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Thought Experiment 27: Duties Done

9/28/2015

5 Comments

 
Picture
Does that letter box REALLY work?
After a marathon post last week, I'm hoping this week's thought experiment will be a bit easier for me to do it justice. Let's see what's in store.

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     Hew, Drew, Lou, and Sue all promised their mother they would regularly write and let her know how they were getting on during their round-the-world trip.
     Hew wrote his letters, but gave them to the other people to post, none of whom bothered. So his mother never received any letters from him.
     Drew wrote her letters and posted them herself, but she carelessly put them in disused boxes, attached too few stamps and made other mistakes which meant none of them ever arrived.
     Lou wrote and posted all her letters properly, but the postal system let her down every time. Mother didn't hear from her.
     Sue wrote and posted all her letters properly, and made brief phone calls to check they had arrived. Alas, none did.
     Did any of the children keep their promise to their mother?

Source: The moral philosophy of H.A. Prichard, as critiqued by Mary Warnock in What Philosophers Think, edited by J. Baggini and J. Stanghroom (Continuum, 2003)

Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 79.
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Seems simple enough. Do intentions or consequences make all the difference? I promise to write you on Friday to let you know how I'm getting on with that debate.
5 Comments
atthatmatt link
9/28/2015 09:15:19 pm

This is not a good thought experiment. The question is unresolved and available for discussion only because the people involved didn't clarify what they were promising. Technically, by the most common interpretation of the words, they all fulfilled their promise to write to her, since they all did that.

This is not a good way to illustrate the intentions/consequences dynamic because this is all execution. This example is all middle ground between intentions and consequences. They all had the same intention, and they all had the same consequence. They only differed in effort and luck. There are many levels of execution that can be promised such as 'I will make an effort', 'I'll make it my top priority', and 'I'll make it happen no matter what'. That has to be specified in the promise otherwise you can argue about it endlessly with no resolution.

It's entirely possible the specifics weren't mentioned because their mother expects different things from them. My roommate promises to do the dishes, but I don't actually expect him to, so I don't think of it as a promise. If he leaves his level of execution unstated it means he's not going to make it a high priority or try hard. Other people have different defaults for the unstated details. I just heard a talk by a successful woman who had a Tiger Mom. Her mom literally slept in her bed so that she couldn't and would have no choice but to sit at the desk and study all night. That's a mom who doesn't care about intentions at all, only consequences. The mom in this example might care about the intentions, and not the consequences.

Reply
@EdGibney link
9/29/2015 07:56:09 am

They aren't my thought experiments so I certainly don't take it personally, but after doing these for a while it seems there are (at least) two types of thought experiments -- those trying to make a specific point, and those who just want to bring up an issue for exploration. This one is clearly one of the latter, and based on that intention I think your comment is a perfect consequence. : )

That aside, I do think there is a difference in the seriousness of the children's intentions as evinced by their actual efforts. Baggini's discussion of this goes into what is truly expected of us, a point he wants to raise since H. A. Prichard was chiefly concerned with morality as obligation as opposed to being a question of right or wrong. I'll enjoy taking about this on Friday. I thought it was an okay thought experiment.

Reply
atthatmatt link
9/29/2015 01:59:21 pm

Yeah, if the goal is just to raise a question that can be discussed this certainly does that. I just get annoyed when people (Baggini in this case?) confuse a vague premise for a deep question.

It's like looking a a puddle of water from an angle so all you see is an image reflected on the surface. Of course you can't tell how deep the puddle is. That's not significant, it just means you picked the wrong place to stand. Get closer to the puddle and look straight down into it and you'll see the bottom.

Often the quality of insight depends on the question rather than the analysis. Like how people searched really hard for details about the aether/quintessence. Turns out that's not a real thing; the questions that led to thinking it was a real thing were flawed.

It's not that anyone has to guess right the first time, it's that they need to propose flasifiable theories. In this case, the setup is so vague that there's no way to conclude anything. Anybody's interpretation is as good as another. Maybe Baggini did that on purpose? Was there more context around it?

@EdGibney link
9/29/2015 03:19:27 pm

The secretly shallow mud puddle -- that's the whole history of philosophy! ; )

I wonder if the way I'm blogging this does Baggini a disservice. There isn't any more context in the book, but his explanation does of course follow on immediately after each thought experiment. I prefer pausing then to offer a chance to think things through for oneself, but some of these certainly benefit from reading "the answer" right away. Hopefully you can just go along for the ride and enjoy the chance this provides to talk about anything that comes to mind. I know I enjoy hearing your and other's thoughts wherever they go.

Reply
atthatmatt link
9/29/2015 03:35:33 pm

I don't disagree. It's just a common, fundamental error. I feel compelled to point it out every time because if ignored it compromises the foundation of whatever brain work someone does on the subject. As long as we're conscious of it we can treat it like a choice and work around it. In this case I speculated an explanation that wouldn't really change the premise of the thought experiment much but would account for why the information was missing.

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