September 23, 2010
On The Philosophy of Murdering Hamsters
Should I be imprisoned for 9 weeks, the sentence applied retrospectively for a crime committed when I was 13 years old? I speak of the death-by-neglect of my two Russian Dwarf hamsters.
As a somewhat self-involved teenager (la plus ca change, eh?) the pressing concerns of school life commanded my utmost attentions. I correspondingly neglected to notice that the animals in my care had run out of drinking water – until it was too late.
This week, Anthony Parker was jailed for nine weeks after he microwaved his girlfriend’s Syrian hamster during a drunken row. I don’t expect the RSPCA will kick my door down after this post goes up. But in a consistent world, should they?
In his Tanner Lectures [PDF] Jonathan Bennett explored the philosophical foundations of what is known as the acting/omitting (or sometimes: killing/letting die) distinction. A common thought – and one sanctified in, for example, much Catholic teaching – is that it is morally worse to actively kill than to passively let die; that positive action to bring about some end is morally worse than sitting on one’s hands and doing nothing even if the exact same end comes about in either case.
An illustration: imagine there is a microwave that automatically starts when a weight of 100 grammes+ is present inside it, and the door of which closes automatically when the weight-sensor is activated. Now imagine two scenarios:
1. I take Bobby the Hamster, who weighs 150g, and put him inside the microwave (knowing that it will start and he will die).
2. I observe Bobby the Hamster walking into the microwave (knowing that it will start and he will die) and do nothing to stop him even though I could.
Most people want to say that 1) is worse than 2). But Bennett explodes this distinction. When you get down to the philosophical nitty-gritty, so long as everything else is kept constant there is no morally relevant difference between acting to bring about a consequence, and omitting to act when one knows that so-omitting will yield the exact same consequence.*
This is counter-intuitive to many. But Bennett’s reasoning is impeccable; the challenge is to explain why we have collectively developed the acting/omitting distinction and employ it in so much of our intuitive moral thinking even though it is a deep conceptual mistake. We need an error-theory of this common moral practice.
But as it happens, none of this touches the question of whether I should be in jail. Because there is a very important difference between myself and Anthony Parker: whereas he intended to fry Suzie the Hamster, I did not intend for my pets to die. If somebody had said to me “give the poor things some water, you idiot” I would have done so immediately. Telling Parker that Suzie was going to experience her own little Hiroshima would not have stopped him, because that was exactly what he intended to bring about.
Thus, the two cases are asymmetrical: I caused death by negligence but without intention, Parker caused death by design and with intention. That difference of intention – or specifically, the different motivations underlying those different intentions – is what does the moral work here, not any acting/omitting distinction.
Certainly, negligence is morally reprehensible; that’s whynegligence of children by parents can rightly end in criminal prosecution. Negligence reveals a defect of moral motivations insofar as adequate concern for other (dependent) living creatures is lacking. But such callous, overly-self-regarding motivations are of a less heinous order than a cruelty-seeking motivation which issues in the wilful murder-by-microwave of innocent hamsters.
I am a bad and guilty man. But I am not as bad, or guilty, as Anthony Parker. All of which, of course, comes as no surprise to those who’ve been wise enough to read their Hume:
“`Tis evident, that when we praise any actions, we regard only the motives that produced them, and consider the actions as signs or indications of certain principles in the mind and temper. The external performance has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality. This we cannot do directly; and therefore fix our attention on actions, as on external signs. But these actions are still considered as signs; and the ultimate object of our praise and approbation is the motive, that produc’d them.”
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* Actually, the acting/omitting terminology is itself hopelessly confused at a philosophical level, and Bennett junks it accordingly. I’ve retained it here for ease of exposition.
chris said,
September 23, 2010 at 10:55 am
Welcome back.
You say that Bennett’s argument is counter-intuitive. Not to me it’s not; my intuition is that 1 and 2 are alike. Am I a freak here? Or does this just show that intuitions are so heterogenous that they cannot be a basis for moral judgments? Or what?
What drives my intuition is that, in both cases, the consequences of (in)action are foreseeable – and, they way you put it, foreseen – so in effect, case 2 is equivalent to intending Bobby to die.
grrl said,
September 23, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Paul, i think you don’t need to fear prison :), not from the French side, because you were only 13 when you ‘neglected the hamster to death’ (which is hamster-slaughter, not murder), and in the French Law they consider circonstances atténuantes en faveur du délinquant, when he is âgé de moins de vingt et un ans [Quoted from http://ledroitcriminel.free.fr/la_science_criminelle/penalistes/le_proces_penal/le_jugement/sanction/doucet_circ_attenuantes.htm ]. I think there is also a ‘diminished responsibility plea‘ introduced lately in the English Criminal Law, so you might get away without punishment. If not, you can always run away to France and escape the British système judiciaire (lucky double-passport-ed boy! :) …)
Anyway, to …. Anthony Parker: what about Anthony Parker’s girlfriend? He had a row with her, and she was presumably present during the ‘microwaving’. Could she not switch off the oven? She might be guilty of ‘letting it [the microvawing] happen’, which inplies (according to a certain theory) she might be guilty in an equal measure as Anthony Parker. If she was drunk too as they had a row, then she can make a ‘diminished responsibility plea‘ , otherwise she might get a higher sentence [for letting the oven on, while not drunk, and obviously realising what happens] than Mr Parker [who admitted having been very drunk when 'microwaving' the hamster].
