Comments on: Special obligations

By: Kathryn Cramer

Kathryn Cramer — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 21:03:45 +0000

Here’s my solution to the ethical dilemna: all the children should be as safely strappen in as the adult in charge can manage. And the lobbiests from Detroit who contoured legislation such that making cars safe for kids is the parents’ problem should be tied to the back bumper and the luggage rack.

By: Anarch

Anarch — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 10:22:34 +0000

My apologies, that should be piraisoli.

By: Anarch

Anarch — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 10:20:42 +0000

Pirasoli: My objection from the beginning was to the idea that only professional ethicists should be hired for jobs like the one Cohen has. I thought that was very credentialist, which might be defended when hiring a bridge designer or a surgeon, but not hiring a political columnist or a newspaper ethics advice giver. I’m not a philosopher in any meaningful way—I work in mathematical logic—but I’ve been following this discussion with a fair amount of interest. I think your point that the professional/amateur distinction is radically different in medicine than in ethics is a good one, pirasoli, but I’m a bit confused about the general nature of your contention here. Why exactly are you objecting to the notion that only professional ethicists should be hired for such jobs? To put it another way: You’re using the word “credentialist” as a pejorative in this context and I’m not at all convinced that that’s accurate. One might just as accurately describe Keith or Ophelia’s attitude as “expertist” (or whatever the appropriate “ism” is): the belief that those who have professionally trained to pursue an endeavour are the best-suited to accomplish it. [This of course begs the question as to whether being “credentialed” is the same as being an “expert”; perhaps that is the source of your objection?] As with any such generalization there are bound to be exceptions—maybe Randy Cohen is Socrates reborn, for example—but it seems to be a perfectly reasonable hiring policy to suggest. Could you illuminate your problems with it?

By: sennoma

sennoma — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 18:27:51 +0000

making practical ethical choices is not just a matter of having your facts right, but making value preferences. Philosophers, qua philosophers, have no greater standing on this than anyone else This view seems to me to devalue the role of reason in making ethical choices. Philosophers have training in identifying and finding the facts relevant to a given issue, for one thing. For another, critical thinking is not an innate skill, and can be much improved by training in the application of reason to particular kinds of problems. Expert advice is informed by specific training and experience and has thereby, on the whole, greater value than non-expert advice. I don’t see why I should accept a professional ethicist’s value preferences over mine or those of Cohen. Well, you shouldn’t just accept anyone’s preferences, or arguments. I am not arguing that expert judgements should automatically be given added weight relative to the judgements of Joe Public, but that a professional ethicist is more likely to present coherent, logically consistent arguments based on relevant facts. The issue is not “to whom should one listen?” but “who should the NYT hire?”.

By: Rv. Agnos

Rv. Agnos — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:08:41 +0000

“quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt?” “of what avail empty laws without good morals?” —Horace’s 3rd Ode Perhaps the opposite question is equally appropriate.

By: piraisoli

piraisoli — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:08:23 +0000

“I’m sorry. You’re just prettying up your know-nothingism.” Keith Ellis I’m sorry. You are just prettying up your credentialism. “If you think that is incontrovertible, then you know far less about philosophy than you think you do.” One is only supposed to write incontrovertible things in this forum? “Lots of people think that empricism is just another value judgment, and so is physics. This is much more true of medicine. That doesn’t make them right.” That doesn’t make them right, indeed. “You’re saying, necessarily, that either: 1) All people are born with an innate capability of moral reasoning that cannot be improved upon, and the study of moral philosophy and ethics is a fool’s endeavor; or 2) It can be improved upon, but the study and practice of philosophy does not significantly contribute to this. Because moral philosophers and ethicists are specifically working very hard to do exactly this, then here, too, you are implicitly calling them fools.” I am saying neither. I said in my earlier posting that philosophy— ethics in this case— is very useful in offering dimensions of analysis and clarity of thinking. For a philosopher who is supposed to treat the text of an argument seriously, you are great at putting words into the mouths of others. My objection from the beginning was to the idea that only professional ethicists should be hired for jobs like the one Cohen has. I thought that was very credentialist, which might be defended when hiring a bridge designer or a surgeon, but not hiring a political columnist or a newspaper ethics advice giver. “That’s disrespectful. You could be right. Maybe you are. But it takes some chutzpah to come to a site hosted, in part, by some philosophers and say so.” Boy, what’s with your worry about being dissed? I think most philosophers in this forum are self-assured enough to respond to the arguments than to worry about being “disrespected,” which was far from my aim. In any case your charge of my being disrespectful comes after a spectacular display of putting words into my mouth. What would a professional ethicist say about that?

