Humility and the existence of God

Here’s a valid argument:

1. Humility is an appropriate attitude for everyone.

2. For highly accomplished individuals, humility is only an appropriate attitude if God exists.

3. Some individuals are highly accomplished.

4. So, God exists.

Premise (1) is controversial. The ancient Greeks would have denied it. But I think the reason they denied it is that they didn’t have the examples that the Christian tradition does, highly attractive examples examples of accomplished lives of great humility.

Here’s the thought behind premise (2). If there is no God, then highly accomplished individuals have much to brag about. Many of their accomplishments are primarily theirs.

Premise (3) is obvious.

Here’s another way to think about it. Given (1) and (3), we need an explanation of how it is that humility is an appropriate attitude for a highly accomplished individual. Classical theism’s doctrine of participation provides such an explanation: all the efforts and all the accomplishments are not truly theirs but a participation in God’s perfection.

Logically complex intentions

In a paper that was very important to me when I wrote it, I argue that the Principle of Double Effect should deal with accomplishment rather than intention. In particular, I consider cases of logically complex intentions: “I am a peanut farmer and I hate people with severe peanut allergies…. I secretly slip peanuts into Jones’ food in order that she should die if she has a severe peanut allergies. I do not intend Jones’ death—I only intend the logically complex state of Jones dying if she has a severe peanut allergy.” I then say that what is wrong with this action is that if Jones has an allergy, then I have accomplished her death, though I did not intend her death. What was wrong with my action is that my plan of action was open to a possibility that included my accomplishing her death.

But now consider a different case. A killer robot is loose in the building and all the doors are locked. The robot will stop precisely when it kills someone: it has a gun with practically unlimited ammunition and a kill detector that turns it off when it kills someone. It’s heading for Bob’s office, and Alice bravely runs in front of it to save his life. And my intuition is that Alice did not commit suicide. Yet it seems that Alice intended her death as a means to saving Bob’s life.

But perhaps it is not right to say that you intended your death at all. Instead, it seems plausible that Alice intention is:

1. If the robot will kill someone, it will kill Alice.

An additional reason to think that (1) is a better interpretation of Alice’s intentions than just her unconditionally intending to die is that if the robot breaks down before killing Alice, we wouldn’t say that Alice’s action failed. Rather, we would say that it was made moot.

But according to what I say in the accomplishment paper, if in fact the robot does not break down, then Alice accomplishes her own death. And that’s wrong. (I take it that suicide is wrong.)

Perhaps what we want to say is this. In conditional intention cases, when one intends:

2. If p, then q

and p happens and one’s action is successful, then what one has contrastively accomplished is:

3. its being the case that p and q rather than p and not q.

To contrastively accomplish A rather than B is not the same as to accomplish A simply. And there is nothing evil about contrastively accomplishing its being the case that the robot kills someone and kills Alice rather than the robot killing someone and not killing Alice. On the other hand, if we apply this analysis to the peanut allergy case, what the crazy peanut farmer contrastively accomplishes is:

4. Jones having a peanut allergy and dying rather than having a peanut allergy and not dying.

And this is an evil thing to contrastively accomplish. Roughly, it is evil to accomplish A rather than B just in case A is not insignificantly more evil than B.

But what about a variant case? The robot is so programmed that it stops as soon as someone in the building dies. The robot is heading for Bob and it’s too late for Alice to jump in front of it. So instead Alice shoots herself. Can’t we say that she shot herself rather than have Bob die, and the contrastive accomplishment of her death rather than Bob’s is laudable? I don’t think so. For her contrastive accomplishment was accomplished by simply accomplishing her death, which while in a sense brave, was a suicide and hence wrong.

A difficult but important task someone should do: Work out the logic of accomplishment and contrastive accomplishment for logically complex intentions.

