An Indecent Proposal

This is my answer to the "moral puzzle" posed in "Philosophical Reflections Meets the Puzzle Page"

Elsewhere I described a "moral puzzle" in which you had to rank 5 people according to their actions in a scenario in which a lady (L) in love with one man (M) accepted payment for sex from a second man (S), in order to pay a boatman (B) to take her across the river to be reunited with M. A mutual friend (F) told M, who then ended things with L.

In order from best to worst, this is how I rank them:

Top is L: the only one who has not only done nothing wrong, but is positively admirable. A key to morality is never to sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one. L did not want to sleep with S: but that was the only way she could return to M, who was her greatest value. She did what she had to do in order to win the one value which meant the most to her, while harming nobody: and that is an essence of virtue.

Next I put B, the boatman, whom I consider about morally neutral. He did exploit L's problem by charging her twice his normal fare: but there is nothing necessarily wrong with acting according the law of supply and demand, and L didn't have even his normal fare (if she could raise $10, why not $20?). B is an interesting case because he illustrates the nature of values: how he should act depends on his values, and how good that is depends on whether those values are rational. That is, what is moral for him depends on how much he values the money versus how much he values L's happiness: and whether the values he puts on them are reasonable. Anyone should value the quest of someone like L: so how they should act depends on how much they objectively need the concrete value of the money, compared to that more abstract value. Depending on how much he needed the money, it could be moral for him to overcharge her, to take her across on credit, or do it without charge: his payment being the value and pleasure of helping a good person achieve her values and happiness. But if he simply refused to take her across at any price, out of some mean-spirited hatred for human happiness, then he would be very immoral: he would be acting in accordance with his values, but his values would be anti-life. I see the boatman as a man who works hard and has little; who sees a woman who'd pay anything to cross the river; and to whom a double fare means roast dinners for a week, some small luxury to make life sweeter, or a new dress for his own wife. Then he'd be a moral man - though without the heroism of L.

Next comes S. He didn't commit a crime of force against L: it was a voluntary trade, which she could have refused. However, it is clearly a nasty kind of exploitation, given why L needed the money! Hence he is worse than B even if B is a plain exploiter, as B didn't really do anything negative to L.

Fourth I put F, the "friend". I found F the hardest one to place, as his motivation is problematic. Perhaps he thought M deserved to know, out of some sense of truth or justice, or because he admired what L did and thought M would too - in which case I'd put him second. But it seems more likely that he was just out to cause trouble - the Iago of the puzzle. And to deliberately set out to destroy a value such as the love between L and M, for no reason except the destruction, is a contemptible and anti-life action. F is far worse than S, because while S exploited L, at least he did so by offering her the value of being reunited with M: whereas F seeks and offers nothing except the destruction of values and happiness.

Last is M himself, a position which follows from my assessment of L. To reject someone for doing what she had to do in order to win something of supreme value to both of you, to hold sexual fidelity so paramount and context-free as to reject the relationship which is its meaning and purpose, is about as low as you can get. To throw away the person you love because she values you so much, that the price she'd pay to be with you is so high, is appalling. M should have been proud: proud of her, that she would show such heroism and strength of character, and proud, that she valued him so much.

The original meaning of the puzzle was that how you rank the 5 people reveals how important different things are to you: it reveals how you rank Love, Morality, Business, Sex and Friendship. This is of course highly dubious. The entire puzzle is about morality: and to equate morality with "sexual fidelity" says more about the composer's morality than about you!