The only person whose thoughts and actions one can, and should, want to control is oneself. If one wants to kiss a girl who is feckless enough to break her promise to a partner, then kiss away, I say - hers is the conscience that should be troubled.
> I contend Peter has the moral license to purchase the six pints of milk encouraging the three men’s promises to be broken
There's a false presupposition here. Peter is not encouraging the three men to break their promise. He is making it harder for them to keep their promises, but he is not recommending any particular course of action to them. It is entirely up to them whether they go over to the next town in order to keep their promises.
Perhaps if he were to encourage them to break their promises -- by, for instance sending them a message saying "There's no need to keep your promise" -- then he would be doing a bad thing.
Would it actually be a bad thing? Well, what if he were encouraging them to commit theft or murder? I'd say that that was definitely a Bad Thing. By analogy I'd say that encouraging other immoral acts is likewise a bad thing -- the badness of the encouragement being proportional to the badness of the act encouraged.
> 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.
It does not follow that the outsider is doing nothing wrong. Their wrong (if any) would be different than the wrong committed by the partner. Similar to the milk example, if the outsider were to say "It's OK to cheat on your partner" then maybe he'd be doing something wrong. But what he is doing is worse than just encouraging bad behaviour: he is participating in the bad behaviour. It would be like handing bricks to a rioter. Sure, you didn't break any windows, but you certainly played your part in the window breakage.
> Must a sweet shop owner sell up if he knows he’s making all his profit from bad purchases?
No. The customer buying sweets is not acting immorally, just unwisely. Similarly for the tobacconist, unless they happen to know that a particular customer is planning to use the second-hand smoke to injure innocent bystanders.
> 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.
Again, this does not follow. If I encourage you to commit murder, I have done wrong, even if you ultimately decide not to. And if you decide to commit murder (with or without my encouragement), it would be wrong for me to provide you with the means.
Thank you Mark for this extensive reply which has certainly made me question my essay. Nevertheless, let me offer a few replies I've thought about little. If broken promises are bad why does it matter whether they come about as a by product of the action of others (e.g. with the milk example) or as a central effect of their behaviour (e.g., the girlfriend example). I'd admit though I would have to bite the bullet with the note, good point, that is a strange outcome of my thinking.
I think it does follow that if the promise is the sole reason you wrong your partner when you cheat on them that the stranger having no promise to the girlfriend does no wrong. Okay, the brick example has got me. I'll have to have a serious think about that. Although recently, I remember just accepting it is fine to give bricks to rioters.
I think it does follow that if the promise is the sole reason you wrong your partner when you cheat on them that the stranger having no promise to the girlfriend does no wrong.
Broken promises are not the only bad things that ever happen, and not the only bad thing people do. The girlfriend breaking her promise is doing wrong. That the stranger is not breaking a promise does not prove that he is not doing wrong.
Suppose, for example, that she had not agreed to the kiss. Then he’d be committing assault, which is wrong-doing. (And she would not be doing wrong — not breaking her promise.)
Of course she did not object to the kissing, so he’s neither breaking a promise nor committing assault. Good for him.
Suppose that he was only kissing her because he was hoping that the boyfriend would come in, see them kissing, and start a fight, giving him the chance (and a plausible excuse) to kill the boyfriend. That’d also be wrong-doing.
Well, that wasn’t what was going on either. So not breaking a promise, or committing assault, or attempting murder. This guy is practically a saint!
But have we exhausted all possible wrong-doing now? No.
There are two actions that the stranger indubitably takes that are candidates for wrong-doing: He encourages her to kiss him; He kisses her. Since kissing him would be breaking her promise — an immoral act, per hypothesis — he is encouraging her to commit an immoral act and he is abetting her immoral act.
The question is thus: is it immoral to encourage and abet immoral acts by others?
I think the answer to that question is pretty clearly “Yes.” It’s pretty much the Devil’s S.O.P.
Yes I would agree promise breaking is not the sole source of badness, indeed, rights violations count as bad too. It would be wrong to start a fight with the intention you speak of due to the injustice of killing him (due to the rights violations).
I agree her kissing him is immoral, but this immorality is agent relative, i.e., it gives reason to the woman but not to the man. If ensuring the keeping of promises, or, their non-breach, should be pursued by everyone, we end up with people not being allowed to buy milk or dress in skimpy outfits in Muslim places. This is implausible, hence, so is the duty to not encourage others to breach their promises.
