You are trying to get a permit that you are both morally and legally entitled to, but an official requires a bribe to give you the permit. Are you permitted to pay the bribe?
I always thought: Of course!
But now I think this is more difficult than it has seemed to me. Initially, it seems that your action plan is very simple:
- Give the bribe in order that the official give you the permit.
But suppose that you pay the bribe and the official never notices the money slipped onto her desk, though when you lean over her desk, from that angle you look just like her nephew, so she gives you the permit out of nepotism. In that case, while you got what you wanted, you didn’t fulfill your plan–your bribery was not a success. That shows that (1) is only a part of your action plan. More fully, your plan is:
- Give the bribe in order that the official be motivated by it (in the usual way bribes motivate) to give you the permit.
But now it seems to be a moral evil that an official be motivated by a bribe to do something, even if the thing she is motivated to do is the right thing. So in setting oneself on plan (2), it seems one intends something immoral.
I wonder if this isn’t a case similar to asking a murderer: “If you are going to kill me, kill me painlessly” (which one might even put in the simple phrase “Kill me painlessly”, with everybody understanding that the request is conditional). In that case, your intention is not that the murderer kill you painlessly, but that:
- If the murderer kills you, she kills you painlessly.
And that conditional isn’t a bad thing.
One makes the request of the murderer on the expectation–but certainly neither intention nor hope!–that the the antecedent of the conditional will turn out to be true. Nonetheless, one does not intend the consequent.
Perhaps in the bribery case one has a similar intention:
- If the official isn’t going to be motivated by duty, she will be motivated by the bribe.
One then gives the bribe on the expectation–but neither intention nor hope–that the official will be unmotivated by duty.
But things aren’t quite that simple. Suppose that I prefer Coca Cola to cocaine, and in a really shady restaurant I place this order:
- I’ll have a Coca Cola, but if you can’t do that, then I’ll have some cocaine.
Here I’ve done something wrong: I’ve conditionally procured illegal drugs. But how to distinguish (5) from (3) and (4)?
One psychological difference is that in (5), presumably I desire the cocaine, just not as much as I desire the Coca Cola. But in (3) and (4), I don’t desire the painless killing or the taking of the bribe. (Compare this case: Malefactors will forcibly give you Coca Cola, cocaine or cyanide. You say “I’ll have a Coca Cola, but if you can’t do that, I’ll have some cocaine.” Here, I presume, you don’t desire the cocaine, but it’s better than the Coca Cola. That’s more like (3) and (4) than like the restaurant version of (5).)
But I don’t really want to rest the relevant moral distinctions on desires.
Here’s what I’d like to say, but I have a hard time making it work out. In (5)–the restaurant coke/cocaine order–when the antecedent of the conditional is met, your will stands behind the consequent. In (3)–the killing case–your will doesn’t stand behind the consequent even when the antecedent of the conditional is met. Even when it is inevitable that you will be killed, you don’t intend to die, but only not to die painfully. But I worry about this. Suppose then you die painlessly. Isn’t your intention not to painfully die satisfied by the painless death, and hence the painless death was the means to avoiding the painful death? And in the bribery case you intend not to have your request denied, but wasn’t the taking of the bribe the means to the request?
Perhaps there is something much simpler, though, that doesn’t involve intentions so much. Perhaps it’s not morally wrong for the official to give the permit because of the bribe. What is wrong is for the official to give the permit solely because of the bribe. But you needn’t intend that. On the contrary, you might have emphasized to the official that you are morally and legally entitled to the permit. There are many ways the bribe can work. It might be the sole motive. But it might also be a partial motive. Or it might be a defeater for a defeater: "It's a lot of trouble to give permits, so I won't bother. But if I get a bribe, then the trouble is worth it." Of course, that still leaves the probably purely hypothetical case where you know that the only way the bribe will work is by being the sole motive. But now it's not so clear that it's permissible to give it.
And in the case of the murder, you are trying to dissuade the murder from killing you painfully by drawing her attention to the argument that option C is bad because there is a better–albeit still bad–option B? She might then go for option B or she might go for the good option A. Either way, she refrains from doing C. There is, in fact, a way in which the murder case is easier than the bribe case, because your being killed painlessly is not a means to your avoiding the painful death–it is what occurs in its place. If I am offered coffee or water and I go for the water, my drinking water isn’t a means to avoiding coffee, though it happens in its place.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteBut isn't it the case that when you intend the end, you intend the means?
