USMB::: Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?

[Procrustes Stretched]

Part 3



Another case: Imagine you're a doctor in an emergency room and six patients come to you. They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck. Five of them sustained moderate injuries, one is severely injured. You could spend all day caring for the one severely injured victim, but in that time the five would die, or you could look after the five, restore them to health but during that time the one severely injured person would die.

Would you save the five of the one? Same principle?


Now consider another doctor case: This time you're a transplant surgeon. You have five patients each in desperate need of an organ transplant in order to survive. One needs a heart, one a lung one, another needs a kidney, another needs a liver, and the fifth needs a pancreas. You have no organ donors. You are about to see them all die, and then it occurs to you that in the next room is a healthy guy who came in for a checkup, --- (the audience laughs) --- and he's taking a nap. You could go in very quietly, yank out the five organs, that person would die, but you'd save the five.

Would you stand by the principle, better to save the five?

Here I would not stick by the moral principle that, better the one die to save the many.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

[you'll need video.

I should post a link to discussions of some sort without making it look like USMB is being made to look at worthwhile competition.

Oh. Okay. Sorry I didn't pick up on what you were trying to tell me. I am unable to watch video with my internet service, so thanks for the written scenarios.

The people in the audience (students at Harvard) had debates online over the morality of positions. The subject is the morality of murder: Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 01 "THE MORAL SIDE OF MURDER"

For the driver NEITHER case is murder. He has no way to prevent death from occurring and he is not setting about killing or murdering anyone.

In the second case pushing the fat man is murder. You CHOSE to KNOWINGLY kill the fat man. First off, you do not KNOW that the fat man will stop the trolley, secondly you are not even actually aware of the facts of the trolley. As an observer above the situation you have no direct knowledge that the trolley can not be stopped or that the 5 workers can not be warned. YOU chose to kill a man that was not involved at all.

 

[lizzie]

Another case: Imagine you're a doctor in an emergency room and six patients come to you. They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck. Five of them sustained moderate injuries, one is severely injured. You could spend all day caring for the one severely injured victim, but in that time the five would die, or you could look after the five, restore them to health but during that time the one severely injured person would die.

Would you save the five of the one? Same principle?

Common sense dictates that you treat the less severe first in this scenario. Morality is not the issue.

Now consider another doctor case: This time you're a transplant surgeon. You have five patients each in desperate need of an organ transplant in order to survive. One needs a heart, one a lung one, another needs a kidney, another needs a liver, and the fifth needs a pancreas. You have no organ donors. You are about to see them all die, and then it occurs to you that in the next room is a healthy guy who came in for a checkup, --- (the audience laughs) --- and he's taking a nap. You could go in very quietly, yank out the five organs, that person would die, but you'd save the five.

Would you stand by the principle, better to save the five?

Here I would not stick by the moral principle that, better the one die to save the many.

I would not lie and deceive in order to save the five lives. The end does not justify the means.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Part 3



Another case: Imagine you're a doctor in an emergency room and six patients come to you. They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck. Five of them sustained moderate injuries, one is severely injured. You could spend all day caring for the one severely injured victim, but in that time the five would die, or you could look after the five, restore them to health but during that time the one severely injured person would die.

Would you save the five of the one? Same principle?


Now consider another doctor case: This time you're a transplant surgeon. You have five patients each in desperate need of an organ transplant in order to survive. One needs a heart, one a lung one, another needs a kidney, another needs a liver, and the fifth needs a pancreas. You have no organ donors. You are about to see them all die, and then it occurs to you that in the next room is a healthy guy who came in for a checkup, --- (the audience laughs) --- and he's taking a nap. You could go in very quietly, yank out the five organs, that person would die, but you'd save the five.

Would you stand by the principle, better to save the five?

Here I would not stick by the moral principle that, better the one die to save the many.

Assuming that the 6 can ONLY be treated by one doctor, then we have a medical ethical answer. It is called Triage. If the Doctor knows he is the only person that can reasonably be expected to save any of the lives and that one or more are destined to die no matter what he does then he must work to save the most lives, he must categorize his ability to provide care that will result in the most lives saved.

In the second case it is murder. The Doctor can not chose on his own to sacrifice a life simply because by doing so 5 others will live. Not if in this case the life sacrificed was in no danger of dying himself. He does not have the ethical or moral responsibility to make that decision for the health man.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

For the driver NEITHER case is murder. He has no way to prevent death from occurring and he is not setting about killing or murdering anyone.