> If ensuring the keeping of promises, or, their non-breach, should be pursued by everyone, we end up with people not being allowed to buy milk
I agree. If Peter were required to ensure that those other people keep their promises, then he would have a duty not to buy the milk.
But as I said, Peter doesn't have a duty not to buy the milk. Peter is not required to ensure those other people keep their promises.
It's similar for the stranger. He is not required to ensure that the girlfriend keeps her promise. He has no duty to intervene if he sees her kissing some other stranger. He wouldn't even have a duty to inform the boyfriend of her indiscretion. He is, in such a case, an uninvolved party.
The moral duty I'm suggesting does not extend as far as you'd have us think. It's perfectly OK for the stranger to encourage the girl to leave her boyfriend and offer himself as an alternative. The promise of fidelity can be cancelled with appropriate notice. It's not the pursuit of the girl that's the problem -- it's the encouragement of promise-breaking.
Just as their is no (general!) moral requirement to ensure other people behave morally, their is no moral requirement to ensure they don't act in ways contrary to their interests. Smoking and sweet-eating may be bad for you, but I'm not required to keep you from doing it. Neither are the tobacconist and sweet-seller.
But if the tobacco sellers try to convince people that there's no medical danger in smoking (knowing full well that there is), well that's beyond the pale. That would be immoral behaviour.
I suppose I would ask this: Why can Peter create a situation of broken promises in the milk case, and, this be morally fine, yet, the man in the nightclub not create a situation of a broken promise too. Why does the intention matter?
The encouragement of promise breaking is wrong. If it is wrong because the keeping of promises is agent neutrally, objectively, good, which, all else equal, outweighs the gains to everyone from the breach, then, why, I ask, do people not have a duty to sacrifice their interests to ensure promise keeping (as in your example of notifying someone that they should not kiss someone else who is not their boyfriend).
If someone is not morally licensed to pursue his self-interest to preserve the good of an unbreached promise (i.e., as in him kissing the girlfriend), why, for the same reason, should he be morally licensed to pursue his self-interest when he could instead ensure the good of an unbreahced promise (e.g., by stopping ordering a drink and telling someone not cheat, or, whatever is an equal cost to give up as in the girlfriend example).
You will fall back on saying there is a bid difference between encouraging the immorality of cheating and letting the immorality of cheating occur. To this I say two things. First, the man in the nightclub is a sense doesn't want her to cheat, it's just an unavoidable by product of his action. And to my mind, bring about immorality in such a way is not always bad. If someone captures your daughter and asks for a ransom in exchange for her, and, you pay, you are encouraging other people to doing it as an unavoidable by product of your action, yet this is still morally permissible.
Two, why does doing and not doing make such a big difference. I think it is implausible to say it wrong to have sex with this girl in the missionary position, after trying to get her to cheat, yet, were you to have tried to get her to break up with her boyfriend then have sex with you, and, you just so happen to be naked and involuntarily erect, it is morally permissible for her to have sex with you reverse cowgirl, because, after all, you are not doing anything.
Yet should you admit the man allowing reverse cowgirl on him is wrong, you are are committed to the idea it can be wrong to allow people to breach duties to others even when stopping that comes at cost to you. And from this you may have to say their are positive duties to stop people breaching duties they have to others, which, you have admitted is implausibly, meaning, you position is implausible too.
> I suppose I would ask this: Why can Peter create a situation of broken promises in the milk case, and, this be morally fine, yet, the man in the nightclub not create a situation of a broken promise too.
I believe I already answered that question. Nevertheless I will repeat the answer, in a bit more detail.
Peter and the man are each responsible for their own actions. Neither of them is responsible for other people's actions (but see below about defeasibility, which applies here as well).
Peter's action is to buy milk for himself. Peter did not convince his acquaintances to break their promises. They did that on their own.
The man's actions are to convince the girl to break her promise and then making out with her. The girl breaks her promise with the man. She did not do that on her own.
- Peter is responsible for: buying milk.
- Peter's acquaintances are responsible for: breaking a promise.
- The man is responsible for: convincing the girl to break a promise and helping her to do so.
- The girl is responsible for: breaking a promise.
- Peter's act is in no way immoral (see below for more information).
- Peter's acquaintances' acts are immoral.
- The girl's act is immoral.
