Good article, Amos. One of the things that I like about the streamer destiny is his openness to debating literally anyone about almost any topic. Destiny has said how "not debating" and continuous deplatforming of people that progressives dislike makes progressives likely to become bad debaters because they don't have much experience in debating which can actually legitimize awful far right nationalists because they can claim victory based on "i was silenced by the woke mob. They can't handle the truth."
By the way, I wrote my first substack post on a pretty serious topic. Check it out!
While the moralizing critics are silly, I don't think "the intuition behind Hendricks’s principle is ironclad." Whether it benefits you to prevent you from doing something wrong might depend upon whether you would (expectably) regret your wrongdoing. Examples like drunk driving, murder, etc., all seem like pretty typically-regretted acts. But plenty of other acts of wrongdoing aren't so often regretted, and don't seem to make the agent worse-off.
I doubt that the civil war benefitted white slaveowners, for example, even though it stopped them from doing something awful. More prosaically, I don't think that banning meat would benefit most burger-loving Americans, even though most of their meat purchases are wrong. Abortion seems like eating meat: something that, even if it is wrong, isn't widely *considered* to be wrong, and so isn't obviously "beneficial" to the agent to remove it from their option set.
I agree but I think this is one of those intuitions that utilitarians mostly have and others don't. To see this, imagine it turned out that you ran someone over and never found out about it. I think most people would think this was bad for you.
But that case is different because most people desire not to run people over. Generally, we're benefitted when people stop us from unwittingly doing something (concrete) that we wouldn't want to do. You can similarly benefit a pregnant women by preventing her from *unwittingly* taking an abortifacient. But that's no reason at all to think that you benefit her when you prevent her from doing something that she is specifically *trying* to do.
(I don't think that most people have much of a general desire to avoid wrongdoing per se, as opposed to avoiding things that will get them criticized by their friends. I take the concrete examples of slaveowning and meat-eating to support this. You don't have to be a utilitarian to think that banning slavery was contrary to the interests of the slaveowners!)
Haha, very cynical. Well, I guess a few things to say:
1) most people may not care much about general wrongdoing but most care a lot about not being a murderer, even if they could get away with it.
2) what seems to matter is people's idealized preferences. But people's idealized preferences would involve wanting not to do wrongdoing.
3) generally it's thought by desire theorists that only people's self-directed desires matter. But then that can't explain the desire not to run people over, for that's not self-directed.
I don't think (1) is true. I think people have a particular conception of the kind of act that they associate with "being a murderer", and they don't want to perform *that kind of act*. But if it turns out that swatting mosquitos is morally a form of murder, they will no longer care about "not being a murderer" per se.
But I don't want to get too side-tracked into theory here. The concrete cases seem more illuminating. Do you think most people think that white slaveowners were benefitted by the abolition of slavery? If not, then Hendricks' argument seems a non-starter.
I definitely think you’re highlighting something important, here. I think most people would hear a statement like “white slaveowners were not benefited by the abolition of slavery” and understand that there is an interpretation/opinion about what it means to “benefit” someone by which this statement would be true.
On the other hand, though, there were plenty of anti-slavery arguments (particularly prior to and concurrent with the American Revolution) that stressed the ill effects of slaveholding on slaveowners.
Here’s Benjamin Lay:
“For Custom in Sin, hides, covers, as it were takes away the Guilt of Sin. Long Custom, the Conveniency of Slaves working for us, waiting and tending continually on us, beside the Washing, cleaning, scouring, cooking very nicely fine and curious, sewing, knitting, darning, almost ever at hand and Command; and in other Places milking, churning, Cheese-making, and all the Drudgery in Dairy and Kitchin, within doors and without. And the proud, dainty, lazy Daughters sit with their Hands before 'em, like some of the worst idle Sort of Gentlewomen, and if they want a Trifle, rather than rise from their Seats, call the poor Slave from her Drudgery to come and wait upon them. These Things have been the utter Ruin of more than a few; and yet encouraged by their own Parents, for whom my Spirit is grieved, some of which were and are Preachers in great Repute, as well as others.”
