Against Easy Rescue
Recall two famous philosophical cases.
Easy Rescue. If I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing. (Singer 1972)
Cool Touch. If I am sick unto death, and the only thing that will save my life is the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow. Then all the same, I have no right to be given the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow. It would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide it…But I have no right at all against anybody that he should do this for me. (Thomson 1971)
Peter Singer, and many following him, have taken it to be obvious that I am morally required to help in Easy Rescue. Defenders of Easy Rescue holds that this remains equally obvious if I must sacrifice a new pair of expensive shoes in order to save the child, or even my luxury sports car (Appiah 2006; Unger 1996). Judith Jarvis Thomson, albeit less obviously, denies that Henry Fonda—or anyone else—is morally required to travel from the West Coast to Cambridge, even if doing so would save my life.
What could separate these cases? Apart from the fact that the former demands giving up something of value that philosophers hold in contempt (money) and the latter demands giving up something of value that philosophers hold sacred (time), it seems that the moral problems are similar. If we really wanted to, we could imagine a case in which a person is indifferent between the loss of value in Easy Rescue and the loss of time in Cool Touch. It seems, given a few reasonable assumptions, that consistency would demand that we affirm a moral requirement to aid in both cases or deny it in both.
In this essay, I will dispute the philosophical consensus about Easy Rescue. I will hold that Henry Fonda is not morally required to rescue me, and I am not morally required to save the drowning child. I suggest that the change in perspective between imagining oneself as the person giving aid and the potential recipient of aid can help account for the discrepancy in intuitions.
First, I argue for a claim that I will all Unintuitiveness. This claim holds that it is either the case that a person is not required to give aid in Easy Rescue, or it is the case that moral demands are extreme. By “extreme” moral demands, I have in mind that one could be required to give to the point of marginal utility (Singer), or could be required to sacrifice one’s own life for the sake of benefits to others (See Thomson 2008; Dorsey 2009), or could be permissibly coerced to adopt a form of employment that would transfer benefits to those who are not well off (Stanczyk 2012). Exactly which of these extreme claims is true is not crucial. The important point is that intermediate principles are ruled out.
A variety of philosophers accept Unintuitiveness. Almost all of them argue from there to accepting that moral demands are extreme. I propose two arguments in favor of rejecting the duty to aid in Easy Rescue. The first is the argument from gratitude:
(1) The fitting response to being saved from drowning in the case of easy rescue is extreme gratitude.
(2) Gratitude expresses that an agent has acted in a way that exceeds what could be morally demanded.
(3) If some action exceeds what could be morally demanded, then the failure to perform that action is not morally impermissible.
(4) So, the failure to save a person in the case of easy rescue is not morally impermissible.
My own intuition is strongly in favor of (1). Empirical psychology on the emotion of gratitude supports the hypothesis that this intuition is widespread (Algoe and Haidt 2009; McCullough et. al 2001). I believe that (3) is a conceptual truth about obligation. Premise (2) is likely most controversial. Three literatures support (2). First, several of metaethicists explain gratitude as a reactive emotion that communicates directed appreciation or approval for another agent’s having done some morally good action which could not have been demanded of them (Darwall 2006; Smith 2008; Macnamara 2013). Second, Herman (2012) has argued that gratitude functions as a corrective to an inequality of moral standing between two agents that follows from one giving unrequired aid to another. Third, empirical psychology finds that gratitude signals a desire to repay the target agent (Algoe and Haidt 2009). However, no such moral debt would accrue from the performance of a required action. Finally, I note that because these literatures are not motivated by any first order intuitions about Easy Rescue or Cool Touch, they offer a methodologically favorable way of deciding the issue.
I next present an analogous argument to the above, except motivated by our reluctance to blame those who do not meet the demands of extreme moral theories. Given Unintuitiveness, and a conceptual connection between blame and permissibility, this supports the claim that there is no duty to aid in Easy Rescue.
Why are there strong intuitions that there is a moral requirement to aid in Easy Rescue? I believe the perspective of the case is crucial. Considered from the point of view of the person who can give aid, it is easy feel that one “must” do it. But the phenomenology of “must-ness” may not support the presence of a moral requirement. It might instead be that I have decisive moral reason to give aid. However, decisive moral reason does not establish obligation (Harman 2015). Testing intuitions from both perspectives can support an error theory about opposing views.