Reinach's Paradox

A practical paradox concerning reflection and moral evaluation discussed by Adolf Reinach (1883–1917). @PhiloofAlexandria

[gliding]

Skin in the game is part of the equation. Also in helping, we want to make sure of the effectiveness as well as make sure we are not taken advantage of.

[nicholasfitzgerald]

Deliberation takes time. To fully deliberate upon an issue takes even more time. So when a moral action is *time sensitive* the goodness of deliberation becomes relative. (A parabola) However when the moral action is *not* time sensitive, deliberation can be argued to increase in a line upwards or perhaps levelling off when all factors have been pondered there is nothing left to deliberate upon. Some moral actions must be evaluated with respect to time-sensitivity, and this appears to be where this "paradox" comes in.

[bigGchainz]

Very excited for any videos of this kind. These kind of philsophical problems are the ones I find most enjoyable in terms of application of philosophy.

[nasserasiri]

I always like philosophy but nobody can simplify it like you. I’m very excited for your videos . I’m from Saudi Arabia .English isn’t my native, so please give us catalog to trace your teachings here and if there any books you recommend .thank you

[TheNitro]

I think when most people thinks of one planning a murder for 6 months, it comes across as worse than just killing someone without planning because the person had 6 months to find the right thing to do. It's assumed in this example that the person with 6 months of planning, was always in the headspace of murdering someone and didn't question whether it was right or wrong, but rather just got to planning.

With the good example, it was assumed that the person would spend, lets say 6 months, to decide what to do; whether to help that person out or not. But this is different to the 6 months of the murderer who was just planning out his murder for 6 months. I feel like a more analogous example would be if someone had planned something good, something special for someone for 6 months. In this case, I would think that it does intensify the good action. The fact they spent 6 months planning this good action does influence how good the action is, just like if someone had planned a murder for 6 months.

Thus I think the issue comes from the fact that most people assume the bad guy is planning the murder for 6 months, but the good guy is questioning what he should do, instead of just planning a good action like the bad guy is.

[tom_curtis]

To begin with, I don't think it is intuitive that the goodness of a good action (or the badness of a bad action) increases linearly with duration of reflection. The effect of deliberation comes in two parts. Reflection gives you time to determine whether or not a particular action is good or bad; however in general after a point (which is typically fairly a fairly short time interval) no further reflection sheds more light on that subject. (There are edge cases where that is not so, but I am talking about typical cases.) Beyond that, reflection makes actions better (if good) or worse (if bad) merely by making them more effective; and in that case we can expect a diminishing marginal utility to apply. So in general, the relative increase in goodness from reflection will decrease overtime as you have more reflection.

Beyond that, a good act delayed is worse than a good act that is not delayed (in general). Conversely, a bad act delayed is better than a bad act performed immediately (in general). In either case, reflection delays the act. Sufficient reflection may delay the goodness of the act sufficiently to make it merely neutral or bad. Even if that is not the case, the delay combines with the diminishing utility of reflection to drive the gain in goodness with further reflection into negative territory. Similarly, it will combine with the diminishing utility of reflection to drive the increased badness of the bad act into negative territory.

Where's the paradox?

[kallianpublico]

Deliberate what? Whether the act is good or bad; whether to act; whether the act is necessary; whether someone else is better situated to act; whether the act inconveniences me; whether the act helps the other; whether the act is good/bad for others; whether I can commit the act anonymously, without revealing my self?
There seems to be an assumption that deliberation is a way to certainty instead of a way to confusion. Planning is good, overthinking arises when the act one undertakes has multiple consequences for oneself and the other.
When playing checkers or chess where the options are binary or multiple binary the calculation can be done with minimal effort or moderate effort; but the consequences are just a game. A game you either agree to play or not.
Social interactions are also "agreed to" except when they aren't. Murder can be agreed to that's why we have police, soldiers or other types of security or protection. The agreement is the thing. Does it matter whether the act is petty or serious? Simple or complex?
It may be that other social acts get in the way, have to be deliberated. Possibly non-social acts, private hobbies or tasks, also must be considered.

[mileskeller]

If there is indeed a contradiction professor ought we not simply dispose of the method? Or instead of a parabola shaped graph should it look more like one with a vertex, local minimum and maximum? That being said I do love to examine philosophy of ethics separate from consequentialism.

[GerardoBlanco]

Deliberation understood as "time to change your mind" explains this. Bad actions deliberated are worse because the agent had time to consider the consequences of the action, had more time to change her mind. Good actions grow in goodness at first as the actor has time to, for example, come up with excuses but doesn’t succumb to them, or considers that her comfort will be lessened but still decides to perform the good action. But after a point, the action loses effectiveness (someone else helped her neighbor, ) the actor uses the excuse, or other considerations make the action irrelevant, so the goodness value goes down. This is not a contradiction or a paradox if deliberation is understood this way.

