Q-methodology analysis

Feinberg‘s strategy is to enumerate a more or less comprehensive catalogue of moral evils which might be together with an equally systematic classification of varieties of legal moralism, and then argue, by means of numerous examples, that upon reflection, the prevention of each of the relevant classes of evils doesn‘t count for very much weight at all. He constructs his taxonomy of relevant evils by first defining an evil as ―any occurrence or state of affairs that is rather seriously to be regretted‖³¹ and then paring away various sorts of evils which have no bearing on the question of legal moralism: acts of God or nature (theological evils);and any evils caused by human beings which harm the interests of others in ways which also violate their rights (grievance evils).

The remaining class consists of non-grievance evils,those which are imputable to people but do not involve violations of rights. Within this family, there are three major genera, all of which are relevant to the question of legal moralism:i) Acts that wrong another individual despite the fact that they do not harm him (set back his interests, reduce his well-being) - ―harmless grievances‖; ii) ―impersonal‖ or non-grievance wrongs that are connected to welfare; and iii) impersonal wrongs not connected to welfare, or ―free floating evils.‖³²

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4.3.1.1.1. Harmless Grievances

An example of a harmless grievance is a benevolent lie. Kant held that the liar wrongly disrespects the person lied to despite the latter‘s benefit and the former‘s altruistic intention. On the question whether harmless grievances are possible, Feinberg agrees with Kant. He holds that hard-paternalistic interference with another competent adult‘s fully voluntary choices wrongs him even if it benefits him in the long run, because it violates his right to personal sovereignty or autonomy. Assuming that the volentiprinciple is true, this kind of harmless immorality is possible only where the person wronged does not consent to the action.

4.3.1.1.2. Welfare Connected Non-Grievance Evils

The second kind of harmless immorality - ―welfare connected non-grievance evils‖ - is of two types. The first is any act that increases the total amount of harm in the world but there is no individual who would have been better off had the act not been performed.

Feinberg offers Derek Parfit‘s example of conceiving a child that one knows will be severely disabled but just barely better off existing than not, instead of waiting and conceiving a different but ―normal‖ child. Feinberg agrees that conceiving in these circumstances is an impersonal wrong, and he even concedes that wrongs like it are properly criminalized - making them an exception (the sole one, he thinks) to his theory.

On this Feinberg says: Liberalism must bend to permit an exception in this special kind of case. I think that it can bend without breaking.‖³³

The second evil of this type involves harms to others with their consent. Victim consent precludes personal grievance, but the harm suffered is still an evil to be regretted. Thus, these are those which adversely affect human interests even though nobody‘s moral rights are violated.A possible example is the sale of meth by a drug dealer to a user desperate for a fix.Feinberg employs the example of non-profit tobacco manufacturer to illustrate this category of grievance evil. According to him, if there were such a thing as a

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profit tobacco manufacturer, the practice of manufacturing cigarettes for the purpose of supplying the existing market among nicotine addicts (for only the costs of production) would count as a connected non-grievance evil. The evil would be welfare-connected because of the adverse effect on the health of nicotine addicts, brought about by furthering their cigarette habits. But the evil is also a non-grievance one: since the nicotine addicts willingly consent to this kind of economic arrangement, their rights are not violated.

4.3.1.1.3. Pure Free-Floating Evils

The third kind of harmless immorality, non-grievance evils not connected to anyone‘s welfare, is a motley bunch. Some of Feinberg‘s own examples are: having an evil intention that one doesn‘t act upon because the opportunity never presents itself; some false belief (e.g. that a famous historical figure was evil when in fact he was highly virtuous); the ―wanton, capricious squashing of a bug in the wild‖; and the extinction of a species.³⁵ Feinberg actually has a long list and extensive discussion on this kind of evil.

Consider the following:

A. ―Violations of taboos‖B. ―Conventional

‗immoralities‘ when discreet and harmless‖C.

―Religiously tabooed practices‖D. ―Moral corruption of another (or of oneself)E. ―Evil Thoughts‖F.

―Impure Thoughts‖G. ―False Beliefs‖H. ―The wanton, capricious squashing of a beetle (frog, worm, spider, wild flower) in the wild‖I. ―The extinction of a species.‖³⁶

According to Feinberg, items on these lists are evil independent of how they affect anyone‘s interest.

Feinberg also counts some exploitation as a free-floating evil. Most exploitation is coercive or deceptive and involves wrongful harm to the person exploited, but in some cases these features are missing and what ―offends the moral sense‖ is simply the exploiter‘s benefitting in the manner or circumstance he does. The profit by the meth

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dealer is a gain of this sort. Some moral conservatives regard homosexuality, the enjoyment of pornography, fornication, and public indecency, as well as all suicide and suicide assistance, as free-floating wrongs.³⁷

Therefore, as the name implies, pure free-floating evil are intrinsically evil events or states of affairs brought about by human agency, despite their having no adverse effect on human interests. Feinberg‘s standard examples to illustrate this mirrors Mill‘s concern about the wisdom of tolerating the evil of trafficking in vice: e.g., the manufacture and sale of pornographic materials, running a brothel, and pimping. Feinberg argues that the practice of purchasing sexual favours and the kind of voyeurism associated with pornography are not harms to human interests in the strict sense, because the participants embrace aberrant interests which these activities fulfill. But the types of conduct in question are commonly regarded as a form of voluntary degradation ―which offends against an ideal of human excellence held by many people.‖³⁸Consequently, the fact that someone is profiting by abetting the degradation of others is especially morally offensive.

Nonetheless, as in the previous case (the non-profit tobacco manufacturer), voluntary consent implies that no rights have been violated. Therefore, the economic exploitation should not be criminalized, however distasteful we may find it. The countervailing concern to sustain individual liberty simply outweighs our distaste for the evil thereby permitted.Of course,utilitarian‘s and defenders of other welfarist moral theories deny that any free-floating evils exist. According to them all putative examples of it either are not evils at all or are evils only because they reduce welfare in some non-conspicuous way.³⁹ Whatever be the case, Feinberg believes that these kinds of evil exist and is denying that criminalization is ever justified to punish and/or prevent any of the three types of harmless immorality discussed here.

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