At the Symposium last class I brought up the subject of “tainted
philanthropy” for a question to Mill. My
question was “If the person who owns a company that produces cigarettes, cigarettes
being a product that kills millions of people a year, decides to donate money
to cancer research is that act of philanthropy considered moral?” The simple answer being YES!!!! I should have
thought about it more but a utilitarian would do that to achieve good
consequences.
The reason why I asked that question was never answered to
me though. Does the morality of one
action cancel out another or in a utilitarian point of view does the good
consequence of one action cancel out the bad consequence of another
action? A Kantian would say that the
philanthropist could only give that money if his motives were pure. Would a utilitarian say that killing millions
of people and donating money to try and save millions cancel out though? Does the utility of killing millions and
saving millions cancel out?
I don’t believe it does at all because that person is still
causing the death of those millions of people.
If this tainted philanthropist decided to stop making cigarettes and
donated that money I would say that that person is turning their life
around. However, they would have to
donate that money with no ulterior motives than to help people with cancer.
In the respect of judging the morality of actions I would
say I say that I side with Kant. Not to
say I don’t consider the consequences of my actions or always decide to act
based on a good motive. I just believe that
I could never agree with their action of causing millions of deaths and would
deem them an immoral person. Therefore I
would never want to pursue that person as someone who I would like to get to
know. That would be the action I would
take based on my motive of not agreeing with the actions of the tainted
philosopher.
I do think this question is an interesting one. Looking at the situation as a utilitarian, I think the situation could actually be considered very complicated. In our current society, cigarettes are known to cause cancer, but if this were their only role, people would very quickly stop using them and selling them. The fact that many people smoke regardless of the harmful affects implies that smoking is also some sort of enjoyable social action. I rant about this just to point out the complexities of many seemingly simple issues. If the cigarette seller is instead regarded as a facilitator of social enjoyment, the act of selling cigarettes seems less immoral and more acceptable. The fact that not EVERYONE who smokes dies of cancer and that people buy cigarettes for a reason besides that it could cause cancer make even the act of selling cigarettes more complex than we might originally think.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the act of donating to cancer research is complicated because of the simple fact that it is ONLY research (and not guarantees that cancerous people will be helped at all).
Although I think of myself as a utilitarianism, I understand that consequences even in "simple" cases can be extremely complex, but I would like to think that that is because actions themselves are complex and not merely "immoral" or "moral" on a scale we can understand.
Just because a person produces a harmful product, such as cigarettes, does not necessarily imply any sort of immorality. It is up to the consumer to make an individual conscious decision to buy and use the harmful product that they already know the ramifications for. That being said, I think there is no connection between the cigarette company executive donating money to cancer research and his job at the company.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, if actions, in a Kantian sense, can be willed as a universal maxim if they are moral, then they do not cancel out, as each action is looked at on an individual basis, regardless of what has been done before or after as long as it can be applied universally.