Can Morality Survive in a Life or Death Dilemma?

[superwolf]

Two boats are with explosives and 1000 and 500 people respectively. Each boat has a detonator to the other boat's bomb. Both boats will be blown up in one hour unless one boat blows the other boat up first.

Will it be immoral of the captain on the boat with 1000 people not to blow the other boat up?

 

[DaveC426913]

Two boats are with explosives and 1000 and 500 people respectively. Each boat has a detonator to the other boat's bomb. Both boats will be blown up in one hour unless one boat blows the other boat up first.

Will it be immoral of the captain on the boat with 1000 people not to blow the other boat up?

No. In one case, he is killing people, in the other case someone else is killing people. Open & shut.

As far as what will or won't happen, it would be immoral to take action basedd on the word of the mastermind who has already taken them hostage. Who is to say he won't blow them up anyway?

 

[madness]

This is similar to a thread I made called morality of passive/active. I was trying to argue that it would be moral to blow the boat with 5000 up and ultimately save 1000 peoples lives. This is a utilitarian perspective, which most people here disagreed with. I would personally say that it is selfish to not blow up the boat with 5000, as you are simply trying to relinquish yourself of the blame of being personally responsible. In the end you will have cost an extra 1000 lives in the process. Another classic question involves choosing whether or not to smother a crying baby in order to save a group of people being heard and killed.

 

[DaveC426913]

This is similar to a thread I made called morality of passive/active. I was trying to argue that it would be moral to blow the boat with 5000 up and ultimately save 1000 peoples lives. This is a utilitarian perspective, which most people here disagreed with. I would personally say that it is selfish to not blow up the boat with 5000, as you are simply trying to relinquish yourself of the blame of being personally responsible. In the end you will have cost an extra 1000 lives in the process. Another classic question involves choosing whether or not to smother a crying baby in order to save a group of people being heard and killed.

The point I'm making is: don't commit a crime. Full stop.

This acknowledges that philosophical conundra do not exist in a vacuum; they exist in the real world, where there is a perpetrator who is reponsible for taking these people hostage and you have no idea whether he will blow anyone up or blow everyone up.

Hard as it may be to do, the captain will have to recognize that no one has been killed until and unless he presses the button. And that would make him a murderer. So don't.

The way to lose the least when playing against a madman is to not play by his rules. (That's one of the reasons why modern slasher movies have to be so ridiculously contrived - the antagonist has to be arbitrarily omnipotent in order to always be several steps ahead of the victims. He cannot leave the smallest crack in his labrynth throuigh which an escape from the game is possible.)

 

[superwolf]

In one case, he is killing people, in the other case someone else is killing people.

I disagree. He is in a situation in which people will die no matter what. It will be immoral not to choose an action to minimize the number of dead people. He is not killing people. He has to choose between killing 500 and 1500.

I agree with madness. It is selfish not to blow the other boat up. Yes, maybe the captain would get a feeling of guilt by taking an active role in the deaths of the 500 people, but they will die anyway! And a feeling of guilt isn't worth 500 lives anyway!

I honestly don't understand how most people can disagree with me here. Maybe it's an ethical illusion?

This acknowledges that philosophical conundra do not exist in a vacuum; they exist in the real world, where there is a perpetrator who is reponsible for taking these people hostage and you have no idea whether he will blow anyone up or blow everyone up.

This is a theoretical situation, of course. IF we knew that someone would have to die no matter what, there is absolutely no doubt that the correct choice is to try to minimize the number of deaths.

 

[drankin]

Regardless, it is both. Either boat is legally justified in defending themselves by detonating the other. The ultimate responsibility belongs to the individual (the Joker) no matter what happens.

 

[superwolf]

Either boat is legally justified in defending themselves by detonating the other.

Which ethical system do you use to justify that?

 

[mgb_phys]

There's a similair one we ask (smug) new medical students.

