Should you kiss girls in exclusive relationships?

Or: Are we obligated to not encourage people to breach their duties to themselves and others

Recently I’ve been tumbling in my mind the question of whether it is wrong to increase the amount of badness in the world through encouraging people to breach duties they have to themselves or others. While gossiping in the pub, I recently learnt a young man I know was dragged away for kissing a girl in an exclusive relationship, then, morally condemned by a number of his friends. In campaigning against the tobacco ban, I have been told cigarette companies are immoral entities because they encourage their consumers into bad behaviour. Similarly, a very quick witted and erudite young philosopher put it to me (over chips and gravy) it is bad for hospital managers to make doctors act against their conscience (setting aside whatever the doctor is being made to do).

I contend there is no obligation per se to not increase the amount of badness in the world via encouraging people to breach duties to themselves or others. I establish this contention on three bases. First, the obligation implausibly restricts our moral license to pursue our own self-interest. Second, it implausibly requires you commit wrongdoing yourself. Third, the mentioned obligation improperly acts as a subsidy on those of a weak will to morality, resulting in the average person being less virtuous. These contentions are united in viewing the only badness of a nonjuridical nature we are not obligated to increase being the badness which would come from the breach of duties we have personally decided to undertake.

Imagine Peter is going to buy six pints of milk on Saturday for his drinking throughout the week. Upon entering the convenience store and realising only six pints remain he hears there are three people in the village who have promised their parents or partners to get two pints of milk each for the weekend. Peter is aware these three men are very bad at keeping their promises and that they will break their promises should he buy the six pints because they will not drive into the nearby town to keep them. I contend Peter has the moral license to purchase the six pints of milk encouraging the three men’s promises to be broken, so, analogously, I contend people have the moral license to knowingly kiss people in exclusive relationships encouraging promises of fidelity to be broken too. To deny this moral license would implausibly restrict the pursuit of self-interest for everyone. The proper concern of the individual is his own good, not, contra communitarians, the moral fibre of other people.  

I want to press this latter point. Consider a future where Muslims in Tower Hamlets have come to the conclusion men thinking lustful thoughts seriously wrongs their wives and Allah. Young women in this future still wish to go out in short skirts and revealing tops on Friday nights though. I think this is entirely acceptable. The sight of these young women would encourage Muslim men to have lustful thoughts (not of the unavoidable sort either, rather, the sight would likely set off intentional thoughts which would be blameworthy). If individuals are obligated to reduce the amount of badness in the world as constituted by other people breaching duties to themselves or still others, then, these young women would be obligated to dress in a modest fashion. Muslims would be right to condemn them for failing to do so too, and, the prettiest girls in the skimpiest outfits would warrant the greatest condemnation.  This is implausible. And a good explanation of the implausibility of this particular obligation on young women is there is simply no obligation on the part of anyone to reduce the amount of badness in the world understood as people breaching duties to themselves or others.

It may be believed people have an obligation to reduce the amount of badness in the world yet this has an upper limit such that people have a moral license to buy the six pints I mentioned, yet, they do not have the moral license to kiss girls in exclusive relationships because of its greater badness. Such a moral theory would require the establishment of a ratio of personal gain to the magnitude of the duties broken which I just don’t see being found in the moral realm. Such a moral idea could lead to the strange result, that, on the margin, it would be impermissible to have a fling with Barbara, a moderately attractive married woman, but permissible to have a fling with Melissa, a very attractive married woman, because of the extra pleasure which would come of it.

Why is it bad to cheat on your partner? It is bad because you have promised not to cheat on them. Other people cheating with your partner though are not breaking such a promise, hence, they are not doing anything bad. If we understand the term bad to mean a state of affairs or actions to avoid then kissing people in exclusive relationships is simply not bad; though, it remains bad for the people in the exclusive relationship. What this shows is that bad is a partially agent relative term, i.e., a state of affairs can be bad for some but not bad for others. One of the reasons we don’t see this is because we implicitly imagine the agency of women in instances like this is impeded. In reality it is not though and women remain free to turn down the advances of men, meaning, when they decide to accept them, they wrong their partner. And where the interaction is not free then no promise on the part of the woman is broken, and, hence, she commits no wrong to her boyfriend anyway.

Another point which makes the moral idea we have obligations not to encourage others to breach duties to themselves or others implausible is it requires us to breach obligations we have made to others. Imagine you have promised to take your girlfriend to the airport at 3am in the morning and on the way to collect her you come across five hitchhikers. Upon pulling over you find they have promised to meet their mothers’ tomorrow which requires them to get to an airport in the opposite direction. They have no money or transport to get there. Ensuring a minimisation of duty breaches would require you to breach your promise to your girlfriend and drive them to the opposite airport. This is implausible.

