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When Doing The Right Thing Is Impossible Chapter 2 Summary

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Recommended: The case of utilitarianism

In Chapter 8 of When Doing the Right Thing is Impossible, Lisa Tessman introduces the concept of reflective equilibrium. In a nutshell, reflective equilibrium is the process of resolving conflicting beliefs. Whenever a judgement is made it must be compared to related judgements to see if they form a clear set. If the judgements do not form a set, they must systematically be modified or rejected until a clear set is formed. This set is then acknowledged to be the commanding set of judgements that determine morality. An example follows: say that someone holds the belief that stealing is wrong. After some time, they become homeless and end up living on the street. One day they make a judgement that they should steal some food because they …show more content…

In the case of Kantian ethics, imagine a murderer comes to the door asking for your friend, who is in the other room. Our moral intuition would likely tell us not to tell the murderer where our friend was. On the other hand, Kant believed we had a moral imperative to not lie to the murderer. In the case of Utilitarianism, Peter Singer has a famous example involving a drowning kid and malnourished kids in a third world country. Imagine that you are on a way to a job interview and you pass a lake where a kid is drowning. Saving the drowning kid would mean missing your interview, but many people intuitively agree that saving a drowning child is a heroic act and is worth missing an interview. Now imagine malnourished kids in a third world country. Donations to a well-known charity could be used to help feed those children. This is where things get interesting, many people intuitively believe that we are not obligated to help these children, even though these two situations are morally equivalent. In both the Kantian and Utilitarian cases, moral intuition is at odds with established moral philosophies. I see no reason why gut feelings should outweigh tried and tested

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