Abstract
When facing a choice between saving one person and saving many, some people have argued that fairness requires us to decide without aggregating numbers; rather we should decide by coin toss or some form of lottery, or alternatively we should straightforwardly save the greater number but justify this in a non-aggregating contractualist way. This paper expands the debate beyond well-known number cases to previously under-considered probability cases, in which not (only) the numbers of people, but (also) the probabilities of success for saving people vary. It is shown that, in these latter cases, both the coin toss and the lottery lead to what is called an awkward conclusion, which makes probabilities count in a problematic way. Attempts to avoid this conclusion are shown to lead into difficulties as well. Finally, it is shown that while the greater number method cannot be justified on contractualist grounds for probability cases, it may be replaced by another decision method which is so justified. This decision method is extensionally equivalent to maximising expected value and seems to be the least problematic way of dealing with probability cases in a non-aggregating manner.
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Notes
It may of course be argued that there are reasons other than from fairness which should affect the decision. While this article considers (some) reasons from fairness in isolation, its results are of relevance for any account of reasons which, possibly inter alia, refers to fairness in the given sense.
It can easily be seen that many non-aggregationists subscribe to some such procedural fairness requirement in terms of chances to survive: Taurek (1977, p. 307) talks about each person’s “equal chance to be spared his loss”; Kamm (1993, p. 128, 130) examines people’s chances “to be saved”; Timmermann and Saunders discuss chances for “being saved” (Timmermann 2004, p. 110; Saunders 2009, p. 286). Even critics of non-aggregationism accept this: Kavka and Hirose discuss chances for “being saved” (Kavka 1979, p. 293; Hirose 2007, p. 48); Rivera-López (2008, p. 329) brings up the “chance of survival”. This is hardly surprising, given that the debate has predominantly dealt not with probability cases, but with number cases where such a procedural fairness requirement in terms of survival doesn’t imply the awkward conclusion (see below).
See also Hirose (2007), Huseby (forthcoming). Other suggestions for dealing with these number cases will be discussed below.
To my knowledge, probability cases have only been discussed in two recent articles (Rivera-López 2008; Lawlor 2006), none of which deal with the core problem which is here called the awkward conclusion (for a description of the problem, see below; for a defence of this latter claim, see footnote 11).
Since numbers aren’t an issue at this point, the numbers in this scenario may be changed.
Such a lottery is of course just a generalisation of the coin toss which even covers probability cases; it is extensionally equivalent with the latter in number cases.
Luckily, in the extreme case which assigns a 0 probability to getting to A, the “ought implies can” principle comes to your rescue: Since getting to A is no longer anything you can do, it disappears from the list of alternatives one of which you ought to do. Note that, on that principle, we could even raise the probability boundary for what you can do (for instance to appease those who are reluctant to say that winning the national lottery is something that you can and also, arguably, ought to do). My argument only hinges on the assumption that one can do something even if the probability of success is lower than 1.
For pooling lotteries, see Kamm (1993, pp. 128–134), Timmermann (2004), Saunders (2009). It is hard to conceive how a non-pooling lottery could be made plausible; yet, for a defence (though not an endorsement) of non-pooling lotteries, see Hirose (2007). On the fairness of lotteries when “claims are equal or roughly equal”, see Broome (1990–1991, p. 99).
It could be objected that once we allow pooling, we must allow unequal survival chances. However, while pooling implies the possibility of unequal group survival chances (which are assigned to individuals in virtue of their being group members), it is consistent with everyone having an equal individual survival chance. Note that individual survival chances and (individual) baseline chances are not the same; they may come apart in probability cases.
A similar complaint against the equalising lottery has been made by Eduardo Rivera-López (2008), who notes that the equalising lottery increases the risk of saving no one at all and who states that such a lottery “is vulnerable to a strong ‘leveling down’ objection: we obtain equality only at the expense of the overall probability of saving anyone at all” (2008, p. 329). So for a probability case which resembles the above third boat trip, with the options of a 2% chance of success for rescuing the (single) A-person or a certain rescue for the five on B, the complaint is that “you will have a slightly more than 96% chance of saving no one at all!” (2008, p. 330). Thus, Rivera-López faults the equalising lottery for its wastefulness. In fact, he directs the same criticism towards the coin toss in probability cases, noting that with the options of a 2% chance of success for rescuing the A-person or a certain rescue for the B-people, it would be “extremely counterintuitive to hold that you have to flip a coin in this case, since this would give you a 49% chance of saving nobody at all” (2008, p. 327). However, in considering that both decision methods are similarly wasteful, Rivera-López does not pay attention to the fact that the equalising lottery is dissimilar to the coin toss, because of its core feature of aiming to equalise chances of survival, which leads to the awkwardly inverse relevance of probabilities. Of course, the upshot of both his and my objection is that the decision methods lead to counterintuitive—or awkward—conclusions for non-aggregationists. Yet the equalising lottery’s sensitivity to probabilities, regarding the assignment of baseline chances—a feature it does not share with the coin toss—is quite a different and presumably more significant problem still. (Also note that the objection is not a levelling down objection, since the move from the coin toss to the equalising lottery in the second boat trip case, while decreasing the B-people’s chances to survive from 1/2 to 1/3, actually increases the A-person's chances from 1/4 to 1/3. For a proper levelling down objection, see Rob Lawlor (2006, pp. 162–163). However, Lawlor discusses neither the equalising lottery nor the awkward conclusion.)
