ETHC200:
Ethics & Society

The Unrestricted Potentiality of Death in Ivan Ilyich

What makes a life lived good? Derek Parfit’s paper ‘What makes someone’s life go best?’ considers the restricted desire-fulfillment theory plausible on the grounds that the only desires which are relevant are the desires about one’s own life (Parfit, 2012). In this paper I will argue Parfit’s concession that the success theorist should think that the more unrestricted events we can never know about are essential to our composite conclusion as to whether Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich lived a good life or not.

I will first articulate Parfit’s case for thinking events we never know about might have the potential to be good for us, then move to examine Ivan’s frustrations in life, with a particular focus on his moment of death. I will conclude with some examples of why Ivan’s life, and the potentiality of his son’s life, supported by Parfit’s case, was eventually a good one.

Parfit considers desire-fulfillment as a distinguishing theory of what it takes for one’s life to go well (Parfit, 2012). He first considers the unrestricted desire-fulfillment theory, which holds that all of one’s desires are relevant to our welfare. He concludes this is implausible. He rejects the unrestricted with an example of a stranger on a train. We meet a stranger, who is seriously ill, and we desire for them to be cured. Much later, and long after we’ve forgotten about the stranger, they do indeed recover. The unrestricted theory holds that upon the cure, our life got better, but we never know this outcome to be the case. Therefore, he argues, the unrestricted theory does not hold (Lord, 2022).

The restricted desire-fulfillment theory, and the one more directly applicable to Ivan Ilyich’s life, holds that the only relevant desires are those which are only about our own lives. So, because our desire about the stranger isn’t directly about us, it doesn’t apply, even though it is unclear which desires are about our own lives. However, he does suggest that we should think about events we never know about and if they can be good or bad for us (Lord, 2022). He uses the example of our desire for our children to thrive ultimately being about our lives, even if we never know that such a desire was ever satisfied, especially after death.

It’s Parfit’s latitude to think of the potentiality of such unrestricted desire fulfillment, especially in the lives of others after our death, which frees desire fulfillment of its individual restriction and motivates our use of Tolstoy’s story.  

Ivan Ilyich’s life is one of frustrated desire and unfulfilled bourgeois aspiration. He is consistently disappointed at his supposed societal achievements, and receives little empathy throughout life from his wife, children, professional colleagues, and even medical advisors. He moves through life doing what he feels he ought, periodically climbing an upwardly mobile social ladder, but ultimately leading a life that ‘was most simple and ordinary and most terrible’ (Tolstoy, 1886). He doesn’t seek out any kind of truth about the world, and while he aspires towards hedonistic experiences, especially those brought about by playing cards, never truly attains the kind of pleasures he thinks they should deliver (Kaufman, 2009).

These aspirational behaviors lead to the circumstances and consequences of his death. His fall from an actual ladder while hanging a bourgeois set of new curtains sets off a cascade of events which cause him to become further alienated from his family, to give up work, and to seek relief in the actions of servants. His wife only increases his misery, his friends are little comfort, and his children are absent. At the point of death, he confronts the big questions, and it’s not a relationship he is equipped to manage, but it’s not too late. His slowly decaying body contrasts with his slowly awakening consciousness. He finally realizes it’s not what’s next that’s important, it’s what’s first (Kaufman, 2009).

And only at death does he understand that genuine, authentic desire is fulfilled by freeing the restriction of what he wants, what he thinks is good for him, and to desire the best for others. His death frees him of a life of frustration, welcomes the good into his last remaining moments, and motivates the potentiality of his son to lead a life better than his. But it’s an unrestricted view he’ll never know.

Parfit asks ‘suppose instead that we claim that the value of a whole may not be a mere sum of the value of its parts. We might then claim that what is best for people is a composite.’ (Parfit, 2012). The composite of the restricted and unrestricted views comes together at the fulcrum of Ivan Ilyich’s death, where he pities his son and sends him away. One of his first truly selfless acts. Ilyich opens the door for his son to lead a better life than his, but in doing so he also redeems himself and finally does something good. In the moments before death, he questions if there will be any meaning to his life that is not destroyed by death. And if there is meaning then it must align with that which is indestructible within us. It follows that the greatest manifestation of this are acts of love and compassion (Kaufman, 2009). He becomes the reborn, redeemed phénix his family was so proud of during his childhood, and over which he fondly reminisces.