Q>Is it better to save one life or six?
A>Six, they all parrot.
Q>So if you see a healthy jogger go past the hospital you should kill him and use heart/lungs/kidneys/liver to save 6 patients?

 

[superwolf]

There's a similair one we ask (smug) new medical students.

Q>Is it better to save one life or six?
A>Six, they all parrot.
Q>So if you see a healthy jogger go past the hospital you should kill him and use heart/lungs/kidneys/liver to save 6 patients?

This one is not similar, but very different. If people risked getting killed by doctors, they'd loose their confidence in them and stay at home when they got sick, and more people would die.

 

[AUMathTutor]

I believe that once people have been put into such a situation, regular morality no longer applies. At that point, one person's morals are as good as the next's.

Then again, I'm not a huge fan of objective "morality" even in the best of times, so...

 

[AUMathTutor]

"This one is not similar, but very different. If people risked getting killed by doctors, they'd loose their confidence in them and stay at home when they got sick, and more people would die."

Actually, that doesn't make any sense. What smart people would do is stay in constantly poor health so the doctors never kill them. In fact, the more time spent in the hospital, the better.

 

[K.J.Healey]

There's a similair one we ask (smug) new medical students.

Q>Is it better to save one life or six?
A>Six, they all parrot.
Q>So if you see a healthy jogger go past the hospital you should kill him and use heart/lungs/kidneys/liver to save 6 patients?

But can you really call abstaining from murdering a healthy jogger "Saving" them?

 

[superwolf]

Saving the patients by killing a jogger. I think it's wrong because few people would like to live in a society where doctors were allowed to kill healthy people.

 

[DavidSnider]

Healthy jogger is a bad scenario. A better one is where 7 people are all terminal and only one person has enough healthy parts to save the rest of them.

 

[Hurkyl]

As far as what will or won't happen, it would be immoral to take action basedd on the word of the mastermind who has already taken them hostage.

That's not the problem you were presented. It's easy to solve any moral dilemma if you're allowed to change the problem!


There are two separate interesting questions:

(1) What to do if you're in the presented scenario

(2) What to do if you have some amount of confidence (but are not completely certain) that you are in the presented scenario


The opening poster asked (1), not (2).

 

[Huckleberry]

How would a doctor catch a healthy jogger? He would have to be pretty healthy himself to keep up. People might get ideas. Did anyone ask the teacher if he was healthy? I mean, he could save 6 people by killing himself in that case. But I guess that doctors are solely responsible for the quality of a person's life so they should be immune to their own ethics.

I agree with Dave. If someone presses that button they become, in part, responsible for the outcome. People might push the button for fear of their lives and then make an ethical excuse later to justify their actions to themselves and others. A less cowardly person wouldn't submit to the whims of a maniac. It only reinforces their behaviour.

That was the point in the movie where I lost interest and was thinking more about how my butt was achy from sitting in the seat and now would be a good time to empty my bladder than I was about the storyline of the movie. The movie could have been cut in half and it would have been twice as good.

 

[superwolf]

Healthy jogger is a bad scenario. A better one is where 7 people are all terminal and only one person has enough healthy parts to save the rest of them.

The person with the healthy parts should sacrifce himself. I don't think we're justified to kill him, terminal or not.

 

[superwolf]

If someone presses that button they become, in part, responsible for the outcome.

The difference he makes is that he saves 1000 lives that would otherwise die.

 

[drankin]

The person with the healthy parts should sacrifce himself. I don't think we're justified to kill him, terminal or not.

Are you a healthy jogger? I'm sure there are multiple people dying in hospitals right now that we could distribute your organs to. How could you live with yourself knowing that your body could be used to save all those lives?

 

[superwolf]

I don't know how, but I can live with it. You can certainly argue that I should sacrifice myself. Maybe it's the right thing to do. I'd only save those who haven't ****ed up their health themselves, though.

 

[drankin]

I don't know how, but I can live with it. You can certainly argue that I should sacrifice myself. Maybe it's the right thing to do. I'd only save those who haven't ****ed up their health themselves, though.

