Abstaining from goods

There are many times when we refrain from pursuing an intrinsic good G. We can classify these cases into two types:

1. we refrain despite G being good, and

2. we refrain because G is good.

The “despite” cases are straightforward, such as when one refrains from from reading a novel for the sake of grading exams, despite the value of reading the novel.

The “because” cases are rather more interesting. St Augustine gives the example of celibacy for the sake of Christ: it is because marriage is good that giving it up for the sake of Christ is better. Cases of religious fasting are often like this, too. Or one might refrain from something of value in order to punish oneself, again precisely because the thing is of value. These are self-sacrificial cases.

One might think another type of example of a “because” case is where one refrains from pursuing G now in order to obtain it by a better means, or in better circumstances, in the future. For instance, one might refrain from eating a cake on one day in order to have the cake on the next day which is a special occasion. Here the value of the cake is part of the reason for refraining from pursuit. On reflection, however, I think this is a “because” case. For we should distinguish between the good G₁ of having the cake now and the good G₂ of having the cake tomorrow. Then in delaying one does so despite the good of G₁ and because of the good of G₂. The good of G₁ is not relevant, unless this becomes sacrificial.

I don’t know if all the “because” cases are self-sacrificial in the way celibacy is. I suspect so, but I would not be surprised if a counterexample turned up.

Self-sacrifice and bigotry

Consider:

Case 1: A child is drowning in a dirty pond. You can easily pull out the child. But you’ve got cuts all over your dominant arm and the water is full of nasty bacteria and medical help is a week away. If you go in the water to pull out the child, your arm will get infected, become gangrenous and in a week it will be amputated. There will be no social losses or gains to you.

Case 2: A child is drowning in a clean pond. You can easily pull out the child. But the child is a member of a despised minority group, and you will be ostracized by your friends and family for life for your rescue. There will be no physical losses or gains to you.

Here is my intuition. In both cases, it would be a good thing to rescue the child. But in Case 1, unless you have special duties (e.g., it’s your own child), you do not have a duty to rescue given the physical costs. In Case 2, however, you do have a duty to rescue, despite the social costs.

The difference between the two cases does not, I think, lie in its being worse to lose an arm than to be ostracized. Imagine your community has a rite of passage that involves swimming in the dirty pond with the cuts on your arm, and you’d be ostracized if you don’t. You might well reasonably judge it worthwhile—but still, I think, the intuition remains that in Case 2 you ought to pull out the child, while in Case 1 it’s supererogatory. So it seems then you might have a duty to undertake the greater sacrifice (facing social stigma in Case 2) without a duty to undertake the lesser sacrifice (amputation in Case 1). But for simplicity let’s just suppose that the harms to you in the two cases are on par.

Is it that physical harm excuses one from the duty to rescue the child but social harm does not? I don’t think so.

Case 3: A child is being murdered by drowning in a clean pond. You can easily pull out the child. But if you do, the murderer will punish you for it by transporting you away from your home community to a foreign community where you will never learn the difficult language and hence will not have friends.

We can set this up so the harm in all three cases is equal. But my intuition is that Case 2 is like Case 1: in both cases it is supererogatory to rescue the child but there is no duty.

In Cases 2 and 3 we have equal social harms, but I feel a difference. (Maybe you don’t!) Here’s one consideration that would explain the difference. That an action gains one the praise and friendship of bigots qua bigots does not count much in favor of the action, even if, and perhaps even especially if, such praise and friendship would make one’s life significantly more pleasant. Similarly, that an action loses one the friendship of bigots, and does so precisely through their bigotry, is not much of a consideration against the action. I say “not much”, because there might be instrumental gains and losses in both cases to be accounted for.

Here’s a second consideration. Perhaps if I refrain from doing something directly because doing it will lose me bigots’ friendship or gain me their stigma, I am thereby complicit in the bigotry. In Case 2, then, I need to ignore the direct loss of goods of social connectedness in considering whether to rescue the child. I need to say to myself: “When those are the conditions of their friendship, so much the worse for their friendship.” In Case 3, I have similar social losses, but I don't lose the friendship of bigots qua bigots, so the loss counts a lot more.