In conclusion, if we hold that the composite potentiality of the unrestricted view benefits both Ilyich and the future life of his son, both have opportunity to maximize what’s good. And when we maximize such positive outcomes, we do what’s best. Ilyich only arrives at the good moments before death, but in doing so empowers his son to lead a life much better than his own. What joy.

Group Project

When Sanctions Aren’t Enough: Our Moral Obligation to Alleviate Individual Suffering Sooner

In ‘Famine Relief and the Ideal Moral Code’, Peter Singer argues that those in affluent countries have a moral obligation to give away much more of their money than they do (Singer, 1972). I will argue how Singer’s principle holds even stronger in a modern context, because our current governmental methods of alleviating suffering through economic sanctions are ineffective, and therefore increase our individual obligation to donate more to those in immediate need.

I will outline Singer’s 1972 premises and conclusions, followed by several popular objections to his argument. I will then place Singer’s argument in the context of the current Ukrainian conflict, where I will draw difference and comparison between his original argument, and how it holds today. In doing this, I will focus on the role of government intervention, specifically contrasting what Singer says governments ought to do, with what they actually do. My argument will demonstrate that our current economic interventions do not alleviate immediate suffering, in many instances multiply it, and are motivated by goals of deterrence and regime change. Therefore, we have an even greater individual moral obligation to be more effectively altruistic.

Singer uses two principles which seek to link the promotion of good with personal sacrifice. We refer to these as the strong and weak principles (Singer, 1972). Both arguments consist of two premises. The first, that suffering in the Third World is a bad thing. Singer does not argue for this premise, as he believes it to be intuitively true. And second, if we can prevent a bad thing without sacrificing something of moral importance, then we are morally required to prevent the bad thing. Where the strong and weak principles diverge is motivated by what, and to what extent, is to be sacrificed. In the strong principle it is something of comparable moral importance. In the weak principle it is something of significant moral importance (Lord, 2022a). He concludes in both arguments that we are therefore morally required to give significantly larger amounts of money to aid organizations than we currently do.

The weaker principle requires us to help until doing so will cause us to give up something of significant moral importance. We are likely to get to this point long before we give up something comparable. Objections hold that neither principle makes consideration of proximity to those suffering or distinction between the number of people involved in helping. Singer holds that these produce psychological differences, but not moral ones. That the absurdity of numbers lessening obligation is just the ideal excuse for inactivity (Singer, 1972). Or that proximity, either emotional or physical, makes it more likely that we shall help, but not that we ought to. That this form of moral egalitarianism argues that physical proximity doesn’t matter. Similarly, there are objections that the weaker principle is simply an empirical claim about what happens if we give money to aid organizations, and not one of moral consideration.

Through the lens of rights and entitlements, John Arthur argues that residents of the Third World do not explicitly have a positive right to our help, so we are not violating their rights when we fail or refuse to help (Arthur, 1981). Arthur argues that Singer’s principle predicts that we’re forbidden from not donating. The rights principle holds that we are permitted to not donate. And while he doesn’t dispute Singer’s principle, he augments the conclusion by arguing that the moral code which contains Singer’s principle is therefore inconsistent.

Writing in 1972, Singer acknowledges globalization’s increasing importance upon moral arguments, but concedes that they have an ‘unrecognized difference’ (Singer, 1972). The ‘global village’ Singer refers to is now digitally omnipresent. Today, much of the money we have can still be used to prevent something bad from happening without giving up something of significant moral importance, but let’s update Singer’s Third World premise and place it in the context of the current Ukrainian crisis. If Singer is originally focused on suffering caused by natural disasters in Bengal, what changes when we place similar suffering in the context of Russian invasion? Does his argument still hold?

Singer’s argument hangs on how much we are required to give to prevent something bad. In the case of residents of the Third World, he articulates that there are inherent problematic practices which perpetuate longer-term suffering, such as population control (Singer, 1972). He believes that in donating to aid agencies, we should accept the risk and be charitable anyway. That motivation to alleviate immediate suffering ought to be the deciding factor. At best this means that we should at least give our money to different people, but that in either case it does not absolve us of our moral obligation to help.

