You’re sitting round a table in a cafe on a college campus, with a dozen politically-minded students. One of them asks you, during a lull, this question:
“If you could press a button that would end the troubles in the Middle East for many generations, but at the cost of losing both your arms and both your legs, would you press it?”
Because this is the Internet, I’m gonna say that I wouldn’t press the button, because for all the good that would descend in that far away place, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to lose my arms and legs!! But in that cafe - knowing that the button doesn’t exist - I might actually say I’d press the button, because that’s the easy and convenient answer to give in that particular social situation. They’d all praise me for being selfless and good, instead of calling me selfish and evil.
What’s your honest answer, and what would you say to those students?
I’d like to think I would opt for it. I would hesitate, but I think I probably would. Though the length of the hesitation would depend on whether or not others would know about my sacrifice. If I did that and people knew what I had done, then I’d do it without thinking. I mean, come on, you solved the ME crisis! That would be some nice celebrity. Nice, paraplegic celebrity.
You’ve made me think of an add-on, Xunz: No one knows what you’ve done, and the “official story” that goes out is that you had an accident whilst conducting an embarassing private sexual experiment.
Well, one response is always to supplement to the ambiguity of the question, so that association of the answer with a binary good/evil morality becomes increasingly difficult - would you give up your arms and legs for peace in the middle east even if noone would ever know that that’s what you’ve done? Would you still be doing a good deed if you profit from the noteriety it brings? What if the only reason you did it in the first place was FOR the noteriety that it brings? Is it wrong NOT to give up one’s arms and legs for peace in the middle east? - EVEN if you know ahead of time that noone will ever realize what you’ve done? Etc . . .
What moral principle does giving up one’s arms and legs for peace in the middle east demonstrate? Goodness, proportionality, irregardless of consequences? How do we appraise the righteousness of such an act in the first place? Using what standards? Sacrifice as innately good? And does sacrifice wither in the face of compensation?
Before you know it, you’ll be discussing Greek Tragedy and everyone wil have forgotten the original question - and if that’s what you intended to do, is that a good or bad thing? Does dodging the question entirely entail moral culpability?
But what if they insist it’s a yes or no question, good or bad option, self vs. selfless, answer the question or be ostracized? What do you say? - I say, screw you for asking but i’m keeping my arms and legs because whether there’s violence in the middle east or not, i still got shit to do, and that shit will be a lot easier get done if i retain the use of my arms and legs. Maybe i don’t aspire to martyrdom as some pretend to do, and besides, aren’t aspirations to martyrdom really just making the situation that much worse, if not entirely causing it in the first place?
A decisive answer, Faust. Your reward would be a load of photos of bomb-mutilated children thrust under your nose. But at least you could walk away from them!
So you’d leave the button too, ugly, but with justification. The only “moral judge” of your (non) action would be you.
Either way it ends up the same - all this moral cache just adds self-serving drama to the whole thing. Justification lends itself to the ad hoc. It’s little more than something to talk about after the decision’s already been made - but morality is all about justification, ergo . . . the problem is the theoretical disparity of the consequences is so huge, real-life decisions almost never manifest themselves at those magnitudes - it almost becomes an absurd question based on that alone.
I have seen photos of mutilated people. They are always better when they are not of you.
I could already do everything possible to try to stop the violence - and so could you. I could dedicate my life to that cause, as others have. Your example is hypothetical, but not fantastic. For there would still be suffering elsewhere, even if the ME was quiet.
So the paradigm is realworld.
But I don’t do everything I can to stop the violence in the world - and neither do you (it’s just an example - I am not trying to turn tables or be defensive). I don’t even vote.
I already make the choices that your hypothetical illustrates - I am already not making any sacrafices for the ME. Not voluntarily, anyway.
Faust: I think there’s a piece of information missing from your post, namely that you don’t give a shit. Like me (I presume) the minimal compassion you have for those far-away people is too small to goad you into action.
UPF: I don’t think the unrealism makes it a bad question.
