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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Trolley ethics
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I've been puzzled by these thought experiments for a while. Basically they're sets of ethical problems posed by Philippa Frost and expanded by Judith Jarvis Thomson.
For those who don't know, the widely discussed situations include the following:
Case 1: trolley hurtling down the track with 5 people on it. He has the ability to change tracks where there is only 1 person. Should he, and is he morally obliged to, change tracks. There are no get outs - one person dies or five people die.
Case 2: in a hospital there are five people dying because they need different transplants. A healthy person walks in with the correct organs. Should he be killed to save the five?
Case 3: same situation as 1 but it is a bystander who has the ability to move the trolley onto the second track
Case 4: due to medical malpractice, the doctor has caused the serious illness of 5 patients - who can only be saved by the death of a healthy person who innocently walked into the hospital.
Case 5: a fat man is on a bridge over the runaway trolley. Pushing him off will stop the trolley and save the 5 people but kill the fat man.
It seems most people chose to save the five on the track, but are uncomfortable with pushing someone onto the track or kidnapping an innocent person for his organs to save five people.
When I've encountered this before, I've thought that the only moral option in all cases is to allow what is to happen to happen. Because any other option is an active choice to kill people.
But thinking about it again, maybe I'm being a bit ridiculous. If a plane is spiraling out of control, it would be rather idiotic for the pilot to do nothing to try to avoid hitting a densely occupied area. The moral option would be to try to avoid deaths by aiming at a field, even if an isolated farmhouse is in the way.
And I might think that killing a person to save five is a bit ghoulish, but isn't that what we're doing with mass inoculations? I don't know if it happens, but it is conceivable that someone could get a deadly complication from a standard jab. Does the fact that one person died negate the moral obligation to inoculate all children (assuming that this has a protective effect on the whole population of children)?
Deliberately killing an innocent or torturing someone for information to protect everyone else seems instinctively more wrong than exposing a child to something that might kill them for the sake of everyone else.
I guess I'd just been looking at these problems in the abstract, considering them in a real world scenario intuitively seems to give me different results.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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tclune
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# 7959
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Posted
It is said that extreme cases make for bad laws. I suspect the same is true for ethics -- if you want to develop a sound ethical view, begin with the actual things that you need to decide every day, and try to determine what is the most ethical way of dealing with your spouse, your family, the grocer, etc. The real problem that I have with these silly extreme cases is that they don't grow organically out of anything more meaningful than an intro to ethics course syllabus.
--Tom Clune
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the long ranger
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# 17109
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Posted
MMm. I don't know whether that is true though. It isn't so hard to imagine situations where we'd have to make these kinds of choices.
I'm not sure they are as silly and as abstract as they first appear.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Choirboy
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# 9659
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Posted
The danger is in falling into some sort of utilitarianism. The greatest good for the greatest number is not always a sound ethical position, as your case of the transplant "trolley" problem shows. Exactly how to counterbalance that is tricky; in the case of the transplant patients example, the healthy participant is their own moral agent and it is ethically wrong to violate their autonomy by ending their life, regardless of the needs of others. We lack moral justification to compel one person to donate even one kidney when they have a second functioning kidney.
On the other hand, if in the choice between killing 5 on the tracks or killing 1, suppose an evil person had set the train on this course. Are you doing good to kill the one? The evil person bears the responsibility for killing the five (or, for that matter, the one), but the person asked the question bears no responsibility for killing the five, but might acquire responsibility for killing the one. Would that person's inaction be morally the same in this case (as opposed to the people being on the various tracks by accident alone)?
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Choirboy:
Would that person's inaction be morally the same in this case (as opposed to the people being on the various tracks by accident alone)?
Or perhaps more to the point - would that person have difficulty sleeping at night if he knew that he could have made a choice to save the five people?
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Some of the cases are preposterous. In case 2, for instance, are we to assume that this is in some fantasy world in which no other sources of donated organs exists? If the answer to the questions asked is "yes", why aren't the hospital staff busy killing one another? Are we to ignore all questions of tissue-matching? Are we to assume the five patients are each so eager to live as to be willing to accept such as solution?
It's easy to invent such thought experiments, but it is probably not helpful. Of course, some people make money off such questions; consider the "Saw" movies. (No, I have not seen them myself.)
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
HCH, I don't have much confidence in the examples themselves, but it is interesting to see how people's intuitions about ethics are different. As I said above, it isn't so abstract that there are no examples of this kind of thing in the decisions that are commonly made - with regard to health, government spending etc.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I'm not sure they are as silly and as abstract as they first appear.
While I admire the vividness of your imagination, ask yourself how many of these scenarios you have faced during the entirety of your life. Now ask yourself how many choices you have made today that have ethical significance. If that doesn't sway you off your romantic proclivities, I surrender.
--Tom Clune
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
HCH, I don't have much confidence in the examples themselves, but it is interesting to see how people's intuitions about ethics are different.
I think the problem is that one is trying to use situations as an intuition pump that are themselves not very intuitive, as HCH says. Though I will admit to a sneaking fascination with them...
