Another ethical question

[Agathon]

Re: Another ethical question

I don't consider these problematic.

Originally posted by Atahualpa

Situation A:
You are locked in a room. You have a device on your head that will kill you in 15 minutes. The device is locked and the key is in the stomach of a man, alive and awake, who is lying on the floor, but who cannot move because of some strong tranquilizers (whose effects will not diminish over the next 15 minutes). You have a knife. A video presents you what will happen if you don't open the lock with the key in 15 minutes (your mouth will be torn apart and your head explode).

Modification of A: You will need to obtain 2 (or more) keys and kill 2 (or more) tranqulized persons on the floor. Do you do it?

No in both cases. This is not much different from a case where you need a transplant from someone else. You don't have the right to have them dismembered for your own welfare.

From the ethical point of view, their interests matter as much as yours. Treating them as a means to your own end is unethical in Kantian terms, and there are no overriding utilitarian concerns in this case (which are either neutral or go against you).

Situation B:
You are again locked into a room and your foot is chained to the wall. This time you have a gun with a single shot and a poisened cigarette. The objective is to kill the other person in the room (that you don't know), who is chained to the wall with the feet as well, before some time is over. You can either shoot him or trick him into smoking the cigarette. Otherwise the guy observing the room through a video camera is going to kill your (wife|husband) and your child. You have spoken to them through a phone (that can only receive calls). You cannot destroy the camera.

Modification of B: You need to kill 2 or more people to save your loved ones.

Simple. In the first case it is ethical to kill, in the second case, no. By the same reasoning as in the first one.

So in both situations what is ethical to do? Is it okay to kill someone (or more) to save yourself?

No.

Is it okay to kill someone (or more) to save others (that you love)?

No, unless the outcome is worse.

As for me, I probably could not kill someone (innocent) to save myself and I could probably not kill someone (innocent) to save someone else. Above all I would have too much doubt that the told outcome is really going to happen or that the promise to not kill my loved ones is really to be held. Effectively, my doubts would paralyze me.

You are assuming that there is a moral difference between killing and failing to prevent death. There isn't.

Problem solved.

[Mr. Harley]

Very Good - the man can be taught. The only moral choice is (2) - or (4), but none of us are arguing about the resistance bit.

1)Is it more moral to refuse any help at all, than to offer help and engage in profiteering?

This is a false choice, turning it into black and white. This is exactly the excuse used by those who profiteered on the misery of those trapped in the ghetto.

2)If it is not more moral to do so, you must be arguing that it is immoral to do anything OTHER than help, in this situation, the Jews by selling them food at "fair" prices (and you still haven't addressed the issue of compensation for large personal risk, so we don't even have a definition of fair yet). By taking this position, you are claiming that the Jews must have at least SOME moral claim to ownership of the property/food of the Poles - if it is immoral to do nothing, and immoral to profiteer, and the only moral courses of action are either to give food or sell it at some set price, then you must take that position.

When you see people being oppressed, and victimized, to help is the only moral action. Now the amount of risk you are willing to undergo, i.e. my example (3) - where one does nothing because of the risk, becomes a truly major issue. As I've noted before, real life morality can become very messy and difficult.

"...compensation for large personal risk,..." which I alluded to in my example (2) but I don't deal with it. However, this takes you back to (1). If you are looking for "compensation" for personal risk, you can justify anything. If you are looking at morality, i.e. right and wrong, you will find in the Christian basis (and Jewish) that to do right you must try to help those individuals who are being de facto imprisioned. "Am I my brother's keeper?" and variations on that theme has been asked for millennia. The answer, with variations, has always been the same.

Morality and free markets have very little in common. Right now the fight over AIDS drugs for the third world is an excellent case in point. However, I find it ironic that those countries claiming the moral high ground, i.e. India and Brazil, are using this to extract intellectual properties from the West and then using this to avoid paying prices that they very well can afford, but draping themselves in the garment of "We are helping all those poor AIDS patients in Africa" while they make a profit. Making it even murkier is the fact that the Western drug companies actually supplying the drugs at cost in the poorest sub-Saharan countries with AIDS epidemics, as they can afford this due to their profits in the Industrialized World.

Why do I digress? To make a current point, just as my Poland/Nazi point - which deals with individuals, versus countries and corporations when dealing with AIDS drugs - that very often morality, when applied in the real world, is neither simple nor easy. There are no "cut and dried" answers that absolve one of the responsibilty to think, evaluate, and above all to be self-honest. Of course one need not do this, and can be like those Poles who made large amounts of profit off of people starving behind barbed wire. It is easy to be one of those people, we all have the potential. Then you have the Schindler's, those who come to the realization that an evil is being done, and risk it all to save those people. That is truly moral, and I have always found it ironic that it was a black-market womanizer who took the stand while many other so-called moral people either profiteered or stood by and did nothing.

