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In this principle, the scope of the command turns solely on the existence or not of a fact (honest
belief) that an agent can readily ascertain and use as a basis for choice of action. Yet, the
principle expresses a command that is, in practical application, sensitive to context.
1
Jeremy Waldron, What are Moral Absolutes Like? NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 11-62
(2011), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1906850
2
Id. at 23.
3
I have previously presented this principle in The Humane Principle and the Biology of Blame (Evolutionary
Origins of the Imperative to Inflict), in PROCEEDINGS OF 3RD ANNUAL GLOBAL CONFERENCE ON PERSPECTIVES ON
EVIL AND HUMAN WICKEDNESS (2003), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1524257.
In the version here, for purposes of rhetorical clarity, I have substituted the words “believed to be” in the place of the
words “meant as” contained in the original No substantive change is intended.
4
Waldron, supra note 1, at 11, quoting John Finnis, Moral Absolutes, 2 (1991).
5
Finnis, supra note 5, at 4.
6
Id. at 3.
7
Id. at 3, quoting from Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, para. 27 (1984).
8
Waldron, supra note 1, at 11-14.
9
18 U.S.C. § 2340A.
10
Waldron, supra note 1, at 11, citing 18 U.S.C. § 2340A.
11
Finnis, supra note 5, at 3. “[F]or example,” he writes, “the circumstance that one of the parties to a sexual act is
married to somebody else.”
12
Id. at 4. Finnis points out that, if the specified circumstances are too numerous, the moral judgments embodied in
the rules become, simply, “specific judgments of conscience in particular situations.” Overly specified moral
absolutes might be “exceptionless” but they are not “interesting.” Id.
13
Waldron, supra note 1, at 13-14; Finnis, supra note 5, at 4.
14
See supra text accompanying notes 9-10.
15
I am assuming here, for purposes of discussion, that moral rules have justifications or articulable “rationales” and
that these rationales can be discerned by some process or another, e.g., human reason. Admittedly, however, I know
of no evidence (beyond the possibility of faith) for thinking that this is the case. Perhaps, for example, some valid
moral absolutes are simply Deific decrees that we are obligated to obey without there being any reason why. I am
setting aside, however, the possibility that valid moral rules can be nothing more than arbitrary commands, without
rationales, that we simply have to follow “because they are there.” See supra text accompanying note 22-23.
16
See Pauline Grosjean, A History of Violence: The Culture of Honor as a Determinant of Homicide in the US South
(2011), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1917113. [See also Steven Pressfield, THE
WARRIOR ETHOS (2011)]
3
In questioning the validity or bindingness of a moral rule based on the suffering that can result
from following it, we are treating its command as relative, not as an absolute. On the other hand,
those who criticize adhering to moral absolutes despite strong humanitarian considerations to the
contrary are asserting, in essence, that rightness and wrongness do depend on circumstances
(including consequences). Put bluntly, the core of their critique is that moral absolutes are not
relative.
For moral absolutists, of course, the non-relativity of moral absolutes is precisely their
virtue. Nonetheless, the non-relativity of moral absolutes creates a challenge for those who find it
impossible simply to dismiss horrific consequences.17 Is there any way, for example, to answer
the ticking-bomb scenarios and other such nettlesome “products of the consequentialists’ fevered
imagination” while still maintaining that right and wrong do not depend on circumstances?18
Waldron devotes nearly half of his essay to discussing several possible answers19 but finds none
of them persuasive.20 He finds no way to defend an absolute rule that fosters horrific
consequences.
4
consequentialist would nowadays agree that part of the essence of valid moral rules is that they
be somehow “for the good,” and that purely arbitrary rules, bearing no relation to any values
whatsoever, could not be genuine, valid moral rules.23 Once it is agreed, however, that values
underlie moral rules and justify our following them, the relationship between the rules and their
justifying values is a matter that is legitimately open to inquiry. In particular, what if obeying a
putatively valid moral absolute appears to derogate from the very values that justify it?
