Relation to others· Morals
Minimalism
Axis: Moral demandingness — How much does morality demand of us?
Morality demands few things, but it demands them firmly: do not harm others, respect their freedom. As long as I wrong no one, my life is my own business, and no one may impose on me an ideal of saintliness or sacrifice.
Philosophers 1
Show inferred positions (1)
Michel de Montaigneinferable
Montaigne distrusts the strained, heroic virtues that do violence to nature and often turn into hypocrisy or the cruelty of the righteous. He prefers an ordinary, accommodating goodness that "lets itself flow" with the common slope of men. The highest moral demand, in his eyes, is not to surpass oneself but to know oneself well and keep one's just measure: a morality of "living fitly" rather than of grand duties.
Essays, III, 13, "Of Experience" and II, 11
Argument
- A duty is what may legitimately be demanded of everyone, by blame or coercion if need be: its mark is that anyone may be reproached for failing it.
- Now all that can be demanded of everyone is the minimum without which common life is impossible: do not kill, steal, deceive, harm. Beyond that, each has the right to lead their life as they see fit, so long as they wrong no one.
- Doing good, devoting oneself, sacrificing oneself is admirable but cannot be owed: a morality that makes saintliness a duty turns every ordinary life into a fault, and gives anyone a title to police our own.
Therefore So morality confines itself to what can be demanded of all, not harming; the rest, help, generosity, sacrifice, belongs to the , not to duty.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the reasoning
- Minimalism draws a sharp line between harming, which it forbids, and not helping, which it leaves free: I owe nothing so long as I refrain.
- But compare two men: one drowns his nephew for the inheritance; the other, having come to drown him, sees him slip in the bath and withholds the gesture that would have saved him at no risk. Did the second act less wrongly than the first?
- Our judgment says no: what counts is the motive and the outcome, not the difference between a movement and a stillness. Letting die when one could easily have saved is a way of causing death.
Therefore So the line between harming and not helping is not so sharp: if the omission can be as culpable as the act, minimalism cannot found a right to indifference upon it.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the position Thought experiment
- A child is drowning in a shallow pond before you; saving him costs only muddied clothes. The minimalist himself judges that a passer-by who refrained in order to stay dry would be a monster — yet that passer-by has harmed no one.
- That judgment commits us to a principle: when one can prevent a great harm at the cost of a minor sacrifice, refraining is a wrong. 'Do no harm' thus fails to cover all that we ourselves judge to be required.
- And neither distance, nor number, nor the fact that others could act seems a moral reason to erase that principle: the distant child whom a donation would suffice to save is in the situation of the one in the pond.
Therefore So minimalism fails its own test: since it condemns the indifferent passer-by, it already grants that morality demands more than not harming.
See the page- PrescriptiveMoral SituationThe drowning child, the starving child
Everyone grants that we must save the child drowning before our eyes, even at the cost of ruining our clothes; but if distance makes no difference to the duty, as Singer argues, why does it not extend to everyone a donation would suffice to save?
the rescue - PrescriptiveMoralDoing and allowing
Is letting someone die when we could save them as grave as killing? If the difference dissolves, the duty not to harm swells until it covers all the evil we fail to prevent.
the omission - PrescriptiveMoralSaints and heroes
The heroic act is admired, never required: there would be a realm beyond duty. But if all the good we can do is owed, are these acts that exceed duty anything but duties we excuse ourselves from?
saints and heroes - PrescriptiveMoralA life of one's own
If we must give as long as any misery remains to be relieved, what legitimate room is left for my projects, my loved ones, my tastes? Does a morality that absorbs a whole life demand too much, or is it our comfort looking for excuses?
a whole life - PrescriptiveMoralBetween consenting adults
If no one is wronged without their consent, does morality have nothing left to say? Mill himself refuses to let anyone sell themselves into slavery: is consent enough to permit everything, or are there wrongs we do to ourselves?
the consented act - PrescriptivePolitical & legalCharity or justice
If distant misery stems from unjust institutions we benefit from, giving is no longer enough: the duty would be to repair and transform the order, not to give alms. Is individual giving a duty, or the alibi of an ongoing injustice?
the global economic order - DescriptiveWhat a human being can bear
Does a demand beyond our strength breed discouragement and hypocrisy, or must the ideal exceed what we are precisely in order to pull us upward? What morality may ask depends on what human beings can give.
human nature