But note that one can still legitimately consider the instrumental harms from the loss of goods of social connectedness. Consider:

Case 4: A child is drowning in a clean pond, but you have a wound that will become gangrenous and force amputation absent medical help. You can easily pull out the child. But the child is a member of a despised minority group, and if you rescue the child, the only doctor in town will refuse to have anything to do with you. As a result, your wound will become gangrenous by the time you find another doctor, and you will require amputation.

I think in Case 4, you are permitted not to rescue the child, just as in Case 1.

Proportionality in Double Effect is not a simple comparison

It is tempting to make the final “proportionality” condition of the Principle of Double Effect say that the overall consequences of the action are good or neutral, perhaps after screening off any consequences that come through evil (cf. the discussion here).

But “good or neutral” is not a necessary condition for permissibility. Alice is on a bridge above Bob, and sees an active grenade roll towards Bob. If she does nothing, Alice will be shielded by the bridge from the explosion. But instead she leaps off the bridge and covers the grenade with her body, saving Bob’s life at the cost of her own.

If “good or neutral” consequences are required for permissibility, then to evaluate the permissibility of Alice’s action it seems we would need to evaluate whether Alice’s death is a worse thing than Bob’s. Suppose Alice owns three goldfish while Bob owns two goldfish, and in either case the goldfish will be less well cared for by the heirs (and to the same degree). Then Alice’s death is mildly worse than Bob’s death, other things being equal. But it would be absurd to say that Alice acted wrongly in jumping on the grenade because of the impact of this act on her goldfish.

Thus, the proportionality condition in PDE needs to be able to tolerate some differences in the size of the evils, even when these differences disfavor the course of action that is being taken. In other words, although the consequences of jumping on the grenade are slightly worse than those of not doing so, because of the impact on the goldfish, the bad consequences of jumping are not disproportionate to the bad consequences of not jumping.

On the other hand, if it was Bob’s goldfish bowl, rather than Bob, that was near the grenade, the consequences of jumping would be disproportionate to the consequences of not jumping, since Alice’s death is disproportionately bad as compared to the death of Bob’s goldfish.

Objection: The initial case where Alice jumps to save Bob’s life fails to take into account the fact that Alice’s act of self-sacrifice adds great value to the consequences of jumping, because it is a heroic act of self-sacrifice. This added increment of value outweighs the loss to Alice’s extra goldfish, and so I was incorrect to judge that the consequences are mildly negative.

Response: First, it seems to be circular to count the value of the act itself when evaluating the act’s permissibility, since the act itself only has positive value if it is permissible. And anyway one can tweak the case to avoid this difficulty. Suppose that it is known that if Alice does not jump on the grenade, Carl who is standing beside her will. And Carl only owns one goldfish. Then whether Alice jumps or not, the world includes a heroic act. And it is better that Carl jump than that Alice, other things being equal, as Carl only has one goldfish depending on him. But it is absurd that Alice is forbidden from jumping in order that a man with fewer goldfish might do it in her place.

Question: How much of a difference in value can proportionality tolerate?

Response: I don’t know. And I suspect that this is one of those parameters in ethics that needs explaining.

Eternal life and the crucible of character theodicy

Consider the crucible of character theodicy, that we are permitted by God to meet with great evils in order to form a character with virtues like courage and sacrificial love whose significant exercise requires significant evils.

I take it that it’s clear that forming such a character is worthwhile. But there are at least three problems with this theodicy:

1. While such character formation is valuable, is it valuable enough to justify our suffering great evils? Wouldn’t it have been better if God just gave us the virtues directly, rather than having us pay a great price?

2. Even if it is valuable enough to justify our suffering great evils, wouldn’t it be better if we suffered fewer or lesser ones?

3. What about those who suffer and develop a vicious character?

I think these three problems can be overcome if we think about heavenly life as an infinite value multiplier.

Ad 1: There is clearly some additional value to having virtues that were formed through significantly free exercises of them rather than having had these virtues imposed on one. In heaven, on infinitely many days one has and enjoys the value of having virtues. But if one has formed these virtues through significantly free exercise, then on infinitely many days one also has and enjoys the additional value of having virtues that were thus formed. That’s an infinite additional increment. So as long as the disvalue of the sufferings in this life was finite—which surely it was—it’s worth it.