(FWIW, I once attempted to write, for my own amusement, a short story based on case 5. In my short story it was a runaway explosives train in the middle of a war that was on course to plunge into a tunnel where workmen were busy repairing some damaged roof supports, and a signalman pushed a fat man off a bridge to stop it. He defended himself before a military tribunal saying that he was saving lives. The military tribunal rejected his plea, on the grounds that if he was so keen on saving lives he should have thrown himself into the path of the train. All very silly really.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Choirboy:
The danger is in falling into some sort of utilitarianism.
Is it?
First off, I'm not so sure that any sort of utilitarianism can be easily and rigorously identified as a danger to be avoided. But aside from that, I find these scenarios interesting not because they'd ever happen, but because they tell us something about how we approach ethical questions.
Almost everyone would switch the track, but we tend to shy away from pushing the fat man, when the utilitarian equation is identical (possibly more in favour of action in the case of the fat man, as he may well have a shorter life expectancy). This appears to be a deeply ingrained instinct, as it's very hard to explain rationally, but most people would give those contradictory answers. That's the interesting bit.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
It seems fairly simple to have a rule that in a scenario where all involved are in peril, reducing the number in peril is a good thing. In a scenario where not all are in peril, reducing the number in peril by putting in peril someone who isn't already, without their consent, is a bad thing.
Other than that, I'm with tclune.
You can torment yourself more TLR by imagining that as Fat Man falls to his death, he shouts "But I discovered the cure for cancer today and didn't make any noooooooootes....."
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Erroneous Monk
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# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Almost everyone would switch the track, but we tend to shy away from pushing the fat man, when the utilitarian equation is identical (possibly more in favour of action in the case of the fat man, as he may well have a shorter life expectancy). This appears to be a deeply ingrained instinct, as it's very hard to explain rationally, but most people would give those contradictory answers. That's the interesting bit.
I appear not to have a "deeply ingrained instinct" then. Hmmm.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Almost everyone would switch the track, but we tend to shy away from pushing the fat man, when the utilitarian equation is identical (possibly more in favour of action in the case of the fat man, as he may well have a shorter life expectancy). This appears to be a deeply ingrained instinct, as it's very hard to explain rationally, but most people would give those contradictory answers. That's the interesting bit.
I agree with your general point, but I think what we have is evidence that most people would say they'd flick the switch, but no evidence that they'd actually do it.
For myself, I think if some researcher asked me the question, I'd feel strong pressure that the correct answer is 'flick the switch', but if I was actually in the situation, then I'd either a.) faff around like a headless chicken and tell myself afterwards that nothing could be done, or b.) make a heroic attempt to grab the trolley as it passed even if that was manifestly futile.
(Tangentially, I remember the leaders of our church youth group ages ago told us to imagine we were in charge of rescuing trapped potholers from a collapsing cave, and saying what order we would rescue them in based on their life histories (one was a sex offender working on a cure for cancer, one a mother of three, etc etc), with the assumption that the lower in the list you came the more likely the cave was to collapse on you. After some discussion we decided the only ethical approach was to draw lots, which I think was the correct decision, but which somewhat pissed off our leaders.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
If anyone is actually interested in answering the question I posed with regard to the unwillingness to kill the innocent hospital visitor and yet willing to risk x deaths during an inoculation campaign, I'd be interested to hear them. I think these are real moral dilemmas which are of a form that we face every day. Whilst at the same time knowing that things I depend upon are very likely created by people with (various kinds of) rubbish lives, I give myself a pass that means I am not morally responsible.
You might think this whole topic is rubbish, that's fine, you've made your point.
I'm interested to discuss how we make ethical judgements when our instincts appear to be contradictory, if you can't see past the flaws in the observation method, there is nothing further to discuss with you.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Ricardus,
I like your parenthetical tangent, but if you are ever in such a situation, you certainly will not and should not pause for an ethical debate, nor for background checks on those trapped. Save whoever you can.
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
A friend of mine was involved with a pacifist group whose take on these situations was that you must never cause anyone to suffer who would not otherwise have done so. So they would take the line that one should not intervene to switch the track, either.
My objection was that if you had this philosophy you would not be permitted by your own ethics to share it with anyone, lest they one day find themselves on board a trolley - without your interference, they would have switched the tracks, but now they won't, killing 5 people who would otherwise have survived...
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Ricardus,
I like your parenthetical tangent, but if you are ever in such a situation, you certainly will not and should not pause for an ethical debate, nor for background checks on those trapped. Save whoever you can.
I was imagining this in the context of the recent mine disaster - I suspect you'd be doing some kind of triage and getting those out in the most savable condition first, mostly because that is the way that the emergency services are taught to deal with these situations. I doubt anyone is going to stop to draw straws or check whether all of those saved are of the right moral standard.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
A friend of mine was involved with a pacifist group whose take on these situations was that you must never cause anyone to suffer who would not otherwise have done so. So they would take the line that one should not intervene to switch the track, either.
My objection was that if you had this philosophy you would not be permitted by your own ethics to share it with anyone, lest they one day find themselves on board a trolley - without your interference, they would have switched the tracks, but now they won't, killing 5 people who would otherwise have survived...
