Ken Oshitani

This paper examines the concept of ‘tsunami-tendenko,’ a guideline suggesting that individuals prioritise their own safety over aiding others during large-scale disasters. Kodama defends tsunami-tendenko against accusations of egoism by arguing that the principle can be justified ethically on consequentialist (or more precisely, utilitarian) grounds. Kodama asserts that attempting to assist others during such disasters heightens the risk of ‘tomo-daore,’ where both the rescuer and the victim may perish. He claims that having people focus solely on saving themselves can maximise the overall number of lives saved. However, we challenge Kodama’s assertion that utilitarianism inherently favours tsunami-tendenko over mutual assistance during disasters. Instead, this paper proposes an alternative ethical foundation for tsunami-tendenko grounded in the ‘antiextinction principle,’ which prioritises minimising the potential for catastrophic outcomes. When considering the ethics of responding to disaster, it is important to distinguish between maximising the number of lives saved (utilitarianism) and minimising the risk of tomo-daore (antiextinction principle). This distinction may be overlooked if the distribution of probabilities is not considered. We conclude that the antiextinction principle aligns more naturally with tsunami-tendenko, emphasising the avoidance of catastrophic outcomes—a concern not always addressed by utilitarianism. Therefore, tsunami-tendenko should be regarded as a societal guideline aimed at preserving community sustainability by averting total destruction.

In this paper, I argue that accounts of the normative basis of morality face the following puzzle, drawing on a case found in Susan Wolf’s influential discussion of conflicts between the moral and personal points of view. On the one hand, morality appears to constitute an independent point of view that can intelligibly conflict with, and can conceivably be overruled by, the verdicts of other points of view. On the other hand, moral demands appear to carry a distinctive sort of authority; moral reasons normally seem to take priority over other kinds of considerations, and the verdicts of morality seem to possess a distinctive place in our deliberations, in that they appear to represent standards that we are open to legitimate complaint for failing to honor. After clarifying the nature of the problem, I argue that a contractualist theory of morality can resolve the puzzle by offering a compelling vindication of the independence of the moral perspective, the normal priority of moral reasons, and the deliberative significance of moral verdicts, within a unified theoretical framework. Furthermore, I claim that this contractualist analysis can help account for the sense of deep conflict that is characteristic of the sort of troubling moral choices that Wolf calls to our attention.

Moral contractualism holds that addressing our minds to the morality of right and wrong involves identifying principles for the mutual regulation of behavior that could be the object of reasonable agreement among persons if they were appropriately motivated and fully informed. A common criticism of the theory is that the test of reasonable agreement it endorses is indeterminate. To be more specific, it is claimed that the notion of reasonableness is too vague or ill-defined to be of use in guiding our decisions in situations where it is necessary to balance the complaints of different people against each other, so that we may derive an all things considered conclusion regarding what we ought, morally, to do. In this article, I propose a novel interpretation of the contractualist method of reasoning that overcomes the indeterminacy objection, building on a broadly Aristotelian conception of practical deliberation about ends. I demonstrate that this criticism is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of contractualist moral reasoning. The key is to recognize that deliberation about what others could not reasonably reject is not a matter of applying a fixed criterion of reasonableness in order to arbitrate conflicts between the interests of different individuals, as it is commonly assumed. Rather, it is a process in which the ideal of justifiability to others and people’s moral claims are specified together through holistic deliberation. The goal of this process is to construct a coherent conception of both our particular moral claims and the general aim of reasonable agreement that is reasonably acceptable to each person. On this view, contrary to what critics assert, the contractualist method of reasoning, properly understood, will almost always have a determinate answer.