Question In an earlier question (http://www.amherst.edu/askphilosophers/question/875) the following was asked: "Am I morally bound to tell my sex partner if I fantasize about someone else whilst making love to her? Or the subject of the fantasy for that matter?" T. Pogge responded: "Now ask yourself whether such disclosures from her would really be in your interest: Would you want to know what she fantasizes about when the two of you make love? Would you be happier if she gave you this information, or do you think she would be happier if she gave it to you?" Is the duty to disclose determined by self-interest? (how many people are sufficiently aware of their self-interest to thus determine their duties? e.g. how many people enact patterns of self-destructive behavior, particularly in their sex and/or love-lives?) Can the duty to disclose be determined by the interest of the person to whom the duty is owed? (How many people know what is in the interest of another person? particularly, again, with regard to their emotional ties, sex lives and/or love-lives?) Final question: are our interests (never mind our duties) determined by their likelihood to promote our or others happiness? Perhaps the fantasy indicates actual preferences rather than mere associative pleasure. Perhaps it doesn't. What is the liklihood that we can tell the difference between the two? Deeply hidden desires can masquerade as fantasy. -MS

Accepted:
February 1, 2006

Comments

You seem to think that my earlier response commits me to affirmative answers to the three questions you pose. As far as I can see, this is not the case. So, to answer the new questions in sequence:

1. No, a person's obligations are not determined by this person's self-interest. Even when performing some action is not in one's self-interest, one can still have a moral obligation to perform it. And even when an action is in one's self-interest, one can still lack a moral obligation to perform it. This holds for obligations in general, and it also holds, as you suggest, for obligations to disclose information.

In my previous answer, the connection I drew was not between an obligation and interests of the same person, but between an obligation and interests of another (the person to whom the obligation is owed, here: the person's partner). This is the target of your second question.

2. Again, I would say no. The obligations one person, A, has toward another, B, are not determined by B's interests. A may have no obligation to B to get married to B even though B has a strong interest that this should happen. And similarly for disclosures: A may have no obligation to B to give B some piece of information even though B has a strong interest in this information. So we agree here as well. What I was suggesting in my previous answer connects in the opposite direction: A can have an ethical obligation to B to disclose something to B only if such disclosure is in the interest of B or something B would want.

3. Again, I agree with you that a person's interests are not determined by happiness -- either the person's own or that of others. I was using happiness as an example: One of the ways in which disclosure of information might be in the interest of the recipient is that it relieves this recipient's pain or makes her/him happier. I was not suggesting that this is the only way.

My thought then is: One can have an ethical obligation to tell one's partner about one's sexual fantasies only if this disclosure is either in the partner's interest (e.g., because it would make her/him happier) or something s/he would want. Since such disclosure is, in some (and perhaps most) cases, neither in the partner's interest nor something this partner would want, there is no general moral duty to disclose -- though there may be an obligation to disclose in some cases.

Cases is which one owes an obligation of disclosure to one's partner would be special cases, in my view -- not every case in which disclosure is in the partners interest or something s/he would want (see 2 above). For example: A finds B repulsive and can make love to B only by fantasizing about someone else. B is attractive to many, could easily find a new partner, and cares greatly to be with someone who finds B attractive. In such a case, A might well have an obligation to disclose or to end the relationship.

Now you also raise, in all three of your questions, the issue of uncertainty: Does one really know what is in one's partner's interest (e.g., what would make one's partner happier) and what one's partner would want to have disclosed? I agree that such judgments may sometimes be difficult to make, and I agree that one may then be mistaken (in either direction) about whether one owes one's partner disclosure or not.

You may see this as a disadvantage of my view. But I think it is a common phenomenon in moral life. What obligations we have often depends on what is the case. And insofar as we are uncertain (or mistaken) about what is the case, we may then also be uncertain (or mistaken) about what our obligations are.

You may think that, when one is uncertain about whether one has an obligation to disclose, then one ought to disclose (just in case). Again, this seems right. But not every uncertainty about what is in one's partner's interest entails uncertainty about the obligation to disclose. The uncertainty has to be serious enough for one to conclude that a special case (like that described three paragraphs back) obtains. And one must also weigh the downside risk of hurting one's partner's feeling and the relationship unnecessarily.