When Lay speaks of slaveholding being the “ruin” of a person, he means moral ruin. He clearly conceives of this as being detrimental to a person in themselves. He is also concerned by the effect that this will have on a slaveowner’s ability to perceive moral truth. For a Quaker like Lay, to be separated from the ability to perceive the truth is an unquestionably terrible fate.
One might protest that belief in such “ruin” only makes sense in a worldview that believes there will be consequences (such as hell, or divine wrath in this life) for failing to connect with the true moral good. Certainly, a lot of critics of slavery had views in that direction. Thomas Jefferson, fascinatingly, is a good example:
“With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!”
Naturally, this complicates the narrative around the Civil War — was it just punishment for slaveowners, given their moral ruin? Or was it rescuing future generations of white people from such moral ruin, thereby benefiting them? I think it’s actually possible to conceive of a worldview in which both things are true at the same time. Indeed, there are some who say that a parent who punishes their child is benefiting their child by doing so, precisely because it will improve their child’s moral character.
I think a lot of people would say yes. You might think wrongdoing is bad for you but not always ultimately bad. Perhaps it could be outweighed by other goods.
"X was benefited by Y" is most naturally read as "net benefit" not "pro tanto but probably outweighed benefit". Especially in the context of this article: the claim was "abortion restrictions are good for black women", not "abortion restrictions are *in one, likely outweighed, respect* good for black women".
Or, as Amos characterized it, "if abortion is wrong, then abortion restrictions are especially good for Black women as a group." Something is not "especially good" for a group if it is overall especially bad for that group!
I think you’re right that utilitarians are more likely to see it that way. Libertarians who place high moral weight on the freedom to fulfill a desire will probably also have similar intuitions. As such, the viewpoint-dependent nature of the idea that a person is benefited by being prevented from doing wrong is an important thing to highlight! It may well be that there are fewer deontologists or virtue ethicists amongst supporters of abortion rights, and thus that when such people say that black women are harmed by being denied abortions they are speaking neutrally with respect to the permissibility of abortion, but not neutrally with respect to the underlying moral framework.
Good article, Amos. One of the things that I like about the streamer destiny is his openness to debating literally anyone about almost any topic. Destiny has said how "not debating" and continuous deplatforming of people that progressives dislike makes progressives likely to become bad debaters because they don't have much experience in debating which can actually legitimize awful far right nationalists because they can claim victory based on "i was silenced by the woke mob. They can't handle the truth."
By the way, I wrote my first substack post on a pretty serious topic. Check it out!
https://rajatsirkanungo.substack.com/p/a-post-to-my-friend-ives?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
One of the greatest articles written perhaps in the history of the world.
Thank you! Many people are saying this :)
I concur
😁😁
While the moralizing critics are silly, I don't think "the intuition behind Hendricks’s principle is ironclad." Whether it benefits you to prevent you from doing something wrong might depend upon whether you would (expectably) regret your wrongdoing. Examples like drunk driving, murder, etc., all seem like pretty typically-regretted acts. But plenty of other acts of wrongdoing aren't so often regretted, and don't seem to make the agent worse-off.
I doubt that the civil war benefitted white slaveowners, for example, even though it stopped them from doing something awful. More prosaically, I don't think that banning meat would benefit most burger-loving Americans, even though most of their meat purchases are wrong. Abortion seems like eating meat: something that, even if it is wrong, isn't widely *considered* to be wrong, and so isn't obviously "beneficial" to the agent to remove it from their option set.
I agree but I think this is one of those intuitions that utilitarians mostly have and others don't. To see this, imagine it turned out that you ran someone over and never found out about it. I think most people would think this was bad for you.
But that case is different because most people desire not to run people over. Generally, we're benefitted when people stop us from unwittingly doing something (concrete) that we wouldn't want to do. You can similarly benefit a pregnant women by preventing her from *unwittingly* taking an abortifacient. But that's no reason at all to think that you benefit her when you prevent her from doing something that she is specifically *trying* to do.
(I don't think that most people have much of a general desire to avoid wrongdoing per se, as opposed to avoiding things that will get them criticized by their friends. I take the concrete examples of slaveowning and meat-eating to support this. You don't have to be a utilitarian to think that banning slavery was contrary to the interests of the slaveowners!)
Haha, very cynical. Well, I guess a few things to say:
1) most people may not care much about general wrongdoing but most care a lot about not being a murderer, even if they could get away with it.
