Can Morality Survive in a Life or Death Dilemma?

[DaveC426913]

But it is useless. I don't hate the philosophy forums. I don't like really lame stuff trying to pass as philosophy...like this thread.

Dude. Just un-sub.

Or are you objecting to other people discussing it?

That's a rhetorical question. Just un-sub; I'll draw my own conclusions.

 

[DaveC426913]

I could not kill people entrusted into my care over a group that was not.

There are circumstances in which you could kill 500 people?

 

[Cyrus]

Dude. Just un-sub.

Or are you objecting to other people discussing it?

That's a rhetorical question. Just un-sub; I'll draw my own conclusions.

I just wanted to give you guys a hard time for turning Batman into philosophy.

 

[Cyrus]

Some will point out that nobody has more right not to be overrun by a train than others, while the fat man has the right not to be pushed down from the bridge. But does he have more right not to be thrown down from the bridge than the five people have the right not to be overrun by a train?

Personally, I think there is a difference. The difference is that we don't want a society where killing random people to save others is OK, while in the trolley problem, the conductor is forced to kill either 1 or 5.

Who cares? That isn't a problem in our society. What's the point your trying to make here, that we should worry about what our society will become based on what was seen on a batman movie (and isn't even real BTW) ? I think there are enough real issues to worry about that we don't need made up ones to add to the list.

 

[DaveC426913]

Who cares? That isn't a problem in our society. What's the point your trying to make here, that we should worry about what our society will become based on what was seen on a batman movie (and isn't even real BTW) ? I think there are enough real issues to worry about that we don't need made up ones to add to the list.

The Batman movie posed a moral dilemma. We all saw the film, so we know the sitch. The movie didn't invent the scenario.

Then again, I'm sort of on your side; I think almost everyone here is missing the point of making ethical decisions. They have to apply to real life. And that means there are ALWAYS more than two solutions. The only place where there are only two solutions is when you're playing a game (by game, I mean where you tacitly accept that there are rules that you choose to abide by). And, in a game, ethical decisions are merely academic.

 

[superwolf]

It's for fun.

 

[Evo]

There are circumstances in which you could kill 500 people?

Sure, if I was convinced there was no other way with better *guaranteed* results. I wouldn't ask to be put in that position, but I could handle it.

 

[superwolf]

I think almost everyone here is missing the point of making ethical decisions. They have to apply to real life. And that means there are ALWAYS more than two solutions.

It does apply to real life as long as it is possible. The batman scenario is not, because we cannot be 100% confident that Joker isn't joking, but it's still an ethical decision when we are in the situation. The situation with the fat man on the bridge is an ethical dilemma. Are there more than two solutions here?

 

[superwolf]

Sure, if I was convinced there was no other way with better *guaranteed* results. I wouldn't ask to be put in that position, but I could handle it.

How can you know before you have been there?

 

[Pythagorean]

There's a similair one we ask (smug) new medical students.

Q>Is it better to save one life or six?
A>Six, they all parrot.
Q>So if you see a healthy jogger go past the hospital you should kill him and use heart/lungs/kidneys/liver to save 6 patients?

That's somewhat unfair how you bring a bunch of additional information in on the second question. If you don't talk about the seven people's differences, they don't have any in the hypothetical situation, so all your medical students are imagining seven patients all close to dying, all with the same value to society, all in the same boat, all the same, all the same, etc, etc.

 

[Pengwuino]

You know what, wasn't the scenario in the movie actually even a better philosophical question then what was posed? Wasn't it 2 boats, 500 or something people in each, but one was carrying 500 prisoners?

 

[russ_watters]

That's misusing the logic though, not showing that it's bad. Killing 25 million to simply improve the lives of 300 million isn't the same as killing 25 million to save the lives of 300 million.