A potential rebuttal to my six pints of milk and girlfriend analogy may be this: In the former instance Peter simply foresees his actions resulting in broken promises, which is fine, but in the girlfriend example the man must intend for her to break her promise to her boyfriend, which is not fine. Three things can be said about this. First, if badness is constituted by broken promises why does it matter whether they come about intentionally or are simply foreseen. Second, I question whether the intending in this instance is similar to the objectionable intending which Philipa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson write about in the trolley problem. So, take the fat man on the footbridge; many argue it is wrong to throw him in front of the trolley because it uses him as a mere means. Yet in the girlfriend example the breach of the promise is not a mere means to kissing the pretty girl at all, indeed, the man could do without it and get just what he wanted too. Third, I raise these questions. Is the kebab van owner not supposed to sell kebabs to the obese? Must a sweet shop owner sell up if he knows he’s making all his profit from bad purchases? I think the answer here must be a solid no, hence, knowingly encouraging someone to breach their duties to themselves or others must be fine.

The implausibility of the mentioned duty shines through to a much greater extent when we consider the duties people have to themselves. Many people I have spoken to in my campaign against the tobacco ban think cigarette companies are obligated to not sell cigarettes as it is bad for their customers who are duty bound to not damage their health. I think this is implausible on its face. Again, only consider that the kebab van owner and sweet seller may have to give up their trade if most of their sales are to the impudent obese. It is certainly implausible to believe setting back the interests of others to your own gain is bad per se (talk of duties here is just window dressing). Buying the last pint of milk, getting a girl many people want, running a successful ice cream parlour which bankrupts worse ones; all of these are instances of gaining and setting back the interests of others in the process.

Given our moral license then must include playing in zero or negative sum situations, meaning, we can set back the interest of others to our own gain, analogously, our permissible actions must include encouraging others to breach duties to themselves, i.e., really to encourage them to act imprudently, to our own gain too. I do not believe the fact the former examples involve altering the situation of the person while encouraging others to do things bad for themselves involves changing their mind in some way (providing everything said is truthful) makes any moral difference. As Adam Smith once wrote: ‘In the race for wealth, and honours, and preferments, he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors.’ The fair play which Smiths writes of having to be respected after this passage I believe is just confined to respecting individual rights and the obligations freely taken upon oneself. (I would note the strangeness of speaking of duties to oneself too).

Granting it is permissible to set back the interests of people to your own gain I do not see why two people deciding to protect their own self-interest via a promise should obligate you to not encourage its breach to any greater degree, i.e., to no extent at all. An important point to make before proceeding is that in encouraging someone to breach an obligation you are not acting badly, though, the amount of badness in the world increases. This badness is agent relative in that its badness should only motivate the participant to which it is attached. As such this badness is totally different to the badness which Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer speak off (i.e., disutility) which is said to be agent neutral in that it properly motivates everyone to avoid it.

Of course, a response to all I have written is to embrace a consequentialism which finds it is fine to engage in business which bankrupts people (which I’ve been using as a lever in my arguments) because this is for the greater good, while a practise of kissing girls in exclusive relationships is not, and, hence, should be impermissible.  I do not think any such consequentialism is plausible. The mere fact that something advances your state of contentment, flourishing or happiness does not give me reason to promote it, hence, accepting the good is that which we have reason to promote, it is not good per se for me to promote your state of contentment, flourishing or happiness. Taking a great deal of happiness which in single parcels is not good for me to promote cannot be good for me to promote in the aggregate either, thus, the greater good of society is nothing but a great fiction. The ultimate end of each of our lives is not as Eric Mack puts it: ‘the single centralised end of attaining the socially optimal tradeoff of some people’s well-being for others’ wellbeing’. I have the moral license to have dessert even if aggregate wellbeing in the world would be increased by helping a stranger move his sofa up his stairs instead.

A third reason to oppose an obligation to not encourage people to breach their duties to themselves and others is such an obligation subsidises those with a weak will to morality. Take Peter buying the six pints, should the discussed duty exist, he would have to sacrifice his self-interests to help the three men meet their promises. This encourages a weak will to morality because these three men will not face condemnation for their weak will because they will keep their promises due to someone else picking up the slack. Indeed, promises may be made only on the expectation others will pick up this slack. Overall, this will encourage a less virtuous people. Should the reader argue the three men are entirely responsible for not keeping their promises to their parents or partners because they could have gone and got the milk in the town, and, Peter has no obligation to not buy the six pints, I would agree. Should this be admitted, though, the person kissing the girl in the exclusive relationship does no wrong either because the girl could have just said ‘no’ to the advances as well.