As suggested earlier, when a moral absolute seems in conflict with its own justification,
the likely explanation is that the absolute is defectively formulated. It is not necessarily false or
invalid, but only incomplete. An incomplete formulation of a moral rule is naturally likely to
give untoward results. Incompletely formulated rules that seem reasonable in the normal range of
cases night seem morally out of balance or procrustean in cases that are more extreme.
One obvious way that a moral absolute’s formulation might be incomplete is that it gives
weight to some of morally relevant values but not to others. This might easily occur when, for
instance, a formulation contemplates certain kinds of extant circumstances (presumably those
thought to be typical or expected) but does not take adequate account of other circumstances that
bring other values into play. If protection for these other values is not appropriately built into a
rule’s formulation, it should not be surprising that the protection is not there. And if protection
for the values is only inadequately built into the formulation, the rule may function well enough
in some scenarios but seem morally out of balance in others. In those other scenarios, we are
chagrined to find, “so much of the value is stacked on the other side.”24
Consider, for instance, a simply formulated rule, such as that “torture is wrong in all
circumstances” (which Waldron has tried to defend).25 Assuming we can know a rule’s justifying
rationales from the results that typically follow when it is obeyed, one can safely say that one
possible rationale for this rule is to prevent the suffering that tortured persons incur. Another
possible rationale is to prevent the moral self-degradation that the torturers might incur by
torturing other people.26 Notably, however, a value that this simple formulation manifestly does
not seek to protect is the value of preventing the human suffering that might emanate from
23
See supra note 15.
24
Waldron, supra note 1, at 42.
25
See id. at 1.
26
When we say, for example, it is wrong for boys to torture insects, it is self-degradation of the torturers that is most
likely the concern that motivates the rule. Thus, even if it is conceived that some human beings “deserve” horrific
treatment (say, a serial killer-rapist of small children), it would still be possible and coherent to say that torture is
wrong, because of the degradation that results to the torturers.
5
sources (human or natural) other than torture—such as a ticking time bomb. That is to say, the
rule contains no proviso that would suspend, limit or modify its application in situations where
following the rule stands in the way of steps to prevent human suffering from other sources. As a
result, the rule, though plausibly valid within a certain range, seems morally out of balance when
applied to a ticking bomb scenario. It is not, perhaps, a shortcoming of a rule that it fails to do
what it is not formulated to do. It is, however, a reproach to the formulation (at least prima facie)
that the rule sometimes produces results that most find morally repugnant.
It is defective formulation that leads to the conundrum posed by a simple rule prohibiting
torture “in all circumstances” when applied to a ticking bomb scenario. This simple rule against
torture has no provision to accommodate certain values that many (including its proponents)
probably deem morally important, such as the prevention of human suffering from sources other
than torture. Due to this omission, the rule sometimes operates in derogation of the values not
provided for. This repugnant outcome should come as no surprise (as noted above) since the very
formulation of the rule leaves it open to operate in derogation of the omitted values. The
repugnancy can nonetheless be disconcerting.
To remedy this situation at least two things can be done: One possibility is try to shift the
blame for the untoward results, but let the chips fall where they may.27 Another is to abandon the
rule, either generally or for the particular case.28 Assuming the rule seems generally sound,
however, perhaps the best option is to consider whether the formulation is defective and, if so,
how to rebuild it.
Take again the simple moral absolute holding that “torture is wrong in all circumstances.”
