Human Morals

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I saw this on a college class and wanted to share it:

You are driving a car downhill and you see 5 workers on the way working on the road, you try to brake but the brakes dont work and since the street is so narrow you will most cerainly kill the 5 workers but then you see a side road where there is 1 worker working. Would keep going and kill the 5 workers or would take the side road to just kill that 1 worker?

Now consider this situation, we have the same scenario with the ca with no brakes but we are not the drivers anymore, we are on a bridge that crosses over that fateful road and we, somehow, know that the car has no brakes and there's a fat man next to us, now if we push the fat man he will fall and stop the car thus saving the lives of the 5 workes but killing the fat man. what would you do? Would you use the same principle you used in the first situation?

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Not to put a damper on these rather stupid hypotheticals, but that thing between your hands is called a STEERING WHEEL. Drive off the goddamned road. Drive into the trees on the side of the road. Drive into the side of the house that's there if there are no trees. You don't HAVE TO hit anyone. There are usually alternatives, as there are in most of these "moral dilemmas". This is not a hypothetical case: there was a recent news report of an 80-something year old driver who drove down a crowded, winding shopping street, carefully avoiding hitting parked cars on either side as the road wound around, but mowing down pedestrians. His judgement was clearly impaired, but the "you don't run into things" part of it was, skewedly, still functioning.

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Change it to a stealth train at night, with divergent tracks, and railway workers (lit up so you can see them of course) on each track?

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If the road was so narrow I'd just grind the car up against what made it so narrow, and that would probably stop the car without killing anyone. I'd chose destruction of property over involuntary manslaughter with a vehicle any day, if that answers the question.

But since I am a person with a concept of responsibility when I drive, I would not drive a car with no breaks.

Btw, what were those five idiots doing walking on a road meant for cars, in a place where there isn't enough room for a car to pass them without killing them? That's like walking over a bridge meant for a train.

So basically there's five idiots with no regard for their own safety. How is it morally justifiable to kill one man who has regard for his own safety and has taken measures to avoid getting hit by a car instead of them?

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That was an hypothetical case. So far people are just able to give excuse for not answering the quetion I asked. I dont care whats on the road, I dont care what the men were doing, or if you knew you had no brakes. What I'm asking is what would have been the best thing to do?

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Ok.
The best thing to do would be to mow down the five idiots walking in the middle of the road.
The sixth person who had chosen a sideroad doesn't deserve to get run over just because he's the only one with a little brains.

And the same with the fat guy and the bridge.
Let him jump if he feels inclined. But morals isn't just a consideration of numbers. That's way too simplistic.

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This is hardly a question of morality. Moral systems hold that what is wrong is absolutely wrong. You will be guilty of killing someone no matter what you do in your silly, silly hypotheticals. What you are asking here is what is the relative value of human life, and whether several lives are worth more than one life.

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But here's a different scenario.

50 people you do not know are trapped inside a room. In ten seconds a furnace will light up, and everything in that room will be burned to cinders.

You can save them, but the only way is to open a valve on the furnace which results in the flames coming at you instead. If you save the 50 strangers you will die.

In essence, would you save 50 people you don't know if the price is your own life?

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Cyracuz wrote:

But here's a different scenario.

50 people you do not know are trapped inside a room. In ten seconds a furnace will light up, and everything in that room will be burned to cinders.

You can save them, but the only way is to open a valve on the furnace which results in the flames coming at you instead. If you save the 50 strangers you will die.

In essence, would you save 50 people you don't know if the price is your own life?

Well if they are that stupid to follow the crowd and go in a room where they will be trapped with 49 other stupid idiots then the world may be better off without them.

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Re: Human Morals

rafamen wrote:

I saw this on a college class and wanted to share it:

You are driving a car downhill and you see 5 workers on the way working on the road, you try to brake but the brakes dont work and since the street is so narrow you will most cerainly kill the 5 workers but then you see a side road where there is 1 worker working. Would keep going and kill the 5 workers or would take the side road to just kill that 1 worker?

