Aggregation, Beneficence, and Chance

It is plausible to think that it is wrong to cure many people’s headaches rather than save someone else’s life. On the other hand, it is plausible to think that it is not wrong to expose someone to a tiny risk of death when curing this person’s headache. I will argue that these claims are inconsistent. For if we keep taking this tiny risk then it is likely that one person dies, while many others’ headaches are cured. In light of this inconsistency, there is a conflict in our intuitions about beneficence and chance. This conflict is perplexing. And I have not been able to find a satisfactory way of resolving it. Perhaps you can do better

Altruism and Ambition in the Dynamic Moral Life

Some people are such impressive altruists that they seem to us to already be doing more than enough. And yet they see themselves as compelled to do even more. Can our view be reconciled with theirs? Can a moderate view of beneficence’s demands be made consistent with a requirement to be ambitiously altruistic? I argue that a reconciliation is possible if we adopt a dynamic view of beneficence, which addresses the pattern that our altruism is required to take over time. This frees up theoretical space for understanding how a moral duty of self-development can intersect with the requirements of beneficence, so that the amount that we are required to sacrifice increases without our beneficence becoming immoderate

The Burdens of Morality

A classic objection to act-consequentialism is that it is overdemanding: it requires agents to bear too many costs for the sake of promoting the impersonal good. I develop the complementary objection that act-consequentialism is underdemanding: it fails to acknowledge that agents have moral reasons to bear certain costs themselves, evenwhen itwould be impersonally better for others to bear these costs.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tht3.19

Essays on altruism and conflicts of interest

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-56).If you can help someone without detriment to your interest, nor anyone else's interest, then it is clear that you ought to do so. But things are not always so easy. When there is a conflict of interest, you have to decide what to do. Whom should you help when you cannot help everyone? How much should you sacrifice to help others? May you expose people to risks when helping them? This dissertation addresses aspects of these questions. You ought to save a larger group of people rather than a distinct smaller group of people, all else equal. Why? Chapter 1, "Rational Numbers," offers an explanation. Its two parts can be roughly summarized as follows. First, you are morally required to want each person's survival for its own sake. Second, you are rationally required to achieve as many of these ends as possible, if you have these ends. Chapter 2, "Ambition and Altruism in the Dynamic Moral Life," poses a puzzle. We would like an account of beneficence to be moderately demanding, and yet still to require you to be ambitious with your altruism. How can these diverging desiderata be simultaneously met? Drawing on empirical work, the chapter defends the following solution: beneficence requires you to develop morally, and increase how much you give over time. Chapter 3, "Chancy Charity and Aggregative Altruism," argues that two initially attractive claims are inconsistent. First, you must save someone's life rather than cure the headaches of many. Second, you may take a small risk of someone's death when curing this person's headache. Since we are unable to hold both these claims, we are in danger of lacking an explanation of some common intuitions about risk and the priority of serious needs. A candidate explanation is considered, but criticized.by Tom Dougherty.Ph.D