Ad 2: The greater the sufferings that one endured courageously and the greater the sacrifices one made in love, the more fully one owns the resulting courage and love. For in more extreme exercises of these virtues, one has a greater opportunity to abandon the path of virtue, and one’s presence on that path is more truly one’s own. And this deeper ownership over one’s virtue—bearing in mind, of course, that all one has is a participation of God, and that grace is deeply involved—adds an additional value of virtue-ownership throughout an infinite number of future days. Hence, it adds an infinite amount of value, which is surely worth it.

Ad 3: This is probably the most serious worry. Start with this thought. God is choosing whether to snatch Judas up to heaven in the first moment of his existence, imposing on him a perfectly virtuous character, or to give Judas the opportunity to freely develop and own that character. A toy model for this an extended utility calculation. On the first option, we have an expected utility of

• V(eternal unowned virtue),

where V is value. On the second option, we have an expected utility of

• pV(eternal owned virtue) + (1 − p)V(Judas chooses vice)

where p is the probability that Judas would come through the crucible well. (Of course, this line of thought requires rejecting theological compatibilism and Molinism.) Here, V(eternal unowned virtue) and V(eternal owned virtue) are each infinite and positive. Plausibly, V(Judas chooses vice) is negative. Is it infinite? That’s not clear. One might think that on orthodox Christian views of hell, it is both negative and infinite. But that need not be the case. It could be that the suffering and vice in hell actually decreases from day to day, so that the total amount of suffering and vice over eternity is actually finite (think of how 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + ... = 2).

If V(Judas chooses vice), the argument still isn’t over, but I will assume that V(Judas chooses vice) is finite—we could just build that into the theodicy. In that case, we can basically neglect V(Judas chooses vice)—when the other quantities are infinite, a finite subtraction is only going to be a tie-breaker.

So now the question is whether V(eternal unowned virtue) is bigger than or equal to pV(eternal owned virtue). And here it seems very reasonable simply to make a sceptical theist move. We don’t know what was Judas’ probability of coming through the crucible well. We don’t know exactly how V(eternal owned virtue) compares to V(eternal virtue). It could be that a day with owned value is three times as valuable as a day with unowned virtue. If so, then as long as p > 1/3, God’s giving Judas the opportunity for freely choosing virtue was worthwhile.

There are many objections, of course, that one can make. Here’s one that particularly comes to my mind: Wouldn’t it be better for God to first give people the opportunity to freely choose a virtuous character, but then if they refuse to do so, to impose that character on them? After all, at least some infants go to heaven after death. But they haven’t developed a virtuous character through the described kind of crucible. And so it seems that God imposes on them a virtuous character.

There are two things I’m inclined to say to this. First, there is a relevant difference between the case of imposing virtue on an infant and imposing virtue on someone who has chosen against virtue. Second, those who choose virtue own their virtue more fully if they had the possibility of not having that virtue at all.

There is such a thing as supererogation

Supererogatory actions are admirable but not obligatory. A sufficient, and perhaps necessary, condition for an action A to be supererogatory is that (a) A is permissible and (b) there is an alternative B to A such that (i) it is permissible to do B instead and (ii) A is more morally praiseworthy than B.

Over the years, I've met people--including myself--who have been troubled by the idea of supererogatory actions and tempted to deny that there is such a thing as supererogation. But here is a pretty conclusive argument that there can be supererogatory actions. You and your friend, both innocent people, are captured by a tyrant. The tyrant sentences your friend to 24 hours of torture. Then the tyrant offers you the option of reducing your friend's torture by any amount of time less than 12 hours. And of course, she notes, any torture taken away from your friend will be given to you, by Public Law Number One: the Preservation of Torment.

Now, many people will say that any taking on of your friend's torture is automatically supererogatory. But I think the sort of people who doubt that there are supererogatory actions won't be impressed--they tend to have a view that morality does indeed sometimes call us to very great sacrifices (and they are right about that, even if they might be wrong about this case).

However, the following is surely true: There is an amount T₁<12 such that it is permissible to reduce the friend's torture by T₁ hours. Indeed, surely, T₁=11.99 qualifies. (Argument: reducing one's friend's torture by 11.99 hours, given the cost that one will suffer that torture oneself, is plainly praiseworthy simpliciter, but only permissible actions are praiseworthy simpliciter.) Let B be the action of reducing one's friend's torture by T₁ hours. Let T₂ be a number such that T₁<T₂<12. Let A be the action of reducing one's friend's torture by T₂ hours and let B be the action of reducing one's friend's torture by T₁ hours. Then, barring further factors not given in the story: (a) A is permissible (it would be odd if it were permissible to reduce one's friend's torture by, say, 11.99 hours but not by 11.999 hours); (b)(i) B is permissible and (b)(ii) A is more morally praiseworthy than B. Thus, A is supererogatory.