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:43:41 +0000

For the many reasons that others have stated I think that duties of rescue to strangers are beside the point here. The parent transporting another’s child has assumed a specific duty of care so we aren’t in aid-to-anonymous strangers territory. Here’s another case where parents are obliged not be be partial to their own children: a teacher who has one of their own children as a member of the class they are teaching. Sure, outside of the classroom they may be as partial to their own children as any other parent, but when they are acting as teacher they must not favour their own child. (Lots of other examples: parents refereeing football matches …) When I made the point about duties of justice requiring impartiality btw, I did illustrate it with a specific example of debt repayment. That implies quite a narrow view of what duties of justice are. I’m quite happy to revise to accomodate the very reasonable point that Invisible Adjunct makes and include the special duties one owes to ones own children as duties of justice. But we then still need to spell out the limits of reasonable partiality (both in scope and extent) to one’s own children. Those limits are fairly tight, I believe (but see Adam Swift’s How not to be a hypocrite for discussion).

By: ben

ben — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 06:13:29 +0000

Here’s a slightly amusing true story about “the ethicist.” A former colleague of mine sometimes used his columns in his intro ethics class, as fun little things for his students to think about. He contacted Cohen to let him know about it, just to blow smoke up his ass a bit. Cohen responded by threatening to sue him for copyright violations. What a great guy.

By: Nick Morgan

Nick Morgan — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 06:03:14 +0000

Katherine, I agree that in cases where a nonparent agrees, explicitly or not, to look after the child, that nonparent assumes a duty (thank goodness). In the car hypothetical, though, such a duty is probably not breached (the standard would be reasonable care). One reason I offer legal authority is to answer earlier calls for specific cases; the other is to support an earlier claim in comments that there is indeed—to some extent—a political consensus in the law that duties to care for others are explicitly determined by the nature of one’s relationship to others. I won’t duplicate my post on the matter (link somewhere above—available at enbanc.org), but my basic contention is that the most reasonable way to decide how and to what extent relationships affect duties to aid others is through the concept of notice, or the likely expectations people have about social behavior, or the faith they invest in agreeements to take certain actions.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 05:53:13 +0000

He comes off as pretty charming and self-effacing in that interview. That’s to his credit. But, as you say: “I guess my view is that the notion of ‘Ethicist’ implies some systematic ethic and implies a sustained project of addressing those issues.” I think it also implies that the sytematic ethic be well-rationalized. There is a huge body of literature on moral philosophy; it is very presumptious to assume that there’s nothing to be learned from reading that corpus that one can’t rediscover on one’s own with a few years of relatively casual introspection. At the very least, even if the principles of an ethos are not “learnable”, surely the habits of thought and technique of applying those principles are.

