I Want To, I Don't Want To
The subject of this posting is ‘moral stalemates.’ I think moral stalemates are kind of interesting. I consider these to be occasions in which there is a moral conflict between two (or more) parties and all parities have legitimate claims to their respective moral positions. Take for example, the following case:
Two people have a disagreement as to what television show to watch. Let us say that the specific disagreement is concerning a particular television show X; one party wants to watch the show and the other does not. Both moral claims, the right to watch show X and the right not to watch show X, are justified by the fact that both parties are autonomous individuals with the right to determine their own life choices and the fact that they both have legitimate right of ownership to the television in question. The fulfillment of each moral claim also entails consequences of equal moral worth; one party will not have its legitimate moral claim fulfilled. How do we resolve this moral conflict?
Now, it could be suggested that the party who does not want to watch show X has the moral upper hand because by subjecting this party to a television program that they do not want to watch amounts to torture, and torture is never a good thing. Now, granting this, my intuition is that the other party has the same recourse. They can claim that denying their right to watch show X also amounts to torture. Now what?
It may be possible to rely on the old maxim that ‘you can’t always get what you want’ and evaluate the consequence following from the one party not getting what they want, the denial of this party’s particular moral claim, as being less of a loss to one’s autonomy than denying the other party the right not to do what they do not want to do. Now this is where I start to waiver.
A part of me wants to say that this is a convincing argument. It seems that there is something different about positive rights and negative rights, but I’m not sure exactly what that might be. However, if the difference simply amounts to the fact that we can’t always get what we want, this seems to be irrelevant to the weight of the moral claim to positive rights. That all our claims to positive rights do not go fulfilled seems irrelevant as to whether or not they should.
Furthermore, if we buy the ‘you can’t always get what you want’ solution, using the same logic, we can say that ‘you can’t always get what you don’t want’ and suggest then that the consequence of denying someone their claim to negative rights amounts to a loss equivalent to that of the one being denied claims to positive rights. Given this, it seems that each party has equally weighted claims to either positive rights or negative rights, resulting, once again, in a moral stalemate.
Of course, one may suggest that the other party need not be forced to watch a television show they don’t want to watch, he or she can just leave the room. However, the point here is about resolving the moral conflict resulting from conflicting legitimate moral claims. The other party may leave the room, and by doing so the moral conflict no longer becomes an issue, yet the question of whether one moral claim trumps the other still remains.
4 comments:
There is a whole lot to untangle here.
1. I do not think it is accurate to describe the moral claims in this case as rights claims. That I own a TV set does not entail a right to watch a show. Case in point: I have no right to watch "Deadwood" because I do not subscribe to HBO. Moreover, once the show ends, I cannot sue HBO for denying me the show.
2. Ignoring the problem of casting this as a rights-claim, there is a problem here, namely because of equal ownership of the TV. Both parties want to make use of the property and neither has the warrant for blocking the other's use. This is not an uncommon problem, but one easily solved by a some kind of decision-procedure: "It's a Tuesday, so Sheila decides what we watch." or through some trade: "You can watch this show, if you do the dishes." When no decision-procedure is available we get the tragedy of the commons. Though this usually only occurs where there is no real ownership, not with jointly owned property. In most cases of real value (as opposed to watching TV), the decision-procedure will be pre-determined. In other cases, there is a conventional norm: calling shotgun or going by first come, first served. For the most part, these respect the autonomy of the individuals invovled. And, it seems to me, that where the procedure or convention fails to do so (I'm the man, so I get to decide), this is not so much an issue of conflicting moral claims but of some unjust, and incorrect, moral belief (Men are superior to women).
3. Positive vs. Negative rights. The fundamental difference between positive and negative rights is what kind of obligation is entailed by the existence of the right. Negative rights entail only the obligation of non-interference. Postive rights entail that some other agent has an obligation to the rights-holder(s). A negative right to free speech means that no one can forcibly interfere with what you wish to say--it does not ential that anyone has to listen or provide you with the means of conveying your message. A positive right to free speech, by contrast, would entail that some one provide you with the means or has an obligation to listen. I don't see the relevance of this distinction to your case. To the extent that this is a rights issue at all (See point 1), it is not a matter of negative vs positive rights. The ownership of the TV is a negative right, the problem is that both parties share this right and so neither can exclude the other.
3. Torture? Then again, I think I would count it as torture if I had to watch American Idol.
4. The main problem here, however, is the dropping of the full context of the relationship between these individuals. In our lives, we encounter situations like this all the time and are, except in rare occasions, able to mediate them and balance the claims and autonomy of each party. Presumably in this case, the two share a home (as roommates or lovers) and so exist in a pre-established relationship in which there will be many avenues of resolution (See point 2). In situations involving strangers or less intimate relations, there are countless social conventions to mediate these problems. Where there is a failure to resolve the problem in a conventional or pre-established manner, the parties must improverise or walk away. By dropping this context from the example, we impoverish the example and make it look like there is a real intractable problem where there is none.