That's a paraphrase of a hypothetical first posed by Judith Jarvis Thompson. It was discussed almost four years ago in this thread.

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These hypotheticals are cases of "situation ethics" rather than morals. The relevant (judeo-christian) moral rule is not to kill, but the situation does not permit a moral choice, only a very personal and situational calculation in which someone must die. In a real situation I would probably not be able to make a MORAL choice because the hypothetical permits none, no conclusion about what I SHOULD do in order to prevent the worst of deaths.

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It seems to me that the question this thread revolves around is the idea that it is better to save two lives instead of one.

But in the initial example we have five people who have put themselves in harms way, knowingly or unknowingly. Then there's one man who has taken precautions.

In such a situation I do not see how it is morally justifiable to run over the one person who has a regard for his own safety instead of the five who put themselves in harms way.

But all in all, I think that hypthetical scenarios like this, and the one I posted, are useless in determining any moral guidelines.

Such lines do not exist. Evey situation requires individual judgement, and the factor that decides if you're a moral man or not is wether or not you are willing to take the consequences of your actions.

An interesting question might be one concerning self defense. If you are forced to defend yourself against someone who tries to kill you, and you end up killing that person, does that make you a murderer?

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And under such a circumstances - would you really have the time to think it out - I have seconds to react, by the time I decided which would be the most "moral" action - I would have killed the five because I would not have to turn the wheel to hit that one poor sap that wasn't in my way.

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JLNobody wrote:

These hypotheticals are cases of "situation ethics" rather than morals.

If you make the distinction -- as I do -- between "morality" (as a system of rules regarding what is right and wrong) and "ethics" (the application of those rules of morality to situations), then all ethics are situational. But all ethics rely upon rules of morality. So the hypothetical asks you to give your ethical choice and support it with your moral system.

JLNobody wrote:

The relevant (judeo-christian) moral rule is not to kill, but the situation does not permit a moral choice, only a very personal and situational calculation in which someone must die. In a real situation I would probably not be able to make a MORAL choice because the hypothetical permits none, no conclusion about what I SHOULD do in order to prevent the worst of deaths.

That doesn't make any sense. The rule "thou shalt not kill," if it means anything, means that one should not kill intentionally. Certainly if I take some innocuous action -- say, for instance, I pick up a penny on the street -- and that sets off an unforeseen chain-reaction of events that leads to someone's death, I can't be faulted for my initial, innocent action, even though it caused someone to die. Consequently, if you live by the rule "thou shalt not kill," you are only obligated to refrain from intentionally killing. In the trolley hypothetical, on the other hand, you have no choice: someone will die, regardless of your intentions. Given that you have no intention to kill anyone, allowing the trolley (or the car or the bus or whatever) to kill the five people is not morally blameworthy. Whether turning the trolley to kill the one person is morally blameworthy (or praiseworthy), on the other hand, is a question that I'll leave you to consider.

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Cyracuz wrote:

It seems to me that the question this thread revolves around is the idea that it is better to save two lives instead of one.

But in the initial example we have five people who have put themselves in harms way, knowingly or unknowingly. Then there's one man who has taken precautions.

No, as I understand the initial hypothetical, all six persons are workers on the roads. Their situations are identical, except that five are on one road and one is on another.

Cyracuz wrote:

But all in all, I think that hypthetical scenarios like this, and the one I posted, are useless in determining any moral guidelines.

On the contrary, such hypotheticals are excellent methods for determining what a person's moral guidelines might be. If you have trouble defending your choice in this hypothetical, it's more likely to be a reflection on your morality, not on the hypothetical.

Cyracuz wrote:

Such lines do not exist. Evey situation requires individual judgement, and the factor that decides if you're a moral man or not is wether or not you are willing to take the consequences of your actions.