- The man's acts are immoral (see below for more information).
The phrase "create a situation of a broken promise" is far too vague to support moral reasoning. It immediately raises the question "How did they do that?" It could have happened by accident. It could have been done in ignorance. It could have been done with no ill intent (as with Peter) or with ill intent (as with the man).
> Why does the intention matter?
Consider a mixed-race couple in the olden days who marry. That angers some nearby racists who then burn down the couple's home.
The racists intended to burn down the house, and they did it. Their actions are immoral.
The couple would have known there were racists in the area (in the old days few people tried to hide or deny their racism). They could reasonably have foreseen that their house would be burned down (and so hopefully would have been prepared for the eventuality). But they did not intend for it to be burned down. The actions they took that lead to the house being burned down were not immoral.
Peter is in much the same position as the mixed-race couple. His actions lead to the immoral acts, and he knew that they might, but the immorality was entirely on the part of others.
The man is in the position of the guy who found out about the mixed-race couple, told all his racist friends about it, encouraged them to go burn down the couple's home, and then went along to watch it burn. It doesn't matter whether this guy actually threw any of the incendiaries; his actions were immoral nonetheless.
NOW LET ME BE VERY CLEAR: what the racists did is WAY WORSE than what the man did. The racists should be punished severely; the man should be tutted.
> If someone captures your daughter and asks for a ransom in exchange for her, and, you pay, you are encouraging other people to doing it as an unavoidable by product of your action, yet this is still morally permissible.
True, but misleading. Most moral rules are defeasible -- they can be overridden by a more important moral rule. For example, suppose the stranger was at the nightclub in order to murder someone, and the girl kissed him in order to give the intended victim a chance to escape. Even if the girl had promised not to kiss anyone other than her boyfriend, her act would not have been immoral -- even tho' it would be breaking her promise. Saving someone's life is a higher moral duty than keeping that promise.
Paying the ransom is morally permissible because it prevents harm to the kidnapped dau'ter, in spite of it giving encouragement to other kidnappers.
(Also, the payment is more accurately described as giving *incentive* rather than *encouragement*. Not that "encouragement" is wrong, precisely, but to me it suggests a more intentional act than "incentive" does.)
Neither the man nor the girl have more important moral duties in the original scenario:
* The girl has a general duty to keep her promise and no higher moral duty to violate it in this case, and so has a specific duty to keep her promise in this case. Thus her action of breaking the promise is immoral.
* The man has a general duty not to encourage immorality and no higher moral duty to violate it in this case, and so has a specific duty not to encourage immorality in this case. Thus his action of encouraging the immorality is immoral.
> [Weird porn example that slightly misses the point deleted]
How about I sub in a slightly more realistic example? Suppose that the stranger was just sitting there minding his own business when the girl walked up and planted one on him. In this case, he would not have been acting immorally. It doesn't matter how good he was looking (incentive for the girl), or even if he went there in the hope of finding a girl to make out with (his intent). He did not intend for her to break her promise, and did not encourage it in any **immoral** way.
BUT what happens then? If the man continues making out with the girl then he is a party to the promise-breaking. In that case he is like the local incendiary maker who sells incendiaries to the racists KNOWING that they intend to use them to burn down the couple's house. (AGAIN -- MUCH WORSE than the man, but in the same sort of relationship to the wrong-doing.)
(I have been assuming from the start that the man knew about the girl's promise; otherwise his friends' criticisms make no sense. Is it possible you've been operating on the assumption that he didn't know? That would mean that we've been talking about different scenarios, and much of what I've said wouldn't apply to your scenario.)
> And from this you may have to say [there] are positive duties to stop people breaching duties they have to others....
As I said, your story slightly misses the point. I hope the description above helps clarify what my reasoning is, and why I have specifically denied (with examples) that we have a positive (even defeasible) duty to stop people breaching their duties to others.
This is interesting but feels very theological. As in, only abstract and self-referential, unrelated to the world. For example, arguing as if grounding only in self interest or community interest are the two options is a false setup. Look at how humans live. We do both, weighing them differently in different contexts and cultures, with some broad commonalities. It should be a red flag when you feel confident casually dismissing needing to think about ratios of self-benefit to other-harm (or other-benefit to self-harm/cost) in different scenarios. That's inarguably how we all live our lives. Trying to reason one's way out of how life is lived into some structured code that reflects how no one actually lives feels to me like only an intellectual parlor game.