Why not? Why draw the line there? It is the utilitarians who make it a subjective numbers game:

-Is it ok to kill 1 to save 2? 4? 1000?
-Well then is it ok to kill 1 to save 1 if the 1 you save is a better person?
-Is it ok to kill a sick person to save a healthy person?
-A poor, starving peasant might wish death: improving his life by a lot is not unlike saving him. If killing one person allowed millions of others to live better, fuller, richer lives, would that be ok? No, it isn't life for life, but it is a huge benefit to a huge number of people for the price of a single life...and oh, by the way, that's not even counting the fact that the "betterment" includes a longer life expectancy, which is tantamount to saving lives.
-People sometimes choose to sacrifice themselves for nothing more than the betterment of others (ie, the military). If it makes sense to do it to yourself, why doesn't it make sense to do it to someone else?

These types of subjectives fit into the utilitarian principle even if you don't like taking the logic that far. You're drawing a line, but it is a completely arbitrary one based on how far you allow the logic to go before it starts to turn your stomach. But it is most definitely the same line of logic.

I personally feel society feels its somehow immoral to kill people to save the lives of others... yet we have had wars that everyone feels were completely justified. The best example is WW2, we as a society sent people out to their deaths knowing that if we did not, far more people would die. Does anyone feel it was immoral to do so? I've never heard a person say so or argue such.

Now that is an incorrect comparison. In the scenario in the OP, you have someone in one of the two groups making the decision to kill those in the other group. In the case of WWII, you have a 3rd party (the government) choosing to risk the lives of (not kill: the government isn't pulling the triggers that kill them) one group (the military) to save the other group (the civilians).

Yes, it is an application of the utilitarian principle - and the military is one of the rare exceptions where western philosophy considers it acceptable - but it is a much weaker/less direct conundrum than the one presented in the OP. That said, I'm wondering if anyone ever challenged the draft in court and under what logic the challenge was shot down. It would seem to be a violation of the Bill of Rights.

 

[russ_watters]

So would I be punished if I changed directoin in the trolley problem? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

I wouldn't (and didn't) say that you would be, but by proper application of the law you should be. Juries are composed of ordinary citizens, not lawyers and they don't always rule according to the law. Either way, though, you would, absolutely, lose a wrongful death lawsuit by the family of the person you killed.

 

[russ_watters]

My thoughts are similar to those of John Stuart Mill, pioneer of Utilitarian ethics. Regardless of which boat I am on, I have the moral obligation to do the most good, and in this case, inflict the least pain.

Inflict the least pain? In one case, you inflict no pain at all, in the other case, you kill 500 people. The action you take is not the one that inflicts the least pain. The key to this conundrum is that by accepting the scenario the madman presents you, you take over partial responsibility for it.

Put another way, you cannot be convicted for not pushing the button regardless of what the madman eventually does. But you can be convicted of murder of pushing the button if the madman was bluffing. The ambiguity is part of the (but not the only) reason for the immorality of the action. And that's why the trolley problem is better, imo, it takes away the 3rd party. It's all you: with one choice, you allow a bunch of people to die and with the other, you kill one person.

 

[Pengwuino]

Now that is an incorrect comparison. In the scenario in the OP, you have someone in one of the two groups making the decision to kill those in the other group. In the case of WWII, you have a 3rd party (the government) choosing to risk the lives of (not kill: the government isn't pulling the triggers that kill them) one group (the military) to save the other group (the civilians).

I was talking about the 6 sick patients and the healthy passerby. The idea of sacrificing healthy people for the good of the rest of society has been a seemingly sanctioned idea for modern societies. Then again I retract that argument since there is a definitely a difference morally as to volunteer soldiers vs. conscripted soldiers...

 

[russ_watters]

I don't care what is rejected in western philosophy. What is relevant is the difference the captain makes by blowing the other boat up. The difference is that 1000 people that would otherwise die, survive. He has the opportunity to save 1000 lives at the price of nothing except a possible feeling of guilt. Therefore he should do it. Not doing it would be immora.

