Individual Obligations and the Army
Over at Right Reason, an interesting thought experiment has been posted, and a bizarre discussion has ensued.
Dr. Beckwith offers, in a nutshell, the following case. His goal is to prove that we have collective obligations that we do not choose to have.
1)Alice is a hermit in the Alaskan wilderness. She discovers a baby on her doorstep one day, presenting her with a moral dilemma. Alice did not choose to have this obligation to care for the unrelated child. Nonetheless, she now has a moral obligation to care for it. Dr. Beckwith says this shows that, "I suspect its wrongness [choosing to leave the child out to die] lies in an intuition we have about our moral obligation as a community to those members of the human family that are weak, vulnerable, and defenseless."
The problem with his conclusion is that "collective obligation" is a non-sequitur. Alice is not part of a community, and so a collective obligation cannot be derived from the example. Dr. Beckwith wants a collective obligation so that he can claim that abortion should be illegal, but all that he has shown is that it is immoral.
This is perhaps the foundation of my libertarianism: I believe that there are no collective obligations as such. We have many universal individual obligations, and the satisfaction of them may require the creation of a communitarian institution, but collective obligations do not exist. The United States does not have moral obligations of its own. If I have an obligation to aid the downtrodden persons, and the Iraqis are such persons, then the formation of a collective military force may be morally required.
Now, of course there are more instances of this obligation than I could possibly ever satisfy. This is a result of my finiteness. However, I am obligated to help the downtrodden as much as is possible without reducing my giving power. For example, it is possible that I could spread myself too thin with charitable activities and get an illness.
Thus, I am not necessarily required to join the military and satisfy my obligation to the Iraqis or Iranians. If I have obligations here as well then it is morally permissible for me to stay home and satisfy these obligations. However, the existence of a US army that I help fund in taxes does not fulfill my obligation to the Iraqis.
Dr. Beckwith offers, in a nutshell, the following case. His goal is to prove that we have collective obligations that we do not choose to have.
1)Alice is a hermit in the Alaskan wilderness. She discovers a baby on her doorstep one day, presenting her with a moral dilemma. Alice did not choose to have this obligation to care for the unrelated child. Nonetheless, she now has a moral obligation to care for it. Dr. Beckwith says this shows that, "I suspect its wrongness [choosing to leave the child out to die] lies in an intuition we have about our moral obligation as a community to those members of the human family that are weak, vulnerable, and defenseless."
The problem with his conclusion is that "collective obligation" is a non-sequitur. Alice is not part of a community, and so a collective obligation cannot be derived from the example. Dr. Beckwith wants a collective obligation so that he can claim that abortion should be illegal, but all that he has shown is that it is immoral.
This is perhaps the foundation of my libertarianism: I believe that there are no collective obligations as such. We have many universal individual obligations, and the satisfaction of them may require the creation of a communitarian institution, but collective obligations do not exist. The United States does not have moral obligations of its own. If I have an obligation to aid the downtrodden persons, and the Iraqis are such persons, then the formation of a collective military force may be morally required.
Now, of course there are more instances of this obligation than I could possibly ever satisfy. This is a result of my finiteness. However, I am obligated to help the downtrodden as much as is possible without reducing my giving power. For example, it is possible that I could spread myself too thin with charitable activities and get an illness.
Thus, I am not necessarily required to join the military and satisfy my obligation to the Iraqis or Iranians. If I have obligations here as well then it is morally permissible for me to stay home and satisfy these obligations. However, the existence of a US army that I help fund in taxes does not fulfill my obligation to the Iraqis.
posted by Joshua Frear at 3:20 PM
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