What are your guys' thoughts? Can we morally justify sacrificing people for the greater good, especially if it is a huge sacrifice (like getting tortured constantly)?
Ah. No worries.Christ; sorry, for whatever reason I thought neomac's response was part of yours. Doh. Rookie move. — AmadeusD
Good answer. It doesn't matter if it's for the greatest good, even if we objectively know what that is. It is immediately not the greatest good if it requires us to sacrifice someone. We would no longer deserve anything good.Not for me because the “greater good” is unknown, and as such, could never be met. In the end, and at its core, the act would amount to sacrificing or torturing a living being based on a hunch.
In any case, I would do justice though the heavens fall. I would protect the potential victim from the aggressor’s advances and deal justly with the consequences however they turned out. — NOS4A2
Suppose a good friend comes over, whom you know to be a strict Kantian. The Gestapo know this as well, and question him regularly. He notices a yarmulke inexplicitly lying on the couch. "Is someone staying here?" he blurts.
You are taking a relaxing day off, fishing in your rowboat. Around a river bend, you come upon a drowning man. "Oh, thank God!", he cries. "Save me!"
"Sorry, friend!", you respond with a grin. "I didn't push you in, I'm afraid it's not my problem. But, best of luck!"
His final moments before submerging for the last time are spent watching you in astonishment as you row your boat down the river, whistling gaily.
Are you
a) As morally culpable as if you had pushed him in the river?
b) Less morally culpable than if you had pushed him in the river?
c) Not culpable at all?
I choose A.
Rephrasing my question in terms of your quoted appraisal: Of what ethical good is intending to keep one's established duties if so doing produces unethical results?
The maintaining of duties within a community of slave-holders and slaves resulting in the lynching of those slaves that don't uphold said duties
People as a means to an end? We find it permissible to hire people as a means to an end which is making our own living as much as they make their own living by doing business with us, and some may find morally permissible even to do business over currently illegal jobs like prostitution, selling organs, dealing drugs.
How about living creatures, animals? Can you torture and kill animals as a means to people’s end? One might obviously argue that we already do this, we eat animals after all, and the food industry from start to end is a torturing experience for animals. So what makes human beings so special?
Why am I not blameworthy for the annihilation of the remaining human species, exactly? My choice to sacrifice the remaining human species as a means to save a child would still break the rule “do not sacrifice any life to save another for whatever reason in all possible scenarios”.
There is no room for distinguishing choice abstention from choosing to sacrifice (not to mention that even abstentions are often perceived as morally blameworthy).
I’m reluctant to accept the distinction between consequentialism and deontology because I’m not sure to find it intelligible.
Scenario 1: We may save either mother or baby during a difficult delivery, but not both. Yet we know the kid has developed a torturing and deadly disease which will make it die any time soon after birth, should we let the mother die so we are not blameworthy to kill the baby?
- Scenario 2: We may save either mother or kid, but not both, and if we do not intervene they both will die. Killing a mother/baby even to save the other is immoral, so we let both die but we wouldn’t be blameworthy for it?
You can at least draft arguments for why people must follow what you claim to be “moral rules”, can’t you?
I am saying that if I had to throw you over board (knowing you will drown) to free up a life vest that would save them for this other person, then I cannot violate you to save them. — Bob Ross
Instead, what if we modify the original example. You don't have to kill or torture the child. Just, slap him around for 10 minutes or so. He will cry, and will probably suffer a bit of long term trauma. Either commit this active violation of the child, or passively allow everyone on earth to die. Which do you choose?
:up:To me, I am starting to think there is no equation possible that accurately calculates right and wrong for every possible situation — Bob Ross
that's why I am trying to work on a virtue ethical theory instead. Maybe if we have the proper virtues instilled in our characters, then we would intuit that slapping him for 10 minutes is the right thing to do, but punching him for 10 minutes is taking it too far. — Bob Ross
So, I merely created a thought experiment taking this to its extreme: what if, right now, we had to perpetually torture a child (and I will let you use your imagination on what exactly is done to them) to prevent the immediate annihilation of the entire human species: is, at the very least, it morally permissible to do it, then? — Bob Ross
So, in order for society to function, what is sacrificed is the sense of wonder and imagination of the child substituted over time by a conceptual scheme of relationships that impose a set of more or less instrumental values that define what it is to be happy and successful and direct behaviour along clearly delineated paths which aim to make individuals in some sense superfluous. The “inner child” must be continuously tortured for people to be “happy” in so far as those people are integrated properly into an efficiently functioning whole and the more properly integrated they are, the more ideal and well-oiled the society is, the more the child must be continuously neglected, tortured and beaten, up, i.e. the more the imaginative faculties and the freedom they threaten any established order with are repressed and degraded. — Baden
Do you think moral judgment in situ is more a matter of habit or "choice"?Either commit this active violation of the child, or passively allow everyone on earth to die. Which do you choose? — hypericin
:up:It might have been interesting to attach a poll to this thread - just "Stay" or "walk away".
My money would be on "Walk away". — Banno
I would be interested in seeing you work this out
Myself, I think consequentialism is the answer. But, a consequentialism that takes injustice into account. You can't just examine raw outcomes, you have to also consider injustices that have been brought about. So, the 99% who live marginally better at the expense of the 1% would not be a good consequence, as the injustice done to the 1% would outweigh the benefit to the 99%.
…
I would be inclined to weigh injustice very highly. But, not so highly that the injustice done to the boy outweighs the deaths of everyone else, which themselves would be terrible injustices. I think the active/passive distinction is ultimately illusory, a choice is a choice.
Absolutely yes. We torture our and kill our food every day for our own survival.
I torture bugs beneath my feet that I accidently step on in the grass and leave them to slowly die from a crushed exoskeleton.
Does that mean I stop walking? No.
We throw pollution up into the air that kills thousands of animals and even people every year. Many don't die, but simply become perpetually sick. Yet this pollution saves hundreds of thousands more from death and suffering.
what if you were thinking about opening a factory that you knew would kill 1,000 people a year from the pollution, do you think that’s permissible to do? Does it depend on how many people you think will be saved from whatever you are manufacturing? — Bob Ross
In Nicomachean, the "means to an end" is part of moral reasoning. But Aristotle was focusing on the means, because the end has already been decided, so the one thing left to decide on is the means to achieve it. Note that he didn't believe in 'whatever it takes' to get there.IMO, that's instrumental reasoning (re: things, i.e. means-to-ends) and not moral reasoning (re: persons, i.e. ends-in-themselves) — 180 Proof
Do you think moral judgment in situ more a matter of habit or "choice"? — 180 Proof
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