On Moral Obligations and Our Chances of Fulfilling Them

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-020-10104-0 On Moral Obligations and Our Chances of Fulfilling Them Farbod Akhlaghi 1 Accepted: 29 June 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020 Abstract Many actions we perform affect the chances of fulfilling our moral obligations. The moral status of such actions is important and deeply neglected. In this paper, I begin rectifying this neglect by asking: under what conditions, if any, is it morally wrong to perform an action that will lower the chance of one fulfilling a moral obligation? In §1, I introduce this question and motivate concern with its answer. I argue, in §2, that certain actions an agent has good reason to believe will drastically lower their chances of fulfilling a moral obligation in the future, relative to at least one alternative action available, are pro tanto morally wrong. This answer, I argue, captures our intuitions in a range of cases, avoids the problems that other views considered here face, and can be plausibly defended against some independent objections. I conclude in §3 by noting some consequences for normative and practical ethics of the moral wrongness of at least some actions that lower the chances of fulfilling our moral obligations, and by raising a series of important questions regarding these actions for future consideration. Keywords Chance-affecting actions . Moral obligation . Moral wrongness . Normative ethics . Practical ethics * Farbod Akhlaghi farbod.akhlaghi– 1 Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK F. Akhlaghi 1 Introduction We have moral obligations. What moral obligations we have is contentious. Some relatively uncontroversial ones are moral obligations we have towards our friends, family, and to any moral agent in virtue of their being a moral agent. For example, one may have a moral obligation to help a friend, to support a parent in old age, or to minimally respect another’s autonomy as a moral agent.1 We can succeed in meeting, or fail to fulfil, our moral obligations. Ceteris paribus, fulfilling a moral obligation is morally right and failing to fulfil one is morally wrong. Other things being equal, if I am morally obligated to aid my ailing relative, then if I do I have done something morally right; if I do not, I have done something morally wrong. What moral obligations we have, why we have them, and the moral status of fulfilling them are much discussed. But there is a class of actions we perform and activities we engage in which, whilst falling short of involving success or failure in fulfilling our moral obligations, affect the chances of fulfilling our moral obligations.2 Call any action that one can perform which increases or decreases the objective probability of performing some further action that they are morally obligated to perform at a later time a chance-affecting action. What is the moral status of chance-affecting actions? This question is largely neglected in normative ethics. To my knowledge, there is little to no work that directly addresses it.3 In this paper, I begin to rectify this neglect by asking: (The Question): Under what conditions, if any, is it morally wrong to do something that will lower the objective probability of one fulfilling their moral obligation(s)? Failing to address the moral status of chance-affecting actions simpliciter, or answer (The Question) in particular, is deeply problematic for at least three reasons. First, even if it is, e.g., morally wrong to fail to fulfil a moral obligation, this alone does not tell us whether there are some conditions which, if met, make the performing of actions that affect our chances of fulfilling such moral obligations morally right or wrong. Answering (The Question), and others regarding the moral status of chance-affecting actions, appears to require more than determining the moral status of meeting a moral obligation. I assume that an agent, X, has a moral obligation to Φ just in case X is morally required to Φ, where what X is morally required to do is just what X has best normative moral reason to do. These assumptions are harmless here since nothing I argue depends upon them. 2 I use ‘chance(s)’ and ‘objective probability’ interchangeably. By ‘objective probability’, I mean the likelihood of some x occurring independently of any actual or hypothetical agent, evaluator, or utterer’s doxastic state(s). Beyond understanding objective probability as distinct from subjective and evidential probabilities, I remain silent on the correct account of objective probability. 3 Some important work addresses very closely related questions. Cordelli (2018) argues that it is pro tanto morally wrong for an agent to do something that will foreseeably make it impossible for them to carry out an obligation they are already bound by. Such principles, much discussed before Cordelli’s excellent paper, are silent on the moral status of actions we perform that, whilst not making it impossible to fulfil a moral obligation, lower (or increase) our chances of doing so. Goodin (2012: 20) addresses duties to make possible or impossible the fulfilment of a duty, which are similarly silent on chance-affecting actions. Herzog (2018: 53–66) relatedly examines obligations to organise organisations and societies to promote better future behaviour. The general question of whether actions promoting particular outcomes or states of affairs provides a reason to perform them is similarly related: see Elson 2019 on this general question, and Nussbaum’s 2004 orthodox reading of Kant on indirect duties to non-human animals that touches upon my concerns. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for the second and third reference. 1 On Moral Obligations and Our Chances of Fulfilling Them Second, chance-affecting actions are ubiquitous. For example, notice that systematic engagement in types of actions such as smoking, drug abuse, and neglecting one’s own physical and mental well-being will (or at least are highly likely to) lower our chances of fulfilling our moral obligations in the future (by, e.g., making one unwell or likely to neglect the concerns of others). The moral status of these types of actions, and other chance-affecting actions, remains unclear. One way that we might examine their moral status, however, is by examining the moral status of a general feature that they all share: they are chance-affecting actions. And, here, the above are all actions that (are at least likely to) lower the chances of fulfilling a moral obligation in the future. Of course, a moment’s reflection will reveal that the ubiquity of chance-affecting actions extends far beyond these examples since, for any given moral obligation, we might engage in myriad actions that will affect its chance of being fulfilled. Finally, if there are some conditions that render, for example, the performing of actions that lower the chances of fulfilling our moral obligations morally wrong, then this generates a hitherto unno (...truncated)