“What if everyone did the same thing?”—“How would you like it if the same thing were done to you?”
WHAT ARE THESE ARGUMENTS WORTH?
Just as you are leaving a restaurant, a storm breaks. You cannot afford to wait for it to pass and you haven’t got an umbrella. By a lucky chance (lucky for you), other, more prudent customers have come out with their umbrellas, and left them in a stand.
1You glance swiftly to the left and to the right. No one is watching you.
You grab an umbrella and you leave nonchalantly, neither seen nor recognized, as if you were wearing the ring of Gyges, which if it is turned renders the wearer invisible, allowing him, according to the myth, to commit any number of crimes with complete impunity.
2You are more or less conscious of wronging in some measure a person whom you do not know, and who has not done you any harm. Yet you do not really take this fact into account.
Plainly this is not a sufficient reason to prevent you from taking the umbrella.
You are one of those amoralists who have been bothering philosophers (and nonphilosophers) ever since they began to reflect upon morality.
3They stubbornly seek the knockout argument that might release the amoralist from his indifference and, in this particular case, prompt him not to steal an umbrella from an unknown person on the night of a storm.
They wish to give a decisive answer to the question that has always preoccupied them: “Why be moral?”
WHY BE MORAL?
Among the reasons for doing or not doing certain things, there are some that are a matter of personal prudence. If you drink what is really too much beer, you risk damaging your health. If you wish to stay healthy, there is a good reason for you to drink a little less beer.
There is also the desire to be approved of, and the fear of being disapproved of, by others, the desire to obtain rewards and to avoid punishments. If you really drink too much beer, you risk being subjected to moral lectures all day long (among other inconveniences). If you prefer to avoid such lectures, there is a good reason for you to drink a little less beer.
One can envisage a great number of other reasons for doing or not doing certain things—religious reasons, such as the unconditional love of God or the fear of the punishments God might inflict (particularly terrible after death), and so on.
Certain philosophers reckon that alongside these prudential reasons, social or religious, for acting or refraining from acting, there are “purely” moral reasons. No definition of these reasons wins unanimous support, but there is a tendency to characterize them as follows:
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1. They are more to do with others than with ourselves: this is what distinguishes them from reasons of personal prudence.
2. We are not supposed to abide by them out of the hope of being rewarded or the fear of being punished: this is what distinguishes them from social reasons.
3. They are not fixed in an arbitrary fashion by a supernatural authority: this is what distinguishes them from religious reasons.
4. There is a tendency to think that everyone should follow them, which is not always the case where social or religious reasons are con-cerned.
5 Indeed, these latter are often seen as valid reasons solely for the members of such-and-such a society or for the believers of such-and-such a religion. Jews and Muslims do not eat beef that has not been bled. Yet they in general acknowledge that if you are not Jewish or Muslim, you are not obliged to do as they do. On the other hand, they reckon that everyone should refrain from stealing, even those who do not practice their religion.
65. They have to do with matters that strike us as important (such as life, death, happiness, the meaning of life, the common good, and so on) rather than trivial (the color of the socks you will wear in order to go fishing). Certain philosophers at least reckon that one of the criteria by which to identify moral rules is the intensity of the reaction that the transgressing of them provokes. They add that if the transgressing of moral rules provokes more intense emotional reactions than a failure to respect a no parking sign, it is because of their importance in our lives.
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Those researchers who concern themselves with ethics often give the impression of thinking that these criteria are enough to enable us to distinguish moral reasons from others. Yet this is a controversial idea. Given that it is not very easy to characterize “purely” moral reasons other than in this pointillist fashion, we can be tempted to deny their specificity and to reduce them to a congeries of reasons of personal prudence and of social or religious conformism.
Besides, there are several candidates for the title of moral reason.
The main ones are deontological and consequentialist reasons. The former are reasons for never doing certain things, such as lying, killing, or torturing, no matter what the benefits may be for ourselves or for society. The latter are reasons for promoting the good of the greatest possible number or, more precisely, for aiming at maximizing the good or minimizing the evil.
We may come to think that, from this consequentialist point of view, it is morally permissible to cause the death of one individual in order to save ten thousand of them or to torture one child in order to save a hundred thousand of them.
8 At the same time, it may also be the case that we are absolutely not inclined, personally, to kill someone even if it is in order to save ten thousand lives, or to torture a child even in order to save a hundred thousand of them. It is not out of cowardice or incomprehension of what a moral requirement is. It is because our deontological moral reasons then clash with our consequentialist moral reasons.