In doing this, he motivates an argument about the responsibility of government. If we give a disproportionate amount of our money to aid organizations, it likely causes governments to do less (Lord, 2022b). He believes this to be wrong. He argues that because giving is regarded as an act of charity, it is not thought there is anything wrong with not giving. That the charitable are praised, but the non-charitable are not condemned (Singer, 1972). Therefore, it is viewed as inessential to help those outside of one’s own society, but if all gave, we would not have to individually sacrifice as much, and it is government’s role to motivate increased donation.

So, there’s a tension between what we expect of our elected officials, and what we have an individual moral obligation to do ourselves. In the current Ukrainian conflict, the primary instrument of governmental aid is the imposition of economic sanctions. Western countries have cut Russia out of the global economy, rolling back decades of globalization in a matter of weeks. Financial institutions are blocked, trade is restricted, ports are closed, and markets have stalled. Lowry motivates an argument that there are four ways we can think about the efficacy of sanctions (Lowry, 2022). First of deterrent. That we use sanctions to stop the invasion from happening. These were ineffective. Second, sanctions as a compellent function. That we use them to remove Russian presence in Ukraine. Again, so far ineffective. Third, that we can use them to affect regime change in Moscow. Ambitious, but unclear. And fourth, sanctions are forces for behavioral change, and exhaust the adversary through attrition (Lowry, 2022). Deliberately ineffective in the short term.

None of these governmental motivations have proven effective in the immediate alleviation of suffering for the millions of displaced Ukrainian refugees now heading west. These long-term economic weapons have so far failed to achieve their desired political outcomes, and it remains unclear if they ever will. As we see from the rhetoric of western leaders, the targeted outcome of economic sanctions is not the alleviation of Ukrainian suffering, but the deposing of Russian leadership through private citizen pressure and financial hardship (Shear & Kanno-Youngs, 2022). Sanctions do little to help the Ukrainian people, but this is not their goal. Russia is highly tethered to the global economy, especially for natural resources, and private Russian citizens are collateral damage when it comes to economic weaponization. It is not their fault, but it is their problem. Therefore, we can argue our current methods of economic sanction multiply suffering and hardship, in both the lack of relief for those displaced in Ukraine, the politicized outcomes such sanctions seek, and for those having financial and societal hardships imposed upon them in Russia.

This reasoned approach to empathic motivation is where we return to Singer. His argument of effective altruism holds that our compulsion to help must be weighed with where we can have the most impact, and it is ultimately an argument about where best to donate (Singer, 2013). In doing this, he uses the example of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to eternally push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back when he reaches the summit. That in our consumer spending habits, we chase the gratification of goods, but never really get off the hedonic treadmill of consumption. Singer argues that donating more material sums of money, and redirecting that financial effort brings meaning and fulfillment to our lives, builds self-esteem, and increases well-being in ways material goods would never achieve. It is literally life-giving. He places this argument in the context of charitable giving itself. We can spend one hundred dollars training a seeing eye dog, or we can spend that same one hundred dollars bringing relief to five visually impaired children. For Singer, it is clear where to route the money.

Finally, if we believe the economic weaponry of our governments to be ineffective, and see a clear, reasoned path to effective altruism, we can see that Singer’s argument strengthens in a contemporary context in that we are morally obligated to individually donate more because of the inefficiencies of our government’s actions. If we lean on Singer’s drowning boy in the pond example (Lord, 2022a), sanctions are the moral equivalent of draining the pond, defunding the parks department, or hiring a new groundskeeper. In all situations, the boy dies while we stand by and wait. Therefore, we are obligated to act with individual immediate urgency.

In conclusion, Singer’s argument is that we are morally required to part with a large amount of money to alleviate the suffering of those in the Third World. By placing Singer’s premises in a modern context, we find it is more imperative that we do so, because of the inefficiency of the economic warfare of sanctions, and the politicization of what those sanctions seek to achieve. If sanctions play the long game, then through effective altruism we are even more morally individually obligated to donate immediately, and Singer’s argument holds even stronger in 2022 than it did fifty years ago.

Masks, Morality & Mandates: The Rules, Rights & Protections of Pandemic Vaccination

The global pandemic has produced unprecedented suffering. Moral division over what we are obligated to give up has framed our experience through the loss of loved ones, employment, personal independence, and the collapse of industry. Sacrifice has defined our global experience over the past two years, with vaccination and the protections of individual freedom acutely divided across one’s politics, race, gender, age, education, and income level. Vaccination has motivated arguments of moral consequence and the universalizability of mandates and has been the source of conflict concerning protected values, potentiality, and which decisions produce the best futures for the most people.