If so, when you give a bribe to in order that the official give you the permit, the means is the acceptance of the bribe. The official has already asked for the bribe, and while you might hope that the official will change her mind, reject the bribe and do her duty, it seems to me that that wouldn't change the fact that the intended means is the acceptance of the bribe, which is in a psychologically realistic interpretation, your plan. Moreover, it usually is immoral for the official to take the bribe even if it's not the sole motivation, as she has an immoral motivation (even if in addition to other motives). In realistic cases, it's also wrong to take the bribe because it's a violation of her promise to abide by the law and do her duties according to it, since the law bans the acceptance of any bribes, regardless of any further motivations.
We may consider the following parallel: Alice learns she's pregnant. But she knows because of her condition, if she gets pregnant and the pregnancy progresses, it's likely to kill her.
So, she takes an abortion pill. However, while she has the expectation that the abortion pill will kill the embryo and save her life, she hopes that something else will happen (e.g., a miscarriage for some other cause saves her life). It would be inaccurate to say she did not intend the pill to kill the embryo, in the usual sense of the words, and assuming a realistic behavior on her part. And it seems to me the same goes for the bribe.
(Side note: I don't think Alice's actions are immoral, and I think the same goes (in many cases) for the bribes in the scenario in question, but that's another matter; my argument is about what counts as intending something).
Yeah, that is the worry... I think you may be right that what I wrote doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we have to look at right and wrong contrastively. Suppose that Bob is brainwashed so that he must kill an innocent, but it's up to him whether it's painful or painless. Then Bob might be praiseworthy for choosing the painless route rather than the painful one, especially if it takes great effort of will to do so. It's not that it's right for him to kill painlessly, but that it's right for him to kill painlessly rather than painfully. If that's right, then in the rare case of an official who is psychologically unable to grant the permit without a bribe, we might say that the official does right to take the bribe rather than refuse the permit.
But of course these are psychologically unrealistic cases. But perhaps the contrastive judgments of right and wrong remain true regardless. In other words, it is still true, whether or not Bob is capable of refraining from killing, that it is right for him to kill painlessly rather than painfully. But the inference from
1. It is right for x to do A rather than B
to
2. It is right for x to do A
is only valid given the premise
1.5. A and B are the only two options available.
Now, when x chooses A over B and C, she actually does three different things: chooses A over B, chooses A over C and chooses A over both B and C. An action can be right in one respect but wrong under another. To be right simpliciter, it must be right in all respects. So an action may be right as a choice of A rather than B, while wrong as a choice of A rather than C.
OK, so now maybe what we're doing with the bribe is bringing about that the official grants-the-permit-because-of-the-bribe rather than refusing-the-permit. And that action, under that description, is right. Of course, the action isn't right simpliciter, because the official had a third option, to refuse the bribe and grant the permit.
So we now have an admittedly rather iffy double effect case. You intend the good of the official granting the permit because of the bribe rather than refusing the permit. You foresee the evil of the official granting the permit because of the bribe rather than granting the permit while refusing the bribe. Proportionality is, I suppose, satisfied.
One difficulty is that this may conflict with my accomplishment of plans paper ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/42920164 ). Perhaps not. Difficult stuff here.
Another (perhaps related) difficulty is that it seems that pregnant Alice can make the same move. She chooses that the embryo die rather than that both she and the embryo die. But I think the analogy is only in words. What she is actually choosing between is killing the embryo and merely permitting the embryo and herself die. So while on the above it may be right to choose that the embryo die rather than that both she and the embryo die (imagine she is brainwashed so that she must either kill the embryo or kill herself and the embryo), that's not the choice she is facing. The choice she is facing is whether to kill one innocent rather than allow two to die, and here allowing two to die is, sadly, the right decision.
A final difficulty is that this seems to have the consequence that it could be permissible to hand a less painful weapon to the murderer, but I am not sure it is permissible to do that.
I'm not sure in which sense Bob is "brainwashed". Does he still have free will?
