To kill one or to kill many - a dilemma
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:49 am
If I throw a switch one person will die, but if I don't his bomb may go off and many will get hurt, some fatally. What should I do?
If I willfully kill one, I am a murderer.
I agree with those who point out that if we perform the actions of a terrorist by killing many others, we have then reduced ourselves to that level (to that low degree of morality), and are equally guilty as is the “terrorist.”
Yet I don’t have to choose between being a murder or being a terrorist. There are many other alternatives in life.
I hold that ethics is logical: that is to say, we can derive ethically-relevant interpretations of the logical symbols and relations employed in a Logic of Entailments, which is one of the Relevance Logics described in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Here is a link to it: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-relevance/
(See esp. #3 on that page.)
I am not a logician so I haven’t done it, but that of course does not mean that it can’t be done. I predict that it will be done once a logician familiar with such a logic is also well-trained in a formal value- theory and in its applications to Ethics. The day is coming.
What I have done is produced a framework which starts with the structure of concepts, procerds to the structure of value, and defines its terms as it develops the theory of Ethics as a discipline characterized by cumulative knowledge.
Its basic premises are Non-Naturalist (as required by G. E. Moore’s keen analysis) while its research is to be informed by the latest finding about human nature, especially as discovered by the disciplines of Moral Psychology, Economics, Clinical Psychiatry, and Social Psychology. Here is a link to the manuscript designed for an audience of philosophy professors specializing in ethics: http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/Ethics_ ... Course.pdf
An informal, popularized, more readable, summary of its main points with new material added is here: http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/Living_ ... _Lifef.pdf
The choic presented is: to actively kill one or to deliberately kill many. I fully agree with those who write: “Perhaps both the choices are morally unsound.” They are right on point there!
I disagree with anyone who says: “We must choose the lesser of two evils.” In my life I strive to choose the greater good (rather than choose among lesser evils.)
A moralist is one who engages in making moral judgments of other people. To assert that ‘one who chooses neither horn of the dilemma is “lazy,” because he has chosen inaction over action,’ is to moralize, to be a moralist.
The policy of choosing inaction in such a dilemma is legitimate. Why? It is human nature to be “lazy” unless we are strongly motivated toward some goal – such as to survive, or to amass great wealth, or to lose weight, etc. We are often relatively inactive! Inaction cannot reasonably be said to be immoral.
My book, with the title ETHICS: A College Course, holds with the view of Dr. Karl Menninger in his classic THE CRIME OF PUNISHMENT. As I understand the case he argues, he would arrest a murderer, lock the perpetrator up in a mental ward, and “throw away the key” until that perp can meet some very-high standards (criteria) of rehabilitation: violence must be totally rejected by the prisoner, as measured by some quite strict tests, before the killer is ever to have anything resembling the privileges of a normal life. (There would be a screening board of specially-trained and qualified non-sadistic psychiatrists making the decision.)
I would love to know how it is possible to precisely define “the consequences of inaction” that Utilitarians speak of at times. How do we measure a consequence”?
IMHO people are not evil, but their actions and situations may be. Some may be deranged; or may ave brain damage. Thus they are handicapped, and are to be treated as such – probably requiring ospitalization (in that mental ward.)
And, yes, there is a difference between declining to pull a switch that will cause the death of one person and actually murdering someone with your own hands – by pulling that switch! Don’t give me all that hooey about “saving lives” in the future. None of that is guaranteed. And the 100 you ‘save’ may go on to commit very evil acts. We (as the fallible human beings we are) cannot judge this.
Bottom line: Err on the side of not being a killer. Aim instead to be a highly-moral person of integrity and authenticity.
Let the experience - in real life, not in a hypothetical dilemma - of Ms. Ashley Smith in Atlanta
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... nted=print - someone who was held hostage by a murderer – let that be your guide….not that she claims to be – or is - a saint!
Comments? Questions?
If I willfully kill one, I am a murderer.
I agree with those who point out that if we perform the actions of a terrorist by killing many others, we have then reduced ourselves to that level (to that low degree of morality), and are equally guilty as is the “terrorist.”
Yet I don’t have to choose between being a murder or being a terrorist. There are many other alternatives in life.
I hold that ethics is logical: that is to say, we can derive ethically-relevant interpretations of the logical symbols and relations employed in a Logic of Entailments, which is one of the Relevance Logics described in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Here is a link to it: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-relevance/
(See esp. #3 on that page.)
I am not a logician so I haven’t done it, but that of course does not mean that it can’t be done. I predict that it will be done once a logician familiar with such a logic is also well-trained in a formal value- theory and in its applications to Ethics. The day is coming.
What I have done is produced a framework which starts with the structure of concepts, procerds to the structure of value, and defines its terms as it develops the theory of Ethics as a discipline characterized by cumulative knowledge.
Its basic premises are Non-Naturalist (as required by G. E. Moore’s keen analysis) while its research is to be informed by the latest finding about human nature, especially as discovered by the disciplines of Moral Psychology, Economics, Clinical Psychiatry, and Social Psychology. Here is a link to the manuscript designed for an audience of philosophy professors specializing in ethics: http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/Ethics_ ... Course.pdf
An informal, popularized, more readable, summary of its main points with new material added is here: http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/Living_ ... _Lifef.pdf
The choic presented is: to actively kill one or to deliberately kill many. I fully agree with those who write: “Perhaps both the choices are morally unsound.” They are right on point there!
I disagree with anyone who says: “We must choose the lesser of two evils.” In my life I strive to choose the greater good (rather than choose among lesser evils.)
A moralist is one who engages in making moral judgments of other people. To assert that ‘one who chooses neither horn of the dilemma is “lazy,” because he has chosen inaction over action,’ is to moralize, to be a moralist.
The policy of choosing inaction in such a dilemma is legitimate. Why? It is human nature to be “lazy” unless we are strongly motivated toward some goal – such as to survive, or to amass great wealth, or to lose weight, etc. We are often relatively inactive! Inaction cannot reasonably be said to be immoral.
My book, with the title ETHICS: A College Course, holds with the view of Dr. Karl Menninger in his classic THE CRIME OF PUNISHMENT. As I understand the case he argues, he would arrest a murderer, lock the perpetrator up in a mental ward, and “throw away the key” until that perp can meet some very-high standards (criteria) of rehabilitation: violence must be totally rejected by the prisoner, as measured by some quite strict tests, before the killer is ever to have anything resembling the privileges of a normal life. (There would be a screening board of specially-trained and qualified non-sadistic psychiatrists making the decision.)
I would love to know how it is possible to precisely define “the consequences of inaction” that Utilitarians speak of at times. How do we measure a consequence”?
IMHO people are not evil, but their actions and situations may be. Some may be deranged; or may ave brain damage. Thus they are handicapped, and are to be treated as such – probably requiring ospitalization (in that mental ward.)
And, yes, there is a difference between declining to pull a switch that will cause the death of one person and actually murdering someone with your own hands – by pulling that switch! Don’t give me all that hooey about “saving lives” in the future. None of that is guaranteed. And the 100 you ‘save’ may go on to commit very evil acts. We (as the fallible human beings we are) cannot judge this.
Bottom line: Err on the side of not being a killer. Aim instead to be a highly-moral person of integrity and authenticity.
Let the experience - in real life, not in a hypothetical dilemma - of Ms. Ashley Smith in Atlanta
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... nted=print - someone who was held hostage by a murderer – let that be your guide….not that she claims to be – or is - a saint!
Comments? Questions?