Ethics / Morals: The Ethics of being an airline captain

How much pollution from a full size SUV, transporting one person (driver) and no cargo. Is that ethical?

Even if a full size SUV is driven several hours every day over a 20 year span it wouldn't be enough fuel to kill 0.1 of a person statistically. Contributing to a tiny fraction of one death through the pollution caused over 20 years is something I could be comfortable with. Killing 50+ people would trouble me.

Your calculations doesn't mean much. Many pilots have flown thousands of hours without any accidents. Airplane travel is safer than vehicles. There are literally thousands of airplanes flying at any time, especially during the morning hours across the country. https://www.quora.com/How-many-airplanes-are-in-flight-on-average-at-any-given-time-worldwide

Look at what's actively flying at any one time. https://flightaware.com/live/

Many learn to fly in the US military, then go to work for a commercial airline.

You're not going to change the use of airplanes, because they are part of commercial travel and military defense around the world.

The EPA is working to reduce the emission of pollution from airplanes. https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/regulations-greenhouse-gas-emissions-aircraft

Thanks for a reply but I am a little confused why you are referring to airplane accidents. I was not talking about deaths caused by airplane accidents I was talking about deaths caused by airplane pollution. To answer the one thing you did say about emissions, yes the EPA is working to reduce the emission of pollution from airplanes but why would that make a pilot that is producing 8000+ tons per year of fuel into the atmosphere no longer responsible?

Just trying to share information I’ve learned over the years of world travel, having visited some 113 countries. Yes, airplanes produce pollution, but airplanes are here to stay. We live in Silicon Valley between two major airports, SFO and Norman Mineta International in San Jose. The climate is such that air quality remains pretty clean today compared to the past when smog was a problem.

Most of the air pollution created where you are will not stay there, it drifts long distances, thats one of the reasons China and India suffer so much air pollution. Drugs are here to stay as well. If one drug dealer quits dealing for ethical reasons drugs will still be there. Does that mean there would be no ethical difference whether he chose to continue dealing drugs or not?

Is the captain alone in those 777s?

If not, why is the captain solely responsible for the emissions of the 777?

Very good question, how do we determine to what degree he/she is responsible? A 777 capacity is around 450 passengers. Is a single passenger equally as responsible as the pilot? The pilot is the one taking the actions that release the fuel into the atmosphere.

Hitler was democratically elected. He was responsible for the death of 6 million Jews. But what share of responsibility does each person who voted for him share?

Would the pilot be in the 777 if there were no passengers? would there be a need for a 777 pilot without passengers.

Good q, ehBeth. How about the airplane manufacturer and the fuel manufacturer? How about the governments that builds all the airports and the necessary infrastructure? I'm sure there are more involved.
On the other side of the equation, however, are the jobs created.

Who was put on trial in Nuremberg?

https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007722

not every voter that was responsible for putting the nazis in power. Only 22 nazis were put on trial even though millions played a part in the holocaust happening. By this logic the pilot bears a lot more responsibility for the pollution than the passengers do.

You went to Godwin's Law on this?

Look, air travel consumes fuel, yes. As does automobile traffic. And when your jet carries (for sake of an easy number) 100 people, it has the potential to take 100 cars off the road for the duration of the trip. This doesn't just save the pollution from those 100 cars. It may very well save more, because by alleviating traffic congestion and stop and go, cars will use less gas (stop and go takes more per gallon, and idling with the engine on burns fuel).

Because air travel is also safer, and fewer cars would be on the road, you can logically assume there could be fewer traffic accidents. Traffic accidents mean not just the accident, but also stopped traffic, possibly police, fire, and ambulances rushing to the scene (and burning fuel), possible fuel leaks or fires (also polluting), and possible totaled cars meaning a different car must be purchased. If a newer replacement car is bought, it's more likely to have better fuel efficiency. But buying used means the gas mileage might be worse.

Yes, when air disasters happen, they're horrible. There's no denying that. And yes, they use fuel, which can end up in groundwater, oceans, the soil, etc if there are leaks. Fires of course can pollute as well. Fortunately, the number of air disasters is low.

The average number of car accidents in the US every year is 6 million.
https://www.driverknowledge.com/car-accident-statistics/

Odds of being on an airline flight with at least 1 fatality: one in 3.4 million.
http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm
There were 19 plane incidents with at least 1 fatality in 2016, with 325 victims:
https://aviation-safety.net/graphics/infographics/ASN_infographic_2016.jpg

There is a lot more that goes into fuel calculations than just what goes into a plane. It's also saved fuel from automotive travel, savings from prevented accidents and the easing of traffic congestion.

And preventing pollution, while important, isn't the only measure of creating a better life for yourself and others. Preventing fatalities should be up there, too.

Besides all that, flying saves much time, and often times it’s necessary when traveling to distant places.
I think when people are able, they should experience all modes of commercial travel: Bus, train, river and ocean cruise, airplanes (large and small) helicopter, trams, gondolas, streetcars, and spaceship - when it becomes affordable.

No they are much more responsible. If the pilot refused to fly they would just find another pilot and the same amount of pollution would occur because this is widely acceptable behavior (to fly on an airplane) and the pilot can't change that. If the passengers refuse to fly they will cancel the flight and the pollution will not occur. As long as we consider the flights acceptable behavior they will continue, if anything I think the ethical consideration here (and for cruise ships to a much larger degree) is that they should have the societal costs built into their prices. Because we all accept that there is a utility to air travel and if its costs outweigh this utility then those costs should just be built into its price.

Beth nailed the key ethics issue here. And it's a relatively simple one. The passengers of an airplane are the one who shoulder the primary ethical burden of their consumption. Similarly the electric company is not primarily responsible for their users who waste the resource, those users are.