If you think time is discrete, the above example still can be made to work. Suppose for simplicity 11.99 hours is the longest time interval short of 12 hours. Then if you think there is no supererogation, you might think that you're obligated to request that your friend be relieved of 11.99 hours of torture. But as long as the agent in the story doesn't know that 11.99 hours is the longest time interval short of 12 hours there is, she can do something more praiseworthy than requesting the 11.99 hour reduction: she can request 11.999 hours, and as long as she is not certain that 11.99 hours is the most she can get, she thereby risks getting more than 11.99 hours of torture as the cost of trying to relieve more than 11.99 hours, and that's more praiseworthy than just going for 11.99.

Supererogation

Supererogation is a difficult concept for me. But there has to be such a thing. If Jones has suffered two hundred weeks of torture to save the lives of two hundred strangers, and then declines the 201st week of torture to save the life of the 201st stranger, Jones does not do wrong. And if he were to accept the torture, he would be acting superegatorily (barring special circumstances).

I doubt the following account is in the end right, but I think it is surprisingly defensible (modulo perhaps some minor tweaks):

• An action is supererogatory if and only if it is permissible and less convenient than some available alternative permissible action.

I don't have a good account of what "convenient" means, but "convenience" is meant to convey what one sacrifices when one makes "self-sacrifices". Thus, it is more convenient to endure less pain rather than more; it is more convenient to do the easier rather than the harder thing; it is more convenient to save than to lose one's life (this is an understatement in ordinary English, but I am using "convenience" in a sort of technical sense). But convenience probably won't count some higher goods to self, such as the exercise of virtue, which are gained rather than lost in self-sacrifice. Thus, a self-sacrifice can count as inconvenient even if overall one benefits from it because of the value of the exercise of virtue.

The account above seems to be subject to simple counterexamples. Let's say it's permissible for me to go to the kitchen, and suppose there are two paths—an easier and a harder one. Then surely both paths are permissible, and the harder one is less convenient, but that doesn't make the less convenient one supererogatory!

To respond I note that it is wrong to pointlessly impose burdens on any person—including oneself. (Argument 1: We are to love all of the people that God loves, and love prohibits pointless imposition of burdens. But I am one of the people God loves. So I am not permitted to impose pointless burdens on myself. Argument 2: What is vicious is impermissible. But pointless imposition of burdens on myself is contrary to the virtues of prudence and hence vicious.) Thus if there is no benefit to anybody from taking the harder path, the harder path is not permissible, and hence is not supererogatory. But suppose that there is a benefit to someone from the harder path: maybe I become physically or morally stronger, or maybe someone else benefits in some way. Then as long as the harder path is permissible (if the benefit is too trivial as compared to the burden, it might not be), it does seem to be supererogatory.

I do suspect that this account of supererogation only stands a chance if we have duties to self, but that's not a weakness of it.

Some people doubt that there are any supererogatory actions. On the above account, it is quite plausible that there are. First, we need to note that surely there are cases where we choose between multiple permissible actions. And second we note that it is very likely that among such choices there are going to be cases where the permissible options are not all equally convenient. And then the less convenient ones will be supererogatory.

Note that if convenience is what is given up in self-sacrifice, then every supererogatory action involves self-sacrifice. Now, self-sacrifice is relative to some alternative that does not involve such a sacrifice. We might then rephrase our definition of supererogation as:

• An action is supererogatory if and only if it is permissible and it is a self-sacrifice relative to some permissible alternative.

Go back to my initial case of Jones. If Jones did undergo the 201st week of torture, he would be doing something permissible, but it would also be permissible for him not to undergo that torture. However, undergoing the torture is less convenient. Again, this sounds like an absurd understatement, but in our technical sense of "convenient", it's not. It sounds a lot better in the language of self-sacrifice: Jones' undergoing the torture is permissible and is a self-sacrifice relative to the alternative of not undergoing it.

I think the weakness of the account is it does not make clear why supererogation is particularly praiseworthy. Moreover, even if the account happens to be extensionally correct, I don't think it captures what it is that grounds supererogation.