Obviously, the reason this rule can lead to hideous outcomes in ticking bomb scenarios is that it
is, by its own terms, not sensitive to circumstances—including, specifically, the consequences
that one might reasonably expect to motivate infringement of a no-torture rule. One way to make
27
Which Waldron respectively refers to as “leave it God” and “Other people’s responsibility,” Waldron, supra note
1, at 25-32, and “Tainted goods,” id. at 32-35. Another essentially blame-shifting approach, which Waldron calls
“rules of the game,” treats moral absolutes as arbitrary or somehow exogenous constructs which, like the rules of
chess, are not themselves answerable to (or vulnerable to critique in terms of) the values that following them is
supposed to serve. It is a mystery, however, where such “rules of the game” would come from or how they could be
justified or evaluated except in terms of how well they serve the values that they are supposed to serve. Id. at 35-38,
citing Nicholas Denyer, Chess and Life: The Structure of a Moral Code, 82 PROC. ARISTOTELIAN SOC’Y 59 (1981-
82).
28
Waldron discusses this approach as an example of “threshold deontology,” under which a rule is treated as an
absolute until the consequences of obeying it become so unendurable that the rule must yield. Waldron, supra note
1, at 38-42.
6
the rule sensitive to consequences would be to convert it into a consequentialist rule, such as,
“torture is wrong except when the suffering that the torture would help prevent exceeds the
suffering that the torture would inflict.” Such an approach would not, however, be possible for a
committed deontologist. For one thing, it casts the whole foundation of right and wrong (at least
in this domain) afloat on a sea of moral relativism. There is also a more practical objection: The
consequentialist rule incorporates a contestable moral judgment (which suffering is greater?)
directly into the command of the rule. When a command is couched in terms of contestable
moral judgments, it has almost by definition less imperative force that an absolute command
simply because it is, at its very essence, contestable.
For the committed deontologist, therefore, there seems to be a logical dilemma: In order
for a moral rule to take circumstances into account, the applicability of its command has to be
relative to those circumstances but, if the command of a moral rule is relative, then the rule is by
definition not absolute. The challenge is to find a way to formulate a rule so that it is sensitive to
circumstances, especially horrific consequences, while nonetheless not defining the scope of its
command in such a way that the rule’s binding force depends on the consequences of following
it. How can the command of a moral absolute be made sensitive to circumstances (viz. to
consequences) without converting it into a consequentialist rule?
29
That is to say, for purposes of interpreting the rule, as long as a person has an honest belief that she has the honest
belief, that is enough to satisfy the “honest belief” requirement. And so on, ad infinitum.
7
her belief. The principle’s command is not, moreover, expressed in terms that are morally loaded
or substantially contestable. Obviously, the concepts “human suffering,” “most humane
alternative” and “equal concern” are morally loaded and contestable, but the command is not
modulated by how these concepts actually apply in particular situations. It turns, rather, solely on
the agent’s honest belief about these matters.30 Indeed, the principle accepts that the agent’s
honest belief may sometimes be mistaken or deviate from what, in the minds of most other
people, the concepts might objectively entail.31 Nonetheless, it seems fair to expect that the
normal operation of the Humane Principle would usually be appropriately sensitive to context
even while it has, at the same time, “a precise content which is immutable and unconditional.”32
It fits the criteria of moral absolute.
In summary, although the Humane Principle is an absolute, it contains within itself
provisions that avoid repugnant applications by making its command, as a practical matter,
sensitive to circumstances (consequences). The principle remains nonetheless absolute because
the consequences of following it are not, in themselves, factors defining the scope the rule’s
command. It is the agent’s honest belief that controls, viz. the agent’s honest belief as to what
minimizes human suffering as the agent understands that concept. Whatever that belief may be at
a given time, the principle absolutely requires the agent to act accordingly. Doing an act to cause
human suffering without the honest belief is “unconditionally” and “immutably” prohibited.
30
Note that a moral rule need not limit itself to honest beliefs about external states of affairs but could additionally
require, for example, an honest belief that an investigation had been made or that reasonable precautions were in
place so that the honest belief was not in substantial variance from external reality. See also infra note 38.
31
Of course, the principle will not be efficacious unless most agents are reasonably well socialized so they will be
significantly and predictably constrained by their experience and habits of thought in forming their honest beliefs.
That is not, however, at all the same thing as saying that the command of the principle turns on morally-loaded
terms.
