Doubts are natural in this scenario. The biggest doubter is as can be gathered is of course the dad, who is totally confused not only about the principals and the dynamics involved, but the manifestations, which may have more significance then the dad is able to muster up.
If he follows principles as laid which his son equally knows, and at this point the son knows he can not move from the spot on the railroad track, because it’s a split second decision, not where rocks can be thrown, the dad, has a moral problem. How can he solve it? What is involved?
The dad will feel guilt either way, but after the switch is thrown (or not) he pre figures a foreseeable singular state of mind he has to deal with, namely the state of his own mind.
So he is seeking a vindication on 2, well really 3, or even on infinite levels, where he has to concern himself with his son’s state of mind and knowledge of principles-which are synonymous with his own: then with those he considers to be morally religious principles, and finally that of his own, the dad’s own principles as the combination of both.
Can the father’s conscience be ever really be vindicated, regardless of what he does? If so, what basis would he have for such a vindication?
So, you’ve decided to do the really rational thing and talk yourself into believing and assuming that the one would gladly give up his life for the other 5. Is this 1 mother theresa (oh, i forgot she’s dead)
Your justification is not in seeing people deserving what they want but it might be rooted in ridding yourself of guilt and remorse for having to make such a dastardly decision. You can have no idea how any of these people would think. How do you know that the 1 is not a woman pregnant - you just can’t see her pregnancy. Does she want to die and sacrifice her life and that of her only child for the sake of the five?
How could anyone actually know what they would do in a case like this?
And why is it always so easy to want to save the five and to look at the life and death of the one as less meaningful as the other five? It reminds me of Lock’s example of the men in the boat.
It really is a dilemma and let’s hope we’re never faced with it.
Aside from that, logically speaking, wouldn’t one have to try to save the one or ones who are closer, who for the most part, it is sure or reasonably felt that they can be saved - less they all die otherwise.
Wow, NO you dweeb.
The other innocent children could hopefully probably survive their parents’ death and who could even know if some of those parents were lousy parents.
And there certainly wouldn’t couldn’t be enough time to gather the information, as FJ implied.
Do you not think that an innocent child deserves to grow up and live his/her life?
There was a good reason why the children went first into the boats as the titanic was sinking.
He should make his best attempt to do a precise calculation as to which direction will cause the least harm. Then he should drive that direction.
The problem with this purely utilitarian approach, is that he’s going to be asked to quantify things that are quite tricky to quantify. Like the value of a person’s life or suffering.
It’s brutal.
He needs to come up with a better way. If he keeps thinking like that, next thing you know…he’ll be killing people for the sake of saving more people with their organs. Then he’d be serving that utilitarian ideal in some sense, in that more people would live than die, but in some other sense I’m sure there would be several valid objections.
Me, I’d depend on my intuition and if I regretted what I did and assessed that regret as intelligent and valid rather than superfluous, I’d try to train myself to do better in the future.
I just repeated the answer to this question that is the standard answer. How could someone not know the correct intuitively?
It’s a utilitarian problem. For one, there’s no settled way to attribute quantitative value to all kinds of things that we need to consider in a moral context. Then, there’s varying opinions about what’s the right thing to do, even if we could get all the math done. It’s really not a very robust theory at all. I think the idea with ethics is to 1) know what’s good, (virtue ethics), 2) do no harm, (consequentialism), and 3) get shit done, (pragmatics).
Call me crazy but I think all this stuff is pretty common sense.
I just look at his posts, and then say stuff. I don’t actually read them. I had no idea that this stuff was troubling him. I’ll see if I can find him and maybe we can talk it out.
Obe, my question is this…in a situation where both options available to the agent are such that harm will be done, to what extent is he actually an agent with regard to the decision to do harm? I mean, he decides where the train goes, but the harm is kinda factored in before he gets to start deciding what to do.
If I were driving a trolley, and I was in that position, I might be so frazzled at the prospect of being about to kill a bunch of people, that I could freak out and miscount, accidentally killing the bigger pile of people. Would I be held morally accountable for this accident that occurred while I was under duress?
In order to give you any kind of approximation as to where the answer to the question may be heading, I will have to give you some pointers with which I have been playing with: (most of them paradoxical)and one. Which may or may not need to be adopted.