I'm a pacifist, so maybe this is where I got my initial thoughts from. But it doesn't really work - given that most pacifists think inaction which causes damage is as bad as action. In an airplane situation, I can't see anyone refusing to try to avoid the tower block.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
ISTM that all of the cases would fall into the "it depends..." category in an ethics class but have no reality otherwise.
In the case of another famous study (Milgram) volunteers were required to administer electric shocks to a (real) person increasing the voltage until the subject admitted his guilt. In this case the volunteers all obeyed up to the last notch of volts, even enjoying the (pretended) agony of the subject.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
The inoculation case differs from the dismemberment case in that what you're trying to do when you inoculate the one patient who dies is save their life. Also, if you knew which patient would be the one patient that dies you wouldn't inoculate that patient. On the other hand, you're clearly trying to kill the healthy patient for their organs. In the one case you intend the death of the person and in the other you don't.
The same applies to the trolley case: if you switch the tracks you aren't trying to kill the one person on the line, but if you push the fat man off then you are trying to kill him.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
The military tribunal rejected his plea, on the grounds that if he was so keen on saving lives he should have thrown himself into the path of the train.
That's why it's specified that he's a fat man. He's sufficiently fatter than you that throwing him off will make a difference but jumping yourself won't.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I think these are ridiculous moral dilemmas because they box in the response to completely unreal situations and don't come remotely close to resembling reality. None of these situations could actually arise with any degree of certainty and without additional complications.
To bring this closer to current issues, I'm also reminded of the torture dilemma posed by American pro-torture lawyers who proposed the "ticking time bomb" scenario, where they argue rhetorically that torturing one person to get the shut off code and location of the bomb will save many so torturing the one is a Good Thing. No-one will ever devise a decent and proper understanding of ethics from such fake scenarios, and they are frankly damaging because they cause people to consider in advance how to simplify situations to resemble scenes like these.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I think these are ridiculous moral dilemmas because they box in the response to completely unreal situations and don't come remotely close to resembling reality. None of these situations could actually arise with any degree of certainty and without additional complications.
I agree but to me that's the point. Thought experiments often involve a reductio ad absurdam to a ridiculous case. Then you can work back towards why you get contradictory answers, change a bit here and there as people have done in response to this question. You don't get an answer but hopefully will be more aware of the complexity of moral decisions - and less inclined to rely on simplistic rules of thumb (utilitarian or otherwise).
As a small defence of utilitarianism, its first significant modern advocate was Bentham whose concern was reform, rationalisation and codification of the legal system (Utilitarian Ethics p27 by Anthony Quinton). It was not a be all of ethics but a practical approach to creating law in a burgeoning British Empire within which many different cultures co-existed. In such situations - where rules are being created for general application at unknown times, places and situations it seems sensible at least in its negative form ('minimise suffering' rather than 'maximise utility').
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The inoculation case differs from the dismemberment case in that what you're trying to do when you inoculate the one patient who dies is save their life. Also, if you knew which patient would be the one patient that dies you wouldn't inoculate that patient. On the other hand, you're clearly trying to kill the healthy patient for their organs. In the one case you intend the death of the person and in the other you don't.
The same applies to the trolley case: if you switch the tracks you aren't trying to kill the one person on the line, but if you push the fat man off then you are trying to kill him.
Yes, that is an explanation that is used - that treating each person individually as an end is more moral than treating a person as a means to an end.
I don't find that particularly convincing though. I suspect this is much more to do with the physicality of touching and killing someone. To push the fatman off the bridge or to kill the hospital visitor requires actually touching him. To kill someone by pulling a lever or moving an airplane or giving a large population an inoculation is much more distant.
Again, I dispute that these are really unreal situations that are no help at all. I agree they are unreal situations, but they illustrate clearly how we make moral judgments in real situations.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
In a hospital there are five people dying because they need different transplants. A healthy person walks in with the correct organs. Should he be killed to save the five?
If so, then let's forget about any right to abortion to save the life of the mother. Either of these violates the long-held principle that sacrificing one's own life to save another's, however laudable, is not required of civilians. It may be required of military personnel, but they are paid to take the risk.
[ 24. September 2012, 20:44: Message edited by: Alogon ]
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
You know, after giving it careful thought, my response to the fat man scenario is to ask "you would do that, you would kill me?" First look into my face and tell me that you're going to do it.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
You know, after giving it careful thought, my response to the fat man scenario is to ask "you would do that, you would kill me?" First look into my face and tell me that you're going to do it.
Exactly, I believe it is the looking-into-the-face which is the problem. If someone could press a button and an unidentified person was sacrificed to save the five, I think there would be less of a moral problem for most people.
When it gets to the point where someone else is deciding to kill someone else for the sake of others, then I'd think we're into 'meh' territory.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I suspect this is much more to do with the physicality of touching and killing someone. To push the fatman off the bridge or to kill the hospital visitor requires actually touching him. To kill someone by pulling a lever or moving an airplane or giving a large population an inoculation is much more distant.
