Bykvist, Krister , Klint Jensen, Karsten | 2024
Working Paper 2024:4
Part of preprint Studies in the Ethics of Coordination and Climate Change
This paper analyses moral Hi-Lo Cases, which were introduced by Donald Regan’s Utilitarianism and Co-operation. Moral Hi-Lo cases are moral coordination problems where coordination equilibriums are ranked by strict betterness. We argue that moral Hi-Lo cases are not just abstract hypothetical cases, there are important real-life cases of this kind, e.g., some climate change cases; and that moral Hi-Lo cases are not just a challenge for utilitarians; they are challenge for all theories that can be represented by a maximizing teleological structure. Moral Hi-Lo cases pose the challenge for individually maximizing theories that they are not collectively maximizing. We show that the widespread solution to moral Hi-Lo cases of adding the option of taking a cooperative stance to the choice situation risks changing the topic. Moreover, in the changed situation, simply making available a cooperative attitude or act is not sufficient to harmonize individual and collective maximization. This suggests that the problem sticks deeper than exclusively act-orientedness, as Regan suggested. It is not sufficient for this harmonization to assume that it is possible to influence the other agent and make her cooperative, it is necessary to actually influence her, but even with this extra assumption about actual influence, taking a cooperative stance for the best outcome may not be mandatory, if the strategy as a whole involves costs, which is a realistic assumption.