32
Supra note 4.
8
circumstances, … always seriously wrong.”33 Despite these qualms, however, it is not obvious
why a moral rule cannot be considered “absolute” merely because its command is conditioned on
the presence or absence of a particular mental state, such as a specified belief. Indeed to the
extent that mental elements have nowadays become a rather standard feature of the moral
judgments people make, there may be precious little room for moral absolutes if rules
conditioned on mental states are ipso facto non-absolute.
Moral rules do not, of course, necessarily have to have mental elements, and it is easy to
make a conceptual distinction between human “acts” and the mental states that accompany them.
Borrowing from the terminology of law, acts have an “actus reus” that is comprised of non-
mental facts such as bodily movements and physical results. However, virtually all human acts
(except perhaps things like spasms) are accompanied by some sort of related mental state. What
is more, the mental state accompanying an act may be crucially relevant in making moral
judgments about the act’s rightness or wrongness. When that is so, any formulation of a moral
rule that only takes account of bodily movements or results (and ignores accompanying mental
states) would be incomplete. It would be a defective formulation.34
Though the mental states that accompany acts may not always have moral significance, it
is undeniable that they sometimes do. Would it be, for example, morally wrong to receive stolen
property if the item was bought at an ordinary department store with no reason whatsoever to
know there had been a theft somewhere in the chain of supply? My guess is that most would say
not, agreeing that the agent’s “innocent” mental state is of critical relevance.35 Indeed, it is
probably not far off the mark to say that the mental states accompanying people’s acts nearly
always affect the moral judgments made about them. To be sure, one can conceive of valid moral
rules under which acts are wrong irrespective of mental state (for instance, “unconscious
33
Supra note 7.
34
The question of whether mental states are properly considered “part” of the acts they accompany seems to me
largely an arid one, and no position is taken here. At any rate, it makes no difference to the present analysis whether
they are or are not. The point is that a complete description of an act for purposes of making moral judgments must
include all aspects of the act’s context that contribute to giving the act moral significance. Thus, the mental state
accompanying an act can be relevant in a description of an act much in the way that location or other contextual
features can be. Of course it is not a foregone conclusion that mental states have moral significance, and this
question is discussed in the text that follows.
35
Moral rightness and wrongness are not, of course, necessarily dependent on or controlled by what sounds right to
most people. However, I think that the way most people think about morality is at least probative of actual right and
wrong and, therefore, worthy of consideration. And I suspect that a moral view denying the crucial relevance of a
factor that is as apparently important as agents’ mental states would not find wide acceptance. See also following
footnote.
9
nocturnal emission is morally wrong”), but such rules tend, at least to the modern ear, to sound
unreasonable.36
Can it be, for example, that it is always morally wrong for a person to carry out the actus
reus of torture? Suppose a doctor administers a routine medication which, utterly unpredictably,
throws the patient into hours of terrifying convulsions and hallucinations. Would the doctor’s
action be properly considered a forbidden act of torture? My guess is that even the most resolute
absolutist would probably say “no” as long as the doctor honestly believed that the medication
would be painless. That is to say, the actus reus of the doctor’s conduct, in isolation from the
accompanying mental state, would not be conclusive on the question of whether her act is
morally proscribed. The mental element plays a crucial role.37
Admittedly, the mental element is often only implicit in moral rules, but that does not
mean it is not there. For example, when one flatly says “torture is wrong in all circumstances,” it
is usually tacitly presupposed that the suffering in question be knowingly inflicted.38 Indeed, one
might easily think that nearly every valid moral rule, if not incompletely formulated, contains
one or more mental elements on which the rightness or wrongness crucially depends and that
“immorality without mental fault” is close to non-existent. However, even if there is such a thing
as strict moral responsibility—under which acts can be morally wrong even in the absence of
mental fault —there would be good reason to doubt the moral validity of any rule that purports to
impose moral liability without fault for acts that are serious wrongs.