>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.
Could you elaborate on what you think the difference here is? The man would be happy to kiss her even if she didnt have a boyfriend, but the utilitarian would also be happy to toss the fat man if he was not sentient, or toss a rock or whatever.
Some philosophers take using people as tools to be wrong, hence, throwing the fat man is wrong as it uses him as a tool like a large wedge. The breach of the promise in kissing the girlfriend is not a tool to achieving the desired result, i.e., a kiss with the girl. We can tell this by imagining the breach was not required for the kiss to occur, and, hey presto, he still wants to kiss the girl. Since it was the treating someone as a tool which was objectionable it appears by analogy with the fat man example there is no objectionable nature to the act.
The utilitarian would happily toss the fat man into the trolley due to the net four lives saved. I believe consideration of utility are irrelevant. I hope that has cleared things up for you.
I still dont understand the distinction here. The bad thing about kissing the girl is that she will break her promise. The bad thing about tossing the fat man is that he will die. If the girl hadnt made the promise the man would still want to kiss her. If tossing the fat man didnt kill him the utilitarian would still want to do it. So it seems that your reason why the man is not treating her as a tool, apply analogously to the utilitarian.
Let me first admit, that I only read the first half of your post. It’s always interesting to read these kinds of analytical morality arguments, because it quickly becomes clear that our basic intuitions are completely different. You listed quite a few examples, and in each case, my intuition is that it was moral to do what you said was not morally required (the one exception was the hitchhiker scenario, but that I only agree with you because it’s bad to break your promise).
My real follow-up question for you, is what is your opinion on breaking community norms? In my community, there is a norm against kissing people in committed relationships. If someone in my friend group broke that community norm, that act is immoral, and the community would ostracize them. Would you argue that it’s immoral of us to have a community norm against kissing people in committed relationships?
I take no issue with people breaking community norms per se, for, quite often, these do not track morality. Do I take issue with ostracism of the sort you mention? No, as I argue in the article, provided it is not pretended to be warranted in morality. I would liken such ostracism to shunning nudists; there's nothing wrong with their behaviour, but, it's fine not to like it and make it more uncomfortable for people to engage in.
The only person whose thoughts and actions one can, and should, want to control is oneself. If one wants to kiss a girl who is feckless enough to break her promise to a partner, then kiss away, I say - hers is the conscience that should be troubled.
> I contend Peter has the moral license to purchase the six pints of milk encouraging the three men’s promises to be broken
There's a false presupposition here. Peter is not encouraging the three men to break their promise. He is making it harder for them to keep their promises, but he is not recommending any particular course of action to them. It is entirely up to them whether they go over to the next town in order to keep their promises.
Perhaps if he were to encourage them to break their promises -- by, for instance sending them a message saying "There's no need to keep your promise" -- then he would be doing a bad thing.
Would it actually be a bad thing? Well, what if he were encouraging them to commit theft or murder? I'd say that that was definitely a Bad Thing. By analogy I'd say that encouraging other immoral acts is likewise a bad thing -- the badness of the encouragement being proportional to the badness of the act encouraged.
> 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.
It does not follow that the outsider is doing nothing wrong. Their wrong (if any) would be different than the wrong committed by the partner. Similar to the milk example, if the outsider were to say "It's OK to cheat on your partner" then maybe he'd be doing something wrong. But what he is doing is worse than just encouraging bad behaviour: he is participating in the bad behaviour. It would be like handing bricks to a rioter. Sure, you didn't break any windows, but you certainly played your part in the window breakage.
> Must a sweet shop owner sell up if he knows he’s making all his profit from bad purchases?
No. The customer buying sweets is not acting immorally, just unwisely. Similarly for the tobacconist, unless they happen to know that a particular customer is planning to use the second-hand smoke to injure innocent bystanders.
> 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.
Again, this does not follow. If I encourage you to commit murder, I have done wrong, even if you ultimately decide not to. And if you decide to commit murder (with or without my encouragement), it would be wrong for me to provide you with the means.
Thank you Mark for this extensive reply which has certainly made me question my essay. Nevertheless, let me offer a few replies I've thought about little. If broken promises are bad why does it matter whether they come about as a by product of the action of others (e.g. with the milk example) or as a central effect of their behaviour (e.g., the girlfriend example). I'd admit though I would have to bite the bullet with the note, good point, that is a strange outcome of my thinking.
