An Experiment in Morality

What do we owe each other?

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What is our responsibility to others? What do others owe us? These questions have long been concerns of the novel, especially the realist novel, in a relatively short history. For far longer, they have been posed by philosophy.

In questions of moral philosophy, or ethics, a common technique for exploring possible answers to such questions is, as Timothy Williamson, Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University, tells us, the thought experiment.

Such episodes show how far philosophy can be inspired and guided by examples. A theory can sound plausible, even compelling, on first hearing, or even to generations of intelligent, highly trained thinkers, yet collapse when faced with an apt counterexample. If we don’t confront them with difficult examples, we are not testing our theories properly. We are accepting them uncritically, making life too easy for ourselves.

A striking feature of many examples in philosophy is that they are imaginary. I do…