Positive and negative morality
Similar in some ways to the idea of positive or negative freedom, we can think about moral concerns as being positive or negative. Also related to two of the the three most important problems.
In this construction, our obligation would be to negative morality. It is the kind of morality that we usually focus on in discussions of ethics and obligation. It is essentially a concern with full security of human rights. I call it a “negative” morality because it is essentially a reduction of immorality. It certainly is not a bad type of morality!
While negative morality holds most of our attention, I suggest here that there is a positive morality as well. Anything that does not impact a being’s basic rights but still makes a non-trivial contribution to their quality of life falls under this idea of positive morality. This probably includes aesthetic considerations and issues of personal and interpersonal fulfillment.
This duality is an attempt to describe two buckets of moral consideration. Under the hood, I believe quality adjusted life years (or some metric like that) is still the more precise way to measure moral value.
Even for Utilitarians, this duality serves as a line in the sand. Some considerations will clearly fall on one side or the other: assuring humans are not tortured is an obvious negative morality concern, while assuring humans have access to affordable sushi is probably a positive morality concern.
For pure “util-driven” Utilitarians, it’s possible to claim there are no metaphysical rights, only degrees of better or worse (which I am actually pretty convinced is a true idea), thus making this distinction meaningless. But they must still respond to a question of cost, and this duality really only emphasizes that all moral considerations can fall into two buckets based on higher cost (negative morality) or lower cost (positive morality).
util-driven thinking likely already has a wide scope as, in theory, all effects could impact life quality.
I don’t think I actually hold moral conceptions to a binary duality like this. Under the hood, moral considerations hold a value (and I consider that value to be determined by something like friendly utilitarianism).
This distinction does not try to draw a clear line, rather it serves to remind us that not all moral considerations are the same. Negative and positive morality are not isolated from each other. It’s possible that improving a positive moral consideration is worth the downside of making a negative moral consideration worse, as is aligned from standard utilitiarian thinking.