Jim's Predicament

          This paper compares Rule Consequentialism (RC) and Kantian ethics by examining their application to Bernard Williams' “Jim the botanist” thought experiment, a difficult moral case. This is to explore the relative strengths and weaknesses of these theories. By briefly showing the key differences in the approaches, it should become evident that, although both are flawed, the two rule-based systems are not equally capable of producing moral determinations.

          Jim is a foreigner captured by a government that has issues with the natives protesting them. In an attempt to quell the protests, the government has rounded up 20 random natives they plan to execute. Since it is apparently rare that a foreigner would be there, Jim is given the opportunity to save 19 lives, but he must personally kill one. He has no reason to think that any of the natives are guilty of a capital offense, but not killing one of them will result in all 20 of them dying. This forced choice is meant to demonstrate that there may be times which we think that it is acceptable to violate an absolute prohibition in order to prevent additional violations.¹

          The basic notion of RC is that one can rationally construct an ideal list of moral rules that if widely accepted, internalized and followed would produce the best consequences for everyone; the rightness/wrongness of an action is based on whether it follows the rules.² Identifying the ideal rules is a bit tricky, as absolute rules, like “don't lie,” produce too many situations where a violation of the rule would be more preferable than dogmatically holding to the rule. However, it is also clear that including excessively broad criteria for excusing a violation of the basic notion of the rule (“don't lie” being the basic, conjoined with the exception “unless you want to”) can reduce the value and acceptability of a rule, and thus make a more strict rule produce better consequences.³

          So, in the “Jim” example, the relevant rule would be something like “don't murder” or the broader, “don't kill”. On it's own, this basic notion would never allow Jim to choose to kill one of the (innocent) natives, but that might seem at odds with the fact that by not killing one, Jim will allow all 20 to die. One could build into this rule conditions where it would be acceptable to kill, but that could become such a long list of conditions that it would be impossible to internalize.⁴ No such rule may even be exhaustive enough to cover all contingencies. One solution to this is to include a rule that allows violations of rules, but only to “prevent disaster”.⁵

          In the “Jim” case, it is wrong to kill, but by doing so Jim will save 19 lives. If the loss of those lives is enough to be a disaster, then the “prevent disaster” rule requires Jim to kill the one.⁶ However, a reduction in the number of natives to be killed, or a devaluing of the natives in general (as implied by calling them “natives”), may imply that it is not a disaster, as is apparent in the captain that plans to execute them. The government might be killing the natives to prevent what they view as a larger disaster. The “prevent disaster” rule would require a significant difference in values between the consequences of the two actions (in order to avoid collapsing into Act Consequentialism),⁷ but it is hard to know precisely what counts as a disaster.

          A different approach can be found in Immanuel Kant's various formulations of the Categorical Imperative (CI), which provides both the means to making imperatives that are not based on consequences, and it gives a way to test individual actions.⁸ Here I will focus on the second of those, the Humanity formulation of the CI. Simply stated, actions ought to respect humanity, or in Kant's terms, actions should treat humanity as an ends unto itself (HEI), and “never merely as a means.”⁹ Obligatory actions are those that if they are not done, their omission counts as failing to respect humanity; a wrong action is one that directly counts as a failing; and optional actions are those that do not fail to respect humanity more than any other option, and either doing it or not would also not fail to respect humanity.¹⁰

          I am inclined to say that Kant's theory fails to render a clear result in the “Jim” case because both actions fail to respect humanity if done or not done, they are both forbidden and required, and neither of the relevant actions are optional. There is no way to claim that one could kill (against the person's will, or perhaps at all) an innocent person while also respecting that person's humanity. Using only that for moral consideration, it is clearly a wrong action. However, that fails to respect the humanity of 19 other people, which could be saved by a single violation, and so it requires killing one to respect humanity to a greater degree. Murder is arguably the greatest disrespect to humanity, and so preventing murder is required. Does that mean that one should murder to not murder, disrespect humanity to respect humanity?

          Between the two options, refraining from killing one seems the greatest failure because of the deaths of 20, including the one. However, that is not the total number of people involved in this situation, there are at least 22, and Jim killing one would violate at least three: the one that he killed, his own progress to moral perfection, and he would be participating in the depravity of the captain, and by extension, the entire government. Expanding the humanity considered, the natives have relatives, whose humanity is not respected, as well as the entire native population. Ultimately, this single decision could fail to respect all of humanity by propagating racially motivated violence and discrimination, and participating in the ends of a tyrannical government. Not killing one would preserve Jim's moral perfection, it would not be a direct violation of any one person's humanity, but would use the lives of the 20 as mere means to avoid failing himself (and perhaps the rest of humanity). I'm inclined to say that the HEI is against killing, but I'm honestly not sure if that is my own personal bias, or how Kant would have ruled.

          Kant's theory provides a more plausible result, but only if the bounds of moral consideration are expanded to the greatest number of people possible. The issue for RC is that the difficulty of finding an exact definition for “disaster” could allow the same rule to justify the government's policy of killing random innocent people, if the situation was dire enough and it would prevent some other disaster. HEI, although weak on determinacy (providing a clear and consistent result in the case of conflicting values),¹¹ avoids this issue by potentially examining the effects on humanity in general. A similar move could be made by RC by further qualifying the “prevent disaster” rule, which might result in an arbitrary definition of “disaster”.

          Additionally, it seems that the Kantian response is better internally supported since one could apply the Universal Law formulation of CI and yield the same results.¹² Generalizing Jim's decision would result in, “I will cause harm to an innocent person, if doing so will prevent a greater harm to others.” The universal formulation of that maxim would be, “Everyone will cause harm to innocent people, if doing so will prevent greater harms to others.” If applied to all of society, all people would be obligated to cause harm in an attempt to prevent harm caused by others in an attempt to prevent harm. The practice of mutual defense/general welfare could collapse in favor of mutual harm, or at least a standoff. That would hardly be in line with respecting humanity.

          The major weakness in the HEI formulation is that if the bounds of moral consideration are drawn too narrowly, then the verdict it returns conflicts with that of a greater scope, resulting in actions that are both forbidden and required. In Jim's case, if only considering the act of killing one, it is forbidden, but in reference to the lives of 19, it is required. Expanding to the moral concerns of all “natives” or the whole of conceivable humanity, it is forbidden. The apparent reversal is a good indication that HEI fails to capture some aspect of the act of murder which makes it wrong.

Bibliography

Timmons, Mark. 2013. Moral Theory: An Introduction. Kindle Edition. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

1  Timmons 2013, 92.

2  Timmons 2013, 154.

3  Timmons 2013, 155.

4  Timmons 2013, 157.

5  Timmons 2013, 158.

6  The number of people saved is essentially arbitrary. If the example of 19 deaths is not enough to justify killing one, then keep raising the example number until it intuitively seems like a disaster. The reverse of that also applies, start reducing the number until it no longer seems like a disaster, and you might find a threshold, but not one that can be generally applied to all situations. This is in danger of being a sorites paradox.

7  Timmons 2013, 158.

8  Timmons 2013, 218-9.

9  Timmons 2013, 211.

10  Timmons 2013, 218.

11  Timmons 2013, 12.

12  Timmons 2013, 219-20.