Utilitarianism, rights, integrity, and political expediency

[Alcibiades]

Here’s an effort to bring a bit more moral philosophy to this board. Below is a thought experiment which happened to pop into my head during a period of idle reflection, which I think throws up a lot of very interesting and important ethical questions surrounding consequentialism and its alternatives. If you are sceptical of the value of thought experiments in philosophy, I ask you to suspend your apprehension for a moment and try to engage at least with the questions this one brings out.

A president is in the midst of a tight race for re-election. Shortly before election day, he is asked to approve the execution of two criminals; under his country’s system, executions cannot go ahead without presidential approval. The problem is that the president is convinced of the immorality of the death penalty (and indeed there seem strong utilitarian grounds for such a belief; if you are not personally opposed to the death penalty, imagine that you are for the purposes of this thought experiment). However, the vast majority of voters in the country strongly support the death penalty, and refusing to sign the death warrants could well prove decisive in him losing re-election. Furthermore, he believes — and is justified in believing so — that his opponent winning would have broad, seriously negative consequences for the country as a whole, and she is a staunch supporter of the death penalty who would probably expand executions. In other words, it seems clear that the consequences of not executing the criminals would be worse than those of executing them. What should the president do?

The utilitarian answer to this would of course seem to be that the president should execute the criminals (note: there may be rule or multi-level utilitarian arguments against executing them, but I think there are many problems with the consistency of such accounts with the basic principles which underly utilitarianism). I am not going to run down the attractions of utilitarianism here — which I think, regardless of whether or not you ultimately agree with it are considerable — but suffice to say I’m sure you can all understand why someone might answer in this way. Equally, though, the problems with this line of reasoning should also be apparent, some of which I will list below:

• The simplest objection to the utilitarian answer is that some actions — such as executing people — are simply always wrong.
• A rights-based objection to the utilitarian would be that the criminals have the right not to be executed, which supersedes considerations of general social welfare. Put even more strongly, the criminals’ rights function as trumps against utilitarian considerations, to use Ronald Dworkin’s phrase. If the president executes the criminals, he is instrumentalising them in the service of the general welfare, which fails to respect them as persons.
• A version of the integrity objection: requiring the president to execute the criminals alienates him from his most fundamental moral convictions, undermining one of his core life projects. The utilitarian doctrine of negative responsibility is unreasonable: he is not morally responsible for his opponent’s actions if she wins.
• Perhaps both options are morally acceptable, but utilitarianism is overdemanding and leaves no room for supererogation; even if you think the president morally may sign the death warrants, it seems to go too far to say he must — but the utilitarian seems committed to the latter view.

Do you find any of these objections convincing? Do you have your own? Or maybe you agree with the utilitarian here?

_{PS: Those of you with good historical memories may have realised which actual example from American politics I based this thought experiment off.}

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm going with your last bullet point. Honestly, one of the things that makes virtue ethics so appealing to me is precisely that it doesn't give you a definitive answer for these kinds of thought experiments. Utilitarianism and deontology both claim to be complete moral theories that give you unambiguous answers for any given set of facts (at least in theory - in practice, as you note, people can easily tweak them to say one thing or the other). This approach just doesn't respect our basic intuition that there's no easy answer here, and that good people can legitimately come to different conclusions. It provides the veneer of moral clarity, but at the cost of thinking about morality in a dangerously dogmatic way. Because virtue ethics is interested in the motivations for actions rather than just the actions in themselves, it can recognize that both courses of actions could be driven by virtue (a desire to uphold the convicted criminal's rights or concern from the general public who might suffer under the opponent's policies) and both could also be driven by vice (narcissistic callousness about the consequences of one's actions or selfish desire for reelection). To be able to judge that president, then, you actually need to have a sense of what is truly motivating them.

[Alcibiades]

I'm going with your last bullet point. Honestly, one of the things that makes virtue ethics so appealing to me is precisely that it doesn't give you a definitive answer for these kinds of thought experiments. Utilitarianism and deontology both claim to be complete moral theories that give you unambiguous answers for any given set of facts (at least in theory - in practice, as you note, people can easily tweak them to say one thing or the other). This approach just doesn't respect our basic intuition that there's no easy answer here, and that good people can legitimately come to different conclusions. It provides the veneer of moral clarity, but at the cost of thinking about morality in a dangerously dogmatic way. Because virtue ethics is interested in the motivations for actions rather than just the actions in themselves, it can recognize that both courses of actions could be driven by virtue (a desire to uphold the convicted criminal's rights or concern from the general public who might suffer under the opponent's policies) and both could also be driven by vice (narcissistic callousness about the consequences of one's actions or selfish desire for reelection). To be able to judge that president, then, you actually need to have a sense of what is truly motivating them.