The self-honesty to escape that fate is what is truly hard. Look at the thread on less-known American heroes in honor of the July 4th. http://www.apolyton.com/forums/showt...hreadid=135995 Those men who stopped Mai Lai, or exposed Sand River, did not take the easy way out. Taking the easy way out, or making excuses, is the first warning that one is sliding morally, or ethically. FYI, all of my arguments on morality become even more difficult when it comes to ethics, due to the fact ethics does not rely on religious moral principles to define right versus wrong - which vastly increases the complexity of the arguments. However, dealing with these issue ethically as well as morally would more than double the post length, and I'm bad enough as it is. The self-honesty bit.

edited to include quotes as the numbers made it unclear

[Atahualpa]

shawnmmcc:
Atahualpa - you don't flip a coin with Dr. Strangelove's analysis. Since your actions per se make no direct difference, i.e. you are in a lose-lose situation, and largely powerless, you now have total freedom. Conventional religions show you the moral action, with the consequences in an afterlife, and if you don't belief in one, either Taoism or Existentialism deal with your actions. In virtually every case you do not kill the other person, because the Hobson's choice is artificial, and instead make the moral (or ethical) choice. It also applies in my response to the scenario, from a different angle.

hoho wait.. Hobson's choice..? I am not so much into ethics, but I have begun developing interest for it.

So basically what you are saying is that, the fact that you have total freedom doesn't include that you consider all descisions with equal possibility?

David Floyd:
If I am told that I must murder 1 innocent person in cold blood, otherwise 100 other innocents will be murdered, it is still immoral for me to commit the one murder. I am not killing the 100 people, nor by killing one person am I saving the 100. The only person or persons with the power to do either is the person or persons trying to manipulate me. They cannot transfer their responsibility onto me in this manner - they and they alone are responsible for their own actions.

Likewise I am responsible only for my own actions - if I murder one person, then I am responsible for that murder, and the circumstances in which I committed murder are irrelevant.

Good point

Agathon:
From the ethical point of view, their interests matter as much as yours. Treating them as a means to your own end is unethical in Kantian terms, and there are no overriding utilitarian concerns in this case (which are either neutral or go against you).

that's true

[Commy]

I'm not trying to be racist here, or trying to offend anyone, but this is how I see it...

Numbers is important in these situations, true, but there is another factor to consider...potential...

I'm going to try and say this as nicely as I can...nobody take this personally....

Let's say I have two groups of people....

Group A is one American, one British, one Canadian, and one Japanese...

Group B is 40 farmers from Asia, all poor, all without any quality education...

If one group must die, I would kill the 40 Asians, and save the 4 other people...

Why? Because 4 (most likely) educated people can contribute to the world much more than 40 poor farmers that will probably only live another 30 years...

The group of 4 has less numbers, but more potential...they can contribute more to humanity's survival, and therefore they deserve the right to survive...

I am saying Asian farmers are stupid? I am saying that all Americans, Japanese, Brits, and Canadians are intelligent? No, but it is most likely that the small group of 4 is smarter, brighter, and more educated...I'd rather have the future in their hands than in the hands of 40 uneducated people...

[Ben Kenobi]

If I am told that I must murder 1 innocent person in cold blood, otherwise 100 other innocents will be murdered, it is still immoral for me to commit the one murder. I am not killing the 100 people, nor by killing one person am I saving the 100. The only person or persons with the power to do either is the person or persons trying to manipulate me. They cannot transfer their responsibility onto me in this manner - they and they alone are responsible for their own actions.

QFT! Thanks for saving me the time of writing a response, David.

[Atahualpa]

That'd be only an issue if there would be very very little people left and when there are so little people left, I rather go with the poor farmers than a computer scientist, an astronomer, a gangsta rapper and a lawyer

[Ben Kenobi]

By charging a high prices for the food, the Poles are likewise not stealing. Market economics dictated the price - the Poles certainly took a great personal risk at providing food to the Jews, whether or not they were paid for it, so it had to be worth their while.

Also, the point that you can't eat gold makes sense to me. If the Poles could sell the gold to buy more food, which they could then sell or give to the Jews again, then hasn't one done more good than just using one's own resources?

[Mr. Harley]

Hobson's Choice (wikipedia) : In colloquial English, Hobson's choice is an apparently free choice that is no choice at all.

Atahualpa - you have complete freedom, but I did assume (yes, it's a dirty word, however...) that you wish to be a good or moral person. In that context you have no choice in that situation; i.e. it a Hobson's choice.

An evil person might casually murder the man with the key in his stomach, and then hope to convince the individuals involved that he is sufficiently like them that they can use him/work with him/etc., possibly with the thought of even taking over this little scheme. That's why sociopath's are so dangerous, they have absolutely no moral compass, and will go with whatever impulse, good or evil, that they believe they can get away with. A sociopath may not see the situation as a Hobson's choice, but if you believe in morality, ethics, or the existance of good you will end up considering the situation a Hobson's choice, and take no action. Note that I have a strong ethical element in my arguments - a moralist simple knows it's wrong, and he doesn't need to think any further. Of course when the moralist decides he knows what is right for you...