One of the many disturbing results of the Milgram experiments - which, for the uninitiated, showed how easy it is to persuade volunteers to torture each other in the name of science - was that people were more willing to electrocute someone by flicking a switch when the victim was in another room, than by physically holding the victim's hand to an electric plate.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
If so, then let's forget about any right to abortion to save the life of the mother. Either of these violates the long-held principle that sacrificing one's own life to save another's, however laudable, is not required of civilians. It may be required of military personnel, but they are paid to take the risk.
I guess that comes down to whether one thinks that the fetus is a full human being in the same sense of someone after-birth. If it is, then there is a direct comparison, if there isn't then maybe it is less of a moral quandary.
I think there are a great many things that we depend on which are the same model these examples, we just don't want or like to think about it in that way. Indeed, we seem to rationalise that indirectly causing pain and suffering to the millions of people that are engaged in making the consumer products we buy is a price worth paying for the convenience they give us, they don't even have to be sacrificed for a life. I suppose the problem is that even if we are aware of those harsh conditions, there are few things we can do to make a lot of difference to their lives, and we like to convince ourselves that their crappy existence is better than it would be if they were not engaged in making things for us. It doesn't matter so much that their current conditions are like if we look at how much poorer they might be.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
If anyone is actually interested in answering the question I posed with regard to the unwillingness to kill the innocent hospital visitor and yet willing to risk x deaths during an inoculation campaign, I'd be interested to hear them.
It is a false comparison.
In an inoculation campaign, the probability of a complication is generally considerably smaller than the probability of a complication from catching the disease. Therefore, on the balance of probabilities, it makes sense for an individual to be inoculated regardless of what any other individual does.
Health professionals are well aware of the risks of inoculation and ensure that they minimise those risks. For example, an allergic reaction to immunisation is very rare. It can be life threatening but is treatable if caught quickly. Therefore children are immunised by trained health professionals at a clinic and are required to wait at the clinic for 20 minutes after the procedure to ensure that they do not suffer a reaction and to treat them immediately if they do.
This is completely different to Case 2, where killing one person to save five is definitely going to cause the death of the one with a probability of 100%.
Three of your five cases (2,4,5) are poorly-thought-out on the grounds that the person taking the action cannot know that the proposed course of action will work (the outcomes for transplants are not good, the fat man on the bridge may not stop the trolley because you might push him too early or too late or a bit to the side). Therefore many would not take the action because they cannot guarantee the outcome. You might kill one person and still fail to save the five.
This is also why the justification of torture argument doesn't work: the argument assumes that the torture of one will save many, but you cannot know that it will. What if you are torturing the wrong person? What if there is no way to stop the bomb? What if the person being tortured holds out until after the bomb goes off? What if you accidentally kill the person being tortured before they tell you?
By comparison to those cases, Case 1 is a straightforward guaranteed choice. Five people die or one person dies: you choose. If you do not know the people then it is clear to me that you take action that you know will save the many rather than the one.
You can make Case 1 like the other cases by assuming that you are mechanically incompetent and are not 100% sure which way the points are turned. You think that they will direct the trolley at the five people but you aren't totally sure. How sure do you have to be that the trolley is going to hit the five and that pulling this lever will divert it to hit the one? What if, by your incompetence, it was going to hit the one, but you pull the lever and it hits the five? I think that, it would only need a little bit of "unsurity" for most to leave things alone rather than risk it. I think I'd pull the lever if I was 90% sure it would save the five, but if I was only 75% sure, I'd probably leave it (or, rather, vacillate until it was too late).
-DS
PS I was expecting your Case 2 to be more like: what if the five people are strangers, but the one person is your spouse or your child or your parent? Would you sacrifice someone you know for five people you do not know?
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
When it gets to the point where someone else is deciding to kill someone else for the sake of others, then I'd think we're into 'meh' territory.
Does "meh" mean "bloody unlikely", because I like it if if does.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Belle Ringer
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# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
If anyone is actually interested in answering the question I posed with regard to the unwillingness to kill the innocent hospital visitor and yet willing to risk x deaths during an inoculation campaign, I'd be interested to hear them. I think these are real moral dilemmas which are of a form that we face every day.
I have met people who think some clinical trials are unethical because if you have a new drug or procedure that you really believe will help people in the target population obtain health, how can you intentionally withhold it and substitute a sugar pill for some who come to you for help? You KNOW you are withholding help they need, are asking for, and is available.
One clinical study here: Tuskegee syphilis study
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
William Styron's book "Sophie's Choice" (book better than movie) has Sophie choose on the rail platform at Auschwitz to save one of her children and send the other to the gas. She chooses and loses both.
I think these sorts of scenarios are a 'Sophie's choice', where to follow the reasoning, you will also lose, even if you believe you'll gain or save someone. Sophie ends up living with a mental patient and dies BTW. Making such choices in real life will also kill you by your own hand, and, if you don't do that, we must subject you to interrogation, trial and execution mustn't we.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Totally straightforward stuff, I would have thought...
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Case 1: trolley hurtling down the track with 5 people on it. He has the ability to change tracks where there is only 1 person. Should he, and is he morally obliged to, change tracks. There are no get outs - one person dies or five people die.