An asymmetry between good and evil, and an argument against utilitarianism

Here is an asymmetry between good and evil actions. It is very easy to generate cases of infinitely morally bad actions. You just need to imagine an agent who has the belief that if she raises her right hand, she will cause torment to an infinite number of people. And she raises her right hand in order to do so. But there doesn't seem to be a corresponding easy way to generate infinitely morally good actions. Take the case of an agent who thinks that if she raises her right hand, she will save infinitely many people from misery. Her raising her right hand will be a good action, but it will not be an infinitely morally good action. In fact, it will not be morally better than raising her right hand in a case where she believes that doing so will relieve finitely many from misery.

To make the point clearer, observe that it is a morally great thing to sacrifice one's life to save ten people. But it is a morally more impressive thing to sacrifice one's life to save one person. Compare St Paul's sentiment in Romans 5:7, that it is more impressive to die for an unrighteous than a righteous person.

Chris Tweedt, when I mentioned some of these ideas, noted that they provide an argument against utilitarianism: utilitarianism cannot explain why it would be better to save one life than to save ten lives.

Now of course if the choice is between saving one life and saving ten lives with the sacrifice, then saving ten lives is normally the better action. In fact, if the one life is that of a person among the ten, to save only that one life would normally[note 1] be irrational, and we morally ought not be irrational. But that's because choices should be considered contrastively. Previously, when I said that giving one's life for one is better than giving one's life for ten, I meant that

1. choosing to save one other's life over saving one's own life

was a better choice than

2. choosing to save ten others' lives over saving one's own life.

But the present judgment was, instead, that:

3. choosing to save one other's life over saving one's own life or saving ten others' lives

is normally rationally and morally inferior to

4. choosing to save ten others' lives over saving one's own life or saving one other's life.

Cases (1) and (2) were comparisons between choices made in different choice situations, while cases (3) and (4) were comparisons between choices made in the same choice situation. The moral value of a choice depends not just on what one is choosing but on what one is choosing over (this is obvious).

But even after taking this into account, it's hard to see how a utilitarian can make sense of the judgment that (1) is morally superior to (2). In fact, from the utilitarian's point of view, if everything relevant is equal, (1) is morally neutral—it makes no net difference—while (2) is morally positive.

Perhaps, though, we need a distinction between moral impressiveness and moral goodness? So maybe (1) is more morally impressive than (2), but (2) is still morally better. This distinction would be analogous to that between moral repugnance and moral badness. Pulling wings off flies for fun is perhaps more morally repugnant than killing someone in a fair fight to defend one's reputation, but the latter is a morally worse act.

But I do not think the difference between (1) and (2) is just that of moral impressiveness. Here's one way to see this. It is plausible that as one increases the number of people whose lives are saved, or starts to include among them people one has special duties of care towards, one will reach the point where the sacrifice of one's life is morally obligatory. But to sacrifice one's life to save one stranger is morally supererogatory. And while I don't want to say that every supererogatory action is better than every obligatory action, this seems to be a case where the supererogatory action is better than the obligatory one.

On reflection, however, it is quite possible to increase the moral value of a good act. Just imagine, for instance, that you believe that you will suffer forever unless you murder an innocent person. Then refraining from the immoral action will be infinitely good (or just infinitely impressive?). So we can increase the badness of an action apparently without bound by making the intended result worse, and we can increase the goodness of an action by making the expected cost to self worse (as long as one does not by doing so render the action irrational--cases need to be chosen carefully).

Self-love and self-seeking

The following are excerpts from my book manuscript on love, which I am now revising. Comments (whether substantive or stylistic) are welcome. The setting for the puzzle below is Paul's observation in 1 Cor. 13 that love does not seek its own:

There is, however, a special puzzle in the case of love of oneself. The command in Leviticus (19:18) to love one’s neighbor as oneself is a seminal text, including for the Christian Scriptures which quote it frequently (Mt. 5:43, 19:19, 22:39, Mk. 12:31-33, Lk. 10:27, Rom. 13:9, Gal. 5:14, James 2:8). But how can love of oneself not be self-seeking? One answer could be that Paul is giving us a general quality of love: love focuses us on the beloved. In the special case where the beloved is oneself, this calls for a focus on self, but that is not the result of a general quality of love, but of the particularity of the beloved in this form of love. But there may be a deeper way to understand how a love of oneself can be non-self-seeking, and we will come to that in Section 2.9.