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to say that it's less immoral of Bob to kill painlessly than to kill painfully, but even so, it's still immoral.
That aside, I'm not sure the same applies to the official and the bribe:
Suppose that there are two officials, Jane and John, who have the authority to give you the permit, and also the legal obligation to do so should you request it from them, meeting the necessary conditions (ID, payment of a fee perhaps, etc.).
Each of them refuses to give you the permit unless you give them a bribe. So, you pick John, and pay him the bribe. So, he gives you the permit. Did John behave in a less immoral manner than Jane?
Arguably, John behaved even more immorally, because he ended up taking the bribe and so performing a further immoral action. I tend to think, though, that their behavior was probably immoral to the same degree, all other relevant things equal.
But if that's so, when you bribe John, you're getting him to perform an immoral action (take the bribe in exchange for the permit) which is neither more nor less immoral than what he would have otherwise done (i.e., refrain from giving you the permit due to your not paying him the bribe). Maybe you're bringing about that the official performs one immoral action instead of an equally immoral one. But then again, a general principle allowing that does not seem likely; it seems to depend on the case as far as I can tell.
By the way, I'm not sure why your painless death is not a means of avoiding the painful death. Let's say that Bob is painfully dying of a serious illness and is incapacitated to kill himself. So, he asks a doctor (willing to do so) to painlessly kill him. Would that not be a painless death used as a means of avoiding a painful one? It seems to me it would be so. I don't see anything immoral with that behavior (all other things equal, etc.), so we disagree about that, but regardless of whether the behavior is permissible, it does look like a painless death used as a means to avoid a painful one. Would that not be so in the case of the murderer and the painless weapon?
Relevant: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3078.htm#article4
ReplyDeleteYes, when you ask the doctor to kill you painlessly, the painless death is a means to avoiding a painful death.
ReplyDeleteBut when you ask the murderer to switch your type of death, it's not like that. It's more like when you're riding a trolley towards a painful death and then you shift the trolley to a path where the death is painless.
It looks like a means to an end to me. We may consider two parallel scenarios:
ReplyDeleteS1: The murderer has already poisoned Bob. The poison causes a very slow and very painful death. There is no antidote, and Bob is tied up. Bob asks the murderer to shoot him instead, so that he dies quickly. The murderer agrees, and shoots Bob in the head, killing him quickly.
S2: The murderer is about to poison Bob. The poison causes a very slow and very painful death. There is no antidote, and Bob is tied up. Bob asks the murderer to shoot him instead, so that he dies quickly. The murderer agrees, and shoots Bob in the head instead of poisoning him.
It seems to me that in both cases, the quick and perhaps somewhat less painful death is used as a means to avoid the very slow and very painful death. Do you think in S1, the death by shooting is a means to an end, but not in S2?
That would look very weird to me. Why would that be so?
Well, one complication is that the painless death in your case is earlier. That might or might not matter. I am uncomfortable with requesting an *earlier* painless death, but that discomfort may be misplaced.
ReplyDeleteLet's consider cases where we make various assumptions about times of death.
S3: Either the murderer poisons Bob at 10:00 which results in death at 11:00 (after an hour of agony) or the murderer shoots Bob at 10:59 which results in death at 11:00. It's Bob's choice which, and Bob chooses the shooting.
In this case, it is clear that Bob's death from bullet wounds is not a means to the murderer's not poisoning Bob. Barring time travel or backwards causation, it couldn't be a means to the non-poisoning, because the death occurs at 11:00 while the non-poisoning occurs at 10:00.
S4: The murderer administers either painful poison A or painless poison B at 10:00. Both poisons result in death some time later. Bob chooses B.
In this case, too, Bob's death from B can't be a means to his not getting A, because again the death comes later than the not getting.
Of course, in both S3 and S4, it could be argued that the *shooting* or the *administering of B* are causes of the non-administration of the painful poison. But one can intend a shooting or an administration of poison without intending death.
And now for a case more like yours:
S5: The murderer either administers a painful poison at 10:00 which causes death at 11:00, or shoots Bob at 10:00, which results in death at 10:01. Bob chooses the shooting over the poison.
This makes me uncomfortable, as I said. In S5, one cannot say that Bob's painless death is a means to his not being given a poison at 10:00, since the painless death is at 10:00. Rather what is a means to Bob's not being given a poison is his being shot instead.