[mileskeller]

This would also be interesting to do with a more obscure normative example. Take for instance my daughter. Her mother would like her to start taking a very lengthy set of growth hormone shots as she is VERY petit. Her mother claims this will give her a better quality of life. The situation you present about a hypothetical murder seems too easy as everyone agree murder is inherently bad.

[hungryforfoodyt]

I know this video is old, but the greater the impact/effect of a good action the more time you would need to think about it and execute it. Thus, I think it’s silly to correlate the connection between pre-meditation and morality let alone a parabola effect.

For example, finding a solution to world hunger is going to take time and spending more time on it is not going to disvalue the goodness of this action.

[OnTheThirdDay]

I think it has to do with efficacy of doing the action at a certain point.
Postponing doing good decreases the life of the effect and leaves less good done.
If you leave a donation not done then the person goes hungry. There is a certain financial-moral cost to waiting, like interest.

In fact, not doing evil sooner than later is actually a good aspect of it. If you put off a murder for several years so that the person's kids are dinancially independent then you haven't left the victim with orphans.
Also, if you postpone the murder of a specific person for many years then it actually cam be good because it means fewer years are stollen from them and their loved ones.

I would want some details to be speicifued because when one says a good deed and a bad deed one needs to have analogous examples that can be made foils of each other for contrast.
Also, the reason for postponing needs to be explained, for cowardice or intention?

The idea of waiting with intention and laziness is ambiguous when waiting a VERY long time because then why didn't they do it already? There must actually be a reason.

For instance, a murder might spent a decade learning how to make the most effective bomb.
While a soldier might spend a decade in training and learning skills to perform the most dangerous mission.
In these cases, the length both is intentional, necessary, and increasing the effect of fhe action and showing the subject's devotion to it.

[normality]

I do not necessarily view this as a moral conundrum. First of all, Reinach's theory seems to be within the realm of moral realism. Even if we were to accept it for the sake of this argument, we could make a very strong case for the unequal valuing of 'good' and 'bad' by human beings . If we use the example of murder, this becomes immediately apparent. Our value judgements have a tendency to emphasise 'bad' over 'good'. For example, an individual who has saved the lives of 100 people could be called a hero. However, all they need is one murder to be deemed a murderer. On the other hand, a murderer who has killed 100 people cannot become a hero by saving one life.

Our tendency to emphasise 'bad' over 'good' is potentially linked to our drive for self-preservation. We inevitably fixate on the 'bad', because we worry that the same 'bad' may one day befall us. This value judgement does not rely on the 'degree of reflection' per sa, but the degree of scale. That is, what is the scale of the deed, and how could it potentially affect us. If we run with the example of murder; it is not so obvious that people deem it 'bad' under all conditions. While the saving of one life does not normally make a 'murderer' a 'hero', during times of war, conversely, the murderer of a million people could become the 'hero' of a nation as long as the members of such nation believe that the deeds of murder in return benefit their own self-preservation.

The proposed 'degree of reflection', too, is linked to this scale and perspective. We do not hold premeditated murders to be worse than, say, 'crimes of passion' because the deed itself is worse, but we do because it is viewed as more dangerous. The perpetrator of a premeditated murder is more likely to be seen as capable of repeating such actions and at a greater scale. All in all, the cultural values dictate how one does the valuing of the deed. The Western societies have a more homogenous idea of 'good' and 'bad'. I believe this is why they have a prejudice in favour of moral realism, even in the absence of religious dogmas. The ideas of 'good' and 'bad' change across cultures. This is not a philosophical statement. It takes one flight to another culture to observe it. If one says that moral values are universal and objective, what he/she is actually saying is that all other moral values but their own are wrong. Both western and eastern philosophers are of course guilty of this crime. Once one starts to look at such moral dilemmas from a cultural point of view, a lot of the confusion disappears. Therefore, the real paradox here is the attempt to generalise moral values purely based on the perceived nature of human beings, rather than the conditions under which they arise.

[trleith]

Is the frame useful? Only non-obligatory acts are praiseworthy, and it seems to me it's the strenuousness of the non-obligatory act that makes it more praiseworthy, not the decision - making process.

A forbidden act is always blameworthy, and the deliberation is conscious consent to the evil.

A non-obligatory "good" act might be blameworthy -- say a husband and father of young children jumping in to stop the murder he happens to observe in progress. Even if it ends well. He has obligations to his family and none in particular to the murder victim. We might blame him less if he doesn't think much but simply acts; more if he carefully considers the range of possible outcomes and chooses Mr. Incredible heroics over Bob Parr duties.