What matters is the reason it is rejected by western philosophy, not the fact that it is. The utilitarian principle is rejected because it violates a person or peoples' individual rights, not because one might feel guilty for acting that way (one might feel guilty either way, so that is irrelevant anyway). The individual rights approach may seem overly rigid, but the utilitarian approach is overly vague and leads to easy justification of terrible atrocities. The utilitarian approach has no inherrent line between immoral and moral: it is simply a matter of how much you are capable of stomaching.

 

[russ_watters]

What if the boat with more people were all sadistic killers? Do we place more value on what we consider "good' people?

Yes, as I said, that's the problem with the utilitarian principle: There is no inherrent line, so it requires an individualized judgement call and too much ambiguity.

The scenario you describe is closer to how the scenario in the movie works too...

Are numbers all that count? Why do numbers count more than who the people are?

Some utilitiarians, when they argue it, will try to stick to the numbers, but that isn't what the utilitarian principle is about. As someone arguing it stated earlier, it is about doing the most good. And doing the most good isn't about numbers, it is about subjective judgement of what "good" is. If you are faced with killing a child or killing a 90 year old, the numbers game would tell you you couldn't make a decision. But if you ask the 90 year old, they'd probably gladly give their few remaining years to save the kid. There is no way to escape the need for subjective judgement.

 

[russ_watters]

Then again, I'm sort of on your side; I think almost everyone here is missing the point of making ethical decisions. They have to apply to real life. And that means there are ALWAYS more than two solutions.

But more than two solutions does not mean more than two choices. For the people on the boat, there are only two choices: push the button or not. And that forces them to make some of the types of subjective judgements and scenario evaluations we've discusse here:

-Do the convicts deserve to die instead of us?
-If there are more of us, are we justified in killing them?
-If we push the button, will the Joker just kill us anyway?
-Is this a trick and there are no bombs?
-Is this a trick and our transmitter detonates our bomb?

 

[russ_watters]

Who cares? That isn't a problem in our society. What's the point your trying to make here, that we should worry about what our society will become based on what was seen on a batman movie (and isn't even real BTW) ? I think there are enough real issues to worry about that we don't need made up ones to add to the list.

You've got blinders on, Cyrus. The scenario posed in the OP isn't even the exact scenario in the movie. The point here is that the OP saw the movie and it caused him/er to start to wonder about the applicability of the utilitarian moral principle. That's it. And the applicability of the utilitarian moral principle vs the individual rights principle most certainly is a "problem" - a critical issue - in our society. The application of these two principles is one of the fundamental influences that governs how people view political questions. Which one was at work on 9/11? With the starting of the Iraq war? With the torture issue? Taxes? Social security?

Take taxes, for example. Idividual rights would say that the government shouldn't take my money, but the utilitarian principle says that the government needs tax money to help everyone. The tug of war between democrats and republicans on taxes is a fight between the two principles.

 

[russ_watters]

I was talking about the 6 sick patients and the healthy passerby. The idea of sacrificing healthy people for the good of the rest of society has been a seemingly sanctioned idea for modern societies. Then again I retract that argument since there is a definitely a difference morally as to volunteer soldiers vs. conscripted soldiers...

No need to retract - in WWII, most were conscripted. But certainly the utilitarian principle doesn't apply to a volunteer military.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

And that's why the trolley problem is better, imo, it takes away the 3rd party. It's all you: with one choice, you allow a bunch of people to die and with the other, you kill one person.

It's funny, I have never heard of the trolly problem but came up with a similar scenario while reading through the posts here. My idea was to take out the middle man. A train is out of control. Switch a track and make the train derail sooner, killing and injuring the people aboard, or allow it to continue on its path when it will derail anyway in another area where several bystanders are located. Mr. "button pusher" can no longer push the onus for the perceived necessity off onto someone else and Mr. "hands off" can not put the responsibility for maximum casualties on the head of some villain.
I also wanted to show Dave that there are real life situations where these sorts of decisions take place. A similar and far more common scenario is the soldier at a road block who must decide to shoot at a bus, carrying civilians and very likely a bomb aswell, rushing the road block where there are yet more persons who will die if the bus reaches them and blows up. Of course we wind up with a villain to blame again.