36
Perhaps there is something in the human genome or the essentials of early childhood that cause moral intuitions to
be such that most people see a great deal of difference between acts done “on purpose” and those that occur
negligently or as unavoidable accidents. See BARRY J. WADSWORTH, PIAGET'S THEORY OF COGNITIVE AND
AFFECTIVE DEVELOPMENT 85-87 (4th ed. 1989). Or perhaps it is something in the moral fabric of the universe (if
there is such a thing). One can certainly imagine “strict liability” moral norms. See LEVITICUS 4:27-35. There are
apparently, for example, some traditional cultures, for example, in which a woman can be considered guilty of
adultery or promiscuity because she has been raped. Katherine Zoepf, A Dishonorable Affair, NY Times (Sep. 23,
2007). Whether or not such strict liability morality makes any modern sense, however, the point in the text is that
moral judgments certainly can take the mental component of action into consideration and, even, make them the
decisive on the question of whether an action is right or wrong.
37
I suppose it would be possible to argue that the doctor’s act in se was “torture” but that the doctor is morally
excused from blame because of his actual (albeit erroneous) belief. This kind of move seems a bit desperate,
however, and it would, in any case, still leave the moral quality of acts crucially dependent on the mental states that
accompany them. There is more to be said on this line of thought, but I think that it leads ultimately to a dead end.
38
I am passing over, for purposes of simplicity, the questions of whether it could be considered morally
reprehensible to cause pain caused recklessly or negligently. In other words, in a fully specified formulation of a
moral rule, reference to “honest belief” may not be enough, and the rule may also have to take into account whether,
for example, the honest belief was a reasonable one. Personally, I think that taking into account reckless and
negligent mental states is probably necessary to a complete moral assessment, but this elaboration will be left
implicit for the moment.
10
For one thing, even though it is possible to condemn an act as wrong despite the agent’s
unawareness of the circumstances making it wrong, one still might ask whether it would be right
to do so. Perhaps it would be, but even apart from the potential moral repugnance of labeling the
innocent-minded as serious wrongdoers, there is a practical reason to doubt the validity of moral
rules that lack mental elements: To the extent one misperceives an act’s attendant circumstances,
one’s choice of action could not be affected by the actual circumstances anyway. The practical
force of a moral rule’s operation is therefore not disrupted by the fact that it makes rightness or
wrongness partly depend on the agent’s honest beliefs about her act’s attendant circumstances
(including the consequences). Of course, neither of these considerations is dispositive on the
issue of validity. There is no reason in principle why moral rules cannot seem morally repugnant
to modern sensibilities and still be valid, or why their standards cannot be applicable even where
the agent’s innocent but mistaken belief precludes compliance. Nonetheless, moral repugnance
and practical absence of compliability are both reasons to doubt the formulation of a putative
moral rule.
Again, however, it needs to be stressed that the point here is not that valid moral rules
without mental elements are somehow impossible. One can certainly imagine, for example, a
valid exceptionless rule such as “it is always morally wrong to disclose the location of a family
hiding from a band of murderers,” under which it would be immoral for even an infant to emit a
moan.39 But even though valid moral rules without mental elements are possible, the point is that
such rules are of sufficiently doubtful validity that their possibility, as hypotheticals, does not
justify much attention or concern in discussions meant to illuminate potential real-life moral
dilemmas—like whether torture can be morally permissible.40
Of course, an honest belief about the nature of one’s act (as in the case of the doctor) is
not the same as an honest belief about its consequences. But that distinction should not matter for
present purposes. The present inquiry is merely whether a rule whose command turns on the
presence or absence of an honest belief can be absolute at all. The particular subject of the honest
39
Of course, one might try to escape this precise hypothetical by postulating some minimum age of moral
responsibility or the like, but then what if the moaning agent is a grievously wounded adult delirious from her
wound? If one wants to head down the road of granting moral exemptions based on incapacity, one might eventually
end at the point where rules without mental elements are invalid under the principle of “ought implies can.” But see
Robert Stern, Does ‘Ought’ Imply ‘Can’? And Did Kant Think It Does?, 16 UTILITAS 42 (2004), available at
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/298/1/sternr1.pdf.
