Yes. If God wants five people dead who are you to interfere? Does that apply to all scenarios?(Everything else being equal, I'd divert the train in a New York minute. I have no problem playing God.)
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Yes. If God wants five people dead who are you to interfere? Does that apply to all scenarios?(Everything else being equal, I'd divert the train in a New York minute. I have no problem playing God.)
Yes. If God wants five people dead who are you to interfere?
Does that apply to all scenarios?
Sorry. I thought you were using the same scenario and didn't catch the differences. I give up trying to follow the different changing rules and scenarios. If you need there to be only two people involved to make your reasoning work so be it. In the real world it's a bit more complicated. I'm sure in your world shooting somebody and not shooting somebody can be equally "morally permissible" so it doesn't matter what you choose and what you base your choice on since no choice would be morally superior. Just flip a coin. Got it.In my scenario, I never even said that they were Chinese doing the torturing, or that there was anyone else on the boat to give a direct order. So, reading fail on your part. Please stick with just my scenario. I explicitly said there were only two people affected: Steve McQueen and the Tortured Guy.
It is rather astonishing the lengths you go to avoid answering any of these moral questions.Sorry. I thought you were using the same scenario and didn't catch the differences. I give up trying to follow the different changing rules and scenarios. If you need there to be only two people involved to make your reasoning work so be it. In the real world it's a bit more complicated. I'm sure in your world shooting somebody and not shooting somebody can be equally "morally permissible" so it doesn't matter what you choose and what you base your choice on. Just flip a coin. Got it.
Now this is an interesting moral dilemma but a lot of pertinent information is missing and there's a lot of other things one must consider besides the amount of people on the track.
1. Which track is longest and straightest so the train can be spotted early enough to get off the track?
2. Do both tracks go uphill or downhill or does one go uphill and the other downhill?
3. Which track has the sharpest turns so there's a possibility of derailing before it reaches anybody?
4. Does any of the tracks end up so that the train has a possibility of crashing into a building perhaps killing dozens?
5. Am I aware of any weaknesses in the structure of the line or foundation that couldn't cope with the train?
I'm sure there are other factors I haven't considered. I would combine the knowledge and choose the track I believe could result in the least loss of life pulling or not pulling the lever wouldn't matter. The moral choice would be reducing loss of life pulling or not pulling the lever wouldn't matter.
Everybody, I mean everybody, asks questions about the people. They ask whether there are children, whether either group has somebody they know or love, they ask whether somebody important to humanity (like the curer of cancer) is involved, or whether somebody evil will get killed. These answers help them determine whether they should throw the lever.
You are the absolutely first person to ever ask about the train. Very odd.
Sure. But the original scenario was on a US gunboat in China involving crewmen and Chinese torturers and later modified to include standing orders by the president not to fire a gun on Chinese soil. I won't discuss that scenario any further even though you attempt to reduce it just to be about two men and pretend that any action taken would have no consequences for anybody or anything else.It is rather astonishing the lengths you go to avoid answering any of these moral questions.
I mean, really, you don't think there could ever possibly be a situation in the world in which the outcome only really affects the two people involved?
I based that on the scenario and the consequences for anybody or anything else. Your attempt to remove the possible consequences for others from the equation removes many factors needed to determine whether the act is moral or not in the scenario and my evaluation is no longer valid and can't be used in other scenarios.You've already indicated that you believe that killing someone who is being tortured and who can't be rescued would be the correct moral action.
You have changed the scenario and removed any potential consequences of shooting or not shooting involving anybody or anything else but the two men from the equation so I won't continue that scenario as it's no longer realistic. I won't comment each point. Just the idea that it would be "morally permissive" for me to let a person suffer unnecessarily if he asks to be shot because my feelings tells me I shouldn't kill him is immoral.Now, explain why you believe that it would not be a morally correct option to abstain from killing the person, particularly if that person would prefer not to be killed?
I can explain why it would be a morally permissible option:
1) We have a code of ethics in which killing people is frowned upon, and some people may feel this more strongly than others.
2) We (the shooter) don't know whether the person wants to be shot or not, and so we abstain from shooting.
3) We (the shooter) would prefer not to be shot if we were in the same situation, therefore, applying the Golden Rule would lead us to not shoot the person.
Now it is your turn. Tell me why you believe that not shooting the person is not a morally permissible action.