I’m not the biggest fan of virtue ethics because I think it’s too vague, but I very much share your sentiment here. I don’t think any one overarching moral theory is likely to be correct, and so I lean towards a form of moral pluralism which accommodates parts of both consequentialism and deontology (for instance, right-based theories seem to be obviously deontological, but they are not necessarily incompatible with consequentialism — they just take a very different view of how to weigh up consequences from utilitarianism). Finding a theory which strikes the right balance between aligning with our moral intuitions and being able to challenge them when they are wrong — what Rawls called “reflective equilibrium” — is one of the central problems of ethics.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm going with your last bullet point. Honestly, one of the things that makes virtue ethics so appealing to me is precisely that it doesn't give you a definitive answer for these kinds of thought experiments. Utilitarianism and deontology both claim to be complete moral theories that give you unambiguous answers for any given set of facts (at least in theory - in practice, as you note, people can easily tweak them to say one thing or the other). This approach just doesn't respect our basic intuition that there's no easy answer here, and that good people can legitimately come to different conclusions. It provides the veneer of moral clarity, but at the cost of thinking about morality in a dangerously dogmatic way. Because virtue ethics is interested in the motivations for actions rather than just the actions in themselves, it can recognize that both courses of actions could be driven by virtue (a desire to uphold the convicted criminal's rights or concern from the general public who might suffer under the opponent's policies) and both could also be driven by vice (narcissistic callousness about the consequences of one's actions or selfish desire for reelection). To be able to judge that president, then, you actually need to have a sense of what is truly motivating them.

I’m not the biggest fan of virtue ethics because I think it’s too vague, but I very much share your sentiment here. I don’t think any one overarching moral theory is likely to be correct, and so I lean towards a form of moral pluralism which accommodates parts of both consequentialism and deontology. Finding a theory which strikes the right balance between aligning with our moral intuitions and being able to challenge them when they are wrong — what Rawls called “reflective equilibrium” — is one of the central problems of ethics.

To be clear, I think it is possible for virtue ethics to make unambiguous ethical pronouncements, even on controversial topics. For example, I think Peter Singer's provocative work on global poverty, though build on a utilitarian foundation, remains equally compelling from a virtue-ethical perspective (and indeed this is the major difference between this aspect of Singer's work and some other).

I also think ethical pluralism is itself mandated by virtue ethics. Habitually ignoring the consequences of one's actions in the name of following a rigid set of rules, or conversely, having a cavalier attitude about people's human dignity and rights in the name of the Greater Good, both strike me clearly as character flaws.

I do agree that, to be useful, virtue ethics need to be specified in a more rigorous way than I've done here (and as a matter of fact, I'm working on it!). But I think its potential has been underrated in a lot of moral philosophy.

[MT Treasurer]

My biggest problem with this is, as usual, the premise of it all. Framing it as a binary choice (choosing the lesser of two evils in order to prevent the greater evil from happening or allowing the greater evil to happen so as not to commit any evil oneself, no matter how comparatively small) absolves the individual of his or her responsibility to exhaust all options to prevent both evils from happening — there’s way more at play here than a simple choice between two options.

The historical case you based this thought experiment off had to be almost completely rewritten for this to even be vaguely realistic. The actual (historical) execution took place in January, i.e. nearly a year before the election, not the day before; during the primary campaign, not the general election campaign, and it clearly served said individual's presidential ambitions, not the greater good of the nation, which is of course why it is often very aptly described as a deeply psychopathic act not uncommon for the politician we’re talking about here.

