Harming and failing to benefit: a reply to purves

Abstract

A prominent objection to the counterfactual comparative account of harm is that it classifies as harmful some events that are, intuitively, mere failures to benefit. In an attempt to solve this problem, Duncan Purves has recently proposed a novel version of the counterfactual comparative account, which relies on a distinction between making upshots happen and allowing upshots to happen. In this response, we argue that Purves's account is unsuccessful. It fails in cases where an action makes the subject occupy a high well-being level though one of the available alternatives would have made it even higher. In fact, it fails even in some cases where each of the available alternatives to the action that was actually performed would have made the subject's well-being level lower.

Causal Accounts of Harming

“…Our objection here, however, does not focus on whether causal theories support implausible moral conclusions, but directly on their implications about harming. 9 This case is taken, with minor modifications, from Johansson and Risberg (2020). Unlike our other counterexamples to causal-counterfactual accounts, More Golf is a counterexample to CCA as well.…”

“…The failure to benefit problem indicates that CCA also overgenerates harming. Consider Ben Bradley's much discussed case (Bradley 2012: 397; Feit 2019; Purves 2019; Johansson and Risberg 2020, forthcoming):

Golf Clubs . Batman contemplates giving a set of golf clubs to Robin, but eventually decides to keep them.

…”

“…9 9 This case is taken, with minor modifications, from Johansson and Risberg (2020). Unlike our other counterexamples to causal‐counterfactual accounts, More Golf is a counterexample to CCA as well.…”

The Harm Principle and the Nature of Harm

“…But he frames that as a problem for "quantitative views", rather than a problem for non-comparative views. 10 For discussion of the failure to benefit problem, see Bradley (2012), Feit (2019, Folland (Manuscript), Johansson & Risberg (2020), and Purves (2019). that these failures to benefit are, if anything, problematic for CCA.…”

“… 10 For discussion of the failure to benefit problem, see Bradley (2012), Feit (2019), Folland (Manuscript), Johansson & Risberg (2020), and Purves (2019). …”