That is also why I brought up the examples in Poland. Now you have genuine choices, because you both want to be good, sort of as long as it isn't too much effort, but greed or self-preservation may override that impulse. That is why impulses can be very dangerous, they can lead us down a path we really don't wish to take, but that ends up taking us there anyway.

[Atahualpa]

I understand, under the assumption that you don't want to kill the guy it's a hobson's choice and always one.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Re: Another ethical question

Originally posted by Agathon
From the ethical point of view, their interests matter as much as yours. Treating them as a means to your own end is unethical in Kantian terms, and there are no overriding utilitarian concerns in this case (which are either neutral or go against you).

The converse is also true, however. That is, the other person has no more right than you do.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Dr Strangelove,



I'm sorry, but I can't agree. You may be correct in the fact that everyone could end up dead regardless.

However, where the difference comes in is in who is committing murder, you, or the "homicidal maniac". It may not make a difference to the murder victims after the fact, but it will certainly make a difference to me, up to the point where I am killed as well.

Actually the point I was making was that killing the people as ordered wouldn't make a difference with regards to the survival of yourself or your family so there wasn't any reason to comply.

[David Floyd]

This is a false choice, turning it into black and white.

It's not a false choice at all. By saying that the only moral course of action is to sell your property, at a certain set price (or free), to another party, you are implying that that party has a moral claim to your property, at least to some extent.

Put another way, if you are saying that the only moral course of action was for the Poles to give food to the Jews, either for free or some low price, then you are saying that the the individual Poles did not retain sole moral ownership of their property, with the moral ability to do with it as they pleased. I can't accept that premise.

When you see people being oppressed, and victimized, to help is the only moral action. Now the amount of risk you are willing to undergo, i.e. my example (3) - where one does nothing because of the risk, becomes a truly major issue. As I've noted before, real life morality can become very messy and difficult.

I'm sorry, but I can't accept this. If I see someone being held at gunpoint in an alley, and I know he's about to be shot, your argument would imply that my only moral course of action would be to step in and act against the person wielding the gun. That isn't a moral act though - it's a foolish one, and by claiming that is the only moral course of action, you are saying that my life is not, in a moral sense, my own. Rather, you are saying that my life is morally expendable, if the needs of others require it.

"Real life morality", as you put it, is really not messy and difficult. "Real life morality" simply consists of acting in a manner consistent with respect for the rights of others - do as you will, but harm no one.

"...compensation for large personal risk,..." which I alluded to in my example (2) but I don't deal with it. However, this takes you back to (1). If you are looking for "compensation" for personal risk, you can justify anything. If you are looking at morality, i.e. right and wrong, you will find in the Christian basis (and Jewish) that to do right you must try to help those individuals who are being de facto imprisioned. "Am I my brother's keeper?" and variations on that theme has been asked for millennia. The answer, with variations, has always been the same.

I thought we were talking about morality, not religion. The two are not necessarily the same thing. If you want to relate morality to religion, then first you are going to have to establish a)the validity of religion, and b)the validity of a particular religion. I'm not interested in that particular debate, so if you want to have that debate, talk to someone else.

Morality and free markets have very little in common.

I'm sorry, but morality and free markets have EVERYTHING in common. Free markets emphasize the right to do what you will with your own property, without state interference (or, obviously, the interference of others). Private property and the respect for property has everything to do with morality.

Right now the fight over AIDS drugs for the third world is an excellent case in point.

How so? First of all, in order to find a solution to the AIDS epidemic, people who live in the Third World simply need to stop having promiscuous sex with multiple partners. Sure, drugs would help, more likely than not, but absent a complete cure (which does not exist), the only long-term solution is sexual sanity.

Secondly, those who have AIDS do not inherently, by virtue of their illness, gain a right to AIDS medicine they can neither produce nor afford. Morality simply states that they have a right to procure that medicine through moral means - either by developing it themselves, trading for it, receiving it as a gift, or buying it outright. They don't have an automatic claim to it, though, and any assertion to the contrary implies that private property is unimportant from a moral perspective. That's a premise I do not accept.

BK and Ata, thanks for seeing my point re: murdering one person to "save" 100 - that's a point Agathon refused to grasp a year ago when he and I had the debate

[David Floyd]

DS, sorry, I misunderstood your point.

[Ben Kenobi]

BK and Ata, thanks for seeing my point re: murdering one person to "save" 100 - that's a point Agathon refused to grasp a year ago when he and I had the debate

Yeah, I remember that thread. Nice to have backup now.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by David Floyd
I'm sorry, but morality and free markets have EVERYTHING in common. Free markets emphasize the right to do what you will with your own property, without state interference (or, obviously, the interference of others). Private property and the respect for property has everything to do with morality.

causing suffering /= moral action