Of course, the convenient exceptions. It's easy to say someone else should sacrifice themselves as long as it's not you.

 

[superwolf]

This is not about what I would have done, this is about what one should do. Personally, I'd feel more comfortable dropping an atomic bomb over a city than killing my family with my bare hands. If I had to choose between the two, there is no doubt that the latter is the lesser evil, however.

 

[drankin]

This is not about what I would have done, this is about what one should do. Personally, I'd feel more comfortable dropping an atomic bomb over a city than killing my family with my bare hands. If I had to choose between the two, there is no doubt that the latter is the lesser evil, however.

Unless you can include you while determining morals, then anything you say becomes irrelevant. It then becomes what everyone else should do to be moral but with you being the exception.

 

[fasterthanjoao]

I'm in total agreement with DaveC, and there are many points of view that can be taken to come to this conclusion. Assuming that the person that has both held hostage and loaded with explosives two groups of people is telling the ultimate truth isn't a dilemna, it's stupid. Playing by the arbitrary rules that are set in a situation like that makes one no better than the criminal. Even if you somehow know for an absolute fact that both boats will be detonated should neither flip the switch, you do nothing. The responsibility lies with the criminal, our society and morals are founded upon placing the responsibility on the bad, to suggest that simply the boat with more people is somehow more valuable is immoral. It's definitely a testing scenario but I feel that no matter how you justify your decision, if you were to flip the switch then you're the one that's choosing to kill those other people - what gives you the right to decide that your lives are worth more than theirs?

 

[AUMathTutor]

"Unless you can include you while determining morals, then anything you say becomes irrelevant. It then becomes what everyone else should do to be moral but with you being the exception."

That's a classic logical fallacy. I forget the name... the "practice what you preach" fallacy, I think, maybe a form of ad hominem, but I'll look it up if you'd like.

Basically, saying that someone's argument is false on the basis of their behavior reflecting their professed beliefs is not logically sound.

 

[Jamma]

Some people seem to miss the point of philosophy. Saying things like "how can they be sure that he will blow the boat up...", "how are they going to catch the jogger..." and "but then people would be fearful of going to the doctors..." are all irrelevant. The idea is to theorize these sort of moral questions. We could easily adjust these questions to compensate for this i.e. the doctors have some sort of amazingly efficient way to trap the jogger without anyone else seeing, then can replace his body with a robot so that no one notices he has gone and that (if you haven't noticed by now) technology is sufficiently advanced so that the dying patients are bound to be saved by his organs.

I have the dark view that there are no objective moral values; they are made up by us, perhaps from evolution and upbringing and do not necessarily follow logic. Morality isn't well defined and in my opinion no one can say which option would be more morally correct than the other. I would also go as far as saying that not flicking the switch is basically the same as killing the 1000 people on your boat, the outcome is the same, the only difference is the the method in which it is done. Not flicking the switch because he will have to live with the fact that he has killed people could be considered immoral. You could reformulate as: should the captain flick the switch, or condemn 1000 people to die? You can you tell that I'm a cold mathematician :/

 

[superwolf]

Unless you can include you while determining morals, then anything you say becomes irrelevant. It then becomes what everyone else should do to be moral but with you being the exception.

So I have to be perfect to tell what is right and wrong?

 

[DaveC426913]

I disagree. He is in a situation in which people will die no matter what.

No he is not.

He is in a situation at the hands of a madman who has put thosuands of lives in danger (with the mere presence of the explosives, regardless what happens), told him a bunch of things, and then offered him a means to kill 500 people.

It will be immoral not to choose an action to minimize the number of dead people. He is not killing people. He has to choose between killing 500 and 1500.

It would be immoral to blow up 500 people. Period.

This is a theoretical situation, of course. IF we knew that someone would have to die no matter what, there is absolutely no doubt that the correct choice is to try to minimize the number of deaths.

This is the key to the solution.