I believe the preceding thoughts also have interesting implications for freedom of conscience, or, rather, just respecting the conscience of others. Recently, I enjoyed a discussion with members of the Socratic Society on whether religious beliefs should be protected in law to a greater extent than moral beliefs of a secular nature. Amos Wollen and I got talking about freedom of conscience after we were asked to finish up at the pub. Having mentally impeded myself with a warm gin and tonic I remember not making much sense; however, I do remember what Wollen had to say. He contended we must respect the conscience of others because it is bad for people to do wrong by their own lights, ceteris paribus. The example of a hospital forcing a doctor (via threats of discipline or sacking) who believes abortion to be wrong to conduct an abortion was given by him.

Just as Peter is not obligated to help the three men keep their promises ensuring they are better people by their own lights, though, analogously, the hospital is not obligated to not require the doctor to perform an abortion either for reasons concerning conscience. The badness of breaking with your conscience is objective insofar as the reason to not break it does not change with your opinions of the matter; but it is subjective in the sense that others do not have reason to respect it, or, better, provide a low set of costs in which it can be abided by. If ensuring a low cost set of choices is required to respect the conscience of people excessive demands could be made on others.

Should a person think it would be immoral for them not to do cartwheels in the nude in certain fields at ten o’clock at night to honour their God, which, let us assume, is objectively a false belief, I do not believe a close landowner is obligated to allow entry onto one of his fields where it is expensive to go to other fields where such worshipping is free. Wollen would have to think otherwise. But I suspect Wollen will say there is a distinction between not lowering the cost of something and actively increasing it such that to do the latter but not the former is bad.

The problem with this reply is it does not get him the answer he wants when we zoom out of the thought experiment concerning the doctor and the hospital. No doctor is entitled to a hospital to work in, nor is any hospital obligated to employ a particular doctor, so, when a hospital offers a contract to a doctor which requires him to act against his conscience they are not increasing the cost to him in any morally relevant way, because, the baseline which we ought to judge whether someone is being made actively worse off (which might be objectionable) for following their conscience is the doctor not having any access to a hospital at all. Threatening the doctor with the sack simply returns him to this level, and, remember, he is no more entitled to a level of options above this than the nude religious cart wheeler is entitled to entry onto a nearby field.

The totality of the preceding has established it is morally permissible to encourage people to breach their duties to themselves or others to your own gain, hence, kissing girls in exclusive relationships, ‘forcing’ doctors to act against their conscience, and, selling cigarettes to smokers is fine. Nevertheless, I cannot help but think many readers will still be uncomfortable with the idea it is morally permissible to go off with someone else’s wife or girlfriend. Indeed, I remember going to a party once and being asked to dance with the birthday girl, Stephanie, which I enjoyed doing, but only after asking her boyfriend. And, ultimately, I think there is a limited case for not kissing girls in exclusive relationships where those girls are the girlfriends of your close friends.

I think the central reason as to why kissing your close friends’ girlfriends’ is wrong is that friends help each other and in exchange they properly expect certain things in return and among those things is their close friends taking a hands-off approach to their girlfriends. To take the benefits of friendship and not give up in return what is properly expected of them is a type of free riding. Of course, the problem with all of this is expectations are fuzzy and close friends will seek to take advantage of this fuzziness at the margin, and, again, who counts as a close friend will create another set of problems. The solution to all of this is to have verbal or written contracts between close friends.

A friend of mine put it to me that society should create a peer pressure to stop people running off with people’s wives and girlfriends because overall it is bad for society. I suppose I take no issue with tutting provided it is not a moralised tutting, because, outside close friendships, running off with people’s girlfriends or wives is not wrong (although if wives are conceived of as a husband’s property, as they used to be, I suppose it would be wrong, analogous to stealing his dog). Lastly, I would add the girlfriend who betrays his boyfriend by kissing someone else is probably not going to make a good girlfriend, so, take her for a one night stand (moralised hmmmmm) but not for a long term relationship. Say what you will about Ayn Rand, but when she started having an affair with Nathaniel Branden, she at least sought permission from her husband, which was duly granted, turning him into a cuck.

In sum, I contend we have no obligation to reduce the amount of badness in the world by not encouraging people to break duties to themselves or others: It is permissible to kiss girls in exclusive relationships. The discussed duty would implausibly restrict our pursuit of our own self-interest, and, crucially, the moral reason which requires girlfriends not to cheat, namely, the promise they have made not to cheat, simply does not transfer to third parties. I sincerely hope this essay can be used fruitfully in night clubs and randy parties when angry men lambast strangers for ‘having it off’ with their girlfriends, when, really, they should be having a go at them. Alas, I doubt my moral reasoning will change the direction of their venom.