That's hardly determinative. If I murder someone and then immediately turn myself over to the police and confess my crime, does that make me a moral person?

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joe wrote:

That's hardly determinative. If I murder someone and then immediately turn myself over to the police and confess my crime, does that make me a moral person?

Wouldn't that depend on why you murdered that person in the first place?
If you did so out of some uncontrollable compulsion we could perhaps say that you are suffering from a mental illness that made you lose control of yourself. If you then turn yourself in, wouldn't that be an act of good morals?
If you murdered the person because you had knowledge that he would do alot worse if he wasn't stopped, but no time to prove it, killing him and then taking the consequences could be a true sacrifice.
But it's all situation dependent.

And I think you're right about the initial hypothetical. I guess I misread it. I automatically thought "workers on their way home from or to work". Sorry.

And I didn't mean that such hypotheticals are useless in examining an individual's moral guidelines. I meant that they are useless in establishing guidelines for individuals to follow.

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Cyracuz wrote:

joe wrote:
That's hardly determinative. If I murder someone and then immediately turn myself over to the police and confess my crime, does that make me a moral person?

Wouldn't that depend on why you murdered that person in the first place?

You tell me. But if the answer to that question is relevant, then it can't be true, as you said, that "the factor that decides if you're a moral man or not is whether or not you are willing to take the consequences of your actions."

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joefromchicago, I agree that my posted position (off the top of my head) was confused. My understanding is that because rules are general and the situations of their application are particular and varied ethical calculations are required. But the generality of the rule does not help. What if the five men were "evil" (and I knew they were--by my standards) and the single man was "virtuous" (and again I knew that to be so--and by my standards). Numbers would matter less, and there is no moral rule I know of that says it's better to kill few than many. Sometimes we must ignore the rules and do what is right--like lying to the Nazis about the direction their jewish prey ran.

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Hit the 5 - they're soft, and will slow down the car and keep it from being damaged. If you're just going to stumble into the situation and turn into Ghandi after the brakes fail - congratulations.

Egoism and relativism either catch hell or don't get noticed because when most people read the bible, the eyes they look through are those of God. When you see yourself as an adorably quirky yet assertive, fun-loving god who never lets her friends down or a civic-hero alpha-male god who's large and in charge, just doing all you can to get things right as you see it would be like Tiger Woods trying to hit it under a purple windmill.

Here's the solution - for most of us $15-70K/year Americans, the car's the problem. You risked those folks' asses when you turned the key. You had to turn the key cause you need the money, just like they had to be working there. Cause time and money are the issue, you never got to be Mario Andretti either. There's nothing to it but to take it seriously. Again, this seems like old news to all you sit-com stars out there, but I rather enjoy my reality and choose to embrace it rather than trying to minimize it to make more space for emulating Paris Hilton.

That said, the solution takes many forms. One thing that comes to mind is drum brakes on cars. No toys thrown in to make a 4-cylinder seem like it could possibly be worth over $13K that just end up grabbing in the rain - good old cast-iron drums. If get the fluids changed and those fail, the construction workers or the other guy had it coming. Back-wheel drive is another good idea - they ride low and don't stick the tail up in the air so you can brake and steer. Better gas mileage too.

But that's just me - could just as easy never know the difference although I think I'd still take the cost and liability involved seriously - but the point remains that an optimal set up exists if you can lower yourself and deny yourself stimulation long enough to seek it and after that, if the crap still hits the fan - why flatter yourself?

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These stupid hypotheticals are what drove me crazy in college. There I am, ready to graduate and realized I hadn't taken my required ethics and morality course. So I'm 26, the rest of the class is filled with first-year brainwashed 18 and 19 year olds, and they hated me. They're just trying to regurgitate Kant and get a B, I'm debating the existence of a universal moral code with the professor.

Ethics and Morality are a great subject matter for debate, much like debating whether or not superman is stronger than the incredible hulk. Both fun debates, but neither are based on factual entities.

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