 

[superwolf]

I wouldn't (and didn't) say that you would be, but by proper application of the law you should be. Juries are composed of ordinary citizens, not lawyers and they don't always rule according to the law. Either way, though, you would, absolutely, lose a wrongful death lawsuit by the family of the person you killed.

I am forced to kill either 1 or 5.

 

[superwolf]

The utilitarian principle is rejected because it violates a person or peoples' individual rights

I'm an utilitarian and a social liberal. In the train problem, violating individal rights cannot be avoided. Therefore, it's better to violate one person's individual right than five.

Btw, individual rights are made by humans, and should't be included in a philosophical argument.

 

[Hurkyl]

We can invent a totally, absolutely vacuum-sealed scenario where there are absolutely two and only two choices, sure. But that has nothing to do with real life. Real life is where ethics apply.

We can't know what the right thing to do in a "real life" scenario if we don't already know the right thing to do in the idealized scenario.

 

[dilletante]

No. In one case, he is killing people, in the other case someone else is killing people. Open & shut.

As far as what will or won't happen, it would be immoral to take action basedd on the word of the mastermind who has already taken them hostage. Who is to say he won't blow them up anyway?

There are several things I disagree with here. One is the assumption that inaction absolves one of responsibility. Not everything is black and white, there are levels and degrees.

Suppose a car is speeding down a street towards a deaf pedestrian. You have time to take his hand and lead him to safety, or you can do nothing and rationalize that the driver of the car is killing him, not you.

Case 2. Suppose a deranged man enters a classroom and is gunning down students. You pass by and you happen to have a gun. You can do nothing or you can kill the madman. Can you conclude it is never morally right to kill another to save lives?

There have been many attempts to justify one solution or another by changing the problem. The problem states what WILL happen, leaving no room for assumptions like the madman may be lying.

There is some wiggle room in the problem as stated, though. Since the outcome is inevitable as stated, what if the passengers on one of the ships voted unanimously to sacrifice themselves to save the others? Would the captain of the other ship then be in the clear morally if he pushed the button? Or would it make no difference?

 

[Huckleberry]

I think it would be time for a late night swim. I'm used to being on a ship packed with explosives. Finding myself with a boatload of philosophers is much more frightening.

Come to think of it, this was exactly my impression when we were called to general quarters off the coast of Florida when we were told that Cuba shot down some U.S. aircraft and we just happened to be a few miles away. The people around me that were freaking out were far more immediately dangerous than Cuba.

This situation is nothing like reality. Rational thought is the last thing on most people's minds. I was at a mall when some punk around the corner pulled a gun and started shooting. People were running screaming down the hall to the exit in a crazed manner. Not one stopped to think that they should sacrifice themselves to stop the gunman from executing dozens. I guess there were no fat guys nearby to push at him.

I think I know why this question bothers me so much now. The life of the philosophizer is not in danger. Throw yourself off the philosophical bridge, or let the fat guy decide for himself what the value of his own life is in comparison to what will be lost.

This is just an excuse to rationalize the murder of innocent people. The choice here is between helping a psychopath kill 500 people or a psychopath killing 1500. Personally, I'd rather kill the psychopath, but since I'm not Batman I suggest everyone abandon ship because the button is going into the drink if I'm responsible for it. I'll have no part in killing any innocent people. (Even the criminals are innocent of this situation) There is no option for the saving of lives in this scenario, only the murder of less of them.

WWII is another example of what happens when people follow the orders and threats of madmen who value their own lives above others. No lives are saved as a direct result of war. Many more than are killed are lost in the process. I'm reminded of this when I talk to veterans who actually did make these kinds of decisions. My uncle still needs to take medication to prevent him from experiencing violent night terrors he picked up from Vietnam. But hey, believe whatever makes you sleep soundly at night because rationalizing these scenarios won't help in a real situation anyway. It's the traits inherent in a person's character that inform their actions in extreme situations, kind of like what Marines call muscle memory, except for the consciousness. Philosophers aren't cut out for the front lines so they stay home and think on the death of innocents, and make terrible movies with horribly contrived plots.