I started to align the third man’s argument, with the possibility that the third man, in the group of five, that is tied to the railroad track holds some kind of a figuratively central position wihin the group, the group consisting of five people. This said, I do not expect any possible solution to such simple ideas as : factors reigning in ideas of guilt, or innocense.(As in the case of innocent fetuses). In other words,the solution may lay beyond(beneath or above) simple psychologisms.
An objection may be made here, on the basis, that such avoidence of a psychological interpretations is beyond the capacity of any average, or normal bystander to make , in a simple second to second timeframe. This objection is met, with the fact, that there may be a superabundance of thoughts that provoke the mind of the bystander, where a sequential-psycho-logical analysis may be not only superflous,inadequate, but too cumbersome and time consuming. Smears, I feel, you may be on the right track.
At the same time, I would not like to convey an impression that this is an insurmountable problem. I add this postscript with the notion which embodies hope, that consensus, at the very least, can set the stage into some kind of framework able to stand on it’s own.
To the OP,
A trolley is generally in cities. And yet 5 people are tied to a trolley track. One idiot that had a lousy upbringing or is jus so defiant he is stupid or deaf and stupid. Five people waiting on a trolley track. I say waiting because there aint no way you can tie them to the track due to how tracks are laid. They can roll themselves off the track with desperate effort. Most of us would do so. Yet there they lay without efforting to save themselves. Frankly my first post stand. On the other hand I might just turn away to get an icecream because A: they are 6 idiots or B, its a reality show and all are fine.
Adding a bunch of what ifs after is just silly.
Kris: this example is based on a hypothetical regarding the problem of double effects. It’s only a hypothetical, and it is probably quite possible to have this scenario go down, involving so called normal people.
let’s say one has to get even more involved. The situation includes that one gets involved. But it is a fairly distant involvement. Say some maniac will save the five if you shoot one person. You know nothing more about the people involved.
In the state of California, by law, a bystander has no legal duty to get involved in any manner into a scenario as described above. A moral duty,however is a different idea altogether.
Involvement in both legal and moral senses imply forseeability of harm. It is this forseeability which is the key to the solution of this problem. However forseeability has no bearing on how distant or remote the involvement is. The only requirement is, that the involvement be appreciatably perceptible and it’s consequences be understood.
FJ, Obviously, I don’t agree with you. The OP poses a moral dilemma. Given the choice of one of two options, which would you choose? It’s the same dilemma presented in the classic “Do you change the switch to save people threatened by a speeding train, which will kill you and another person waiting at another station to which you redirect the train, or do you do nothing?”
The number of people involved have really nothing to do with anything–nor does the train, trolley, whatever.
Every decision will have consequences–some can be known, some are unforeseen. Once the decision is made, it’s made and the decider is left with the consequences–including the unforeseen ones.
Obe is making this a rather religious dilemma, because obe is obe. I’ve simply tried to put his hypothetical into the context of life.
One should live philosophy rather than simply pay it lip service.
So because your hypothetical involves a choice of ‘one of two options’, and his hypothetical also involves such a choice, your hypothetical is an ‘updated version’ of his? That’s silly, Lizbeth. Why not update it to, “Do I choose Hawaiian pizza or Pepperoni?”
Your question is not an updated version of his. It’s an entirely different question. Start a new thread if you want it answered.
I’m not Dan, but speaking as a mother, there is no way that I would allow my son’s idealism to get in the way of his life. It would be utterly impossible for me to do that. I would have to disregard his insistence, save his life, and deal with it later.
What would be the greater loss, his respect or his life? I could always regain his respect - his life, I couldn’t. If he chose never to set eyes on me again, at least he would be somewhere in the world…alive.
I agree with lizbeth. Updated may be in question but variable is not. It is an old question with a bit of difference that is all. From the original OP here lots of ifs, thens, buts etc have been thrown in that should have been stipulated in the OP.
Even still they are variences on an old theme with the same endings. The OP is actually unrealistic
So, you’ve decided to do the really rational thing and talk yourself into believing and assuming that the one would gladly give up his life for the other 5. Is this 1 mother theresa (oh, i forgot she’s dead)