Objection: While Bob's painless death is clearly not a means to his not being given a poison at 10:00, it may be a means to his not being given the poison ever. For imagine that Bob doesn't die of the shooting. Then won't the murderer poison him as soon as he realizes that Bob isn't going to die?
Response: Maybe, but it's not clear. Maybe he'll just shoot a second time. Or maybe rescue will come. Who knows?
What if we stipulate this? The murderer says: "I can shoot you now or poison you now. It's up to you. But if I shoot you, and if you don't die within two minutes, I'll poison you." Now it seems that Bob's painless death is a means to his not being given poison ever. I am not sure what to say about this case. I am inclined to think that it doesn't differ much from the case before it, and that the intentions aren't different, so that even in this case there is no intention to die.
I still think it's a means to an end. For example:
ReplyDeleteS6: It's 9.55. The murderer is planning to poison Bob at 10:00. The poison would result in horrible agony (beginning about 10.10), and then death at 11.00. Bob is trying to convince the murderer to shoot him dead instead. At 9.59, Bob manages to convince the murderer not to do it, and instead shoot him in the head, which the murderer does immediately.
S7: It's 9.55. The murderer is planning to poison Bob at 10:00. The poison would result in horrible agony (beginning about 10.10), and then death at 11.00. Bob is trying to convince the murderer to shoot him dead instead. At 10.00, the murderer poisons Bob as planned. Bob keeps trying to persuade him. At 10.05 Bob manages to convince the murderer to shoot him in the head, which the murderer does immediately.
It seems clear to me that getting shot dead is a means of avoiding the agony+death, both in S6 and S7. If one wants to ensure death, one can stipulate that the murderer has a big gun, say at least an AK-47, or something like that.
I think the original “Kill me painlessly” scenario is relevantly similar to this one.
But if we consider S3, I think the matter is also relevantly similar regardless of when the poisoning would happen (leaving aside the issue that in the original scenario, as well as in S6 and S7, the victim initiates the attempt to convince the murderer, whereas in S3, that does not seem to be the case). For example:
S3': Either the murderer poisons Bob at 11:00 which results in death at 12:00 (after an hour of agony) or the murderer shoots Bob at 10:59 which results in death at 11:00. It's Bob's choice which, and Bob chooses the shooting.
I reckon that the actions of Bob in S3 and S3' are morally on par (both permissible, but if they weren't both permissible, they'd be both impermissible). Granted, Bob does not want to get killed, but he intends to persuade the murderer to shoot him dead, as a means of avoiding being poisoned. Also, granted, Bob may well still hope that something else would happen - extremely improbable police intervention; even a miracle if Bob is a theist. But then again, the same applies to cases of choosing to be killed painlessly to avoid dying horribly of an illness - the person making the choice may still hope that something else saves him; it's not enough to say that death is not intended, in the relevant sense.
Christopher:
ReplyDeleteI've been sceptical of Aquinas' argument, because of the consideration that even if the usurer is in the business of usury, my visit to her shop leads her to one more sin of usury.
"But she's already committed usury in her heart." True. But there is a further act of will in committing usury with the hand (taking the unjust earnings), which further act of will is itself sinful.
Maybe what one should say in regard to Aquinas' case is that he's right that one's cooperation with the usury is only material. Nonetheless, one is materially inducing a further sin. This may be permissibly done with sufficiently grave reason, and poverty may be such a reason.
In some rare cases, one could also use the "counseling the lesser evil" principle and maybe even formally induce the usurious lending. Suppose your family will die of starvation if you do not obtain some money, and a miser has a luxurious excess of money and is not planning to give it to anyone else. The miser has a moral duty to give you, or someone like you, the money. But she is determined to refuse to perform this moral duty. In so doing, according to Ambrose and Aquinas, she is determined to steal money that by rights belongs to the needy. It would be a lesser sin to lend usuriously to the starving than to give the starving nothing. A sufficiently strong version of the counseling the lesser evil principle would allow you to say the usurer: "If you're not going to fulfill your duties towards the needy, at least lend me the money at usurious interest. You know that I'll be able to pay you back in a year or two."