Abstract of Comments: A Practical Link between Morality and RationalityAuthor(s): Mary GibsonSource: Noûs, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1982 A. P. A. Western Division Meetings (Mar., 1982), pp. 89-90Published by: WileyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2215416 .

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ABSTRACT OF COMMENTS

A Practical Link Between Morality and Rationality

MARY GIBSON

UNIVFRSrIY OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK

In this paper I shall develop and attempt to defend a response to a familiar problem concerning risk reduction, rescue, and rationality. The response I shall propose adduces a practical link between morality and rationality.

The problem is this. Suppose that for every dollar that might be made available for the safety budget (of a mining operation, a com- munity, or whatever) it has been determined that it could be spent more cost-effectively on prevention of accidents than on rescue, al- though, of course, accidents can never be eliminated entirely. Would it be rational for those potentially at risk to agree that the entire safety budget be spent on prevention, and that, in the event of an accident, no rescue efforts be undertaken (or only such as do not cost anything)?

To this and related problems, some philosophers have answered that this would indeed be the rational decision, and that any discomfort one might feel about it will be seen to be irrational when it is understood that more lives would be saved on this approach than on one which allows for rescues. That is, the efficiency promoted by concentrating on prevention does not balance monetary or other costs against human life, or belittle in any way the value or preciousness of human life. On the contrary, the prevention-only approach would save more lives, by hypothesis, than one allowing for some rescue efforts. Thus the sym- bolic or emotional or sentimental value of allocating resources for rescuing accident victims would be bought at the expense of the lives of accident victims themselves. The rational thing to do, then, is either to overcome these sentimental or emotional reactions, or if that is not possible, to count them as a cost and decide whether it is worth sacrific- ing some lives in order to prevent or reduce these feelings.

I shall argue that it is rational to resist this reasoning. This resist- ance is rational because it arises from a recognition that the rescue response is not merely an emotional expression or reflection of, but

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90 NOUS

plays a central role in, our moral connections to other persons, both known and unknown to us. The preservation of these moral connec- tions is an end that is both valued and worthy of being valued by us. Hence it is rational to resist a policy which threatens that end, even if the immediate effect of that policy would be to promote another end to which both morality and prudence commit us.

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