...

2.9. Love of oneself and self-seeking

We saw that we need to distinguish the reasons for loving someone from the reasons for having a particular form of love for someone. The reasons for loving need not vary from beloved to beloved. My son, my wife, my sister, my father, my friend and my enemy is each a human being created in the image and likeness of God, and this calls out for a response of love. So I can love each of my neighbors for the very same reason. But the different forms that the love should take are each justified by different reasons. I love my son with a paternal love that includes a certain kind of authority because he is my son and because he is young. I love my friend with a friendly love perhaps because of our shared history of companionship.

This offers us a speculative way to see how Paul’s observation (1 Cor. 13:15) that agapê does not seek its own might apply to self-love. Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics IX.4 observes that good people have the same kinds of reasons for loving themselves as they do for loving others: namely, they can love themselves for their character. At same time, Aristotle seems to think that thoroughly corrupt individuals have no reason to love themselves, and indeed do not. Aristotle was wrong in thinking that there was no reason to love the thoroughly corrupt—they, too, are people—but the idea that virtuous persons love themselves for the same reason that they love others is compelling.

This then offers a way in which well-ordered love of oneself is not self-seeking. When Francis virtuously loves himself, i.e., Francis, he does not love Francis because Francis is himself, but he loves Francis because Francis is a human being in the image and likeness of God. Or, at least, he does not primarily love Francis for being himself, but primarily loves him for the attributes that Francis shares with all other humans. Virtuous people love their neighbors as themselves. Conversely, they love themselves as they love their neighbors, namely for the same kind of reason. And in this sense the love is not self-seeking, since although the beloved is oneself, the beloved is loved primarily for reasons for which one loves one’s neighbor rather than for being oneself.

At the same time, love for oneself has a different form from love for another, just as love for one’s friend and love for one’s father have different forms. Perhaps the most important is that one’s relationship with oneself involves a kind of authority that one’s relationship with one’s friend or parent do not have: I can require sacrifices of myself that I have no right to require of a friend or parent. Another is that correlative with this authority over oneself there is a special responsibility for one’s moral development, going beyond that which one has for a friend or parent’s, and more akin to, though perhaps going further than, one’s responsibility for one’s children’s moral development.

Epistemic self-sacrifice and prisoner's dilemma

In the fall, I attended a really neat talk by Patrick Grim which reported on several computer simulation experiments by Grim. Suppose you have a bunch of investigators who are each trying to find the maximum ("the solution to the problem") of some function. They search, but they also talk to one other. When someone they are in communication with finds a better option than their own, they have a certain probability of switching to that. The question is: How much communication should there be between investigators if we want the community as a whole to do well vis-a-vis the maximization problem?

Consider two models. On the Local Model (my terminology), the investigators are arranged around the circumference of a circle, and each talks only to her immediate neighbors. On the Internet Model (also my tendentious terminology), every investigator is in communication with every investigator. So, here's what you get. On both models, the investigators eventually communally converge on a solution. On the Internet Model, community opinion converges much faster than on the Local Model. But on the Internet Model the solution converged on is much more likely to be wrong (to be a local maximum rather than the global maximum).

So, here is a conclusion one might draw (which may not be the same as Grim's conclusion): If the task is satisficing or time is of the essence, the Internet Model may be better—we may need to get a decent working answer quickly for practical purposes, even if it's not the true one. But if the task is getting the true solution, it seems the Local Model is a better model for the community to adopt.

Suppose we're dealing with a problem where we really want the true solution, not solutions that are "good enough". This is more likely in more theoretical intellectual enterprises. Then the Local Model is epistemically better for the community. But what is epistemically better for the individual investigator?

Suppose that we have a certain hybrid of the Internet and Local Models. As in the Local Model, the investigators are arranged on a circle. Each investigator knows what every other investigator is up to. But the investigator has a bias in favor of her two neighbors over other investigators. Thus, she is more likely to switch her opinion to match that of her neighbors than to match that of the distant ones. There are two limiting cases: in one limiting case, the bias goes to zero, and we have the Internet Model. In the other limiting case, although she knows of the opinions of investigators who aren't her neighbors, she ignores it, and will never switch to it. This is the Parochial Model. The Parochial Model gives exactly the same predictions as the Local Model.

