Correspondence

Abstract

The argument that an agent cannot be criticized for choosing to save one person over five when both acts require heroic sacrifice rests on the premise that if an agent is not obligated to act, any action they choose is immune from moral criticism. However, choosing a lesser good over a significantly greater one remains morally deficient, even if the agent was not strictly required to perform either act. This distinction is exemplified by the impermissibility of saving a trivial object instead of a person under equal conditions of risk. Furthermore, the critique of the innumerate ethical position does not rely on a utilitarian collapse of the distinction between obligation and supererogation. Rather, it maintains that while an agent may be permitted to decline a heroic sacrifice, the choice they make if they do act must still be justified. Attempts to shield such choices from moral accounting fail to address why certain motives, such as professional preference or racial bias, result in differing moral assessments. Ultimately, the refusal to recognize the moral weight of numbers leads to internal contradictions, as even proponents of the innumerate view find certain life-saving choices perverse when the reasons for those choices are examined. – AI-generated abstract.