I’m really enjoying this series, but I’ve gotta say — a lot of Boonin’s arguments here seem like hand-waving. For example, the idea that “no one has an obligation to conceive a child, regardless of how good that child’s life will be” seems to me to be obviously false. Of course if you CAN create a good life, you should, and saying “no one is under an obligation” seems to me to be simply defining the problem away.
Of course Boonin’s position accords with our moral intuitions, and I understand that is the point of the exercise. But at some point we should recognize that our moral intuitions aren’t mathematically logical — they are rough-hewn heuristics arising from various evolutionary pressures. Expecting to be able to reason our way to an explanation that makes them all Hall into a neat logical pattern seems like a fool’s errand.
The reason we reject the ethical call to have as many children as possible is not that nonexistent people don’t have claims, but that we’re selfish. It’s the same reason we reject the claims on our actions of Effective Altruism, or Peter Singer, or ethical vegetarianism. Matt Yglesias has a good post today about how even in the middle of a genuine energy crisis, affluent people are unlikely to turn down the heat absent government rationing. At a certain point our own comfort and desire for our lives to turn out a certain way simply trumps any moral claim.
Those selfish desires may even have a rational evolutionary explanation — in the ancestral environment pleasures were rare and a signal that we were engaged in pro-survival behavior. It makes sense that we would prioritize them above all. But I don’t think that means that any individual choice we make by following our selfish moral heuristics is objectively or rationally justifiable.
There’s another, deeper problem, too. We are imbued with a deep survival instinct, such that, as you note, many people would intuitively agree that life is worth living. But… is it? Certainly almost all of us would agree that some lives seem not worth living, and on a sheer pain/pleasure ratio I’d guess MOST lives are at best a wash, and more likely a bad investment altogether. Yet we’re stuck with our survival instinct, aren’t we?
Given all this, I think we can’t really hand-wave away a lot of the objections by saying things like “it seems implausible” or “most people would agree….” Most people are driven to mad, illogical conclusions by a tangle of competing animal-level heuristics that don’t exist to make us happy or moral, but just to get us to the next generation.
Intuition is really all we have when it comes to holding beliefs. Even science, which feels more real, relies on the intuition that future cases will look like past ones. It's all a matter of finding A implies B. We can accept B or reject A.
Of course, most people don't act according to any morality, but I don't write to change the world. I just want my readers to think about a few things more carefully.
I’m really enjoying this series, but I’ve gotta say — a lot of Boonin’s arguments here seem like hand-waving. For example, the idea that “no one has an obligation to conceive a child, regardless of how good that child’s life will be” seems to me to be obviously false. Of course if you CAN create a good life, you should, and saying “no one is under an obligation” seems to me to be simply defining the problem away.
Of course Boonin’s position accords with our moral intuitions, and I understand that is the point of the exercise. But at some point we should recognize that our moral intuitions aren’t mathematically logical — they are rough-hewn heuristics arising from various evolutionary pressures. Expecting to be able to reason our way to an explanation that makes them all Hall into a neat logical pattern seems like a fool’s errand.
The reason we reject the ethical call to have as many children as possible is not that nonexistent people don’t have claims, but that we’re selfish. It’s the same reason we reject the claims on our actions of Effective Altruism, or Peter Singer, or ethical vegetarianism. Matt Yglesias has a good post today about how even in the middle of a genuine energy crisis, affluent people are unlikely to turn down the heat absent government rationing. At a certain point our own comfort and desire for our lives to turn out a certain way simply trumps any moral claim.
Those selfish desires may even have a rational evolutionary explanation — in the ancestral environment pleasures were rare and a signal that we were engaged in pro-survival behavior. It makes sense that we would prioritize them above all. But I don’t think that means that any individual choice we make by following our selfish moral heuristics is objectively or rationally justifiable.
There’s another, deeper problem, too. We are imbued with a deep survival instinct, such that, as you note, many people would intuitively agree that life is worth living. But… is it? Certainly almost all of us would agree that some lives seem not worth living, and on a sheer pain/pleasure ratio I’d guess MOST lives are at best a wash, and more likely a bad investment altogether. Yet we’re stuck with our survival instinct, aren’t we?
Given all this, I think we can’t really hand-wave away a lot of the objections by saying things like “it seems implausible” or “most people would agree….” Most people are driven to mad, illogical conclusions by a tangle of competing animal-level heuristics that don’t exist to make us happy or moral, but just to get us to the next generation.
I addressed this all in a previous piece: https://klaussimplifies.substack.com/p/a-primer-on-moral-arguments
Intuition is really all we have when it comes to holding beliefs. Even science, which feels more real, relies on the intuition that future cases will look like past ones. It's all a matter of finding A implies B. We can accept B or reject A.
Yes, but the fact that induction isn’t logically grounded doesn’t make me feel any more comfortable about the whole exercise of moral reasoning. 😄
But thanks for these pieces. I never get tired of gnawing on these problems, even if, at the end of the day, it doesn’t help.
Of course, most people don't act according to any morality, but I don't write to change the world. I just want my readers to think about a few things more carefully.
Well, as often occurs, I come to say a thing, but Chesterton has been here first and said it much better (plus added some extra good stuff).
So, again: “What Chesterton said.”