Double effect. I switch the track so that the 5 people will live. In doing so, I can predict that 1 person will die as a consequence of the per se neutral act of switching tracks. But this is not my intention - I would be elated if instead the cart derailed. And it is the lesser evil that 1 person rather than 5 die.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Case 2: in a hospital there are five people dying because they need different transplants. A healthy person walks in with the correct organs. Should he be killed to save the five?
One must not do evil to achieve good, so I cannot kill someone to harvest their organs. Full stop. The difference to the previous case is the intention of doing an evil, killing an innocent human being, even though motivated by a greater good.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Case 3: same situation as 1 but it is a bystander who has the ability to move the trolley onto the second track
That does not change anything. It is still the same situation, double effect holds, and one should switch the tracks.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Case 4: due to medical malpractice, the doctor has caused the serious illness of 5 patients - who can only be saved by the death of a healthy person who innocently walked into the hospital.
There is no relevance whatsoever to the added qualification. One must still let the 5 patients die, since evil must not be done to achieve good.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Case 5: a fat man is on a bridge over the runaway trolley. Pushing him off will stop the trolley and save the 5 people but kill the fat man.
One must not do evil in order to do good. I cannot kill the fat man, since that is doing evil, even if it causes greater good. Hence the fat man lives, the others die. This is equivalent to cases 2 and 4, not 1 and 3. One is supposed to be misled by the physical setup of the cases, which suggest the opposite associations, but the morals here are obvious.
Seriously, how is this hard? ![[Confused]](confused.gif) Perhaps one needs to learn the above way of arguing about these moral choices, to show their logical consistency. But I doubt that there was ever a time when I would have hesitated making these moral choices. There's other stuff that I find way, way harder to decide on morally. This seems to me mostly like an attempt to trick people into confusing their morals...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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the long ranger
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# 17109
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Posted
Thanks, I like that explanation.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus
The military tribunal rejected his plea, on the grounds that if he was so keen on saving lives he should have thrown himself into the path of the train. All very silly really.
Not silly at all.
Like your military tribunal, I have often wondered about the attitudes of those who won't put their lives where their mouth is. For example, there are those who complain about large families, on the grounds that they are a drain on the world's limited resources. Well, if they are so concerned to limit the world's population, why don't they commit suicide in order to make room for other people?! Sounds extreme I know, but why do such people consider themselves so important that they feel they have a right to live, but not other people?
It's a bit like someone complaining about traffic congestion, when he is in his car in the middle of it and therefore contributing to it.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
@IngoB - how about if there was a trolley situation with either a) ploughing into the five people or b) being send on a different loop to the same five people but where there is a person who would die and stop the train?
Is that similar to the first scenario or the fatman scenario?
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I have met people who think some clinical trials are unethical because if you have a new drug or procedure that you really believe will help people in the target population obtain health, how can you intentionally withhold it and substitute a sugar pill for some who come to you for help? You KNOW you are withholding help they need, are asking for, and is available.
What you KNOW may not be true. There was once a study to determine the effectiveness of a treatment for a frequently-fatal condition that sometimes affects premature babies.
The babies were divided into three groups. One was given the new treatment; one was given the traditional treatment; the third was given no treatment.
The highest death rate was for those receiving the new treatment; next highest, those receiving the traditional treatment; lowest those receiving no treatment.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I have met people who think some clinical trials are unethical because if you have a new drug or procedure that you really believe will help people in the target population obtain health, how can you intentionally withhold it and substitute a sugar pill for some who come to you for help? You KNOW you are withholding help they need, are asking for, and is available.
What you KNOW may not be true. There was once a study to determine the effectiveness of a treatment for a frequently-fatal condition that sometimes affects premature babies.
The babies were divided into three groups. One was given the new treatment; one was given the traditional treatment; the third was given no treatment.
The highest death rate was for those receiving the new treatment; next highest, those receiving the traditional treatment; lowest those receiving no treatment.
Moo
Moo's right. The new treatment may or may not be effective -- that's what you don't know and are trying to find out.
In a real case, when a new treatment begins unambiguously to demonstrate its effectiveness in a double-blind study, the clinical trials are immediately stopped and all participants are given the new treatment.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
@IngoB - how about if there was a trolley situation with either a) ploughing into the five people or b) being send on a different loop to the same five people but where there is a person who would die and stop the train? Is that similar to the first scenario or the fatman scenario?
Sorry, I really don't understand what part b) of your scenario is supposed to be about? There is no importance whatsoever to the "physical" setup, i.e., how the tracks are laid. The only thing of interest is the sequence of acts and consequences. More precisely the sequence of your acts and their consequences. You are not responsible for what other people do or have done, much less are you responsible for the way the universe happens to be. You cannot kill an innocent man intentionally, because that would be evil. No matter what. And if the very existence of the universe depended on that, it does not matter in the slightest. You are not the master of the universe, but of your own actions.
