their social lives, we have fewer excuses for ignoring their interests in our moral deliberations. Perhaps we should also ask: In calculating overall happiness, what moral consideration do we owe to non-human animals and to the fragile ecosystems on which they (and we) depend? Does the repugnance of Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion also include moral consideration for the flourishing of sentient animals?
NOTES:
(1) Hank Green’s Crash Course Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtKNX4SfKpzWO2Yjvkp-hMS0gTI948pIS
(2) Ethics and Critical Thinking videos at Wireless Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/user/WirelessPhilosophy/playlists
(3) Crash Course Philosophy #39 on Moral Luck: https://youtu.be/DpDSPVv8lUE
(4) Wireless Philosophy vid “Ethics: The Problem of Moral Luck” https://youtu.be/HvqJ-s26ol4
(5) Derek Parfit’s famous thought experiment of “The Repugnant Conclusion” @ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/; Section 1: “Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/#ArrRepCon
(6) “The Repugnant Conclusion (a philosophy paradox)” by Julia Galef: https://youtu.be/vqBl50TREHU
(7) “New strategies for slowing population growth.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12288914
(8) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/
(9) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biodiversity/
(10) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/biodiversity.html