10 Moral Paradoxes

Saul Smilansky is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. He is the author of the widely acclaimed book Free Will and Illusion (2000) and has published articles in many of the leading philosophical journals.

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10 Moral Paradoxes
Saul Smilansky

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 2007 by Saul Smilansky BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 021485020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Saul Smilansky to be identied as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1 2007

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smilansky, Saul. 10 moral paradoxes / Saul Smilansky. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-6086-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4051-6087-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ethics. 2. Paradox. I. Title. II. Title: Ten moral paradoxes. BJ1031.S625 2007 170dc22 2006028203 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 10.5/13pt Galliard by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed and bound in Singapore by COS Printers Pte Ltd The publishers policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website: www.blackwellpublishing.com

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Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test Reality we must see it on the tightrope. When the Verities become acrobats we can judge them. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray The gods too are fond of a joke. Aristotle

For Jonathan

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Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Fortunate Misfortune The Paradox of Benecial Retirement Two Paradoxes about Justice and the Severity of Punishment Blackmail: The Solution The Paradox of Non-Punishment On Not Being Sorry about the Morally Bad Choice-Egalitarianism and the Paradox of the Baseline Morality and Moral Worth The Paradox of Moral Complaint

viii ix 1 11 23 33 42 50 59 67 77 90 100 113 122 134 138 142

Contents

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10 Preferring Not to Have Been Born 11 A Meta-Paradox: Are Paradoxes Bad? 12 Reections on Moral Paradox Postscript: The Future and Moral Paradox References Index

List of Figures

2.1 Excellent chance that a replacement for someone from the professionally worst group will be better 3.1 Disparity between the required severity of punishment and deserved mitigation 3.2 Some possible levels of punishment 7.1 The world according to choice-egalitarianism

25 36 39 73

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List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Paradox is the poison ower of quietism, the iridescent sheen of a putreed mind, the greatest depravity of all. Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Since so many people assisted in my pursuit of paradox over the years, lets hope that Thomas Mann was mistaken. But, in any case, I am grateful to those who read and commented, at various stages, on this book or on the essays from which it emerged. I have tried to keep track of this benecence, and apologize to anyone whom I might have forgotten. Many gave me helpful comments on drafts of one or more of the original papers, or of their rewritten versions. These include Shlomit Baruch, Dan Bein, Aaron Ben-Zeev, Avner de-Shalit, David Enoch, Galia Geist, Amihud Gilead, Michael Gross, Meir Hemmo, David Heyd, Giora Hon, Doug Husak, Hagar Kahana-Smilansky, Iddo Landau, James Lenman, Kasper LippertRasmussen, Tal Manor, Jeff McMahan, Ariel Meirav, Merav Mizrahi, Jacob Ross, Simon Rubin, Eli Salzberger, Jonathan Seglow, Jonathan Smilansky, Daniel Statman, Hillel Steiner, Larry Temkin, and Eddy Zemach. I would also like to mention a category of persons who necessarily remain anonymous, an academic version of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: the referees for the journals that accepted my papers and, occasionally, the referees for the unmentionable
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journals that rejected papers; such referees (as well as editors) frequently made good suggestions. I cannot hope to mention all of the people who gave me comments on my papers after they had been published. I would, however, like to note with gratitude the extensive discussions I have had with Yuval Cohen (on Fortunate Misfortune), Patricia Greenspan (on Not Being Sorry), Mark Sainsbury (on the nature of paradox), Alex Tabarrok (on Benecial Retirement), Meshi Uri (on the punishment paradoxes); and with Michael Clark, G. A. Cohen, Nir Eyal, Cecile Fabre, Meir Hemmo, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, and Hillel Steiner on a number of the paradoxes each. Some people sent me papers replying to my paradoxes; of those, papers by James Lenman, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, and Tal Manor have been or are about to be published, together with my replies. I obviously appreciate the attention given to my work. Alon Chasid, Avner de-Shalit, David Enoch, Amihud Gilead, Michael Gross, Doug Husak, Hagar Kahana-Smilansky, Menachem Kellner, Iddo Landau, James Lenman, Tal Manor, Jeff McMahan, Ariel Meirav, Avital Pilpel, Alma Smilansky, Jonathan Smilansky, Daniel Statman, Simon Wigley, and Nick Zangwill merit special gratitude for generously reading and giving me comments on all or most of the manuscript. They have made a large contribution to the book. Iddo, Hagar, and Danny deserve further commendation for having done this while having previously read almost every one of the paradoxes as an individual paper. Surely they carry a particularly large burden of responsibility for any errors that remain. I have beneted from the opportunity to go over a draft of this book with my students at the University of Haifa, in classes during the winter of 2004 and the spring of 2006. I have given talks about some of these paradoxes to more academic forums than I can mention here, in Denmark, Israel, Portugal, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Three of the paradoxes were written, and the project of making this book was conceived and undertaken, during my sabbatical year at Rutgers University in 2003 4. I am thankful for the hospitality provided by the wonderful philosophy department
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at Rutgers. I want to note my particular gratitude to a number of people: to Larry Temkin, for being my sponsor and a most welcoming host in the department, and for hours of philosophical conversation; to Jeff McMahan, for continuous caring and thoughtful contributions, both philosophical and nonphilosophical; and to Doug Husak, for many pleasant lunches spent talking mostly about punishment. Susan Viola, Mercedes Diaz, Pauline Mitchell, and Matthew Wosniak took care of my needs in the department and helped to make that year so pleasant and productive. I was very fortunate to have had the assistance of Alice Koller in making the manuscript clearer and better written, and I am grateful to her for her efforts and good advice. I am grateful to Anthony Grayling for his generous counsel and encouragement on publication. Nick Bellorini, the philosophy editor at Blackwell, was enthusiastic about the project from the very beginning, and has been an ideal editor since. The two reviewers for Blackwell were at once sympathetic to the nature of the book and critical in helpful detail. It was a pleasure to work with Gillian Kane, Kelvin Matthews, and Valery Rose on the design and production of the book. Alma Smilansky drew the diagrams. Marion Lupu made the nal touches on the manuscript and checked the proofs. I shall not begin to describe my gratitude to various friends who helped in ways related to this book, most of whom are mentioned here in other capacities; I am sure that they know who they are and what I feel. I must, however, make an exception for Iddo Landau, who has followed my struggles with the paradoxes and the book so closely, and has been so helpful and supportive at every stage. As always, I have been sustained in my efforts by the love of my mother, Sarah, and of Hagar, Alma, and Jonathan. To Jonathan, my brother, I dedicate this book. I gratefully acknowledge here the permission of the editors and publishers to make use of the following articles: Two apparent paradoxes about justice and the severity of punishment, Southern Journal of Philosophy 30 (1992), 1238; Fortunate misfortune,
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Ratio 7 (1994), 15363; May we stop worrying about blackmail? Analysis 55 (1995), 11620; Preferring not to have been born, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75 (1997), 2417; Blackmail, Encyclopaedia of Ethics, 2nd edn. (London: Routledge, 2001); Choice-egalitarianism and the paradox of the baseline, Analysis 63 (2003), 14651; On not being sorry about the morally bad, Philosophy 80 (2005), 2615; The paradoxical relationship between morality and moral worth, Metaphilosophy 36 (2005), 490500; The paradox of benecial retirement, Ratio 18 (2005), 3327; and The paradox of moral complaint, Utilitas 18 (2006), 28490.

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Acknowledgments