The Consequences of Logical Consistency in Moral Philosophy

BY JAKE PERKIN

Like many university students, I went home for the summer and immediately found myself with a lot of spare time. To keep myself occupied, I signed up for an onlinelawclasstohelp fillthehoursinthe day. One class was dedicated to the legal reasoning behind Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the American Supreme Court case that outlawed segregation. After the professor’s presentation, the class had a discussion on the legal reasoning. Student after student came forth highlighting some flaws in the Supreme Court’s reasoning. This raises an interesting dilemma. If the reasoning behindalegaldecisionisflawed,mustitbe overturned, even when the outcomes are moralanddesirable?

The same dilemma emerged in a conversation with a friend about the philosophical basis of abortion. He based much of his arguments on Judith Jarvis Thompson’s A Defense of Abortion (Thomson, 1971). He extrapolated Thomson’s arguments much further to also apply to children after birth. He believed in the right of an individual to refuse resources to anyone dependent on them, and that it was only logically consistent for this principle to apply equallytoapersoninthewombornot.By this reasoning, child neglect would also be defensible. In the field of philosophy, arguments whose natural logical conclusionsincludethe defence of actions that society has generally agreed to be morally questionableseemalltoocommon.

Edmund Gettier’s influential paper ‘Is JustifiedTrueBeliefKnowledge?’discussed the issue of correct beliefs arising from incorrect logic (Gettier, 1963). But what about the reverse case; when valid logic leadstofaultyconclusions?ImmanuelKant defended an individual telling an axe murderer where to find their victim (Kant & Abbott, 1898), Peter Singer defended the sexual assault of disabled people (Mcmahan & Singer, 2017), utilitarianism accidentally creating the utility monster (Nozick, 1974), and French postmodernists attempted to legalise paedophilia (Henley, 2001). Proponents and critics of these philosophical frameworks have dedicated hours of time and thousands of words trying to either rationalise or exacerbate these issues, mainly because none of these theories were meant to result in problems like this arising. Few moral philosophers seek to create theories in which harm is possible, andyetallofthesestandasglaringflawsin theirtheoriesthatneedtobeaddressedin some way. But that alone does not mean that these theories should be thrown out in their entirety. After all, a core part of academic discussion is the ironing out of creasesin newtheories.

Perhapsit is valiantfor these philosophers to stick so closely to their beliefs through hard questions. However, while it is incredibly entertaining to read a book defending telling an axe murderer where tofindtheirvictim,Icannothelpfeelingon an intuitive level that it is morally wrong. I seenobenefit,and alotofharm,toanyof those real-world events happening. It concernsmethatmoralphilosophersseem to forget that sexual assault, child neglect, and murderarenotabstractconceptsthat you read about in a philosophy book. Rather, these are real actions that harm real people. In my opinion, the tears and pain,sadnessandloveofrealpeople,while not necessarily completely rational, trump any logical argument that could be put together.Surely,thepreventionofharmto others must be held paramount to adherence to any singular moral philosophy, through to its logical conclusion.

I am reminded that in my conversation about abortion, I pointed out to my friend that I thought his opinion would be widely unpopular. The simple response I got was “Why should I care as long as I am correct? This is philosophy, not politics.” Should a philosopher, or anyone for that matter should, pursue pure logical consistency over a more empathetic and grounded approach? So often, philosophers disregard human experience in favourofabstractlogic.

I believe this all too frequent attitude in philosophy is the outgrowth of elitism. It would be relatively challenging to argue that philosophy is not an elitist field of study. The idea that elitism blinds philosophers to practical considerations is not new. A similar idea was used by Aristotle to criticise Plato’s idea of the philosopher king. While Plato saw a philosophical education as vital to a king performing his duties, Aristotle believed a kingwasbetteroffbeingadvisedbyawelltrained philosopher, instead of being one himself, so that he be able to focus on practical political or social matters (Chroust, 1968). Even going back to the time of Aristotle, there has been a recognition of the echo chamber that philosophers can operate in, which generates difficulty in ruling in the interestsofordinarypeople.

Recent developments in British politics lend credence to the claim that that politicians that rigidly adhere to text-book ideology, without regard for practicality, often make the worst leaders. Rather, it is leaders that are prepared to compromise, and bend the mould of ideological principlesinfavourofpragmatism,thatare bestsuitedto govern.

Philosophers are occupied with establishing big theories that gets big answers to big questions. They often defend their ideas to the bitter end, dismissing the practical problems they might have. This detracts from the most important role of philosophy – to improve individuals and consequently, societies. It is hard to know when, or if, logic has gone too far and we have crossed a line into dangerous territory. Whilst the most outlandish ideas of any individual philosopher is unlikely to change public opinion broadly, what is more worrying is thecultureofcallousnessthatiscreatedin philosophical spaces. Philosophers should be more comfortable abandoning logical consistency than defending intuitively problematicand immoralactions.

References

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Chroust, A.-H. (1968). ARISTOTLE’S CRITICISM OF PLATO’S “PHILOSOPHER KING.” Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie,111(1),16–22.

Gettier, E. L. (1963). Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis,23(6),121–123.

Henley, J. (2001, February 24). Calls for legal child sex rebound on luminaries of May68.TheGuardian.

Horowitz, I. L. (1966). On Alienation and the Social Order. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 27(2), 230–237.

Kant, I., & Abbott, T. K. (1898). On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives. In Kant’s critique of practical reason: And other works on the theory of Ethics (pp. 361–365). essay, Longmans,Greenand Co.

Mcmahan, J., & Singer, P. (2017, April 3). Who is the victim in the Anna Stubblefield case?.TheNewYorkTimes.

Nozick, R. (1974). In Anarchy, State and Utopia(p.41),Blackwell.

Thomson,J.(1971).ADefenseofAbortion. Philosophy&PublicAffairs,1(1).