2) what seems to matter is people's idealized preferences. But people's idealized preferences would involve wanting not to do wrongdoing.
3) generally it's thought by desire theorists that only people's self-directed desires matter. But then that can't explain the desire not to run people over, for that's not self-directed.
I don't think (1) is true. I think people have a particular conception of the kind of act that they associate with "being a murderer", and they don't want to perform *that kind of act*. But if it turns out that swatting mosquitos is morally a form of murder, they will no longer care about "not being a murderer" per se.
But I don't want to get too side-tracked into theory here. The concrete cases seem more illuminating. Do you think most people think that white slaveowners were benefitted by the abolition of slavery? If not, then Hendricks' argument seems a non-starter.
I definitely think you’re highlighting something important, here. I think most people would hear a statement like “white slaveowners were not benefited by the abolition of slavery” and understand that there is an interpretation/opinion about what it means to “benefit” someone by which this statement would be true.
On the other hand, though, there were plenty of anti-slavery arguments (particularly prior to and concurrent with the American Revolution) that stressed the ill effects of slaveholding on slaveowners.
Here’s Benjamin Lay:
“For Custom in Sin, hides, covers, as it were takes away the Guilt of Sin. Long Custom, the Conveniency of Slaves working for us, waiting and tending continually on us, beside the Washing, cleaning, scouring, cooking very nicely fine and curious, sewing, knitting, darning, almost ever at hand and Command; and in other Places milking, churning, Cheese-making, and all the Drudgery in Dairy and Kitchin, within doors and without. And the proud, dainty, lazy Daughters sit with their Hands before 'em, like some of the worst idle Sort of Gentlewomen, and if they want a Trifle, rather than rise from their Seats, call the poor Slave from her Drudgery to come and wait upon them. These Things have been the utter Ruin of more than a few; and yet encouraged by their own Parents, for whom my Spirit is grieved, some of which were and are Preachers in great Repute, as well as others.”
(Source: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N03401.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1;view=fulltext#DLPS2 )
When Lay speaks of slaveholding being the “ruin” of a person, he means moral ruin. He clearly conceives of this as being detrimental to a person in themselves. He is also concerned by the effect that this will have on a slaveowner’s ability to perceive moral truth. For a Quaker like Lay, to be separated from the ability to perceive the truth is an unquestionably terrible fate.
One might protest that belief in such “ruin” only makes sense in a worldview that believes there will be consequences (such as hell, or divine wrath in this life) for failing to connect with the true moral good. Certainly, a lot of critics of slavery had views in that direction. Thomas Jefferson, fascinatingly, is a good example:
“With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!”
(Quoted here by Ta-Nehisi Coates: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/thomas-jefferson-was-more-than-a-man-of-his-times/265850/ )
Naturally, this complicates the narrative around the Civil War — was it just punishment for slaveowners, given their moral ruin? Or was it rescuing future generations of white people from such moral ruin, thereby benefiting them? I think it’s actually possible to conceive of a worldview in which both things are true at the same time. Indeed, there are some who say that a parent who punishes their child is benefiting their child by doing so, precisely because it will improve their child’s moral character.
I think a lot of people would say yes. You might think wrongdoing is bad for you but not always ultimately bad. Perhaps it could be outweighed by other goods.
"X was benefited by Y" is most naturally read as "net benefit" not "pro tanto but probably outweighed benefit". Especially in the context of this article: the claim was "abortion restrictions are good for black women", not "abortion restrictions are *in one, likely outweighed, respect* good for black women".
Or, as Amos characterized it, "if abortion is wrong, then abortion restrictions are especially good for Black women as a group." Something is not "especially good" for a group if it is overall especially bad for that group!
I think you’re right that utilitarians are more likely to see it that way. Libertarians who place high moral weight on the freedom to fulfill a desire will probably also have similar intuitions. As such, the viewpoint-dependent nature of the idea that a person is benefited by being prevented from doing wrong is an important thing to highlight! It may well be that there are fewer deontologists or virtue ethicists amongst supporters of abortion rights, and thus that when such people say that black women are harmed by being denied abortions they are speaking neutrally with respect to the permissibility of abortion, but not neutrally with respect to the underlying moral framework.