Yes.

Now I'm trying to think of a situation where I would willingly obliterate the human species to avoid a certain fate...hmm.  I can't really think of anything realistic.

Maybe A) Obliterate Humanity B) Humanity continues but trapped in a theistic hell concept/alien pain factory

 

I would pick A) at that point.  Anything less extreme and I would value the potential of life more highly than the avoidence of pain.

 

Now if you ask at what point I'd end my own life, the bar would be significantly lower.

 

And the psychologists they quoted made this point, and I think that either way life is a crap shoot. But what would you say to the family members of the passengers who died if you didn't do that? You are placing that one life as being more important than all the others.

The point to the psychology was not right or wrong, but more along the lines of what types of personalities would do what.

I see your point, but you are also making a life and death decision with the people on the train, not just that one person. Remember, it' isn't about wanting or not wanting to do it, but about what you would do.

But, pulling a lever and pushing a man are different.

If you hadn't been there to do either (pull/push), the end result would have been the same. Maybe the best choice is to do nothing?

As a fat man, if I were faced with that option I'd probably go ahead and jump.

 

How are they different?  In both cases your actions directly result in humans living or dying.  The only difference is your hand coming into contact with a person or a lever.  The single man on the other train track doesn't deserve to die any more than the fat man on the bridge.  Both would survive without your intervention.  The difference is purely your viewpoint, isn't it?

 

If you do nothing, could you rationalize the fact that you could have easily saved lives, but chose not to?  By not acting, you've let a greater amount of suffering happen...instead of one grieving family you've got three, in the second example you might have hundreds of grieving families, versus one.

 

Like Brian says, there is no, "right" answer...but maybe there is?  Why can't we quantify suffering?  Why can't we say that one hundred units of suffering is worth more than one unit of suffering, and act on that equation?

There is a definite difference in your choice of 'weapon'... one is an inanimate object, the other is a living human being. Who can say the value of the life of one is any less than the accumulated value of many? See: Einstein vs. Crack Head reference.   

Maybe it is better for humanity as a whole that the herd be thinned by a train load of people instead of one fat man on a bridge. To assume it is better for many to survive an accident rather than one, is, well, being human. Hurricanes aren't particular in who or how many they kill.

 

I don't think you can...it comes down to one individual making a decision based on the circumstances at the time. There is an episode of MASH that comes to mind... where many people are hiding in a cramped space and a woman is holding her baby. The baby starts to whimper. She puts her hand over the baby's face and smothers it. Did she do the right thing? Only she can say.

 

We constantly either consciously or unconsciously deal with these moral conundrums. The classic example is what I call the hamburger dilemma. Every hamburger patty corresponds to a significant amount of CO2 emission ie. from all the steps from the dead cow to the meat section in the grocery store. By eating that delicious Big Mac I am contributing to global warming. Yet because we don't feel the immediate effects of global warming like an inflamed appendix, the moral outcome seems so far removed. Now let me come up with another example while I devour my Whopper......

Ah! let's modify the fat man example. Supposing a raft is sinking rapidly and on it are 10 newborn infants and a morbidly obese guy who literally requires a crane to move. You and a group of other samaritans have the choice of quickly rescuing the 10 infants and let the fat guy sink and die or vice versa. Those are your only choices. The vast majority of people would let the fat guy croak. In fact I would venture a guess that to think otherwise would be considered immoral.

Yet another example comes to mind. Supposing the only qualified Neurosurgeon who can successfully operate on your child's brain tumor is a Nazi. And the reimbursement for the surgery will go towards funding a Holocaust Denial Center. Would you let your child die for the sake of the greater good or look out for number one (ie. yourself and your family)?

Boy that Whopper was good.

The people on the train are going to die through no fault or action of your own, but if you pushed someone in front of the train you'd be a murderer. It's focusing on the fact that it's worse that more people die rather than less people, instead of the fact that it's worse to violate someone by pushing them than to allow them to make the decision to jump. While you have no moral obligation to intervene, you probably do have a moral obligation to refrain from committing murder. 

That is what makes these examples neither right or wrong. What if you didn't push that same guy off the bridge and he went on to have a kid that grew up to be a cereal killer? What if you were an abortion doctor and you gave Hitler's mother an abortion?

If it were Rush Limpdork it would be a no brainer.

Agreed. But, it would still be murder.

It don't matter how fricking fat the guy is, he ain't stopping no train no how.  Maybe if he were pushing a 1/2 ton (1,000 pounds US, a little less than 500 Kilo) he would slow the train down.  But even if he were that large, he would almost certainly be little pieces of fat flying through the air and all the people are going to die anyway.  They may die from vomiting at that point.  You could derail the train by putting a rail road spike on the rail - my father-in-law actually did that when he was a kid.  But then, some people would still be at least injured and there is a possibility someone might die when the train derailed.  Better than deliberately killing a fat guy, IMNSHO.

The boat and kids and fat guy.  Tie a rope around the fat guy's ankle, attach it to your boat.  Save the kids.  The fat guy will float - fat floats real good - and he has lots of insulation.  Row like hell for the nearest rescue boat.