I think it does follow that if the promise is the sole reason you wrong your partner when you cheat on them that the stranger having no promise to the girlfriend does no wrong. Okay, the brick example has got me. I'll have to have a serious think about that. Although recently, I remember just accepting it is fine to give bricks to rioters.
I think it does follow that if the promise is the sole reason you wrong your partner when you cheat on them that the stranger having no promise to the girlfriend does no wrong.
Broken promises are not the only bad things that ever happen, and not the only bad thing people do. The girlfriend breaking her promise is doing wrong. That the stranger is not breaking a promise does not prove that he is not doing wrong.
Suppose, for example, that she had not agreed to the kiss. Then he’d be committing assault, which is wrong-doing. (And she would not be doing wrong — not breaking her promise.)
Of course she did not object to the kissing, so he’s neither breaking a promise nor committing assault. Good for him.
Suppose that he was only kissing her because he was hoping that the boyfriend would come in, see them kissing, and start a fight, giving him the chance (and a plausible excuse) to kill the boyfriend. That’d also be wrong-doing.
Well, that wasn’t what was going on either. So not breaking a promise, or committing assault, or attempting murder. This guy is practically a saint!
But have we exhausted all possible wrong-doing now? No.
There are two actions that the stranger indubitably takes that are candidates for wrong-doing: He encourages her to kiss him; He kisses her. Since kissing him would be breaking her promise — an immoral act, per hypothesis — he is encouraging her to commit an immoral act and he is abetting her immoral act.
The question is thus: is it immoral to encourage and abet immoral acts by others?
I think the answer to that question is pretty clearly “Yes.” It’s pretty much the Devil’s S.O.P.
Yes I would agree promise breaking is not the sole source of badness, indeed, rights violations count as bad too. It would be wrong to start a fight with the intention you speak of due to the injustice of killing him (due to the rights violations).
I agree her kissing him is immoral, but this immorality is agent relative, i.e., it gives reason to the woman but not to the man. If ensuring the keeping of promises, or, their non-breach, should be pursued by everyone, we end up with people not being allowed to buy milk or dress in skimpy outfits in Muslim places. This is implausible, hence, so is the duty to not encourage others to breach their promises.
> If ensuring the keeping of promises, or, their non-breach, should be pursued by everyone, we end up with people not being allowed to buy milk
I agree. If Peter were required to ensure that those other people keep their promises, then he would have a duty not to buy the milk.
But as I said, Peter doesn't have a duty not to buy the milk. Peter is not required to ensure those other people keep their promises.
It's similar for the stranger. He is not required to ensure that the girlfriend keeps her promise. He has no duty to intervene if he sees her kissing some other stranger. He wouldn't even have a duty to inform the boyfriend of her indiscretion. He is, in such a case, an uninvolved party.
The moral duty I'm suggesting does not extend as far as you'd have us think. It's perfectly OK for the stranger to encourage the girl to leave her boyfriend and offer himself as an alternative. The promise of fidelity can be cancelled with appropriate notice. It's not the pursuit of the girl that's the problem -- it's the encouragement of promise-breaking.
Just as their is no (general!) moral requirement to ensure other people behave morally, their is no moral requirement to ensure they don't act in ways contrary to their interests. Smoking and sweet-eating may be bad for you, but I'm not required to keep you from doing it. Neither are the tobacconist and sweet-seller.
But if the tobacco sellers try to convince people that there's no medical danger in smoking (knowing full well that there is), well that's beyond the pale. That would be immoral behaviour.
I suppose I would ask this: Why can Peter create a situation of broken promises in the milk case, and, this be morally fine, yet, the man in the nightclub not create a situation of a broken promise too. Why does the intention matter?
The encouragement of promise breaking is wrong. If it is wrong because the keeping of promises is agent neutrally, objectively, good, which, all else equal, outweighs the gains to everyone from the breach, then, why, I ask, do people not have a duty to sacrifice their interests to ensure promise keeping (as in your example of notifying someone that they should not kiss someone else who is not their boyfriend).
If someone is not morally licensed to pursue his self-interest to preserve the good of an unbreached promise (i.e., as in him kissing the girlfriend), why, for the same reason, should he be morally licensed to pursue his self-interest when he could instead ensure the good of an unbreahced promise (e.g., by stopping ordering a drink and telling someone not cheat, or, whatever is an equal cost to give up as in the girlfriend example).
