LastName 1 0744-021 Critical Analysis Sample B 0744-021 IB Philosophy Internal Assessment 03/18/09 Moral Authority in Indirect Morality Dean

Kamen, an American inventor, appeared on the Colbert Report last spring to promote his vapor compression distiller, a device that could purify any water source. In his appearance, he discussed the upcoming global water crisis stating: If you think the oil shortage has caused stress...wait till you see when people are fighting over water...what are we gonna do when you cant get water? (Kamen). He continued discussing the amount of water that goes into many of our drinks explaining that About two hundred and fifty gallons of water go into making one quart of milk (Kamen). These statistics showed me that even my drinking habits have indirect consequences around the world and in the future. In my attempt to live an ethical life, I must consider these indirect consequences. To do otherwise would be to dismiss the world outside my immediate existence. In other words, I must have some sense of indirect morality. But what exactly is indirect morality? This is best explained using the example from the stimulus material. People in America drink tall glasses of milk with breakfast. These people, along with the rest of the world, consume large amounts of water. This consumption depletes the worlds fresh water supply until we are faced with a water shortage. This sparks water wars, death, thirst and suffering across the third world. In this example, it is shown that indirect morality is different because the consequences of ones actions are connected by long, causal chain. None of these consequences are necessarily going to happen. The world may rally together around the water crisis or some new technology may prevent it from ever happening. Indirect morality also

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LastName 2 0744-021 involves the buildup of many factors and people. One person drinking milk is not going to cause a crisis, but if enough people drink milk and consume water, it will cause problems. This means no person is completely at fault, but no one is blameless. These possible consequences may be convincing enough for me personally, but the disconnect between the agent and the consequences brings up new problems in establishing moral authority. This raises the question: to what extent can there be moral authority in indirect morality? In this analysis, I will focus on utilitarianism, need based ethics, and virtue ethics to analyze the different perspectives and groundings of moral authority. After the evaluation of these three theories it is clear that it is difficult to obtain moral authority when appealing to the consequences of our actions, but when appealing to the character of the individual we can gain moral authority. The extent of this authority in indirect morality is similar to that of general morality when using virtue ethics. When a utilitarian attempts to establish moral authority, they ground their authority on the claim that pleasure or happiness is in itself good and that the ultimate aim of all human activity is happiness (Warburton 46). After doing this, they would then have to show, with some degree of certainty, that one action would produce more happiness and less suffering than the other. Only then could a person claim moral authority under a utilitarian perspective. There are many counter arguments against utilitarianism as a whole that are still applicable to indirect morality. For example, the challenge that happiness should not be the aim of all human activity is a valid concern. However, these general criticisms are outside the scope of this paper and I will focus on the issues specific to dealing with indirect morality. This same approach will be taken with the other philosophical theories presented. The first problem is that calculating happiness and suffering becomes even more difficult with indirect morality. This is because the consequences of indirect actions have many links and

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LastName 3 0744-021 are far in the future. Any utilitarian is going to have to make predictions of the future, but the more events you try to predict increases the opportunities for error and makes it more difficult to have an accurate prediction. It is going to be more difficult to predict the amount of drinking water available in fifty years than it would to predict the situation in five years. This is not necessarily the case, as there may be times when accurate predictions can be made, but as a general trend, the farther in the future, the more difficult it is to make accurate predictions. This makes it more difficult, but not impossible, to make convincing predictions of happiness and suffering in order to establish moral authority with indirect morality. The second and most prevalent problem is the fact that the indirect consequences of a persons action are not solely their fault. As discussed, the water crisis involves many different peoples consumption along with many other factors (for example, global warming). It would be unreasonable to hold one person accountable for all the consequences of the crisis. To get around this problem, one would need to calculate the individuals portion or share of the consequences, good or bad. This would require a person to know the amount of milk they consumed, the amount consumed by the entire world and how significant milk consumption was in causing the water crisis as opposed to other factors. This, along with a calculation of the overall consequences of the water crisis could give an approximation of the individuals portion of the consequences. This process seems very unreliable and makes calculating happiness and suffering caused by the individual extremely difficult, if not impossible. Without these accurate approximations to appeal to, it makes it very difficult to establish moral authority in indirect morality using utilitarianism. Instead of looking at happiness and suffering, moral authority could be grounded in needs. Some claim that all humans need certain resources to survive and it would be wrong to improperly deprive people of what they need (Baggini 40). Grounding moral authority in this