Be they deontological or consequentialist, these “purely” moral reasons pose a particular problem.
It is fairly easy to understand why reasons of prudence or the fear of God or of society might hold us back from performing certain acts (stealing, humiliating someone, causing pointless suffering) or inspire us to carry out others (helping someone, working for the common good). It is more difficult to know why we should be sensitive to moral motives. What are we to say to someone who is ignorant of such motives and is satisfied simply to follow rules of personal prudence and the laws of the city, while transgressing them from time to time when it suits him and when, like our borrower of umbrellas, he is sure of not being caught?
9There exist two arguments that crop up time and time again among philosophers, as well as among nonphilosophers.
“What if everyone did the same thing?”
“How would you like it if the same thing were done to you?”
What exactly do they mean? Are they conclusive?
I do not believe so.
WHAT IF EVERYONE DID THE SAME THING?
It is necessary to distinguish between the “what if everyone did the same thing?” argument and the Kantian criterion of “universalization without contradiction” with which it is often confused.
The Kantian idea is that certain rules of personal action would become absurd or contradictory if they were presented as great moral principles valid for all and in all circumstances.
10Take the little idea that may go through your mind (but not too often of course): “I only keep my promises when it suits me”
Turn it into a universal principle: “He who makes a promise is only obliged to keep it if it suits him”
The problem is not that if each person followed this principle, the practical consequences would be disastrous. It is that this principle is absurd and irrational, for it is contradictory in itself. It authorizes us to make promises that we have no intention of keeping, that is to say, promises devoid of the properties that make them promises.
The Kantian test of universalization proposes a criterion by which to evaluate our principles. It measures their
conceptual consistency.11For its part, the “what if everyone did the same thing?” argument asks us to
imagine practical consequences. One can put it that it is a sort of thought experiment, an “imaginary generalization”
12At first glance, it is above all a machine for producing platitudes, that is, true propositions whose intrinsic interest is not evident: “If everyone went at the same time to the local swimming pool, there would no longer be any room to swim.”
Or, to give another equally fatuous example: “If everyone went out into the street at the same time, we would no longer be able to move”
But the imaginary generalization “what if everyone did the same thing?” can also have an interesting explanatory role.
We must distinguish, at any rate, two sorts of case. The generalization concerns either morally neutral actions or else actions judged to be morally flawed.
MORALLY NEUTRAL ACTIONS
Posing the question “what if everyone did the same thing?” is supposed to help us to grasp that actions that are neither bad nor irrational in themselves can become so if several persons perform them, for example, in certain situations of mutual dependence and at the same time.
13Consider the action of withdrawing all of your assets (supposing you have any) from the bank, an action that in itself has nothing bad or irrational about it. If everyone did this at the same moment, the outcome risks being disastrous.
Consider likewise a fire that devastates an overcrowded nightclub, when there is only one way out. There is nothing evil or irrational about wishing to save your own life by rushing toward the exit. If everyone does it at the same moment without caring about others, the outcome risks being catastrophic.
MORALLY FLAWED ACTIONS
In the cases that preoccupy us, however, the question “what if everyone did the same thing?” does not have to do with morally neutral actions like withdrawing our savings from a bank.
It concerns actions that are each, at first glance, morally flawed, such as taking an umbrella from an unknown person on the night of a storm, line-jumping, or being a scrounger who turns up at a get-together empty-handed and helps himself to whatever others have put upon the table.
What use is this question?
None whatsoever, according to the deontologist. For him, the question “what if everyone did the same thing?” may perhaps have a social interest: we can wonder whether the tolerance of such acts would be stronger or weaker if they were more frequent. But it has no moral interest. We clearly recognize its fatuousness when it concerns crimes whose gravity is admitted. In order to condemn a barbarous murder, no one needs to appeal to the “what if everyone did the same thing?” argument.
Obviously, line-jumping and scrounging are not crimes of the same seriousness. But they are not actions that are just either. For a deontologist, it is a sufficient reason to disapprove of them. It is pointless to add: “what if everyone did the same thing?” It is one argument too many.
Nevertheless, if the aim is to find an argument that could convert the amoralist, it is absurd to think that a deontological moral reason like “you must not do it because it is wrong, period!” could do the business, since indeed he is not sensitive to this kind of reason. We have to put to him an argument of another kind. And it is this that the question “what if everyone did the same thing?” is supposed to supply. How?
