One's Moral Obligation To Replace The Simple Principle

Title How is one to determine one’s moral obligation? What is one ought to do in a given situation and how exactly should we go about calculating and determining which actions we should do? The first principle that we will examine is the Simple Principle, which is a principle that says, of the available actions, one should do the action that will produce the best outcome. Liam B. Murphy in “The Demands of Beneficence” argue that the Simple Principle, requires too much from a person especially given the fact that there will always be people who do not comply with the principle to always promote the good and produce the best outcome. Murphy then suggests a Cooperative Principle, which says that one is only required to sacrifice as much as
The Compliance Condition is where “a principle of beneficence should not increase its demands on agents as expected compliance with the principle by other agents decreases” (278). In other words one cannot be expected to pick up the slack of others who do not comply with their responsibility. The Simple Principle according to Murphy does not comply with this condition, as one’s responsibility will increase if others do indeed neglect their part of the deal. This is problematic because the Simple Principle does not limit to what extent one should sacrifice but rather that one ought to just keep sacrificing and producing the best outcome. The Cooperative Principle differs from the Simple Principle such that the limit to how much one ought to sacrifice is the same as the amount sacrificed under full compliance. This means that even if others do not comply with their responsibilities, one is still only morally obligated to sacrifice the same amount as one would if others did comply with their part of the responsibility. The Cooperative Principle does not require one to always promote the best outcome but does not prohibit one to sacrifice more than what is morally obligated (280). It seems as though then the Cooperative Principle is the better way to determine moral
Imagine two men walking on opposite sides of a pond on their way to catch a flight back home to visit their family. In the pond are two drowning children in reachable proximity to the two men. Each man has enough time to save one child and still make it on the plane. Under full compliance, each man will save one kid and still make it on time for their flight. To complicate this scenario, one of men decides to neglect his moral obligation and leave the child. The second man is left with a difficult situation: will he save both kids and miss his plane or save only one kid and make it to his flight. Under the Simple Principle, the man ought to save both children and miss his plane since that would promote the best outcome. You lose out on seeing your family, but you save the lives of two drowning children. On the other hand, under the Cooperative Principle, you would not come to the same conclusion. Remember, the Cooperative Principle only requires you to sacrifice the same amount as you would under full compliance, which in this case would be to save one child and make it to your flight. One is not morally obligated to save both children and if one follows this principle in the pond case, one is justified of letting a child drown to death even though there was a possibility to otherwise. How then is one to reconcile such a principle that allows a child to die over a plane ride