In the second case pushing the fat man is murder. You CHOSE to KNOWINGLY kill the fat man. First off, you do not KNOW that the fat man will stop the trolley, secondly you are not even actually aware of the facts of the trolley. As an observer above the situation you have no direct knowledge that the trolley can not be stopped or that the 5 workers can not be warned. YOU chose to kill a man that was not involved at all.

For the purposes of argument, the driver is given a way to prevent death of one or five. He alone has the ability to save one or five. His/her choice.

The train scenarios do involve murder, if one chooses to save the one or the other five. In some ways to not choose the sidetrack and kill the one, and allow the train to kill the five, is murder. But arguing over the term murder is off topic. It is about choosing who is to die and why -- moral choices.

the point is not about murder, it is about moral choices and the principle of it is better to save the many at the expense of the one.

--

or the purposes of argument you do know what the trolley situation is. it is the same as before -- no brakes. somebody is going to die -- five workers. for the sake of argument the five will die unless an observer does something like push the fat man.

I would not push the fat man. But what about the principle involved -- the one vs the five?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Another case: Imagine you're a doctor in an emergency room and six patients come to you. They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck. Five of them sustained moderate injuries, one is severely injured. You could spend all day caring for the one severely injured victim, but in that time the five would die, or you could look after the five, restore them to health but during that time the one severely injured person would die.

Would you save the five of the one? Same principle?

Common sense dictates that you treat the less severe first in this scenario. Morality is not the issue.

Now consider another doctor case: This time you're a transplant surgeon. You have five patients each in desperate need of an organ transplant in order to survive. One needs a heart, one a lung one, another needs a kidney, another needs a liver, and the fifth needs a pancreas. You have no organ donors. You are about to see them all die, and then it occurs to you that in the next room is a healthy guy who came in for a checkup, --- (the audience laughs) --- and he's taking a nap. You could go in very quietly, yank out the five organs, that person would die, but you'd save the five.

Would you stand by the principle, better to save the five?

Here I would not stick by the moral principle that, better the one die to save the many.

I would not lie and deceive in order to save the five lives. The end does not justify the means.

Hospitals triage patients. More severely injured get treated first. But that is beside the point.

for the purposes of argument it is a moral choice. the one vs the five. who lives and who dies?

put aside the obvious flaws. the point is moral choices here are situational and consequences of an outcome are dictating choices.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Part 3



Another case: Imagine you're a doctor in an emergency room and six patients come to you. They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck. Five of them sustained moderate injuries, one is severely injured. You could spend all day caring for the one severely injured victim, but in that time the five would die, or you could look after the five, restore them to health but during that time the one severely injured person would die.

Would you save the five of the one? Same principle?


Now consider another doctor case: This time you're a transplant surgeon. You have five patients each in desperate need of an organ transplant in order to survive. One needs a heart, one a lung one, another needs a kidney, another needs a liver, and the fifth needs a pancreas. You have no organ donors. You are about to see them all die, and then it occurs to you that in the next room is a healthy guy who came in for a checkup, --- (the audience laughs) --- and he's taking a nap. You could go in very quietly, yank out the five organs, that person would die, but you'd save the five.

Would you stand by the principle, better to save the five?

Here I would not stick by the moral principle that, better the one die to save the many.

Assuming that the 6 can ONLY be treated by one doctor, then we have a medical ethical answer. It is called Triage. If the Doctor knows he is the only person that can reasonably be expected to save any of the lives and that one or more are destined to die no matter what he does then he must work to save the most lives, he must categorize his ability to provide care that will result in the most lives saved.

In the second case it is murder. The Doctor can not chose on his own to sacrifice a life simply because by doing so 5 others will live. Not if in this case the life sacrificed was in no danger of dying himself. He does not have the ethical or moral responsibility to make that decision for the health man.

So the principle of it is better to save five than one?

Do you support the principle that it is better to save five and sacrifice one when given a choice?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Part 4

Okay, the right thing to do, the moral thing to do, depends on the consequences that will result from your action. At the end of the day, better that five should live even if one must die. That's an example of consequentialist moral reasoning.

Consequential moral reasoning locates the morality in the consequences of the act. In the state of the world that will result from the thing that you will do. But then we went a little further, we considered those other cases and consequentialist moral reasoning was found wanting.