You can however, under specific conditions, do something that will lead to the death of an innocent man. Namely if what you do is good or at least neutral, if there is an outcome that is good and which you intend, if you do not intend the death of the innocent man (though you may well foresee it with certainty), and if finally the good you intend is greater than the evil of the innocent death. Why can you do that? Because then a) you are not doing evil, b) you do not intend evil, and c) the consequences of your actions, though partly good and partly evil, are foreseen by you to be more good than evil overall.
More cannot be demanded of you, or anyone: do good, avoid evil. And this is not meant in some abstract or global sense. It's personal, practical, and local. If the greater good of humanity emerges from this (and it generally does), then this is wonderful. But that is an emergent property, not your moral rule.
Well, more cannot be demanded of you by morals. By Christ, that's another matter again...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Uhh, I found that neither funny nor enlightening, Grammatica. And I did get 80% of the references without reading the explanation page... It's a missed opportunity, really. This trolley stuff should be made fun of.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Uhh, I found that neither funny nor enlightening, Grammatica. And I did get 80% of the references without reading the explanation page... It's a missed opportunity, really. This trolley stuff should be made fun of.
Ah well, you're in the minority, then, IngoB. To most people it's a classic.
Really, you should try your hand at a better version.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Sorry, I really don't understand what part b) of your scenario is supposed to be about? There is no importance whatsoever to the "physical" setup, i.e., how the tracks are laid. The only thing of interest is the sequence of acts and consequences.
I think this is a minority view, I believe the majority would pull the switch even though they would not push the fatman. In fact, I don't think your 'do no evil' thing actually works, given it is not obvious what is evil.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I think this is a minority view, I believe the majority would pull the switch even though they would not push the fatman. In fact, I don't think your 'do no evil' thing actually works, given it is not obvious what is evil.
I can only repeat that I simply do not understand your new trolley setup. You apparently have now assumed that I have judged it, but so far I just haven't. I can make no reasonable comment about the morals of a situation if I do not grasp that situation. Try describing it more clearly.
If the 'do good, avoid evil' thing does not actually work, then there are no morals. Full stop. While the trolley examples are as obvious as one might wish for, it is not necessary that everything is. A moral life consists in doing good and avoiding evil to the best of one's capabilities, not to some abstract gold standard. If one commits evil due to an honest error of judgement, then one has committed evil, but is not culpable for it. (This does not free one from the duty of learning, informing oneself and otherwise acquiring wisdom, but again these requirements must be reasonable. Not all can spend their lives becoming ethicists.)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I can only repeat that I simply do not understand your new trolley setup. You apparently have now assumed that I have judged it, but so far I just haven't. I can make no reasonable comment about the morals of a situation if I do not grasp that situation. Try describing it more clearly.
I'm sorry, my bad.
There is a split in the track, on one side there are 5 people, on the other one person. However, the split with one eventually loops back around to the five. Hitting the one will stop the train.
So either you hit the one to save the five or you hit the five to save the one.
In my view this is no different to the first scenario except that your double effect thing doesn't seem to come into play because you are intending to kill the one to save the five. Which would appear to suggest that the action is evil and therefore not permissible.
Contrary to what you said before, I think the layout does matter. To me, the act of killing a person is no less evil if you've been able to rationalise it or not, so for me this whole category of evil acts is not really very helpful.
As I said above, my instinctual reaction is to do nothing and let what happens happen. But I've also said, I feel that in a real situation I would make a snap decision to save as many people as possible. I am concerned about people's rights - to life, to not be tortured, to agency. But I suppose for me it is the consequences that are more important than whether or not one way of killing an innocent is 'less evil' than another.
I don't think torture can be justified because it is unreliable and degrades the torturer. I don't think an innocent bystander should be killed for his organs because the risks involved in transplants mean that you are better off keeping a healthy person healthy than in parceling off his organs to sick people. He has rights to life and agency and choice, but then so does the person on the train track who has been killed by the runaway trolley.
quote:
If the 'do good, avoid evil' thing does not actually work, then there are no morals. Full stop. While the trolley examples are as obvious as one might wish for, it is not necessary that everything is. A moral life consists in doing good and avoiding evil to the best of one's capabilities, not to some abstract gold standard. If one commits evil due to an honest error of judgement, then one has committed evil, but is not culpable for it. (This does not free one from the duty of learning, informing oneself and otherwise acquiring wisdom, but again these requirements must be reasonable. Not all can spend their lives becoming ethicists.)
I am disputing your categories of evil. Ethics involves doing the best in (often) bad situations, to characterise some as categorically evil (when by other measures they seem to be the same as other cases) is wrong, in my opinion.
[ 26. September 2012, 07:44: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
There is a split in the track, on one side there are 5 people, on the other one person. However, the split with one eventually loops back around to the five. Hitting the one will stop the train.
So either you hit the one to save the five or you hit the five to save the one.
In my view this is no different to the first scenario except that your double effect thing doesn't seem to come into play because you are intending to kill the one to save the five. Which would appear to suggest that the action is evil and therefore not permissible.
You say it's no different, but then go on to explain quite clearly why it might be seen as radically different. Intention matters.