You will fall back on saying there is a bid difference between encouraging the immorality of cheating and letting the immorality of cheating occur. To this I say two things. First, the man in the nightclub is a sense doesn't want her to cheat, it's just an unavoidable by product of his action. And to my mind, bring about immorality in such a way is not always bad. If someone captures your daughter and asks for a ransom in exchange for her, and, you pay, you are encouraging other people to doing it as an unavoidable by product of your action, yet this is still morally permissible.
Two, why does doing and not doing make such a big difference. I think it is implausible to say it wrong to have sex with this girl in the missionary position, after trying to get her to cheat, yet, were you to have tried to get her to break up with her boyfriend then have sex with you, and, you just so happen to be naked and involuntarily erect, it is morally permissible for her to have sex with you reverse cowgirl, because, after all, you are not doing anything.
Yet should you admit the man allowing reverse cowgirl on him is wrong, you are are committed to the idea it can be wrong to allow people to breach duties to others even when stopping that comes at cost to you. And from this you may have to say their are positive duties to stop people breaching duties they have to others, which, you have admitted is implausibly, meaning, you position is implausible too.
> I suppose I would ask this: Why can Peter create a situation of broken promises in the milk case, and, this be morally fine, yet, the man in the nightclub not create a situation of a broken promise too.
I believe I already answered that question. Nevertheless I will repeat the answer, in a bit more detail.
Peter and the man are each responsible for their own actions. Neither of them is responsible for other people's actions (but see below about defeasibility, which applies here as well).
Peter's action is to buy milk for himself. Peter did not convince his acquaintances to break their promises. They did that on their own.
The man's actions are to convince the girl to break her promise and then making out with her. The girl breaks her promise with the man. She did not do that on her own.
- Peter is responsible for: buying milk.
- Peter's acquaintances are responsible for: breaking a promise.
- The man is responsible for: convincing the girl to break a promise and helping her to do so.
- The girl is responsible for: breaking a promise.
- Peter's act is in no way immoral (see below for more information).
- Peter's acquaintances' acts are immoral.
- The girl's act is immoral.
- The man's acts are immoral (see below for more information).
The phrase "create a situation of a broken promise" is far too vague to support moral reasoning. It immediately raises the question "How did they do that?" It could have happened by accident. It could have been done in ignorance. It could have been done with no ill intent (as with Peter) or with ill intent (as with the man).
> Why does the intention matter?
Consider a mixed-race couple in the olden days who marry. That angers some nearby racists who then burn down the couple's home.
The racists intended to burn down the house, and they did it. Their actions are immoral.
The couple would have known there were racists in the area (in the old days few people tried to hide or deny their racism). They could reasonably have foreseen that their house would be burned down (and so hopefully would have been prepared for the eventuality). But they did not intend for it to be burned down. The actions they took that lead to the house being burned down were not immoral.
Peter is in much the same position as the mixed-race couple. His actions lead to the immoral acts, and he knew that they might, but the immorality was entirely on the part of others.
The man is in the position of the guy who found out about the mixed-race couple, told all his racist friends about it, encouraged them to go burn down the couple's home, and then went along to watch it burn. It doesn't matter whether this guy actually threw any of the incendiaries; his actions were immoral nonetheless.
NOW LET ME BE VERY CLEAR: what the racists did is WAY WORSE than what the man did. The racists should be punished severely; the man should be tutted.
> If someone captures your daughter and asks for a ransom in exchange for her, and, you pay, you are encouraging other people to doing it as an unavoidable by product of your action, yet this is still morally permissible.
True, but misleading. Most moral rules are defeasible -- they can be overridden by a more important moral rule. For example, suppose the stranger was at the nightclub in order to murder someone, and the girl kissed him in order to give the intended victim a chance to escape. Even if the girl had promised not to kiss anyone other than her boyfriend, her act would not have been immoral -- even tho' it would be breaking her promise. Saving someone's life is a higher moral duty than keeping that promise.
Paying the ransom is morally permissible because it prevents harm to the kidnapped dau'ter, in spite of it giving encouragement to other kidnappers.
(Also, the payment is more accurately described as giving *incentive* rather than *encouragement*. Not that "encouragement" is wrong, precisely, but to me it suggests a more intentional act than "incentive" does.)