40
Of course, if one wanted to mount a defense of a “strict responsibility” rule against torture as a valid moral rule,
applicable irrespective of mental state, that would be a different matter.
11
belief should not affect whether the command has “a precise content which is immutable and
unconditional.”41
I do not suppose that Waldron would disagree that moral absolutes with mental elements
are at least possible. He himself points to the United States’ legal prohibition of torture as an
example of an “absolute” rule, and he states that the prohibition there defines the forbidden
conduct as actions “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.”42
Accordingly, under Waldron’s own paradigmatic example of an absolute rule in U.S. law, acts
that are otherwise identical can be considered torture or not depending purely the agent’s mental
state. Finnis, too, would seem to agree that moral absolutes with mental elements are possible
when he says that, to violate a moral absolute, an action must be chosen by the agent.43 It seems
fair to assume that the word “chosen” implies an agent who has some sort of belief. If the agent
has no beliefs about the alternatives, what would be the meaning of “chosen”? Assuming that
choice indeed implies beliefs, then (to use Finnis’ terms) an agent’s belief could presumably be
one of the “circumstances” by reference to which “the type of act is described.”44
In sum, there is no reason why a moral rule cannot be considered “absolute” just because
the acts it prohibits are partly defined by the presence or absence of a particular mental state such
as a specified honest belief. Except where a moral rule imposes “moral liability without fault,”
such mental elements are always, at least implicitly, a part of any complete formulation of moral
commands anyway. Moral rules that include mental elements (such as the Humane Principle or
the analogously formulated rule on torture) are as absolute as any non-strict-liability rules can be.
41
Supra note 4.
42
Waldron, supra note 1, at 11 (emphasis added).
43
See quotation supra note 6
44
Supra note 11
12
“torture is wrong in all circumstances” means exactly what it says, that it is always morally
wrong to commit an act of torture?
To take such a view is, of course, not merely to be a moral absolutist but a single-minded
universalist as well. A single-minded universalist means someone who holds that the values
served by some particular moral prohibition, such as torture, trump all other considerations or
values that might get in the way (even including, presumably, the deaths of thousands or even
millions of people when the ticking bombs go off).45 Being single-minded, she rejects the very
concept of diluting the universal application of her favored moral norm by making its command
sensitive in any way to consequences or circumstances that might raise other considerations or
implicate other values.
There is nothing objectionable per se with taking a single-mindedly universalist stance,
elevating one particular moral value above all the rest so that, in the event conflict, the others are
required to yield. For example, the Humane Principle described earlier46 is a single-minded
universalist rule. It prioritizes the prohibition of acts to cause avoidable human suffering above
every other moral value, allowing none to take precedence over it. However, in nominating rules
for single-minded universalist status, one needs to be exceedingly cautious. For when a single
moral value is raised above the rest, all other moral values are a fortiori subject to subordination
and in some degree deprecation if they come into competition with it. As demonstrated by the
difficulties Waldron encountered in trying to provide an answer to the ticking-bomb scenarios,
the rule against torture “in all circumstances” is not a very good candidate to be a single-minded
universal.
To insist that it is morally wrong to let ulterior concerns dilute or mitigate a rule against
torture, it is necessary to reject the view that human suffering from sources other than torture is a
morally binding concern. For one cannot have it both ways. One cannot claim both that suffering
not prevented due to a torture ban is a binding moral concern and, at the same time, hold that the
concern should invariably be trumped in the interest of preventing torture. If something is a
binding moral concern, it can never be simply ignored and certainly cannot be invariably
trumped. It must be taken into account, at least implicitly, in making moral choices. The concern
need not, of course, always be dispositive, but it must always be weighed in the mix. A
45
I have considered using the term “single-minded universalizer” in order to avoid the confusion with the several
already existing meanings of “universalist,” but have so far been unable to settle upon it as a suitable alternative.