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LastName 4 0744-021 concept, one would have to establish the needs of people and which actions supply or deny those needs. However, the term need is itself very vague. Does it mean the need to survive physically or the need to live a happy and fulfilling life? While the basic necessities of life may be obvious (food, water, shelter), thinkers as diverse as Aristotle and Abraham Maslow have noticed that theres a lot more to being fully human than staying alive (Baggini 39). A rich and fulfilling life is for many just as necessary and water. For example, someone could claim that eating good food (dairy products) is necessary for a fulfilling life even if that eating or drinking would deprive someone else of basic necessities. In this case, the action would be supplying one need and denying another. Which one should take precedent? In order to answer this question, one would need to show that one need is of higher value than the other. This is a very difficult case to make as many claim the value of certain activities and actions varies from person to person. As a result, it is very difficult to establish which needs come first, preventing moral authority. Unlike utilitarianism, which focuses on the morality of the action, virtue ethics, in contrast, will consider what sort of person the agent should be (Hoft 11). This ethical theory is then grounded in the character of the individual. One would need to establish what virtues people should strive for and which action would represent those virtues. In appealing to this, not much changes when the consequences become indirect and more disconnected from the agent as the morality does not depend on the consequences. The types of virtue we value in a person, which are defined as traits of character that we find admirable (Hoft 1), do not change when considering indirect morality. We would still promote the virtues of honesty, kindness, and justice in any situation. This is best exemplified using an example. Using the example provided by the stimulus material, one could ask what a virtuous person would do facing a predicted water crisis. The virtues of fairness, kindness, and self regulation

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LastName 5 0744-021 would lead to the conclusion that a virtuous person would limit their consumption of water. The idea that everyone should have access to water would be fair, the idea to care and sacrifice for other peoples well being would be kind, and the ability to control your own desires for pleasure would be self-regulating. The fact that a person cannot see this suffering or its position in the future should not change the virtues the person attempts to live by. Assuming you were able to construct a convincing connection between the agent and the people affected, one could have moral authority in indirect morality. The extent of this authority is still debatable as the general criticisms of virtue ethics would need to be addressed, but there is nothing in indirect morality that prevents moral authority using this theory. Moral authority stems from the ability to establish what is right and wrong on some grounds. Using a utilitarian approach, it is necessary that one establish the happiness and suffering of the actions. The nature of indirect morality makes this very difficult, if not impossible, to discern an individuals contribution. Basing moral authority on the concept of what is needed, one must establish what is necessary for a good life, in order to prioritize one need over another. This is a very difficult case to make and undermines any moral authority one might have. In using virtue ethics we avoid dealing with the consequences of actions and instead focus on the character of the individual. This allows us to bypass many of the issues specific to indirect morality and moral authority can be obtained to nearly the same extent as with virtue ethics in general.

Word Count: 1621 Connections with IB Philosophy: Theories and Problems of Ethics Works Cited Baggini, Julian, and S. Fosl. The Ethics Toolkit: A Compendium of Ethical Concepts

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LastName 6 0744-021 and Methods. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007. Hooft, Stan Van. Understanding Virtue Ethics (Understanding Movements in Modern Thought). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. Kamen, Dean. "Dean Kamen." Interview with Stephen Colbert. Cobert Nation. 20 Mar. 2008. 18 Mar. 2009 <http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-reportvideos/164485/march-20-2008/dean-kamen>. Warburton, Nigel. Philosophy: The Basics. New York: Routledge, 2004.

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