Lawlor (2006) also discusses this revision: “As we have seen [from the levelling down objection] we clearly do not want to conclude that I should give each person an equal chance of survival. We could, however, still conclude that I should toss a coin to decide who we will try to save” (2006, p. 164). (The upshot of Lawlor’s argument is that, given Taurek’s reasoning, “Taurek—it seems—should be committed to tossing a coin” even in probability cases. 2006, p. 165)
One might be tempted to argue that this conclusion isn’t really that puzzling, and that an analogous conclusion and discontinuity uncontroversially holds for numbers: Taurek assigns the same equal chance to be rescued to all, regardless if their numbers are great or small; yet as soon as we consider options with the numbers 0 and 1, assigned chances differ radically. However, these conclusions are not analogous: Whereas a “0-number option” implies that there is no life at stake and hence no claim to survival (or the best rescue effort), a “0-probability option” may still contain some number of lives at stake and hence some number of such morally relevant claims.
One of Taurek’s central claims is that if it would be permissible for the A-person to choose either option, then, by a strong principle of impartiality, the same would hold for any third party. Taurek’s (1977, p. 301) principle of impartiality states: “If it would be morally permissible for B to choose to spare himself a certain loss, H, instead of sparing another person, C, a loss, H′, in a situation where he cannot spare C and himself as well, then it must be permissible for someone else, not under any relevant special obligations to the contrary, to take B’s perspective, that is, to choose to secure the outcome most favorable to B instead of the outcome most favorable to C, if he cannot secure what would be best for each”. This principle is of course highly contentious; its intuitive plausibility might rely on a failure to distinguish between the claim that B isn’t blameworthy and the—arguably independent—claim that B’s action is permissible.
Kamm (1993, pp. 119–121) discusses a similar proposal and raises a number of objections to it. The interpretation is similar to Schelling’s appeal to rational decision-making under uncertainty as to one’s own (or other, valued people’s) inclusion in the A- or B-population (see Schelling 2006, pp. 141–142). However, its justification is not given in terms of (rationally) maximising one’s own interests, but rather in terms of finding and applying a principle that no one similarly motivated could reasonably reject, because it takes everyone’s interest (survival) positively, equally, and maximally into account (giving each an equal and maximal chance to survive).
For a different discussion of probability cases and the “Kamm/Scanlon [contractualist] account”, see Rivera-López (2008, pp. 327–328).
In order to get definite outcomes even when numbers are equal, we should complement the greater number method with some randomising decision method for such cases, for instance the coin toss.
Even this rule would need to be complemented by some tie breaker, such as the coin toss, for cases in which success probabilities are equal.
It may be interesting to note that the greater number method is really just a special instance of this decision method for number cases, where success probabilities are (assumed to be) equal.
The cautious claim to mere extensional equivalence is prompted by the recognition that (i) the notions of relative value (of saving the A- or B-people) and relative numbers may come apart (for instance if there are other values than the saving of lives) and that (ii) the notions of relative numbers and location probability may come apart (for instance if for some people it is determined beforehand on which rock they will, or are more likely to, end up).
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Emil Andersson, Gustaf Arrhenius, John Broome, Iwao Hirose, Frej Klem Thomsen, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Jonas Olson, Niklas Olsson-Yaouzis, Ben Saunders, Julian Savulescu, Folke Tersman, Gerard Vong, and two anonymous referees, as well as the participants of the James Martin Advanced Research Seminar at University of Oxford, the PhD-seminar in practical philosophy at Stockholm University, the Applied Ethics Graduate Discussion Group at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, and the 2009 conference of Nordic Network for Political Theory in Copenhagen, for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. The author thankfully acknowledges travel grants, for the latter two meetings, from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
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Rasmussen, K.B. Should the probabilities count?. Philos Stud 159, 205–218 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9698-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9698-1