Intention and credence

In a paper on Double Effect, I offer this kind of an example. Jim has sneaked into a zoo on a mission to kill the first mammal he sees at the zoo, because a very rich eccentric has informed him that he’d give a very large sum of money to famine relief if Jim did that. Jim sees the zookeeper and kills him, reasoning that zookeepers are mammals, and hence the kill will satisfy the eccentric’s condition. In the paper, I argued that Jim need not be intending to kill a human being even if he knows the zookeeper is a human being. His intention need simply be to kill that mammal. Of course, this is still a murder, and hence I argue that the Principle of Double Effect should not be formulated in the classical way in terms of intentions.

I think a lot of people are incredulous of my claim that Jim can know that the mammal he is shooting is a human being and yet not intend to be killing a human being. It’s just occurred to me that there may be a way to help overcome that incredulity by making the story more gradual. Jim first sees a shadowy figure in the dark in the primate enclosure very far away. He assumes it’s an ape, and aims his rifle. However, he doesn’t want to miss, so he comes a couple of steps closer. As he gradually approaches, he has a very vague impression that there is something a little human-like about the movements of that primate. He thinks to himself, however, that apes are close relatives to humans, so it’s almost certainly still an ape. But as he approaches, his evidence that what is before him is a human rather than an ape increases. Finally, by the time he’s close enough to shoot, the evidence is conclusive: he knows it’s a human. But he doesn’t care a whit—the only thing that matters to this callous individual is that it’s a mammal. So he shoots and murders.

Let’s suppose that Jim’s credence that the mammal is human goes from 0.0001 to 0.9999 as he walks forward. At the 0.0001 point, it’s clearly not Jim’s intention to kill a human being. Nor at the 0.5000 point. Nor even at the 0.5001 point. Could it be that Jim’s intention becomes one to kill a human being once his credence gets high enough for him to count as believing, or maybe even knowing, that this is a human being? But it is implausible that a merely numerical increase in the credence suddenly forces a change in Jim’s intention. Intention just does not seem to be degreed in a way that lines up with the degreed nature of Jim’s credence.

So, what should we say? I think it is this: Whether Jim’s credence was 0.0001 or 0.9999 at the time of the shot, as long as he was acting callously and not caring about whether the victim is ape or human, he accomplished the death of a human being. This accomplishment (or something close to it) makes him a murderer. Of course, at the 0.0001 credence point, it would be hard to prove in a court of law that he accomplished the death, that he shot without caring whether the victim is ape or human, caring only that the victim was a mammal.

Rollerblading three and eight miles

Suppose I intend to rollerblade eight miles. And I succeed. Then I also rollerbladed three miles. But I need not have intended to rollerblade three miles, though of course my arithmetic is good enough that if asked “Will you also go three miles?” I would have answered affirmatively. Suppose that rollerblading three miles were intrinsically wrong. Then I couldn’t excuse myself by invoking the Principle of Double Effect, saying “I intended eight miles, not three.” Rollerblading three miles wasn’t intended. But it also wasn’t a side-effect like Double Effect talks about.

But isn’t rollerblading three miles a means to rollerblading eight miles? If it is, it isn’t a causal means (unless I have to rollerblade three miles before I’m allowed to do eight). Maybe it’s a constitutive means: rollerblading three miles is partly constitutive of rollerblading eight miles. But even that’s not quite right. There are many instances of rollerblading three miles within rollerblading eight miles: the first three miles, the last three miles, the middle three miles, and so on, perhaps even ad infinitum. One could make a case that rollerblading the first (or last or middle) three miles is a constitutive means to rollerblading eight. But rollerblading three miles is a disjunctive event: it is rollerblading the first three or the middle three or the last three or …. And while this disjunctive event has to happen for me to rollerblade eight miles, it isn’t a constitutive means to rollerblading eight miles.

So it looks like rollerblading three miles is neither a causal nor a constitutive means to rollerblading eight miles. This is another consideration in favor of my thesis that the Principle of Double Effect must go beyond the concept of means to that of accomplishment. For I definitely accomplish rollerblading three miles (in fact, multiple times) in rollerblading eight miles. Here's a quick test for this: Suppose that after three miles I have to stop. Then I would say: "I aimed for eight miles but all I managed to accomplish was three." But if I didn't stop after three, I would surely still have accomplished three.