In the big scheme of things, I say: ‘poor hamster(s)’! If I was a hamster I would have difficulties to choose between ‘being microwaved’, or ‘die of thirst’…
BenSix said,
September 23, 2010 at 6:00 pm
How on earth can it be wrong to kill hamster but not to, say, cage and slaughter pigs and cows?
lukeroelofs said,
September 23, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Another important distinction is between the extent to which something reflects individual responsibility and the extent to which it reflects overall system. In this case, for instance, scrutinising the motives of a negligent 13-year-old serves to displace the question ‘is it right to make something’s life and happiness entirely dependent on the conscientiousness of a 13-year-old?’
Peter said,
September 23, 2010 at 8:24 pm
BenSix,
I guess it would be claimed that cows etc are killed humanely, whereas the microwaved hamster had a pretty painful death. Now, I don’t know if that’s true or not (I’ve never seen a cow being slaughtered) but it’s one line of thought.
Though I think it’d be a poor strategy for vegetarian activists to immediately make the parallels with hamster-microwaving. For, that meat-eating is morally OK is so entrenched in many people’s web of beliefs (including mine) that if it really did turn out that there was no moral distinction between humanely reared meat (as I say above, I don’t have especially firm views on whether that’s possible or not), maybe people would respond “well … maybe there’s nothing wrong with microwaving a hamster then!”.
Paul Sagar said,
September 23, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Chris,
Maybe I was too effective in my de-sensitised, non-emotive rendering. But generally I think (from observational experience) that people do tend to want to say that acting is worse than omitting.
Ben/Peter,
One important distinction is that cows and pigs are tasty when cooked, but hamsters are not. Don’t let that basic fact underestimate the way moral conventions will likely form around practices focusing on animals. And I don’t particularly think that’s all that bad or shoking [says the former vegan].
Luke,
Yes, my thoughts exactly: 13 year olds shouldn’t be in charge of hamsters, so it’s basically all my mum’s fault, as usual.
Paul's Mum said,
September 24, 2010 at 12:58 pm
try telling that to a 13 year old
Andrew said,
September 25, 2010 at 6:28 pm
I think an important reason for maintaining a moral distinction (and even more importantly a legal distinction) between “acting” and “omitting” is that everyone on earth is omitting to do countless things at any given time.
Paul, you’ve previously commented (approvingly, I believe) on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In the context of your post above, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this passage:
“The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.”
(It seems for Smith the moral work is done by an acting/omitting distinction rather than an assessment of underlying motives.)
P.S. I’d be interested to hear why you’re no longer a vegan, and also why you don’t like Peter Singer’s work. (I’ve been meaning to read The Life You Can Save, and also to give the topic of animal rights some serious consideration.) At Singer’s Balliol talk, I remember you raising a point to the effect that animals’ ability to feel pain was a sufficient reason not to cage/kill/eat them. Is your non-veganism restricted to free-range eggs, or have your views on the subject altered since then?
Paul Sagar said,
September 26, 2010 at 11:46 am
Andrew,
Smith’s not talking about any acting/omitting distinction, but between morality tout court and the demands of justice. Like Hume, he basically thinks justice = a set of artificial rules, which we become inculcated into and via the functioning of sympathy want to see applied widely. However, justice does not exaust morality – you can stay within the rules of justice (by sitting on your hands) and yet still be judged to have failed (or not done enough) morally. Smith is showing that morality is a diverse phenomenon that can’t be reduced down to rule-following, even when the rules are those of justice. Modern moral/political theorists like Joseph Raz have pursued similar arguments, e.g. in emphasising the importance of supererogatroy acts vis-a-vis rights-based moral theories.
Re veganism etc: I’m thinking of doing a post on this later this week, so I’ll defer my answer – but basically it comes down to a mix between consequentialism and integrity considerations, and when these two mix together it ends up being about individual choice about what to be complicit in, not what consequences do or do not come about.
As for Peter Singer, I don’t remember saying anything remotely polite or coherent to him, so thanks for implying that I did. From what I remember, he refused to engage in a proper philosophical manner, and his laziness got so far up my nose I lost my temper and made an idiot of myself.
Tingly Neurons said,
September 27, 2010 at 3:45 pm
You summarise the story with “microwaved *his girlfriend’s* Syrian hamster” (emphasis mine). If he deliberately killed somebody else’s pet, that somebody else is likely to have a greater emotional attachment to it, and that contributes to why I’d agree that you aren’t “as guilty” as Parker. But the linked BBC article doesn’t specify that much – there’s no indication whether he killed his girlfriend’s pet to get his own back, or took his anger out on his own pet.
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