A Letter from the Editor

            

Dear Readers,

Wow. Well, that’s the last time I ever go on vacation, or promote interns to full time writers. You take just one week to yourself in Cabo, and your philosophy blog turns into a promotional site for sibling incest and imposter bunnies. I’d like to take this post to not only apologize to our loyal readers for the misguided information dispensed on this site recently, but to explain the real stances Moira Lee holds on these dilemmas. Unlike what my recent junior staff have argued, I believe that reasoning based upon conceptual harm can lead to true and rational moral judgments. 

Although I have a lot of respect for Jonathan Haidt’s work on moral judgment and intuitive moral judgment, this blog isn’t usually a Haidt fan site for a reason. Haidt subscribes to a very narrow view of what constitutes harmful and harmless. By appraising actions backward through objective act utilitarianism, it is incredibly easy to fall into the “good outcome, therefore good decision” fallacy (Jacobsen, 2013). This fallacy occurs when we judge an action to be morally fine since it had no actual harmful consequences (Jacobsen, 2013). This is the exact trap my staffer fell into when she excused our incestuous inquiry. Sure, nobody was explicitly harmed (other than the poor forum users who had to read about it). But judging actions solely upon their outcomes is illogical. I could give a bunch of knives to some toddlers to play with, and there’s a chance they won’t hurt themselves- but that doesn’t make it a harmless decision. Using theories of moral judgment that look to guide our actions toward what’s best, as opposed to examining them retroactively, are much more useful in navigating morality. 

Attempting to disparage action-guiding theories through far-fetched domino effect examples is juvenile and fantastical. Some actions are more likely to cause harm than others! Sleeping with your sibling is much more likely to bring harm to the world than a mother bringing her child to the beach. The lame and perverse motivations behind wanting to sleep with one’s sibling are nowhere near enough to justify the potential risks, and as such it should be condemned under action-guiding moral theories (Jacobsen, 2013). Taking the hypothetical harm from risky actions into account is important in making accurate moral judgments.

Now, let’s talk a bit about bunnies. My staff said that our concerned husband had no right to condemn his wife’s handling of the rabbit fiasco since it didn’t cause obvious strife for the Fredericks. But we’re ignoring a crucial piece of the puzzle- the character implications. Some philosophers advocate for considering non-criterial reasons, which allow us to assess features of situations as reason for action or not (Jacobsen, 2013). One type of non-criterial reason involves considering the implications of performing an action on the agent’s character (Jacobsen, 2013). The act of concealing a beloved pet’s death and replacing it with a dupe implies that our inquirer’s wife operates with a concerning level of depravity. It makes a mockery of the Fredericks, who deserve to know which animal they are offering their love and care to (even if it’s a dumb, skittish bunny). I don’t think her husband is dumbfounded. He’s just yet to comprehend or articulate his wife’s corrupt motivations and what it means for her future. How can we (looking at you staff) possibly say he has no standing for his disgust and shock?

There are other abstract harms that I won’t discuss in this letter- harm to one’s culture, harm to one’s sense of autonomy, harm to societal trust, et cetera- but they’re still crucial considerations when it comes to making moral judgments. At Moira Lee, we have a duty to reach moral judgments that are normatively trustworthy. That means taking the conceptual into account, even if it isn’t glaringly obvious or easy to articulate. We’ll do better moving forward.

With love, Moira Lee