Real freedom for all turtles in Sugarscape? - Presses universitaires ...

308A r g u i n g a b o u t j u s t i c eof a common metric for evaluating such diverse entities. More importantly,these trade-offs are morally disturbing, as our commitments to other peoplerequire us to deny that we are willing to attach a finite monetary value totheir health or their life. People reject certain comparisons because they feelthat seriously considering the relevant trade-offs would undercut their selfimagesand social identities as moral beings. Having to weigh up one lifeagainst another is hard. Weighing up material prosperity against health isscandalous.Empirical (including experimental) research has shown that human beingswill consider escape routes when these difficult choices cannot be avoided. Imention three of them. First, we are motivated to look away and are easilydistracted by rhetorical smokescreens. Second, we try to postpone thesedifficult decisions or, even better, to pass the buck to others. More or lesssecret expert commissions are installed, where the ethical choices can bepackaged as technical decisions. Third, we try to disguise the taboo tradeoffsas routine trade-offs by reformulating the choice problem so that it doesno longer involve our moral commitment to other people.Returning to case X, it is fairly obvious that denying the need of rationingfits perfectly into the first strategy. However, I suggest that the attractivenessof Daniels’s and Dworkin’s theories is also partly linked to thesepsychological mechanisms. “Accountability for reasonableness” shiftsresponsibility from individual citizens (including the philosopher and thereader) to committees and procedures – and committee members can drowntheir own individual responsibility into a kind of collective groupresponsibility. This is close to the second strategy. Dworkin’s hypotheticalapproach turns an interpersonal distribution problem into an intrapersonalallocation choice, so that I do no longer have to feel responsible for or toshow compassion with other human beings. This is a step in the direction ofthe third escape route.Of course, it would be grossly unfair to reduce the elaborate theories ofDaniels and Dworkin to simple psychological tricks. On the contrary,“accountability for reasonableness” can also be seen as an attempt to gobeyond the escape route of secret committees by putting forward formalrequirements of openness and transparency. And Dworkin’s view is aningenious approach to structure a difficult decision problem in a coherentway. Yet, for me at least, some insights into the psychological mechanisms towhich I am subjected help me understand why I feel emotionally attractedby these theories, although I am at the same time rationally convinced thatthey have severe limitations.It is obvious that I do not think that the findings about how human beingshandle taboo trade-offs offer in any way a conclusive argument against the