At first glance, it is not by harping on the personal interests of the amoralist. “What if everyone did the same thing?” does not mean “if you line-jump, if you scrounge, if you steal another’s umbrella on the night of a storm, it is you who will be hurt” It would anyway be absurd to highlight this argument, for it is manifestly false.
However, the argument “what if everyone did the same thing?” has something to do with the consequences. It does indeed seem, in fact, that appealing to this argument is meant to make the line-jumper, the scrounger, and the one who “borrows” an umbrella on the night of a storm understand that they are simply living as “parasites” upon the moral system.
14If no one any longer respected lines, if no one any longer brought any food or drinks to parties, and if no one any longer left umbrellas in stands, they would no longer be able to line-jump, take advantage, or purloin an unknown person’s umbrella on the night of a storm. Those who do such things rely upon the fact that most people respect moral rules, and the former thus profit from the advantages offered by not respecting them.
It is not obvious, however, that the amoralist would be unduly impressed by an accusation of parasitism. It is a moralistic qualification to which he would have every reason to remain indifferent.
Is the argument “how would you like it if the same thing were done to you?” more effective in causing the amoralist to doubt?
“HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF THE SAME THING WERE DONE TO YOU?”
We must distinguish the argument “how would you like it if the same thing were done to you?” from the
law of talion, the principle of revenge that entitles us to render evil for evil: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!”
15“How would you like it if the same thing were done to you?” is a rhetorical question. The answer expected is “I wouldn’t like it,” when you have caused harm to someone, such as breaking their tooth. But this answer says nothing at all about the punishment that you ought to undergo (or even if you ought to undergo one). It certainly does not entitle the one whose tooth you have broken to break one of yours too.
“How would you like it if the same thing were done to you?” would seem to be more akin to the famous
golden rule than to the law of talion. This rule says: “do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you,” or “do unto others what you would have them do unto you” It is not a principle of revenge but one of benevolence.
16However, like the law of talion, the golden rule is a principle of reciprocity with a certain content.
17 It specifies what we have to do: do unto others what we would have them do unto us, and do not do unto others what we would not have them do unto us.
If we follow the rule blindly, moreover, we arrive at absurd conclusions. A masochist would be allowed to torture others (do unto others what you would have them do unto you). A doctor who would prefer not to have his appendix removed ought not to remove one from a patient (do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you).
18 For its part, the argument “how would you like it if the same thing were done to you?” does not have any precise content. It is simply a general test of impartiality.
How might it be applied to the case of the umbrella?
Suppose we start from the principle that you would not like it if your umbrella were taken on the night of a storm (for otherwise the argument does not work).
If you are impartial, you cannot think: if it is my umbrella that is taken, then it is morally important, but if it is the umbrella of anyone but me, it has no moral importance.
Of course, if it is your umbrella that is taken rather than that of another, this will probably make a psychological difference to you. But if you view things from an impartial point of view, it will not have, for you, any moral difference.
From this impartial point of view, at any rate, you will have a reason not to take an unknown person’s umbrella on the night of a storm. It is exactly the same reason as the one that ought to stop others taking yours.
19The problem (there always is a new one looming in moral reflection) is that this reason will not necessarily dictate your actions.
You could have one reason to do or to not do such-and-such a thing, and another, stronger reason not to behave in accordance with this reason.
You could have one reason to do or to not do such-and-such a thing and lack a
personal motive to behave in accordance with this reason.
20LEAVE THE AMORALIST IN PEACE!
If the problem of the amoralist is not that he lacks moral reasons for doing such-and-such a thing, but rather that he lacks personal motives for acting in accordance with them, it is futile to preach at him.
What’s the use of repeating what he already knows?
21All that we could do to release him from his moral inertia would be to reinforce his personal motives for behaving in accordance with these moral reasons, that is to say, acting not on the reasons for his action, but on its causes, be they psychological, sociological, or biological.
In order to change the amoralist, we would have to subject him to a program of moral conditioning, perhaps not as radical as that imagined by Anthony Burgess in
A Clockwork Orange, but one whose moral value would also be far from obvious.
22Rather than undertaking this kind of project, would it not be better to leave the amoralist in peace?
Is it not preferable to try to live with him as he is (while being a little wary even so, from time to time)?