The fact of the matter is — and I’d really encourage everyone to think about this — that it’s very hard to even come up with a realistic case where the individual's only option is having to choose the lesser of two moral evils to prevent the greater moral evil from happening. There just aren’t many (plausible) scenarios one can think of here. In your case (going with the 'tweaked' version outlined in the OP), the politician's response could be something along the lines of "I will see to it that the criminals face maximum punishment, but only after their guilt is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. I cannot allow public pressure to override my judgment and integrity when human lives are at stake solely to win favor with the public. Trying to score political points in a situation like this would be a disqualifying act for any candidate seeking the highest office in the country." Conveying confidence and integrity is key here — however, the problem for the man who ordered the actual (historical) execution was that he wasn’t exactly known to possess much of that integrity, so of course ordering the execution was the easier way out for him. But what does that have to do with the "greater moral good the nation"? Nothing. You’re right that it’s a lot more difficult to navigate this issue when the criminal's guilt has been proven but his criminal responsibility/liability is in serious doubt — in that case, a lot of emotional imagery would probably need to be evoked (e.g. "executing this man may be akin to executing a child, and I cannot in good conscience order this execution before I haven’t been reassured that this man does not, in fact, possess the brain of a child.") to counter potent attacks from the opposition, but it again requires integrity and trust, something said individual just wasn’t able to generate because of his deep character flaws. Again, for this particular candidate, it’s much easier to just sign the death warrants. But it’s only really a "dilemma" because he allowed it to become one.

Now, if the criminal has been proven guilty AND fully responsible for his crime and the President still has qualms about giving the green light, why didn’t he push for the abolition of the death penalty during his first term? Seems like he wasted political capital and is trying to rectify that mistake by signing the death warrents of two criminals a few hours before the election — yet again, "the greater moral good of the nation" hardly seems to be the underlying motivation here.

And of all a sudden we’ve uncovered the pure evil beneath those seemingly noble motivations.

[Biden his time]

I find none of these objections convincing, although the fourth one is somewhat convincing.

I think the biggest problem with utilitarianism is that it makes humans too focused on their basest desires. And ironically this could actually lead to a less utilitarian outcome in the long run (especially since as humans we only have a finite understanding of the world, we can't crunch all the numbers and see what's the best).

In this case, though, as IndyRep elaborates, in any real-world situation, there would be other options like prison for life.

The historical case you based this thought experiment off had to be almost completely rewritten for this to even be vaguely realistic. The actual (historical) execution took place in January, i.e. nearly a year before the election, not the day before; during the primary campaign, not the general election campaign, and it clearly served said individual's presidential ambitions, not the greater good of the nation, which is of course why it is often very aptly described as a deeply psychopathic act not uncommon for the politician we’re talking about here.

What's the historical example?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

The historical case you based this thought experiment off had to be almost completely rewritten for this to even be vaguely realistic. The actual (historical) execution took place in January, i.e. nearly a year before the election, not the day before; during the primary campaign, not the general election campaign, and it clearly served said individual's presidential ambitions, not the greater good of the nation, which is of course why it is often very aptly described as a deeply psychopathic act not uncommon for the politician we’re talking about here.

What's the historical example?

I asked Alcibiades this in another setting and he was thinking of Bill Clinton presiding over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector during the 1992 Presidential campaign, although Clinton was of course a governor at the time rather than the incumbent president. I agree with all of IndyRep's objections to directly analogizing it to this thought experiment, but Alcibiades just said "based on" without saying how closely so I still think it's reasonable.

[Alcibiades]

The historical case you based this thought experiment off had to be almost completely rewritten for this to even be vaguely realistic. The actual (historical) execution took place in January, i.e. nearly a year before the election, not the day before; during the primary campaign, not the general election campaign, and it clearly served said individual's presidential ambitions, not the greater good of the nation, which is of course why it is often very aptly described as a deeply psychopathic act not uncommon for the politician we’re talking about here.

What's the historical example?

I asked Alcibiades this in another setting and he was thinking of Bill Clinton presiding over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector during the 1992 Presidential campaign, although Clinton was of course a governor at the time rather than the incumbent president. I agree with all of IndyRep's objections to directly analogizing it to this thought experiment, but Alcibiades just said "based on" without saying how closely so I still think it's reasonable.

Yes, this is supposed to be loosely inspired, rather than directly based off, it. Clinton’s decision was pretty straightforwardly wrong, in my view, whereas this thought experiment is much thornier.

[sting in the rafters]

Don’t execute, nice trolley problem derivative jawn tho. Forgive my practically-minded sensibilities but if you’re in these shoes you’re better off concentrating on why the PHUCK is the violent crime rate so high that capital punishment is a salient issue?

[Torie]

"executions cannot go ahead without presidential approval."

What is the exact text of the law, and its legislative history?

Absent that, the thought experiment has little traction for me. If the law was not intended to give POTUS the power to nix execution for any reason or no reason, but has narrower scope, not including moral objections to the death penalty, then POTUS is abusing its power.