Equality again

[English assassin]

I suspect life and death scenarios make for bad moral law - why not consider something more mundane? Say, a birthday cake? How would you share it out amongst your kids?

Well, not winner takes all, I agree.

Hard cases make bad law may be as true of morality as it is of the law, I supopose, although if equality is abandoned when things get really tough then it is at best a more limited principle than it first appeared.

Possibly (I am unsure) considering a relative vs a stranger has introduced something into the thought experiment that changes the nature of the dilemma. I would certainly agree that if the two children were strangers I would almost certainly just toss a coin, regardless of their characteristics. It still seems inescapable that I do NOT regard the rest of the world as equal in all respects to my close relatives. And that makes me wonder about how I feel about my friends, other Londoners, other people who ride motorbikes, etc etc.

Equality as between people I do not know and don't much care about except in an abstract sense doesn't seem like much of a moral principle to me.

[econ21]

It still seems inescapable that I do NOT regard the rest of the world as equal in all respects to my close relatives.

But you would probably agree it would be equally wrong if someone bombed some other poor kids rather than your own?

Equality as between people I do not know and don't much care about except in an abstract sense doesn't seem like much of a moral principle to me.

But aren't moral principles, like legal ones, rather abstract and impersonal? I think some kind of universality or anonymity is the cornerstone of most systems of morality. In practice, we will tend to favour our own but would that make it right? For example, if you interviewed for a job, would it be right to favour your brother? If you judged a case? Gave out a government contract? Set a tax code? Marked an exam paper?

And that makes me wonder about how I feel about my friends, other Londoners, other people who ride motorbikes, etc etc.

It is interesting how concepts like loyalty, family, patriotism, friendship etc are rather hard to square with a universalistic moral system. I suspect how you feel about people close or similar to you is important at a personal level, but perhaps not at a moral one.

There is a case for trying to find a less demanding moral code than a perfectly altruistic one, as if the code becomes too demanding that may allow us to dismiss it as irrelevant. But I am a little leery of going too far down that road and saying whatever we do in practice must be moral. Conscience probably should be uncomfortable at times.

[rory_20_uk]

Each one of us lives by a moral code. Some of us espouse a different one from what we in fact live by.

In the latter category IMO these people have never been placed in a situation where their supposed morals have really been tested. It is easy to say you'll put two others before yourself, but most people if push comes to shove will push and shove to preserve themselves.

I have asked the initial postulation asked in different ways many times. Most people initially desperately to add extra dimensions to the question to avoid answering it. Most like to think that they'd do the right thing, but faced by the choice know that they wouldn't.

It is far better to know your own moral code than to try to work out what it should be.

[Watchman]

Personally, I figure it's not worth the time to dwell too much on it. How people would like to react in dire circumstances tends to have rather little to do with how they actually do, so worrying about it beforehand seems a tad pointless.

As for the OP, eh, so pointless. All other things being equal people prioritize those they're familiar with, nevermind now blood relatives or your own darn offspring. We're put together that way. Doesn't mean we need to like it of course, but, well, life's a dog of the female persuasion.

[AntiochusIII]

When push comes to shove (or whatever inexplicable colloquial sayings people like to use), some people do act the very opposite of most and save others before them or their own.

Many of these don't do it due to any abstract moral codes either. Instinct is a delicate thing. People read too much of the Heart(s) of Darkness and Lord(s) of the Flies of the world and assume the absolute worst of humanity and forget that sometimes someone just throws out an act of incredible sacrifice out of quite literally nowhere as well.

The moral dilemma of the first position can be deceptive. Most people react that they will save their child, then lament their own "moral hypocrisy." But precisely when someone acts on the opposite and save the other unknown child, he or she commits the same "moral hypocrisy" despite the extra torment and effort that person has to go through to achieve the decision. Even a flip of a coin is hypocritical; it causes the decision preferring one to another nonetheless.

And to add another angle to the discussion: Some in the West (usually them intelligentsia) acquires the mythical view of the East as a place where the Selfish Man is suppressed in favor of family/community/society/whatever. Naturally, that's a bloody lie -- the "East" isn't a dime better than the West by any realistic measures. But it's interesting in the viewpoint that these people in the modern "Western" developed society find their society to be a place of stifling selfishness devoid of "heart" and selfless responsibility, and probably have mixed feelings about daring open admissions of self-interest like the one Rory made here; a disillusionment of which I find rather fascinating.

Ah well, me optimist.

Edit: And just to crown myself Master of the Obvious, I'd add that the concept of equality in its many incarnations often, once theoretically applied, turns out to be very heartless. Most people's desire to "save the African children" (to encompass the many desires of such nature) are driven by their compassion and not the moral basis of equality, and therefore are not subject to convictions of hypocrisy.