We can invent a totally, absolutely vacuum-sealed scenario where there are absolutely two and only two choices, sure. But that has nothing to do with real life. Real life is where ethics apply.

 

[Evo]

Two boats are with explosives and 1000 and 500 people respectively. Each boat has a detonator to the other boat's bomb. Both boats will be blown up in one hour unless one boat blows the other boat up first.

Will it be immoral of the captain on the boat with 1000 people not to blow the other boat up?

This one is easy. As the captain of a boat, you are responsible for the people on your boat. The occupants on "your" boat are your responsibilty. You have no choice other than blowing up the other boat and saving your people. Blowing up your people would be the ulitimate betrayal.

If you remove the captain and leave no one person with the obligation to care for anyone, then that would be different.

 

[DaveC426913]

Some people seem to miss the point of philosophy. Saying things like "how can they be sure that he will blow the boat up...", "how are they going to catch the jogger..." and "but then people would be fearful of going to the doctors..." are all irrelevant. The idea is to theorize these sort of moral questions.

No. We don't miss the point. Inventing fictional scenarios gets you fictional moral outcomes.
Real ethics require plausible situations.

 

[DaveC426913]

This one is easy. As the captian of a boat, you are responsible for the people on your boat. The occupants on 'your" boat are your responsibilty. You have no choice other than blowing up the other boat and saving your people. Blowing up your people would be the ulitimate betrayal.

Look at the corollary: Does "I'm the captain so these people are my responsibility" really justify a captain deliberately and actively murdering 1500 innocent people?

There are no qualifiers to the above question - no "well if that was the only way..." doesn't cut it. That captain would have to decide to kill 1500 innocent people - with no assurances but a madman that his ship is doomed. What if the madman turned out to be lying?

 

[superwolf]

if you were to flip the switch then you're the one that's choosing to kill those other people - what gives you the right to decide that your lives are worth more than theirs?

because 1000 lives are worth more than 500?

It's either 500, 1000 or 1500. To me the choice is obvious.

 

[superwolf]

How about this one:

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a different organ, each of whom will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of these five transplant operations. A healthy young traveler, just passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for a routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose further that if the young man were to disappear, no-one would suspect the doctor.

 

[DaveC426913]

because 1000 lives are worth more than 500?

It's either 500, 1000 or 1500. To me the choice is obvious.

You are thinking inside the box.

The choice is not "500, 100 or 1500", the choice is do I kill people with my own hands or do I choose not to".

 

[superwolf]

This one is easy. As the captain of a boat, you are responsible for the people on your boat. The occupants on "your" boat are your responsibilty.

That is, easy from a specific normative theory. An utilitarian will argue that it's immoral of the captain of the boat with 500 passengers to blow the other boat up. Ethics isn't science.

 

[DaveC426913]

How about this one:

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a different organ, each of whom will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of these five transplant operations. A healthy young traveler, just passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for a routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose further that if the young man were to disappear, no-one would suspect the doctor.

Here's an even better one. Your answer to mine will be your answer to yours as well.

If you were on a business trip away from your wife and had the opportunity to have an affair with someone really hot. You knew with 100% certainty that you could not be caught and your wife would never find out.

Do you do the deed?



'Character' is what you are when no one is looking.

.

 

[Pengwuino]

No he is not.

He is in a situation at the hands of a madman who has put thosuands of lives in danger (with the mere presence of the explosives, regardless what happens), told him a bunch of things, and then offered him a means to kill 500 people.


It would be immoral to blow up 500 people. Period.

I tend to disagree with this. At some point, even real life situations come down to a "vacuum" situation, where you are unable to gather more information about what is going down, a decision has to be made, and you only have to go on what you know. In the situation presented, all you know is that you are presented with the situation and must make a decision. You have no way of telling what the reality of the situation is and you have no idea what the outcome will be. All you know and all that you're allowed to know is that the person who has setup the situation has set it up such that you have the choice of killing your 500 people or their 1000 people. At that point, it's entirely about is 1000 lives worth more then 500 lives.