In case 1, a simple choice of routes, you don't want to kill the lone man. You would be delighted if he were not there, or somehow jumped out of the way. You would, if you could, shout a warning to him to do just that.
None of that is true in this new case where the five are always going to be in the train's path but you have the option of sending using the lone man as a human shield. Here you are sending the train at him hoping that it will hit him. If he jumped out of the way, it would frustrate your plans. You aren't going to warn him, even if you knew he would escape if you did, because the whole point of diverting the train was to use his mass as a brake.
Morally, the situation seems more similar to me to the ‘push him off a bridge' case than the ‘choice of lines' case.
I think the only weakness this probes in IngoB's argument is the idea of intrinsically good and evil actions. It seems to me that the difference between "pushing someone off a bridge" and "switching the points on a railway track" is not that one action is morally neutral per se and the other is intrinsically evil. The intrinsic evil is intentional killing, whatever the physical means used to accomplish it. Switching the points with the intention of killing would be as wrong as killing by any other means.
And I'm not sure that IngoB would necessarily disagree with that - his reasoning doesn't seem to me to require an absolute moral distinction between intrinsically good and evil actions as a wholly separate category from the actor's intentions, because his case in relation to 'intending' as opposed to 'foreseeing' evil consequences I think is quite robust enough to support all of the distinctions he wants to make. Possibly the addition of the category of 'intrinsically evil actions' point is a placeholder for answering future contrivances aimed at subverting those distinctions.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
There is a split in the track, on one side there are 5 people, on the other one person. However, the split with one eventually loops back around to the five. Hitting the one will stop the train. So either you hit the one to save the five or you hit the five to save the one. In my view this is no different to the first scenario except that your double effect thing doesn't seem to come into play because you are intending to kill the one to save the five. Which would appear to suggest that the action is evil and therefore not permissible.
This is indeed no different from the first scenario, and double effect applies just as much or as little. Indeed, nothing in the first scenario says that the track is not looping back in this way.
Switching tracks is per se a neutral act. Nobody is killed in and by the process of switching tracks as such. Again, if after switching tracks the cart derails, nobody dies. This neutral act has two outcomes. One I intend: saving the 5. The other is foreseen but not intend: killing the 1. Saving the 5 outweighs killing the 1. Therefore, in switching the tracks: no evil is done, no evil is intended, and net good is achieved. Therefore it is an allowed action. (Technically, it is even a praiseworthy one, though we should rather consider it "tragic but necessary".)
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
To me, the act of killing a person is no less evil if you've been able to rationalise it or not, so for me this whole category of evil acts is not really very helpful.
If you would not switch tracks in this situation, then I would consider you evil. And I would do so, prior to any argument. I can argue this situation, but frankly it is clear and unequivocal enough to allow for "intuitive" decision with very little hesitation.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
As I said above, my instinctual reaction is to do nothing and let what happens happen. But I've also said, I feel that in a real situation I would make a snap decision to save as many people as possible.
Exactly! Thereby you do express proper morality, the law of God written on our hearts. The only problem is that things are not always this simple. In this case your decision can come in a snap. However, in other cases this is not true. At that point one must apply argument. Argument based upon what snap decisions tell us about proper morality, but now extended far beyond the point where such snap decisions can be made. Of course, once such arguments have been developed, one can apply them back to cases where snap decisions are in fact possible, to "explain" these snap decisions. And that's just what I've done for your trolley scenarios.
Why is that important? Well, you can make the right snap decisions, but think up the wrong kind of arguments for them. And then, when you extrapolate to more difficult cases, you run into trouble. Or you may be led by a sophist to doubt your correct intuitions (which is what these trolley scenarios are about). Etc.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I am disputing your categories of evil. Ethics involves doing the best in (often) bad situations, to characterise some as categorically evil (when by other measures they seem to be the same as other cases) is wrong, in my opinion.
Just because real situations are often confused and difficult to analyse, doesn't mean that our concepts must be confused and that all situations must be difficult to analyse. To intentionally kill an innocent man is evil as such. It never becomes neutral or good. You may think that that it saying too much, but in fact this statement can be extracted from the "snap decisions" that you make. For example, you do not harvest the organs of a random healthy person, just because their death would let five others live. Maybe you don't realize that this particular category of evil is embedded in your moral judgement, but you show it forth by not getting your knife out upon seeing a useful supply of organs walking into the room.
quote:
Originally posted by the Eliab:
I think the only weakness this probes in IngoB's argument is the idea of intrinsically good and evil actions. It seems to me that the difference between "pushing someone off a bridge" and "switching the points on a railway track" is not that one action is morally neutral per se and the other is intrinsically evil. The intrinsic evil is intentional killing, whatever the physical means used to accomplish it. Switching the points with the intention of killing would be as wrong as killing by any other means.
