#21 - Ethicist: It is morally right to reveal a secret only

[Jeremy Press]

Hi t_m6289,

With the terms "right" and "wrong," you should always negate by adding the term "not," rather than substituting the terms for one another. So, in a contrapositive, you're only justified in going from "right" to "not right," and from "wrong" to "not wrong." My rule of thumb (which does seem to be tested quite often in principle questions!) is that if the terms are different, don't assume they're logical opposites.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[goingtosomewhere]

Could someone explain why C was incorrect? Is it because the harm that Judy could cause is a part of the necessary condition for something to be morally wrong and isn't sufficient?

[Adam Tyson]

There are at least two problems with answer C, goingtosomewhere. First, there is no indication that Judy promised not to reveal the secret. Second, there is no indication that revealing the secret was likely to result in harm to someone. Thus, neither sufficient condition has been met, so we cannot conclude that the necessary condition (morally wrong) has been met. Our rules have no application to this situation.

And to clarify, "morally wrong to reveal a secret " is the necessary condition in that second principle, not the sufficient condition. The sufficient conditions of promise and harm are introduced by the sufficient condition indicator word "if".

[longlsat]

Can someone provide guidance on when we can combine the conditionals, for example in this case combining the first and second sentence can it permissible that:

morally right to reveal a secret = morally wrong to reveal a secret

From the first sentence: morally right to reveal a secret one has a legal obligation to do so + will not harm oneself by doing so

From the second sentence:
one has promised not to reveal + revealing is likely to result in any harm to others morally wrong to reveal a secret
The contrapositive of it becomes:
morally wrong to reveal a secret one has promised not to reveal OR revealing is likely to result in any harm to others

I feel like I've seen cases where these shifts are valid, but in other cases they are not logically valid?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi longlsat!

Jeremy's comment above seems pretty on point to your question:

With the terms "right" and "wrong," you should always negate by adding the term "not," rather than substituting the terms for one another. So, in a contrapositive, you're only justified in going from "right" to "not right," and from "wrong" to "not wrong." My rule of thumb (which does seem to be tested quite often in principle questions!) is that if the terms are different, don't assume they're logical opposites.

In other words, avoid making assumptions about moral wrongness just from a statement about moral rightness, and vice versa.

[lounalola]

I have a question about answer C, I understand that we don't know if Judy promised the doctor not to reveal the secret. However the doctor does say that such knowledge could inhibit a patient's recovery, if this is true wouldn't Judy revealing the secret cause harm to others (her father)?

[Adam Tyson]

The sufficient conditions both must occur in order to require the necessary condition in this rule, because they are connected by the word "and." Since we don't know whether Judy made a promise or not, that's enough to kill this answer.

But wait, there's more! The doctor only said that sometimes this knowledge inhibits recovery. The sufficient condition is that it is likely to harm someone. We don't know that it's likely, so neither element of the sufficient condition has been met!