By: john II

john II — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 05:36:29 +0000

I guess the conversation is splintering at this point, but I wanted to re-visit the issue of what makes someone an “Ethicist” rather than someone offering their opinions on things. I guess my view is that the notion of “Ethicist” implies some systematic ethic and implies a sustained project of addressing those issues. I suppose that Cohen may meet the latter criterion but for my money never has met the former. Note below that he says he will use the categorical imperative on an as needed basis—but I think that whether or not one agrees with the categorical imperative an ethicist has to realize that it is something that isn’t for “as needed,” or take-it-or-leave-it uses. It’s a categorical imperative. (Note, for example, how his answer about the seatbelts never tries to wrestle with the issue of whether Cohen himself is willing to let others make that choice about his kids.) Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s an interesting Q and A with Cohen himself. He offers us the “is his advice satisfactory?” test, and as I’ve noted I believe he flunks that test—but I will let him have the last word. Q: In your new book, you refer to yourself as an “accidental ethicist.” Is it just me, or do you seem almost proud that you have no official credentials as an ethics expert? A: [Horrified shriek.] I’m not proud! Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m seriously and truly mortified by the great mass of ignorance in which I swim every day. It’s like blurting out the most shameful thing about yourself in a pre-emptive strike — being on a horrible blind date, and saying, “I killed a guy.” Q: Have you ever taken an ethics or philosophy class? A: Never. Q: So there’s no school of ethics that you subscribe to? A: There is none. Q: Are you familiar with the schools of ethics? A: More than I was three years ago. There are many ethical precepts that I find useful and am not bound by. Like the categorical imperative — there are times when I will invoke it, but other times, it doesn’t seem to be a helpful tool for the situation. Q: On that note, are you always trying to read and learn more? A: Are you saying I could learn more?! I wish I were a better-educated person. I wish I had a Ph.D. in philosophy. That would undoubtedly be a good thing. But I’ll put it to you this way: One of the functions of credentials is to help you anticipate how well someone will do a job. The reader can see now whether or not they find my performance satisfactory. There are 150 examples. And if I’m not writing something engaging, they should by all means stop reading it. As I understand our laws, it’s still optional — not mandatory — to read me. But I’m spending some time in Albany to see what we can do about that.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 05:13:02 +0000

But in principle, if the parent is not even there, there was an agreement to take care of the kid, and the child is in a private place—doesn’t that fall within one of the exceptions to the “no duty” rule, about assuming their care and putting them beyond others’ aid? Wouldn’t the nanny be liable if she let a kid starve while the parents were out of town? I’ll grant you that a conviction would be hard to get but it might be because of lack of evidence (and because a kid riding with a lap belt is not criminally negligent in the first place). Actually, what I’m wondering about is whether the parent has a car seat for his own three year old, who certainly shouldn’t be using a shoulder belt without one.

By: Nick Morgan

Nick Morgan — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 04:52:12 +0000

Sorry if this duplicates any prior comment (I haven’t carefully read all of them), but I can assert with at least 95% confidence that in American states that have no Good Samaritan laws, the presumption is strongly against any civil or criminal duty to help another (even a child) who is in despair. Typical exceptions are those I mentioned in my post at En Banc. There may or may not be a case out there overturning a conviction for failure to save an unrelated drowning child, but there are very similar cases. Jones v. United States, 308 F.2d 307, found that the defendant, who had ample means to provide food and medical care to a 10 month old baby who lived (with its mother) in the defendant’s house, was not criminally liable for his failure to prevent the baby’s death because evidence was insufficient to show a care-taking contract, or other exception to the no duty rule. You can also check out the horrifying Pope v. State, 284 Md. 309, where the defendant was not liable for child abuse even though the child’s mother, in the presence of the defendant “savagely beat and ripped and tore at the infant, doing it violent and serious injury. During this prolonged period Mrs. Pope did nothing to try to protect the child, to call the authorities, or to seek medical assistance…. She went to church [!] with [the mother] and later brought her back to her home. At some point in the evening, the infant died from the beating.” This is one of the relatively few unambiguous principles of American law. Failure to save a drowning child—whether or not sanctioned by the courts—is frequenty cited by scholars as a basic example of just how serious the American criminal system is about not punishing inaction.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 04:49:57 +0000

well, the cite only proves it’s the law in Maryland.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 04:10:10 +0000

R.V.: Thanks! That’s very interesting and goes a long way toward demonstrating, even in extremis, the principle you’re asserting. Certainly, I should admit that I am a little surprised by this because it doesn’t seem right to me. But I accept the correctness of your point.