We will begin by applying Singer’s utilitarian thoughts on sacrifice to the pandemic, specifically the discussion of what’s significant or comparable within our disagreements on vaccination, and frame them in terms of Parfit’s theory of desire fulfillment. We will contrast this with Arthur’s consequentialist views on the inconsistencies between our rights as individuals against broader protections for the communities in which we live. We will then move to more deontological-leaning perspectives on the universalizability of broader protections through mandates, and the extent to which we are morally compelled to take communal protective decisions out of the hands of individuals, leaning on Korsgaard’s views that in doing so we might be treating people as means rather than ends. Finally, we will frame both consequentialist and deontological arguments in the context of Marquis’ views on potentiality, and who has the better future based on our individual and collective moral decisions. 

Consequentialism holds that what’s right is a matter of promoting what’s good. But it doesn’t mean that such actions must always benefit the greatest number of people (Lord, 2022a). The moral egalitarianism and aspiration towards impartiality also holds that such maximization is a balancing function between positive outcomes and suffering. That in order to produce the most positive outcomes, we are required to sacrifice something important to us, even if such sacrifice produces harm (Lord, 2022a).

Singer’s original argument concerning charitable donation links the ideas of promoting good and weighing it against personal sacrifice (Singer, 1972). In today’s context, we intuitively believe that people dying from the COVID-19 virus is a bad thing, and we do not argue for this premise as we similarly hold it as indisputable. Where Singer’s argument diverges is between notions of what we must sacrifice to prevent such loss and suffering. The stronger version of his argument motivates that sacrificing something of comparable moral importance is required, where his weaker argument proposes that such sacrifice need only be something of significant moral import (Lord, 2022b). But in the context of vaccination, what might these things be?

For many, vaccinations are an invasive, physically harmful, unnatural violation, and conflict with the individual autonomy of how we view our own wellness. As Parfit suggests, the only desires which are relevant to us are the ones about our own lives but concedes that events we never know about may also be either good or bad for us (Parfit, 2012). That our desire for both those around us and beyond our immediate social circle not to get the virus has impact upon our welfare just as much as our own views on individual protection. This approach is less about seeking hedonic pleasure than it is about pain avoidance and reducing risk of suffering, but how we think about these risks is inconsistent between individuals and frustrated by broader intervention seeking to protect entire communities.

While it’s uncomfortable to think that not doing something would make us all unnecessarily worse off if we all didn’t do it, for example resisting vaccinations at scale across entire communities, such views concerning not getting vaccinated motivate an argument about rights (Lord, 2022c). As Arthur suggests in his response to Singer, we believe that our individual freedoms also afford us negative rights (Arthur, 1981). To forbid state or federal interference with our bodies, even if such mandates are informed by empirically based evidence of reduced transmission. Arthur argues that such inconsistency within our moral code motivates negative consequences such as guilt, inter-group conflict between those who have or haven’t chosen to become vaccinated and questioning of the effectiveness of such programs in the first place (Lord, 2022d). As such, these perspectives are highly partial, and frustrate the moral impartiality core to the consequentialist maximization of the good.

To return to the notions of significant and comparable sacrifice, many pro-vaccination individuals believe that receiving the vaccination is a sufficiently significant sacrifice to make in order to protect themselves, those they value, and society more broadly. By contrast, those who see vaccination as comparable sacrifice often choose the path of risk management, vaccination aversion and the holding fast of individual freedoms in the face of broader mandate, especially from those whom they didn’t vote for. Such sacrifices might be viewed as overdemanding, and in conflict with the expected positive consequences they may believe come from remaining unvaccinated.

The universalizability of mask mandates, vaccination programs and social distancing also motivates a deontological discussion of the extent to which we are, according to Kant, morally compelled to treat others as ends rather than means (Shafer-Landau, 2010). But what if those means are protection against contagion? And which ends hold most promise?

