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Spinning the Wheel or Tossing a Coin?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2011

ROBERT HUSEBY
ROBERT HUSEBY*
Affiliation:
University of Osloroberthu@stv.uio.no
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Abstract

In the literature on the so-called numbers problem, some authors have recently argued that the individualist lottery (IL) avoids the flaws of the proportional lottery. This article first presents two recent defenses of the IL, and then argues that both are implausible if we focus, as we should, strictly on their non-consequentialist aspects. This conclusion holds even if we take account of the fact that the IL is arguably that solution to the numbers problem which best meets the marginal difference criterion. The upshot is that non-consequentialists should toss a coin rather than spin a wheel in conflict cases (if and when they must do either).

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 127 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 Wasserman, David, and Strudler, Alan, ‘Can a Nonconsequentialist Count Lives?’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (2003), pp. 71–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Otsuka, Michael, ‘Saving Lives, Moral Theory, and the Claims of Individuals’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 34 (2006), pp. 109–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kamm, F. M., Morality, Mortality, vol. 1: Death and Whom to Save from It (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass., 1998)Google Scholar.

2 Taurek, John M., ‘Should the Numbers Count?’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1977), pp. 293–316Google ScholarPubMed.

3 Kamm and Scanlon have argued that we can legitimately save the larger group by balancing individual, but opposed claims, and let any unbalanced claims decide which group the rescuer should save (Kamm, Morality; Scanlon, What We Owe). In addition, some authors have argued in favour of saving the larger group on the basis of hypothetical contractualism. (See Suikkanen, Jussi, ‘What We Owe to Many’, Social Theory and Practice 30 (2004), pp. 485–506CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gerhard Øverland, ‘Contractual Saving’, manuscript (2005).)

4 Kamm, Morality, pp. 130–1.

5 Kamm, Morality, pp. 130–1.

6 Broome, John, ‘Review: Kamm on Fairness’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (1998), pp. 955–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hirose, Iwao, ‘Weighted Lotteries in Life and Death Cases’, Ratio 20 (2007), pp. 45–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Timmermann, Jens, ‘The Individualist Lottery: How People Count, but Not Their Numbers’, Analysis 64 (2004), pp. 106–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saunders, Ben, ‘A Defence of Weighted Lotteries in Life Saving Cases’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 12 (2009), pp. 279–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The term ‘individualist lottery’ lottery is Timmermann's.

8 Hirose, ‘Weighted Lotteries’.

9 It should be noted that I believe that non-consequentialists have reason to save the larger group straightaway in most situations. However, since this is not always the case, I am interested in whether non-consequentialism then implies a lottery or a coin toss.

10 See n. 9.

11 All the examples presented in this article are all-else-equal scenarios. I assume that there are no morally relevant differences between the imperilled persons, and that the rescuer has no special ties to any of them.

12 Solutions that rely on lotteries may seem less attractive in this respect because such solutions will sometimes mandate that we save the smaller group. Nevertheless, lotteries will on the whole make sure that the larger group is rescued most of the time, and will therefore be more appealing than the coin toss, though less appealing than a procedure demanding that we always save the larger group.

13 Kumar, Rahul, ‘Contractualism On Saving the Many’, Analysis 61 (2001), pp. 165–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 165; Rakowski, Eric, Equal Justice (Oxford, 1993), pp. 282CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 286; Scanlon, What we Owe, pp. 229–41.

14 Timmermann, ‘Individualist Lottery’, p. 111, n. 6.

15 Timmermann, ‘Individualist Lottery’, p. 110 (emphasis in original).

16 Timmermann, ‘Individualist Lottery’, p. 110.

17 Timmermann, ‘Individualist Lottery’, p. 111.

18 Hirose, ‘Weighted Lotteries’, pp. 49–51.

19 Hirose, ‘Weighted Lotteries’, pp. 51–2.

20 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, p. 287.

21 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, p. 287.

22 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, pp. 287–8. Saunders (pp. 288–9) goes on to refine this result by arguing that in the event that A loses the first draw, there is no longer any conflict, and B and C can be saved together. This increases B's and C's chances to 50 per cent. This refinement is not relevant to my argument (interesting though it is), and I ignore it in what follows.

23 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, p. 289 (emphases removed).

24 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, p. 289.

25 Kamm, F. M., ‘Review: Précis of Morality, Mortality, Vol. 1: Death and Whom to Save From It’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 58 (1998), pp. 939–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 940–41; Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 232.

26 See Wassermann and Strudler, ‘Count Lives?’, for an extensive discussion of the marginal difference criterion.

27 As noted, it seems that Saunders's main reason for turning the IL on its head is to show that Hirose's criticism fails. Thus, there is no reason to think that anything is lost by discussing the IL in its positive form.

28 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, also pays attention to considerations of fairness. However, the coin toss seems no less fair than the IL. I return to this below.

29 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, pp. 281, 283–4. With Timmermann, the issue is a bit more complex. He relies on the moral importance of the difference between persons, but it seems that on his view the advantage of the individualist lottery is simply that it accords each person a unique equal chance (Timmermann, ‘Individualist Lottery’, pp. 110–11). In that case it would in some sense be wrong to toss a coin when we have to choose between equally sized groups. In my view, this seems overly formalistic. The MDC appears to be a greater asset to the IL than the uniqueness-criterion, and I will ignore the latter in what follows.

30 Kamm, ‘Précis’, pp. 940–1; Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 232. See also Wassermann and Strudler, ‘Count Lives?’.

31 While I believe that the MDC is questionable, and will argue for that conclusion in section IV, I think my argument against IL is sufficient to undermine it even if the MDC is a sound criterion (though I do not argue explicitly for this assumption, precisely because I do not accept the MDC).

32 Saunders, ‘A Defence’.

33 I add ‘mostly’, because on any procedure demanding that we always save the larger group, a newcomer breaking a tie will effectively decide which group is to be saved (in which case she should try to randomize her choice, if at all possible). But in cases where the groups are unequal, she can join the larger group without negatively affecting the smaller group's (already bleak) prospects.

34 Saunders, ‘A Defence’, p. 284.

35 This article has been presented at a seminar at the Ethics Programme at the University of Oslo in 2007, at the Annual Norwegian Conference in Ethics in Oslo in 2009, and at a conference organized by the Nordic Network in Political Theory in Fredriksdal, 2009. Thanks are due to participants on all these occasions and in particular to Kim Angell, Katharina Berndt, Lene Bomann-Larsen, Jakob Elster, Eli Feiring, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Raino Malnes, Jon Anstein Olsen, Håvard Strand, Henrik Syse and Dag Einar Thorsen. I would also like to thank two anonymous referees for their comments. Lastly, I am grateful to Gerhard Øverland for many discussions on topics relating to this article.