My Repsonse to the Paradox

If you read the entire post about the philosophical paradox of benevolence, congratulations. If you commented on it THANK YOU.

Now...here is what I think as a foster parent and as a human being. I don't know that I can adequately defend it as a philosopher, but I think I am going to try, although perhaps not here. Here I will just explain.

I think the paradox rests upon the fact that the obligation is set up as the giving of money. I think that matters because so many people can give money. In other words, everybody can, so no one has to. That's not a philosophical principle, but it does seem to be a belief, perhaps a true belief, that many of us have. If someone needs help, we are more likely to respond if we perceive ourselves to be the only one who can, or if we perceive ourselves to be somehow uniquely qualified.

When I talk to people about foster care I tend to get two responses. People outside of care say, "I could never do that." When I ask people who do care why they do, they tend to struggle for an answer. In the end they end up saying something like, "Well, we could do it, so we thought we should."

I think there is something very important there, and it is difficult to state precisely. While philosophers say, "ought implies can" (which, again, just means that if you really can't do something, then are not morally obligated to do it), I think that in some sense it is true that "can implies ought." In other words, sometimes realizing you can do a thing is a reason to conclude that you should do a thing.

I'm going to use my own case. When Carl first told us that he was being moved and probably wouldn't see us again, I spent the entire church service thinking, "We could take him." All sorts of things ran through my mind. Andrew and Brian would probably be willing to share a room for two years; we would have to do some work on one bedroom, but people from the church would donate labor if it was for Carl; we all liked him; so far as I knew he didn't have any "issues" that I couldn't deal with. I knew nothing about foster care, but I liked this kid and could imagine myself parenting him.

And I knew that we would be good for Carl in a way that few, if any, families could. He knew us. He was a regular babysitter and the boys adored him. It would be easier for him to move in with us than with some other family. We were in the same school district, and we went to the church where he had attached to so many people.

I could just see it as a possible future. The more possible it seemed, the more I felt that I should do it. That it was possible for me, created a sense of obligation. We are motivated to do things in different ways. Some things we just want to do. Some things we think we should do. And I think that more we believe we are uniquely qualified to do something, perhaps because no one else is there to do it, the more we tend to feel obliged to do it.

I would like to figure out a way to defend that philosophically, but that is not a project for the blog. I see a paper called "Can implies Ought" that is potentially worth writing.