The first premise I will defend is Conee’s premise of “V” in which Conee states “ Concerning any act, a1, and any possible world, w1, whatever the morally relevant value of the consequences of either a1 or any combination of acts concerning a1 in w1, a1 has foreseen consequences of greater moral value in some other possible world where a1 does not otherwise differ in it’s morally relevant features than those that a1 has in w1.” To summarize, this premise basically states that given the moral value of a1 in w1, it is possible for a1 to have a greater moral value in w2, w3, w4, and on to infinity. The reason I agree with this is that a1 has an infinite amount of possibilities, and granted that all the separate worlds that would accept a1 as a morally righteous action, there are an infinite amount of worlds in which a1 could turn into a much more righteous act. For example, say one morally perfect person, p1, saves 20 people from a capsized boat, but is unable to save five due to arriving at the capsized boat to late. What p1 did was a morally righteous act, but say the same situation occurred on w2, and another morally perfect person, p2, was able to save all 25 people on the boat. If we take the premise “TG”, which basically states that if p1 is morally perfect in w1, then no other being can be in any other world. We would find that p1 and p2 existing at the same time is impossible. This would make p2 the morally perfect being out of any world. But say the same situation occurs in w3 with another morally perfect being, p3, and p3 is able to save the boat before the boat capsizes, thus saving everyone on board, as well as all the property of the captain. This can go on to infinity and can also provide for an infinite amount of candidates for moral perfection, contradicting the premise that only one morally perfect being is able to exist at a time.
The next premise I will defend is the previously stated premise of TG. Only one morally perfect agent can exist at a time. If this is false then how can we gauge the moral actions of any person on any world? If p3 outdid the supposedly morally perfect beings p1 and p2, then obviously p1 and p2 are morally imperfect. P3 may be construed to be the singular morally perfect being at this point, but there is still more infinite worlds, with an infinite amount of people committing the same moral act. The infinite amount of possibilities makes moral perfection impossible.
To further the defense of this point we can also just focus on p1’s action in w1. P1 acted morally perfect, but had the possibility to go further. Say p1 had a chance to arrive at the capsized boat earlier but decided to wait a few minutes to enjoy a newly baked apple pie. P1’s action of waiting a few minutes for the pleasure of enjoying food resulted in the death of five people. This goes against what moral perfection demands: to never have a singular regrettable action. The death of five people due to p1 eating can be seen as a regrettable action, as the families of the 5 victims will be most likely sad at their death. If this is matched with the inability of p1 to save them due to p1 eating a pie then p1 has created a morally regrettable act, making p1 morally imperfect.
Source:
- Earl Conee, “JSTOR: Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVol. 54, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 815-825,” http://www.jstor.org/stable/2108412?seq=5&Search=yes&term=Perfection&term=impossibility&term=Moral&term=Nature&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DThe%2BNature%2Band%2Bthe%2Bimpossibility%2Bof%2BMoral%2BPerfection%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=1&ttl=1644&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle.