Thus, investigators' having an epistemic bias in favor of their neighbors can be good for the community. But such a bias can be bad for the individual investigator. Jane would be better off epistemically if she adopted the best solution currently available in the community. But if everybody always did that, then the community would be worse off epistemically with respect to eventually getting at the truth, since then we would have the Internet Model.

This suggests that we might well have the structure of a Prisoner's Dilemma. Everybody is better off epistemically if everybody has biases in favor of the local (and it need not be spatially local), but any individual would be better off defecting in favor of the best solution currently available. This suggests that epistemic self-sacrifice is called for by communal investigation: people ought not all adopt the best available solution—we need eccentrics investigating odd corners of the solution space, because the true solution may be there.

Of course, one could solve the problem like this. One keeps track of two solutions. One solution is the one that one comes to using the biased method and the other is the best one the community has so far. The one that one comes to using the biased method is the one that one's publications are based on. The best one the community has so far is the one that one's own personal opinion is tied to. The problem with this is that this kind of "double think" may be psychologically unworkable. It may be that investigation only works well when one is committed to one's solution.

If this double think doesn't work, this suggests that in some cases individual and group rationality could come apart. It is individually irrational to be intellectually eccentric, but good for the community that there be intellectual eccentrics.

My own pull is different in this case than in the classic non-epistemic Prisoner's Dilemma. In this case, I think one should individually go for individual rationality. One should not sacrifice oneself epistemically here by adopting biases. But in the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, one has very good reason to sacrifice oneself.

Psychological connectedness/continuity and self-sacrifice

At least if I have no dependents, it would be praiseworthy, supererogatory and hence permissible to sacrifice my life to save the life of a stranger. It is permissible to take actions to save a stranger's life that I foresee (but do not intend) will cause my immediate death, and I equally have the right to take actions to save a stranger's life that will result in my dying in 20 years (e.g., because to save the stranger's life I need to brave some radiation hazard which will eventually kill me.

This is true even if I foresee that my character will shift in significant ways over the next 20 years, that I will then not have many memories of how things are for me now, and so on. In other words, I have the right to sacrifice the life of my future self for a stranger even if my future self will not be very much psychologically connected to me. On the other hand, I have no right to sacrifice the life of my friend for a stranger without my friend's permission, and the closer the friend is to me, the worse such a sacrifice would be. This shows that my relationship to my future selves is significantly unlike my relationship to my friends. It does not matter how psychologically close to or distant from my future self I am--I have the right to make the sacrifice. But the closer I am to my friend, the worse it is to sacrifice the friend for a stranger without the friend's permission.

Thus, sometimes, identity matters, and psychological connectedness is largely irrelevant. Could one replace identity with psychological continuity in these considerations? No. For suppose that I know that next week I will fission into two individuals. I will have psychological connectedness and continuity with them. But I have no right to sacrifice their lives to save the lives of two strangers, e.g., by exposing myself now to a dose of radiation that will result in the two descendant individuals dying in two weeks. It would be like sacrificing the lives of two children of one's own to save two strangers. The psychological connectedness and continuity are insufficient for permissibility here. And even if it were permissible, it would hardly be praiseworthy.

Or consider the following scenario. Rescuing the stranger will result in a dose of a substance to oneself that will first induce amnesia and then death. On psychological continuity theories, the person who dies is the person who inhabits your body after the amnesia and this is not you because of lack of psychological continuity (one might add that one has no plans for this person if need be). And so you have sacrificed the lives of two people to save the stranger--for you will die through the amnesia (on psychological continuity theories, amnesia is a cessation of existence), and then the new person who will come to exist in your body will die. So this is imprudent (sacrificing two to save one) and immoral (one of the sacrificed has not been consulted). But that is absurd--surely it makes no difference whether the substance directly causes death, or causes amnesia followed by death.

(In fact, the latter consideration seems a nice independent argument against psychological theories. Suppose that you're dying. Treatment A will give you 100 days of life. Treatment B is slightly less painful, and will result in 100 days of life, followed by amnesia, followed by an hour of life, followed by death. It seems permissible to opt for Treatment B. But if Treatment B means two people die--one through amnesia and another after--it may not be permissible to opt for it just because it is slightly less painful.)