To push the fat man off of the bridge, or yank out the organs of the innocent patient, all of a sudden the intrinsic quality of the act itself came into play consequences be what they may.

Suddenly it appears it is categorically wrong to kill one innocent person even for the sake of saving five lives. Categorical moral reasoning locates morality in certain absolute moral requirements in certain categorical duties and rights regardless of the consequences.



So::::::::::::::

Two Different Modes Of Moral Reasoning

Consequentialist -
locates morality in the consequences of an act

Categorical -
locates morality in certain duties and rights


The course, the lecture (in the videos), sets up a situation for exploring the contrasts between consequentialist and categorical moral principles.

The most influential example of consequential moral reasoning is utilitarianism, a doctrine invented by Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century English political philosopher.

The most important philosopher of categorical moral reasoning is the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.


---

The class has more. There is a syllabus: Aristotle, John Locke, Emmanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and others are read. The class takes up contemporary political and legal controversies that raise philosophical questions.

I wonder, can we debate equality and inequality, affirmative action, free-speech versus hate speech, same-sex marriage, military conscription, a range of practical questions -- as the class does? Can we do so not only to enliven these abstract abstract and distant books, but to make clear, to bring out what's at stake in our everyday lives including our political lives for philosophy? We can read these books and we can debate these issues and we can see how each informs and illuminates the other.

This may sound appealing enough, but here I have to issue a warning (these words are 99.999% the words of the instructor. I have altered some for understanding and fitting them to what we can do here @ USMB as opposed to a classroom) and the warning is this, to read and debate these philosophical theories and maybe some books online in this way, as an exercise in self knowledge, to read and debate them in this way carries certain risks. Risks that are both personal and political, risks that every student of political philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us, and unsettles us by confronting us with what we already know. There is an irony. The difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings, and making it strange. That's how those examples worked. The hypotheticals with which we began...

Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing; but and here's the risk. Once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence. However unsettling you find it, it can never be un-thought or unknown. What makes this enterprise difficult, but also riveting is that moral and political philosophy is a story, and you don't know where the story will lead, but you do know is that the story is about you.

 

[editec]

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?

Episode 1: three questions?

1) Do we have certain fundamental rights?

Under the laws of the land, yes.

2) Does a fair procedure justify any result?

Justify? This question is too vague for any answer to make sense

3) What is the moral work of consent?

The moral work? What the hell does that mean?

 

[lizzie]

The most influential example of consequential moral reasoning is utilitarianism, a doctrine invented by Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century English political philosopher.

The most important philosopher of categorical moral reasoning is the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

I'm fairly firmly planted in the Kant camp.

I wonder, can we debate equality and inequality, affirmative action, free-speech versus hate speech, same-sex marriage, military conscription, a range of practical questions -- as the class does?

I would be surprised, as most people prefer to throw rocks and cover their ears.

Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing; but and here's the risk. Once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence. However unsettling you find it, it can never be un-thought or unknown.

Nice observation.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

*sigh*

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

In the first case, I would turn the trolley onto the sidetrack, because I assume my focus would initially have been on the five people in front of me, and that the second option with the lone person on the sidetrack, would be the immediate and obvious choice resulting in a sacrifice. My "Sophie's Choice."

Are the five lives more valuable (in reality) than the one? To me, this choice has no moral implications. I would do whatever my initial impulse instructed me to.

In the second case, the one where I'm an observer, I would not push the fat man.
In my second decision of whether or not to push the fat man, I would not push the fat man. The principle could still stand, because I do not have immediate and technical control of the situation. I am merely an observer. I have no right to sacrifice another for the many where I am not involved except as an observer.

Agreed, but I'm still not convinced that this has more of a moral implication than the first scenario. I just know that I would be unwilling to proactively kill the fat man in a situation where he was not involved except as another observer of the situation.

In the first case it is my actions that cause the man's death, unavoidable as it may seem, it is avoidable. It is avoidable if I were to allow events to unfold without acting. I would have killed the five. I would have killed the five because I was unable to move the train onto the sidetrack in order to save them.

In the second case, I have a choice. I can allow events to unfold, with knowledge of a way to save five and sacrifice the one. This a scenario presented only if the principle in the first stood. As the scenario is presented I have a choice over who is to die, the one or the five.

peeeeeeeeeep