Neither the man nor the girl have more important moral duties in the original scenario:
* The girl has a general duty to keep her promise and no higher moral duty to violate it in this case, and so has a specific duty to keep her promise in this case. Thus her action of breaking the promise is immoral.
* The man has a general duty not to encourage immorality and no higher moral duty to violate it in this case, and so has a specific duty not to encourage immorality in this case. Thus his action of encouraging the immorality is immoral.
> [Weird porn example that slightly misses the point deleted]
How about I sub in a slightly more realistic example? Suppose that the stranger was just sitting there minding his own business when the girl walked up and planted one on him. In this case, he would not have been acting immorally. It doesn't matter how good he was looking (incentive for the girl), or even if he went there in the hope of finding a girl to make out with (his intent). He did not intend for her to break her promise, and did not encourage it in any **immoral** way.
BUT what happens then? If the man continues making out with the girl then he is a party to the promise-breaking. In that case he is like the local incendiary maker who sells incendiaries to the racists KNOWING that they intend to use them to burn down the couple's house. (AGAIN -- MUCH WORSE than the man, but in the same sort of relationship to the wrong-doing.)
(I have been assuming from the start that the man knew about the girl's promise; otherwise his friends' criticisms make no sense. Is it possible you've been operating on the assumption that he didn't know? That would mean that we've been talking about different scenarios, and much of what I've said wouldn't apply to your scenario.)
> And from this you may have to say [there] are positive duties to stop people breaching duties they have to others....
As I said, your story slightly misses the point. I hope the description above helps clarify what my reasoning is, and why I have specifically denied (with examples) that we have a positive (even defeasible) duty to stop people breaching their duties to others.
This is interesting but feels very theological. As in, only abstract and self-referential, unrelated to the world. For example, arguing as if grounding only in self interest or community interest are the two options is a false setup. Look at how humans live. We do both, weighing them differently in different contexts and cultures, with some broad commonalities. It should be a red flag when you feel confident casually dismissing needing to think about ratios of self-benefit to other-harm (or other-benefit to self-harm/cost) in different scenarios. That's inarguably how we all live our lives. Trying to reason one's way out of how life is lived into some structured code that reflects how no one actually lives feels to me like only an intellectual parlor game.
>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.
Could you elaborate on what you think the difference here is? The man would be happy to kiss her even if she didnt have a boyfriend, but the utilitarian would also be happy to toss the fat man if he was not sentient, or toss a rock or whatever.
Some philosophers take using people as tools to be wrong, hence, throwing the fat man is wrong as it uses him as a tool like a large wedge. The breach of the promise in kissing the girlfriend is not a tool to achieving the desired result, i.e., a kiss with the girl. We can tell this by imagining the breach was not required for the kiss to occur, and, hey presto, he still wants to kiss the girl. Since it was the treating someone as a tool which was objectionable it appears by analogy with the fat man example there is no objectionable nature to the act.
The utilitarian would happily toss the fat man into the trolley due to the net four lives saved. I believe consideration of utility are irrelevant. I hope that has cleared things up for you.
I still dont understand the distinction here. The bad thing about kissing the girl is that she will break her promise. The bad thing about tossing the fat man is that he will die. If the girl hadnt made the promise the man would still want to kiss her. If tossing the fat man didnt kill him the utilitarian would still want to do it. So it seems that your reason why the man is not treating her as a tool, apply analogously to the utilitarian.
Let me first admit, that I only read the first half of your post. It’s always interesting to read these kinds of analytical morality arguments, because it quickly becomes clear that our basic intuitions are completely different. You listed quite a few examples, and in each case, my intuition is that it was moral to do what you said was not morally required (the one exception was the hitchhiker scenario, but that I only agree with you because it’s bad to break your promise).
My real follow-up question for you, is what is your opinion on breaking community norms? In my community, there is a norm against kissing people in committed relationships. If someone in my friend group broke that community norm, that act is immoral, and the community would ostracize them. Would you argue that it’s immoral of us to have a community norm against kissing people in committed relationships?
I take no issue with people breaking community norms per se, for, quite often, these do not track morality. Do I take issue with ostracism of the sort you mention? No, as I argue in the article, provided it is not pretended to be warranted in morality. I would liken such ostracism to shunning nudists; there's nothing wrong with their behaviour, but, it's fine not to like it and make it more uncomfortable for people to engage in.