Not so. It is of course true that if one switches tracks with the intention of killing someone, then this act becomes evil - however, still not because of the act itself, but because of the evil intention, which has been super-added to it. Whereas pushing someone off a bridge is an evil act as such. There is, if you will, no room for adding any modifying intention to this act. At least so if we assume that someone is acting who knows what they are doing. If an adult in a sane state of mind pushes someone else off a bridge, we simply will not accept that they didn't mean any harm to the victim. The act as such is not suited for good. And we will also not really care about the outcome in our judgement of the act as such. Even if the victim miraculously survives the fall without the slightest injury, we will still put the perpetrator on trial for attempted murder. The evil is not in what actually happens, but in what is being done.
Perhaps one could say that the "inherent evil" of an act is a kind of immediate and necessary intent "glued to" the action by being situated in a context. Basically, when we say "he pushed him off the bridge" we carve out a conceptual part of the world which under normal circumstances cannot be separated further. It is complex, it has context, but it still is an "atom" of behaviour. If you push someone off the bridge in order to save them from being run over by a train, then you are actually not pushing them off the bridge as such. Rather, you are pushing them out of the way, and since there is no room they then unfortunately fall off the bridge. The "atom" of behaviour is here in fact different, because a change in context (the onrushing train) allowed a further conceptual cut. Now we can argue about what was a behavioural "atom" before, pushing someone off the bridge, as double effect of pushing someone out of the way.
This may sound contrived, but I think it really reflects what happens in us. The physical act may be precisely the same, but there is still a different behaviour going on. And there is a level of intention in these acts that cannot be separated out because it is just part of what makes these acts be what they are. I can however have the intention to push you of the way of the train, because I want to torture you to death rather than see you die so quickly. That is a super-added intention again, an evil one, which is not "glued to" the act. Because I could also just push you as a simple "reaction without thinking", super-adding nothing or perhaps something neutral. Or I could do it because I really wish to preserve your life even at a risk to my own, super-adding a good intention.
When we talk about the intentions of an act, we mean these "super-added" ones, not the ones which are "glued to" the act in the very way with which we conceptually carve the world into pieces. Hence to kill an innocent man is categorically evil, because we have made this category to contain what we see as inevitably evil. The key move is the word "innocent", which actually is a horribly complex concept, with which we however operate quite easily most of the time...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Not so. It is of course true that if one switches tracks with the intention of killing someone, then this act becomes evil - however, still not because of the act itself, but because of the evil intention, which has been super-added to it. Whereas pushing someone off a bridge is an evil act as such. There is, if you will, no room for adding any modifying intention to this act. At least so if we assume that someone is acting who knows what they are doing. If an adult in a sane state of mind pushes someone else off a bridge, we simply will not accept that they didn't mean any harm to the victim. The act as such is not suited for good. And we will also not really care about the outcome in our judgement of the act as such. Even if the victim miraculously survives the fall without the slightest injury, we will still put the perpetrator on trial for attempted murder. The evil is not in what actually happens, but in what is being done.
Now you've lost me. I can't see that switching a train track to kill an innocent is morally any different to pushing someone off a bridge. In both cases, the person has to die for the others to live, and you've had to make a decision that they should die.
and with regard to this
quote:
Just because real situations are often confused and difficult to analyse, doesn't mean that our concepts must be confused and that all situations must be difficult to analyse. To intentionally kill an innocent man is evil as such. It never becomes neutral or good. You may think that that it saying too much, but in fact this statement can be extracted from the "snap decisions" that you make. For example, you do not harvest the organs of a random healthy person, just because their death would let five others live. Maybe you don't realize that this particular category of evil is embedded in your moral judgement, but you show it forth by not getting your knife out upon seeing a useful supply of organs walking into the room.
I refer you to the answer I gave some moments ago. It is not immoral because it is evil but because the effects are disputable. I'm very happy to discuss this with you, but I can't if you totally ignore what I said in the post you're replying to.
[ 26. September 2012, 19:20: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This is indeed no different from the first scenario, and double effect applies just as much or as little. Indeed, nothing in the first scenario says that the track is not looping back in this way.
In the classic trolley scenario hitting the one person isn't a means to the end of saving the five: it's an unwanted byproduct. Long Ranger has altered the scenario so that the trolley hitting the one man is now a means to the end of saving the five. In the long ranger's new scenario should the one person see the trolley coming and jump out of the way in time the trolley will continue round and hit the other five and thus one's intention will be frustrated. In switching the trolley to go round the loop the other way you are now intending the death of the one person, and therefore it is morally wrong to do it.
Note however that it would be a mistake to separate out the act and the intention. In Long Ranger's scenario, 'saving the five men', 'killing the one man', 'diverting the trolley', 'switching the points', and 'pulling a lever' are all intentional and genuine characterisations of the action. None of those is more 'the real description' than any other. One of them however is morally forbidden, and therefore the act ought not to be done. In the classic scenario 'killing the one man' is not an intentional characterisation of the action and therefore the act is permissible (indeed obligatory).
(Aside: although it is necessary for an act to be permissible that it be permissible under all intentional characterisations, it is not sufficient. An act performed with callous disregard for human life that results in someone's death is morally wrong even though death is not intended.)
However, in the case of a man who saves another's life in order to kill them more painfully later the intention to kill them more painfully later does not characterise the action itself. A philosophical pedant would say that 'killing them more painfully later' was a purpose not an intention.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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