Biology Reference
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A critic can object to these counterexamples. “Ideally,” the critic may argue, “Susan
should save the scientist rather than her father, and parents ought to discount the in-
terests of their children if they substantially compromise the well-being of numerous
strangers.” The critic will go on to say that the inability to comply with moral de-
mands in the tough cases above merely indicates that we are willing to forgive some
discrepancies between morally ideal and actual conduct. Excusing such behavior
should not be confused with annulling the connection between superiority and trump-
ing interests: the interests of the important scientist or those distant valuable strangers
should still morally precede the interests of less valuable entities. “Moral saints”—the
Agamemnons of this world who are willing to sacrifice their Iphigenias in order to
save their armies—would act accordingly.
This criticism should be rejected. To begin with, the criticism rests on a crude util-
itarianism that would be dismissed not only by nonutilitarians, but also by contempor-
ary, nuanced utilitarian positions. Contemporary utilitarians strive to respect a detailed
and complex interplay between maximizing value and responding to particular attach-
ments, trying to accommodate these attachments as part of what “maximizing value”
not necessarily committed to forsaking their kin or friends on behalf of some import-
ant stranger in themselves register the desire to maintain utilitarian decision making
free from some automatic linkage between import and discounting interests. Nonutilit-
arians, on the other hand, would find such reasoning to be not merely counterintuit-
ive, but also oblivious to our moral commitments to family members. It is morally
desirable that people save their relatives rather than act according to import. The ties
between obligations to family and one's conduct are stronger (and ought to be so
when preventing impending harm) than the link between relative importance and con-
duct. Saying that we are “morally excused” when acting in accordance with such
commitments, that ideal or supererogatory conduct does call for such sacrifice, is im-
plicated in a theoretical insensitivity to these particular obligations. Moreover, even if
the critic is right about ideal morality, s/he is (ultimately) wrong in terms of the criti-
cism's objective in our context. Significantly, the capacity to seriously question wheth-
er or not ideal morality prescribes sacrifices in “Iphigenia cases” registers indecisive
links between import and discounting interests. Accordingly, the connection between
superiority and trumping interests is not immediate on the level of either moral con-
duct or ideal moral conduct.
The critic can now reformulate the objection: the examples above merely show that
the connection between superior value and trumping interests is defeasible through the
workings of special overpowering considerations—not that it is not there at all. Some
considerations (familial attachment, national solidarity or loyalty) can annul the link-