Intending material conditionals and dispositions, with an excursus on lethally-armed robots

Alice has tools in a shed and sees a clearly unarmed thief approaching the shed. She knows she is in no danger of her life or limb—she can easily move away from the thief—but points a gun at the thief and shouts: “Stop or I’ll shoot to kill.” The thief doesn’t stop. Alice fulfills the threat and kills the thief.

Bob has a farm of man-eating crocodiles and some tools he wants to store safely. He places the tools in a shed in the middle of the crocodile farm, in order to dissuade thieves. The farm is correctly marked all-around “Man-eating crocodiles”, and the crocodiles are quite visible to all and sundry. An unarmed thief breaks into Bob’s property attempting to get to his tool shed, but a crocodile eats him on the way.

Regardless of what local laws may say, Alice is a murderer. In fulfilling the threat, by definition she intended to kill the thief who posed no danger to life or limb. (The case might be different if the tools were needed for Alice to survive, but even then I think she shouldn’t intend death.) What about Bob? Well, there we don’t know what the intentions are. Here are two possible intentions:

1. Prospective thieves are dissuaded by the presence of the man-eating crocodiles, but as a backup any that not dissuaded are eaten.

2. Prospective thieves are dissuaded by the presence of the man-eating crocodiles.

If Bob’s intention is (1), then I think he’s no different from Alice. But Bob’s intention could simply be (2), whereas Alice’s intention couldn’t simply be to dissuade the thief, since if that were simply her intention, she wouldn’t have fired. (Note: the promise to shoot to kill is not morally binding.) Rather, when offering the threat, Alice intended to dissuade and shoot to kill as a backup, and then when she shot in fulfillment of the threat, she intended to kill. If Bob’s intention is simply (2), then Bob may be guilty of some variety of endangerment, but he’s not a murderer. I am inclined to think this can be true even if Bob trained the crocodiles to be man-eaters (in which case it becomes much clearer that he’s guilty of a variety of endangerment).

But let’s think a bit more about (2). The means to dissuading thieves is to put the shed in a place where there are crocodiles with a disposition to eat intruders. So Bob is also intending something like this:

3. There be a dispositional state of affairs where any thieves (and maybe other intruders) tend to die.

However, in intending this dispositional state of affairs, Bob need not be intending the disposition’s actuation. He can simply intend the dispositional state of affairs to function not by actuation but by dissuasion. Moreover, if the thief dies, that’s not an accomplishment of Bob’s. On the other hand, if Bob intended the universal conditional

4. All thieves die

or even:

5. Most thieves die

then he would be accomplishing the deaths of thieves if any were eaten. Thus there is a difference between the logically complex intention that (4) or (5) be true, and the intention that there be a dispositional state of affairs to the effect of (4) or (5). This would seem to be the case even if the dispositional state of affairs entailed (4) or (5). Here’s why there is such a difference. If many thieves come and none die, then that constitutes or grounds the falsity of (4) and (5). But it does not constitute or ground the falsity of (3), and that would be true even if it entailed the falsity of (3).

This line of thought, though, has a curious consequence. Automated lethally-armed guard robots are in principle preferable to human lethally-armed guards. For the human guard either has a policy of killing if the threat doesn’t stop the intruder or has a policy of deceiving the intruder that she has such a policy. Deception is morally problematic and a policy of intending to kill is morally problematic. On the other hand, with the robotic lethally-armed guards, nobody needs to deceive and nobody needs to have a policy of killing under any circumstances. All that’s needed is the intending of a dispositional state of affairs. This seems preferable even in circumstances—say, wartime—where intentional killing is permissible, since it is surely better to avoid intentional killing.