/rant

 

[superwolf]

Does the fat man on the bridge have more right not to be thrown down, than the five men on the railway have not to be overrun by the trolley?

 

[mheslep]

but since I'm not Batman ...

No you're not Huck, because, yes, I am The Batman.

 

[Huckleberry]

Are you seriously asking this?

Yes, the fat man on the bridge has more right not to be murdered than five men have to die in an accident, both legally and imo morally. The difference is in intent. Greater good my posterior unit. I have yet to see a definition of good that doesn't wrap around itself. It tries to justify an argument based on it's own authority with little to no basis in objectivity. I don't think goodness doesn't exist, but it is a subjective idea. You would want to throw the man off the bridge, or destroy hundreds of boat passengers, based on your own subjective reasoning of what the greater good is, regardless of whose lives it affects.

Even if some philosopher did manage to somehow push the fat guy from the bridge, and I have it on good authority that fat men are difficult to move against their will, I would credit the fat man as the hero. The philosopher would, and I think should, go to prison to live amongst his peers and become intimately familiar with people that also don't give a squat about his freedom. But more likely the fat guy, being more physically capable to do so, would just toss the philosopher over the side. On his way down he could think about how his own death will serve his own vision of what is good, and what a fine trolleystop he will make in the afterlife.

 

[Huckleberry]

No you're not Huck, because, yes, I am The Batman.

You're just in time. The Joker is blowing up boats and the Riddler is derailing trolleys. Help, the fat men are falling! I want to see some stately onomatopoeias in generously proportioned, electric text real soon. Which villian will you stop first? Heck, just tackle 'em both at the same time.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/funny_pages_20/images/2008/07/11/serie_bap_2.jpg
Sorry I couldn't get a better picture of you.

 

[superwolf]

Are you seriously asking this?

Yes, the fat man on the bridge has more right not to be murdered than five men have to die in an accident, both legally and imo morally.

Say it's not an accident, but that they have been tied there against their will.

 

[mheslep]

Clearly, Batman is not a utilitarian, he values all life, and self promotion.

Nic: Don't kill me! Don't kill me, man! Don't kill me! Don't kill me, man!
Batman: I'm not going to kill you. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to tell all your friends about me.
Nic: What are you?
Batman: I'm Batman.

 

[Oscar Wilde]

I think I know why this question bothers me so much now. The life of the philosophizer is not in danger. Throw yourself off the philosophical bridge, or let the fat guy decide for himself what the value of his own life is in comparison to what will be lost.

This is just an excuse to rationalize the murder of innocent people.

Philosophers aren't cut out for the front lines so they stay home and think on the death of innocents, and make terrible movies with horribly contrived plots.

/rant

Are you really attempting to discredit and deamonize philosophers for asking tough questions? Philosophers, in sum, do not derive pleasure from thinking of people dying or being executed. I have no idea what has lead you to have such an acute anger for people who enjoy exploring their own beliefs. Your argument is laden with fallacies and needs to be revised.

 

[DaveC426913]

Are you really attempting to discredit and deamonize philosophers for asking tough questions? Philosophers, in sum, do not derive pleasure from thinking of people dying or being executed. I have no idea what has lead you to have such an acute anger for people who enjoy exploring their own beliefs. Your argument is laden with fallacies and needs to be revised.

I didn't get that impression at all. I think you're putting too much earnestness into his words.

Besides, he has a point. Many people here talk about saving 1500 lives versus 500. Easy to say from an armchair.

Everybody seems to think the solution is a no-brainer. All they're doing is counting numbers.

Nonsense.

But put a detonator in their hand, tell them there's 500 innocent people lashed to the business end, and see if they still think it's just numbers.

cuz if it is just a numbers game to these very real posters, I weep for our future.

 

[drankin]

If you're on the boat with 500, you better have fast fingers. *click*