5. The error in these kinds of cases is to jump immediately to the point that the conflict is irresolvable and so one side must trump the other if we are going to move forward. But with a little imagination and appeal to experience, I think we see that by and large most of the cases we encounter in normal life are not hopelessly irresolvable and so we don't need to look for who holds the trump card. We just need to talk to each other.
Shawn:
In response to 1, I’m having trouble with understanding this point. You suggest that owning a TV set does not entail a right to watch a show. Then you point out that you have no right to watch "Deadwood" because you do not subscribe to HBO and that once the show ends, you cannot sue HBO for denying you the show. I think there might be some confusion here.
That one is an autonomous person seems to generate the right to determine one’s own life choices. Now, being an autonomous individual with the right of ownership to a particular object generates the right to determine one’s own life choices in regard to the particular object that is owned. So, that one is an autonomous individual and owns a television set does seem to generate the right to watch a particular television show on the television set that one owns as far as this right is understood in terms of having a right to be able to dispose of whatever it is that one owns in any particular manner that one sees fit (of course within the limitations of legal or social norms). So, that I am an autonomous individual and own a spoon generates my right to eat ice cream with it, stomp on it, throw it away, dig castles in the sand with it, but perhaps not impale someone in the eye with it.
Now, granting that in today’s society it seems that one must also pay for having access to certain shows via paying for cable, etc., we can still conclude that one has a right to watch any particular television show that one pleases as long as we also stipulate that one had also paid for, and thus has something like right of ownership (such as right of access) to, the particular shows that please one to watch. So, given this there might be some recourse for you if you were denied access to watching "Deadwood” (by the cable company) when it was available to all others who paid for such access...or at least there should be! However, making such stipulations do not seem to be that relevant to the point that I am trying to make. The point I am trying to make is about moral stalemates and as long as the stipulations can be made for all the parties of the moral stalemate in order to ensure the legitimacy of each party’s rights, the moral stalemate still seems to remain.
In repose to your other comments (in general), beside the first one, I agree with you that such moral stalemates can be dealt with in the various ways that you have suggested. However, these ways of dealing with moral stalemates do not seem to resolve the moral stalemate itself. They seem to be similar to the “leaving the room” strategy. The moral stalemate no longer becomes an issue in determining what will occur, or is at least put aside, but the stalemate still seems to remain.
Before discuss the rights issue again, which is tangential to your point, I am completely befuddled by the last paragraph. There's a moral stalemate. A procedure or convention is in place to deal with this stalemate. Stalemate is dealt with and parties move forward. What more are you looking for? I don't understand how the stalemate remains if the procedure or convention indicates the way forward? Isn't that precisely what it means for the stalemate to be resolved?
On to the irrelevant material.
Describing one's rights as the right to do x or the right to do y muddies the water. Is this positive or negative? What obligations are created? It's not clear and leads to confusion. Say I have a right to do x so an impediment to my doing x is a violation of one's rights. So if I have a right to work, and you don't hire me that can construed as a violation of my rights. That should, I hope sound, absurd.
It's not that one has a right to do x or y or z. One has the right not to be interfered with while taking non-coercive actions whatever they may be(x, y, or z). This leaves it open ended what the action is and make it clear what other's obligations are. The former is important so that we don't need an infinite list of actions that one has a right to take. The latter is essential for social interaction.
The ownership right of the TV is not a composite of the right to kick the TV, to watch this show, to use it as footrest, to throw it off my roof, etc. The right is really just a short hand way of indicating that no one is justified in interfering with the owner's use of the TV (with the usual qualifications of harm to another).
As to the ‘irrelevant material,’ I agree that there is a spurious distinction between positive rights and negative rights. My little example was in some way meant to bring out this point.
Now, regarding moral stalemates, my point is simple and I think we’re on the same page, but you don’t seem to see it that way.
There are such things as moral stalemates and I find this interesting.
(I believe these are different, in one sense, from moral conflicts. That is, if ‘moral conflicts’ are to be understood as conflicts in duties that one holds. However, a moral stalemate may also involve moral conflicts.)
Furthermore, moral stalemates are not resolvable. In the case I have given, the moral stalemate was specifically not resolvable by strategies that only consider the importance of consequences or rights. However, as you mentioned, strategies that appeal to customs (norms), may be able to resolve these issues. I agree with this, and I also find this to be interesting.
Now the question may be, ‘why is it that I find this interesting?’ Well, one reason is that it makes me consider cases in which norms have yet to be put into practice in order to deal with moral stalemates. It also makes me question the possibility of a case in which norms cannot be appealed to, for example, cases in which the parties of a moral stalemate hold incommensurably different norms.
Finally, I’m not really looking for anything. I just thought moral stalemates were interesting and I was wondering if anyone else found them interesting as well.
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