But isn’t it paradoxical to think there is a moral difference between setting up a human guard and a robotic guard? Yet a lethally-armed robotic guard doesn’t seem significantly different from locating the guarded location on a deadly crocodile farm. So if we think there is no moral difference here, then we have to say that there is no difference between Alice’s policy of shooting intruders dead and Bob’s setup.

I think the moral difference between the human guard and the robotic guard can be defended. Think about it this way. In the case of the robotic guard, we can say that the death of the intruder is simply up to the intruder, whereas the human guard would still have to make a decision to go with the lethal policy in response to the intruder’s decision not to comply with the threat. The human guard could say “It’s on the intruder’s head” or “I had no choice—I had a policy”, but these are simply false: both she and the intruder had a choice.

None of this should be construed as a defence in practice of autonomous lethal robots. There are obvious practical worries about false positives, malfunctions, misuse and lowering the bar to a country’s initiating lethal hostilities.

Intending a disjunction that has an evil disjunct

This may take back the central part of my argument about tautologously equivalent intentions.

Suppose that Sally is a crime boss who really hates Fred and really likes fresh salmon. So she tells a henchman: "I need some sparkle in my day. I need you today to either kill Fred or find me some fresh salmon." Sally's intention is that

1. Fred is killed or Sally[note 1] gets fresh salmon.

It seems, then, that (1) is a wicked intention for Sally to have. What makes it wicked is that one of its disjuncts is an evil.

But actually (1) is not a wicked intention as such for Sally to have. Let's say I am the henchman. But yesterday I repented of my sins and confessed them all, and then I went to the FBI. The FBI asked me to remain in Sally's service for a few more days while they gather more evidence. So there I am: Sally wants me to kill Fred or find her some fresh salmon. I go and find her some fresh salmon. Why? In order to fulfill her order by killing Fred or getting her some fresh salmon. In other words, I am finding her some fresh salmon as a means to (1), which in turn is a means to having Sally be satisfied with me for a couple more days. My intention is morally upright.

There is nothing wrong, then, with acting to make true a disjunction that has an evil disjunct as long as I do so by means of making true a non-evil disjunct. There is something wrong with acting to make true a disjunction that has an evil disjunct indifferently between the disjuncts, as Sally does or as a henchperson passing Sally's unchanged order to a lower-down henchperson would be doing.

Notice a crucial difference between my and Sally's action plan. If I were to kill Fred, that would not fulfill my action plan. For my plan was to make the disjunction true by making the salmon disjunct true. But it would fulfill Sally's action plan.

Here is a tough question: What intention does Sally have that makes her action wicked and mine upright? Of course Sally has a desire that Fred die, and that makes her, we may suppose, a wicked person. But that does not make her action wicked. Sally wants to please herself. I want to please Sally. So far our intentions are the same. Sally wants to please herself by making (1) true. I want to please Sally by making (1) true. Our intentions are still the same. I have an additional intention: to make the salmon disjunct true. Sally doesn't care how (1) is made true. But that's a matter of her lacking an intention. Is that what makes her action wicked?

If so, then this would be an interesting example of a thought I've explored in other contexts, that certain actions are only permitted with certain intentions. For instance it is only permitted to participate in some of the sacraments if one has an appropriate intention. Or perhaps it is only permitted for spouses to make love with the intention of uniting or the intention of reproducing. Or maybe it is only permissible to assert with the intention of avoiding asserting a falsehood. To these kinds of cases (which are controversial, of course) one would add: one is only permitted to intend a disjunction with an evil disjunct if one additionally intends a non-evil disjunct (or intends that a non-evil disjunct be true or something else of like nature).

In "The Accomplishment of Plans", I've suggested that it's wrong to act in such a way that an evil might be accomplished by one. (Not everything one causes is accomplished. Paradigmatic cases of unintended side-effects are caused but not accomplished.) This would also explain the difference between Sally and me. Sally's plan is such that she might end up accomplishing Fred's death through it. But my plan is not like that. While I might accidentally kill Fred while driving to the airport in order to fly to a place where they have fresh salmon, Fred's death wouldn't be an accomplishment of mine.