In what manner would peace be achieved? I can foresee only two possibilities: The death of everyone in the ME would accomplish “peace” until the region was repopulated. The other option that could logically result from pushing the Magic Button would require the loss of freewill by the people of the ME. Neither of the two options strike me as moral, so I wouldn’t push the Magic Button even if it came at no cost to me whatsoever.
No, it’s certainly not a bad question - it’s borderline absurd in an interesting enough way to make it worthwhile. It forces people to be honest with themselves about their priorities, and it strikes an effective blow against certain types of idealism.
That said, I do give a shit - I have no shortage of what i think is a natural compassion for those who suffer unduly because of the violence to which, if nothing else, my culture has contributed - but I have compassion for myself too, and like all humans, my foremost concerns are those that present themselves immediately. I simply prioritize my concerns like everyone else, in the way that one would normally expect. So,if we’re evaluating it ethically, a question like this is really an anomoly, far more than it’s a measure of someone’s ethical character - that was my only point about the unrealism . . .
I’d press it. Certainly I would. For a start I’m constrained to - (I’m Christian). But even if I were atheist I’d still do it.
First I’d press the button, then I’d take a trip to the middle east, set up camp there and feel delirously happy at my influence for the rest of my life. I couldn’t imagine anything more fulfilling.
Interesting. So the loss of physical freedom and mobility would be more than balanced by the massed gratitude of the people around you? I worry that the gratitude would wear off - or that you’d get sick of it - and that you’d wind up laid out on a bed wishing you’d left the button alone.
You can get round the God part. If non-pressing is no barrier to Heaven, then you’re fine; but if it’s deemed Heaven-blocking, then you can simply repent afterwards, and you’re in. That’s the thing about Christianity - anyone can get into Heaven, irrespective of what they’ve done! (But this is something for a different thread…)
That’s a good question. I actually have no idea if I would or not because it is a hypothetical question. Could I sacrifice my arms and legs, I am not so sure that I could be a hero and press that button.
Anyway, in eliminating the trouble in the Middle East for many generations, how do we know what the effect would be in the rest of the world? How can we make a decision to do one thing when we can’t know the far-reaching effect of it, even though it would seem to be beneficial up close.
Yeah, but his hypothetical adds a different dimension that isn’t real-world, namely, CERTAINTY!! I don’t do anything about the ME, either, but how much of that is because I believe I CAN’T do anything about the ME? I believe that I am powerless (which is probably true). And so I don’t give it a second thought. It’s hardly a blip on my radar. There’s the fear that even if I devoted my whole life to the cause, it might just get worse anyway! Hell, my activism might even be making it worse despite my intentions. What a waste then! There’s lot’s of risk here, so it’s easily dismissed. That doesn’t mean you don’t value the possible outcome.
So suppose somebody gave you clear, verifiable and positve proof that cutting off your arms and legs would end the struggles in the middle east? I mean absolute 100% certainty, such that in your own mind you would be forced to agree that the only possible outcome of the dismemberment was peace in the ME. X leads directly to y. I bet you’d do it. You wouldn’t be able to stop yourself, even though you’d be terribly distraught over the loss of your arms and legs. At the very least, I guarantee that you’d give it more pause and reflection than you seem to be owning up to.
There’s a larger issue lying underneath all this. Do we really have a say in what we do at all? Are people even capable of choosing good vs. evil? See, I don’t know that we do. I think people always choose the greatest good in every situation. It’s just that we judge the risks and the benefits differently. We each have differing amount of evidence. It’s not that some people are selfish and others aren’t, it just that some believe their actions for the greater good will bear fruit and others don’t (there’s also the fact that we have differing ideas about what brings the greatest possible benefit - even Hitler saw himself as a savior).
That’s why young people tend to be more active and idealistic. It’s not that old people are cruel and selfish, it’s just that years of failure teach you it’s more efficient to focus on smaller, more “local” issues, like your family, your job, or the most local issue of all, i.e., your own emotional desires in the here and now. After all, the more local your effort, the greatest chance for success. All we really ever do is play the odds.