The problem with these stupid ethical dilemmas is they always assume two actions when there are usually a couple of dozen floating around.  You just need a little imagination.  Someone holds a gun on you and says - "jump off into the Grand Canyon or I'll shoot you".  My response is always, so I drop and roll, knock the guy's feet out from under him and whomp his ass.  Or maybe I start whacking him with my walking cane.  I don't have to jump off the cliff and I don't have to stand there and allow him to shoot me.

Imagination - creativity - don't think outside the box, throw the stupid box away.

 

It seems like the cut worm doesn't forgive the plow after all. They don't bother asking if you would jump in front of the train yourself because of course nothing could be worth so much. If the greater good is so good I wonder why only others need to die for it.

 We dealt with the fat man question before my hiatus. And whether or not to push fatty depends on who is in the train. If it is a bunch of kids fatty is dead, if it is someone in my family fatty is dead, if it is some random people I'm not going to commit murder (unless I already had some reason to want fatty dead).

 

The President has to order the plane to be shot down. Me? I don't want to be President. 

 

As for the tyrant example, well if I was absolutely certain that resistance was futile and would lead to my destruction I would surrender in the short term but that would not stop me from attempting some sort of revolution over the long term. 

 

 

The question is usually coupled with a second question about pulling a lever that will lead to less deaths (again never your own) so I think it is a valid point because the implication is pretty clear. This question isn't really that confounding from a moral standpoint though. If someone will meet with harm that you didn't cause you would be kind of a dick not to intervene at no cost to yourself, but it's universally accepted that you have no obligation, moral or otherwise. If you did you'd be  mass murderer already. 

This hypothetical situation presents not only no reason to intervene aside from the desire to be a good person, but also a very good reason not to intervene and to think you would be a bad person for doing so.

Well, the "right thing to do" may be a dubious concept but even assuming that it's not, I still don't think it is a good question because it implies one should measure others lives to determine the correct course of action  and that it's somehow forgivable to cause harm if it's in pursuit of what you consider to be a better outcome. But it's really a question of how hypocritical you are because while 9 out of 10 are willing to kill others for this great outcome only 1 out of 10 would kill themselves.

Again, depends on who the people are. I will direct priority towards those I love, then will come any kids.

I don't understand why it is hypocritical to ask a hypothetical question.  The president question is exactly the same.

It is easy to create a situation where it is 'right' to kill some to save others, like shooting down a hijacked plane, but 'wrong' to kill a fat man to save a train full of starving orphans.  The 'fun' part is getting people to justify the differing reaction when the ultimate choice is exactly the same, no matter how you try to rationalize it: Kill few to save many.  Our culture and empathetic instincts make a simple equation very confusing and when pressed far enough you see how much of our moral sense is based on pure instinct first, *then* rationalized later.

Besides, I think it is a fair question...many people in positions of power are put into situations where they have to make these calls...soldiers, political elite, doctors, rescue and aid workers etc.  Like I said, the train scenario is sort of silly, you could get better examples.  The problem with better examples is when you give the problem within the context of something we're conditioned to have a response to people don't think the same way.  Everyone expects doctors to perform triage, but triage in some situations isn't any different than the hijacked plane, or the train example in fact, it is just different in our familiarity and how physically attached we are.

The problems are exploiting the psychological flaw of humans where our empathy works differently when we are standing next to another human.  A fighter pilot can drop a bomb that kills 500 people, but most would have a much harder time killing 500 people with a pocket knife.

 

My favorite morality discussion is animal rights, because most people's morality when it comes to animals has no basis in logic whatsoever.

I didn't say that asking the question makes one a hypocrite, I was suggesting that ones answer may reveal that they are. If one is willing to jump in front of a train and push others then they are not hypocritical, they're a killer.

However, the question of what a president, soldier, doctor or police officer should do is a very different question because these people are contractually obligated to act.

It's not a good question as a moral question because it's not really about the right thing to do. Look at the response of another posters. If their friend was on one side then they would save their friend. That's fine, most people would but morality isn't a question of protecting your friends above others. What if your friend was on the track because they were drunk and the person on the other track was working? How would it be moral to kill someone who is just doing their job to save someone who is being irresponsible? It's a great question for determining what prejudices people have but not so much for determining the "correct" course of action from a moral standpoint.

Those examples are moral questions but they are much different ones, and what one should do when they are obligated morally or contractually or otherwise doesn't tell us what others should do when they are not. It's a red herring. If you somehow caused the train to be out of control in the first place then it might be relevant.

 

 

Uh, of course.  You wouldn't have to threaten me with nuclear war either- Kim Jong is probably better than somebody like Bush, IMO; N. Korea primarily got screwed by sanctions and its loss of sustainable agriculture- and their hostile behavior has primarily been reactive in the past.  That's not to say their hostile actions are excusable, but they have reasons (and neither are the U.S.'s hostilities excusable).

It's hard to postulate on what would have happened had N. Korea not had agricultural problems with the war, or if they had better support in terms of food from Russia.

That kind of tyranny is a response primarily to supply limitations, poverty, and inadequate education and living standards- particularly in an unstable region that is still technically at war.

