I love this week's thought experiment so much. Not because of the characters in it, or because of the (ahem) thrust of their actions, but because we're using the experiment to examine commonly received wisdom to see whether a bumper sticker motto is empty or not. Let's take a look.
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Constance had always tried to observe the golden rule of morality: do as you would be done by, or, as Kant rather inelegantly put it, "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Now, however, she is sorely tempted by something that would seem to go against that principle. She has the chance to run off with the husband of her best friend, taking their entire family fortune with them. On the face of it, that would not be doing as she would be done by.
But, she reasoned, things are more complex than that. When we lock up a criminal, we are not saying we should also be locked up. We are saying that we should be locked up if we were in the same circumstance as the criminal. That proviso is crucial; context is all.
So, the question she should be asking herself is this: can she "will that is should become a universal law" that people in her circumstances should run off with their best friend's husband and fortune? Put like that, the answer seems to be yes. She's not saying adultery and asset-stripping are usually good, only that in her specific circumstances they are. So that's settled then: she can run away with a clear conscience.
Sources: The Analectics of Confucius (5th century BCE); Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant (1785).
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 247.
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Obviously Constance is crazy. But that's the point. As Baggini says in his explanation of this thought experiment:
"The problem Constance's situation highlights is not just a sophisticated joke at the rule's expense. It goes to the heart of what the principle actually means. For either one of two extreme interpretations, the principle is either ridiculous or empty."
So what do you think? Can the golden rule actually be tarnished? Does rule-based morality ever work? I'll post my response on Friday, but please share your thoughts below in the meantime.
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Constance had always tried to observe the golden rule of morality: do as you would be done by, or, as Kant rather inelegantly put it, "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Now, however, she is sorely tempted by something that would seem to go against that principle. She has the chance to run off with the husband of her best friend, taking their entire family fortune with them. On the face of it, that would not be doing as she would be done by.
But, she reasoned, things are more complex than that. When we lock up a criminal, we are not saying we should also be locked up. We are saying that we should be locked up if we were in the same circumstance as the criminal. That proviso is crucial; context is all.
So, the question she should be asking herself is this: can she "will that is should become a universal law" that people in her circumstances should run off with their best friend's husband and fortune? Put like that, the answer seems to be yes. She's not saying adultery and asset-stripping are usually good, only that in her specific circumstances they are. So that's settled then: she can run away with a clear conscience.
Sources: The Analectics of Confucius (5th century BCE); Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant (1785).
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 247.
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Obviously Constance is crazy. But that's the point. As Baggini says in his explanation of this thought experiment:
"The problem Constance's situation highlights is not just a sophisticated joke at the rule's expense. It goes to the heart of what the principle actually means. For either one of two extreme interpretations, the principle is either ridiculous or empty."
So what do you think? Can the golden rule actually be tarnished? Does rule-based morality ever work? I'll post my response on Friday, but please share your thoughts below in the meantime.
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