To treat someone as an end is to respect their dignity. To treat another as a mere means is to behave towards them in a way that is inconsistent with respecting their dignity (Lord, 2022e). Kant argues that because we are rational and value individual autonomy, dignity and respect are non-negotiable, and we can see how the mandating of vaccination may frustrate this by transgressing one’s right to choose. However, as Korsgaard argues, self-preservation is itself an end, and through implementing rules which minimize risk, we rightfully ought to constrain what we can do (Denis, 2007). We see this elsewhere in the widely held communally mandated protections of seat belts, traffic lights and law enforcement. If humanity is an end in itself, it must exist independently from one’s individual contingent inclinations, and trump the worth of anything with conditional value, potentially including autonomous rights (Lord, 2022f).

But is to do so to act unfairly, and therefore wrongly? What if everyone resisted the vaccine? Would the virus simply run its course, or create even greater prolonged and unnecessary suffering? Such rule consequentialism holds that an act is right if it is sanctioned by the set of rules which maximize goodness over time. This allows the view to hold that some things are always wrong, the things that are never sanctioned by the rules (Lord, 2022g). But if we believe we have authority over what’s good for us as individuals, and that the positive satisfaction of our desires are a function of what’s good for us, we can see how such behavior frustrates the maximization of the greater good. Good for us as individuals is not always the same thing as good for us more broadly as a society, even if sacrificing something individually may make us all better off.

Shafer-Landau raises four problems concerned with getting what we want (Lord, 2022h). We may get what we want but become disappointed. For example, we may get the vaccination but get sick from it or be frustrated by others we value not getting it. We may never find out if our desires are satisfied. For example, we never truly know if the sacrifice of our resistance or adherence to vaccination programs makes a material difference. We may have deficient desires, such that our desire to not get vaccinated is related to our curiosity to see what the experience of contagion is like. Or it may be the psychologically disturbing case that our masochistic desire to die from the virus is compelling enough to produce anti-vaccination behavior (Lord, 2022h).

So, who has the better future? Those who do or don’t get vaccinated? To answer this, we can motivate an argument around potentiality, expected good, and thoughts around the frustration of maximized good. In vaccinating ourselves do we deprive ourselves of the freedoms inherent in the autonomy of resisting the social mandate to comply? Or by not vaccinating do we increase the risk of prolonged contagion and increased suffering? Marquis’ ‘future like ours’ theory argues that the person who dies is always deprived of a great good, and therefore that depriving one of a future conscious life filled with meaning is sufficient for making a killing wrong (Marquis, 1989). Therefore, we can argue that if we resist vaccination, we deprive others of a future like ours. Marquis contends that the theory aligns with our existing moral contentions around the wrongness of killing, appeals to the worst of crimes argument, adheres to an appeal to cases argument, and explains why it is wrong to kill others, including non-humans. But its success hinges on what it takes to have a valuable future (Marquis, 1989).

For the non-vaccinated, that valuable future asserts the individual freedom not to be vaccinated, and the potentiality which comes from the non-consumption of chemicals into one’s body. It’s a perspective of purity which comes from the rejection of the unnatural, and as such, is closer to one’s values of divinity. For the vaccinated, it’s the belief that the potential of a vaccinated society accelerates the return to a previous non-pandemic life, and the lifting of the individual and societal restrictions which have diminished our collective welfare. One looks to resume societal normality and life as it was before. The other seeks to protect one’s values of individual freedom. Both interpret the values of autonomy, community, and divinity differently.

But if everyone’s welfare matters equally to morality (Jeske, 1997), how can we reconcile such highly partial and partisan views? If everyone’s interests are equally deserving of being cared about, where is the constructive limbic space where we reduce the duration of the restrictions which arise because of the pandemic, while maintaining the sufficient and necessary freedoms which can cause conflicts between us? Such questions clearly remain uncomfortable and unresolved as we emerge into the post-pandemic world of surges, variants, and optional masking.

In conclusion, the highly divisive subject of vaccination motives a moral argument where what one is required to sacrifice is motivated by the degree to which one asserts autonomy over one’s moral decisions, and the relationship one has to societal mandate and the welfare of those we don’t know. These decisions may be influenced by the values of those we value, by our beliefs of purity, or our belief that the potential moral future unlocked by not vaccinating is brighter and healthier for all. Both hold that their perspectives maximize good for the most people, but they disagree on timing and the autonomous, communal consequences of the other’s action, which diverge along highly partial and often discriminatory lines. But if we continue to treat those who do not adhere to our moral view as mere means, and disrespect their dignity, we will only prolong our disagreements, long after the virus has been cured.