46
See supra text accompanying notes 29-32
13
formulation of a moral rule in which the binding concern does not play a role in determining
moral choice is a defective formulation.
Thus, if a single-minded universalist truly means to say that “torture is wrong in all
circumstances,” then by clear negative implication she is rejecting the premise that suffering
from sources other than torture is something an agent must take into account. And because a
genuine moral concern could be not very well be merely optional, it is hard to escape the
conclusion that a single-minded universalist on the question of torture does not regard such other
suffering as a genuine moral concern.
In the end, I doubt that there can ever be common ground between the proponents of a
single-mindedly universal torture rule and those whose values the universalist is willing to
forsake or ignore. Anyone who supports a single-mindedly universal torture rule must not merely
defend adherence to moral absolutes in the face of horrific consequences but must also explain
why an absolute rule to prevent human suffering from one particular source (torture) is more
likely to be valid than one that targets suffering from all sources—one, for example, along the
lines of the Humane Principle.47
Fortunately, it is unlikely that there will be opponents of torture who would actually hold,
on reflection, that human suffering from sources other than torture is only an optional moral
concern. For most people, one hopes, what makes human suffering a serious moral concern is its
nature, not its source. If that is so, then the possibility of a single-mindedly universal rule against
torture, which applies in literally “all” circumstances, would be purely hypothetical and, as such,
may be safely disregarded.
Conclusion
Those who advocate for an absolute moral rule forbidding torture must deal with the
important challenge that, sometimes, there may be even greater human suffering if torture is not
47
The Humane Principle condemns “any act to cause human suffering” except when the agent believes there are no
alternatives that would be more humane overall. It should perhaps be stressed that, within the intendment of the
Humane Principle, to “cause” suffering means doing acts that add to the overall amount of suffering in the world
(i.e., generate suffering), and it does not refer to inflictions, such as inoculations or normal dental procedures, whose
net effects are to reduce total suffering. When acts cause someone to suffer as an inseparable part of reducing the
suffering of another (e.g., steering a runaway truck away from a crowd and into a lone bystander, or painfully
wrenching a loaded gun from a homicidal madman), the acts can be viewed as a “deflection” of suffering from one
person to another. While such deflections are properly regarded as causal in redirecting the suffering to its eventual
recipient (i.e., they “cause” the redirection), they are not a “cause” of the generative kind, at which the principle is
aimed. Thus, the Humane Principle explicitly recognizes the moral rightness of actions meant to reduce total
suffering even if done with the understanding that, in the process of reducing total suffering, they will “deflect” the
harmful impact of an event-in-progress from one person to another.
14
employed. The “ticking time bomb” scenario, in which many will die if a bomb’s location is not
tortured out of a hapless detainee, provides a paradigmatic case. The root of the problem is that a
simple moral rule against torture does not build in protection for other important values. The rule
is able, as a result, to demand conduct in derogation of those values. The problem is very likely
not, however, that the rule is not valid. Rather, it is merely a problem of defective formulation.
The challenge is to formulate moral rules in such a way that they are absolute and, yet,
sensitive to circumstances (such as consequences). The approach suggested in this paper is to
take explicit account of mental states in formulating moral rules. For example, a defined wrong
could consist of doing a specified act in the presence or absence of some specified belief as to
consequences or other circumstances. The honest belief criterion can make the rule, as a practical
matter, sensitive to circumstances even while its command is nonetheless absolute. The rule is
absolute because the agent either has the requisite belief or does not and is commanded to act
accordingly, without exception. Yet, the rule is sensitive to circumstances because, as a practical
matter, agents’ honest beliefs will tend to have a high correlation with actual states of affairs.
Taking explicit account of mental states in formulating moral rules allows rules that are
both absolute in their command and, yet, morally sensitive to circumstances.
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