Stabilize the region, improve living conditions and education, slowly eliminate government corruption, and the tyranny can resolve on its own.

N. Korea is seriously f*cked up in some ways, but that's not all on the leadership- nor is it the likes of Bush's shining competence that makes the U.S. what it is.

 

Whether it's Kim Jong, Darth Vader, George Bush, or Osama bin Laden, the nature of a country's political atmosphere is largely derived from the socioeconomic conditions and the people, and not the whims of its rulers.  If you handed me N. Korea on a silver platter, I'd rule it with an iron fist too (deferring most of that to my generals)- if you gave me the states, likewise I'd mostly sit on my ass and do approximately jack shit.

 

 

Doesn't have to do with labels or nationality; it has to do with the conditions matching, well, the conditions.  It is what it is.  The best and worst leaders can only augment that slightly, affecting minorities, or driving gradual change or catalyzing revolutions that were already on the brim of occurring. 

No offense, but your perception of the relationship between rulers and the countries they rule seems almost cartoonish :P  You talk about the world like it's ruled by James Bond villains.  Sure, that's a fantastic and 'sexy' way to imagine these 'powerful' people, but it's just not very realistic.

 

If you phrased your question in a realistic way, it would stop being a question.

 

"If the species as a whole was to be in poverty, would we be poor?"

 

So, I'm not really sure what you would be getting at here...

 

The only time it doesn't have a basis in sound reason is where people aren't thinking about it, or are in denial / basing it on some mistaken belief such as a religion/souls.  I don't know that you can say it has no 'basis in logic' at all or not- depends on what you mean- most of those are just founded on faulty premises.

 

Usually comes down to:

A. "I have empathy for animals, so I give a shit, therefore I don't want to hurt them for personal gain."

 

Or:

B. "I don't have said empathy to an appreciable degree, so I don't give a shit, therefore give burger nao."

 

 

Where are either of these illogical?  Either you give a shit or you don't- those are the premises under consideration, and they're perfectly consistent and chemical ones, and have no bearing on the soundness of the logic.

 

The only major inconsistencies come in where somebody gives a shit, and engages in compartmentalization and elective ignorance. 

There's a small subset of, *usually* tween and teenage girls, though occasionally men and older women too, who campaign for animal rights (against animal testing, fur, hunting, etc.) and then go eat a McBurger.  That's really a minority, though (maybe 33% or so of the population, at most, in the states) so I don't think you can say "most" there.  Add up vegetarians and people who approve of hunting (presumably those who are at least somewhat internally consistent), and they far outweigh those who are highly inconsistent by some two to one.

I had a drill instructor who's rule was "Homicide not suicide" The reasoning being that when you are in a war zone the person you are killing probably isn't Osama Bin Laden. Your killing some poor bastard who is doing the same thing for his country that you are doing for yours. In a different scenario it might be someone you would share a beer with. I think it is natural for us to put protection of ourselves and loved ones above the lives of others.

Now I would do something suicidal to save someone I loved but for a perfect stranger I would require at least a chance of my own survival. I think most people are probably the same way. For example, I could go to Sudan and save some lives but it would most likely lead to my own death so I'm not going to do it. Because I do value my life more than most others so I guess JC is a better man than me. Now if a bus is going to hit someone and I can push them out of the way I'm going to try. Yes it might lead to my death but I have a chance of survival as well and I am a gambler.

 

The latter opinion logically leads to Jainism where swatting mosquitoes is not allowed.

There is a middle ground, I like to think.  Most livestock is not bred for intelligence.  Who wants a cow that can open gates.  Some livestock is incredibly stupid and could not survive if released into the wild.  I have no problem with burgers - but I buy raw hamburger from a shop where they grind it on the premises from free range grass fed local beef.  True, the steers the meat comes from are castrated - but they also get to enjoy open pastures and real live grass before they are offed in as humane a fashion as it is possible.  How do I know?  Because stress causes the meat to be tougher.  So since it is considered "gourmet", I know they want the meat to be as tender as possible.  So they actively try to keep the stress to a minimum.  I do try to minimize fast food in general - not just hamburgers - and purchasing meat from unknown sources.  I know I'm not 100% successful but no one is perfect.

It is a similar reason for buying organic milk and milk products.  You have to pay attention to your cows' health if you want to get a reasonable amount of milk from them without using artificial hormones.  You can not give them bad feed and lousy living conditions and expect to get milk.  I am concerned about my intake of hormones, but the clincher is the way the cows have to be treated to get organic milk.  Oh yeah, pasteurization doesn't bother me because I am not interested in risking listeria or tuberculosis.  The very slight loss of nutrients doesn't compete with the very real consequences of catching any disease.

I rather agree with a few fantasies I have read.  Someone is given - in some fashion - the gift of speaking to animals.  For a few days they are strict vegetarians.  Then, they really start listening to what the hens and cows and so forth are saying - and they go back to eating meat.  I've raised chickens for eggs and meat for my personal consumption.  They really are that stupid.  I see no reason to be needlessly cruel, so I try to buy local chickens from local farms I at least know of their reputation.

Haven't we had this discussion before?  And you guys will argue over it until hell freezes over.