Because these considerations are so obvious that I didn't bother to mention them. The first priority is to determine whether one can avoid any deaths. The next priority is to determine what could cause more deaths. (Just to make it perfectly clear, I define the "train" as an unmanned locomotive.) After this has been determined one can start to consider the people on the tracks. If I knew exactly who were on the tracks I would have to determine where to send the train using much the same criteria as transplant doctors use when they determine who gets organs. If I only know that there's one person on one track and five on the other I would have no other moral choice but to send it down the track with one person on it. I would have to live with the knowledge that I had killed one person but saved five others. Throwing or not throwing the lever the deaths would have been caused by me anyway.Psychologically, this is one of the most fascinating responses I've ever gotten to this problem.
Everybody, I mean everybody, asks questions about the people. They ask whether there are children, whether either group has somebody they know or love, they ask whether somebody important to humanity (like the curer of cancer) is involved, or whether somebody evil will get killed. These answers help them determine whether they should throw the lever.
You are the absolutely first person to ever ask about the train. Very odd.
Because some people just play with simplified moral puzzles while others are more concerned with the complexity that is reality and how morality works in reality. I also prefer reading books for adults over books for children.I found his series of questions most odd, too. Virtually everyone asks about the people. To me, it seems as though his questions are maybe driven by a passion to stop the event. But stopping the event would ruin the moral puzzle, and I'm confused why someone would want to destroy a moral puzzle rather than play with it.
Yes. Like Stephen Hawking would rather sit and add two plus two and three plus three and pretend that that is all there is to math instead of talking about the mathematics of general relativity. Sure you can play with removing every single criteria needed to make an informed moral judgment but then you don't have any toys left to play with. It's the complexities and different options and consequences that makes it hard to reach the correct moral decision not removing them. You might consider 3+3 to be a hard mathematical puzzle but I can assure you finding the correct answer gets more difficult the more advanced the math gets. But you can stay with 3+3 if you like.Well, maybe I'm not confused by the urge to wipe away hard moral questions. It's more like I'm confused that someone might want to do that in the middle of a discussion about morality.
It's the complexities and different options and consequences that makes it hard to reach the correct moral decision not removing them. You might consider 3+3 to be a hard mathematical puzzle but I can assure you finding the correct answer gets more difficult the more advanced the math gets. But you can stay with 3+3 if you like.
How flattering that you would devote an entire post commenting on my age and brain. Tells us a lot about yours. What happened to the Klingons and were they part of some "difficult" question?Yes, that's most curious. It was my suspicion when I spoke earlier of your age.
I don't know your age, of course, but I'm now of the opinion that whatever your age, you consider yourself some kind of advanced genius. That's why you can figure out moral puzzles with such ease and certainty, yes? And why you speak of simplicity with such disdain?
It's because of your superbrain?
What can I say. Maybe if you would bring yourself to answer the difficult questions which Falvlun and I have been asking you, you might convince me that you do indeed possess such a brain and know how to use it.
But I can't get a sense of your wattage unless you will deign to shine on us.
If you ask an intelligent and interesting question or come up with an intelligent well-thought-out statement or argument concerning morals I will be happy to comment. If I consider the question, statement or argument not intelligent, interesting or well-thought-out I will say why.
I consider this mixture of assorted questions, statements. arguments and conclusions an unanswerable mess and won't even attempt to first rewrite it in an effort to make it intelligible and then answer the rewrite.If you say that X is the Correct Moral Choice (CMC) and Jack Doe says that X is the Incorrect Moral Choice (ICMC), how do we decide which of you has the actual CMC?
I consider this mixture of assorted questions, statements. arguments and conclusions an unanswerable mess and won't even attempt to first rewrite it in an effort to make it intelligible and then answer the rewrite.
If that is the most intelligent comment you have after reading my last posts, I officially concur.Well, this discussion is officially utterly pointless.
Ditto. Give the Klingons my best.OK, Artie. Good to meet you.
Bad news. The Klingons paid me another visit today. They say that they want Artie's crops and his women, and they've been hounding me to tell them where you hang out online. Today they pulled out two more of my fingernails, but fortunately I enjoy a little pain on the weekends. So far, the letters 'RF' have not escaped my lips.Ditto. Give the Klingons my best.
Is there such a thing as a universal morality? If you think so, how does one determine what it is? Can such a thing, if it even exists, be determined objectively?
Isn't the medication working yet? Actually, I'm Norwegian. OK, since I have some time to spare and like hopeless cases why don't we try a little scenario:Actually -- between torture sessions as I've had more time to contemplate the problem -- I have thought that it might be a good thing for humanity if Artie is busy chasing the Klingons around trying to get his crops and his women back. That way, he can't be in the RF spreading his dangerous notion that such a thing as objective moral truth actually exists.
On the other hand, from the way that Artie writes, I feel that he is an American, and America is obviously the Promised Land and Americans are the Promised People! So betraying a fellow American is clearly sinful from the getgo. I mean, let's be serious.