Now I've seen that point argued back and forth and in my opinion, whether its "no one mans life is worth more then another" or "all life is priceless", no matter what value you put on a life, how is killing 1000 people better or equal, to killing 500? I think it's immoral to kill the 1000 or let both ships possibly be blown up.

If you even TRY to take it out of a vacuum, and for example, say "what if the evil doer actually wouldn't kill anyone if neither ship blew the other one up?", you CAN'T know that information, thus any moral responsibility to do nothing doesn't exist in my opinion.

 

[russ_watters]

This is similar to a thread I made called morality of passive/active. I was trying to argue that it would be moral to blow the boat with 5000 up and ultimately save 1000 peoples lives. This is a utilitarian perspective, which most people here disagreed with...

To be a little more specific, modern western philosophy - the basis of western laws - rejects the utilitarian perspective. Taking an affirmative action that directly causes the deaths of others is morally wrong under the perspective of individual rights.

I disagree. He is in a situation in which people will die no matter what. It will be immoral not to choose an action to minimize the number of dead people. He is not killing people. He has to choose between killing 500 and 1500.

That's another way of stating the utilitarian perspective and it is rejected in western philosophy because instead of the Joker making the choice of who dies alone, the captain is participating in the decision making. That makes him partially culpable.

Now odds are that a jury might feel sorry for him, but to acquit him wouldn't be consistent with how the law is intended to work. But even if acquitted, he'd probably lose a wrongful death suit in civil court.

 

[Evo]

Look at the corollary: Does "I'm the captain so these people are my responsibility" really justify a captain deliberately and actively murdering 1500 innocent people?

There are no qualifiers to the above question - no "well if that was the only way..." doesn't cut it. That captain would have to decide to kill 1500 innocent people - with no assurances but a madman that his ship is doomed. What if the madman turned out to be lying?

Actually I agree with your argument that acting based on something someone says would be wrong. What if it was an empty threat? What if it was some test of loyalty and the person never actually intended the person to actually kill anyone?

But a captain is responsible first for the welfare of his people. So a captain's first priority is the protection of his own people.

Should a sergeant in the military kill his own men in order to save a larger number of the enemy? Don't we hold our leaders responsible for our well being?

But this is why I should stay out of philosophy, you have to forget reality in order to not let facts get in the way.

 

[Cyrus]

LoL ITS JUST A MOVIE!

What if killer zombie cows with laser beams come at us?

 

[russ_watters]

There's a similair one we ask (smug) new medical students.

Q>Is it better to save one life or six?
A>Six, they all parrot.
Q>So if you see a healthy jogger go past the hospital you should kill him and use heart/lungs/kidneys/liver to save 6 patients?

This is a good example of where the utilitarian principle can lead. It is a long slippery slope but it is also the logic used by people like Stalin who "restructured" the Soviet economy from an agrarian to a manufacturing economy...and oh, by the way, killed 25 million people in order to benefit the other 300 million. This is abhorrent in western philosophy.

 

[russ_watters]

This one is easy. As the captain of a boat, you are responsible for the people on your boat. The occupants on "your" boat are your responsibilty. You have no choice other than blowing up the other boat and saving your people.

The obligations of a ship's captain do not exist in a vacuum. The captain is still bound by the laws of whatever jurisdiction he's in. The people on his ship may be his first responsibility, but they aren't his only responsibility.

 

[Pengwuino]

This is a good example of where the utilitarian principle can lead. It is a long slippery slope but it is also the logic used by people like Stalin who "restructured" the Soviet economy from an agrarian to a manufacturing economy...and oh, by the way, killed 25 million people in order to benefit the other 300 million. This is abhorrent in western philosophy.

That's misusing the logic though, not showing that it's bad. Killing 25 million to simply improve the lives of 300 million isn't the same as killing 25 million to save the lives of 300 million.

I personally feel society feels its somehow immoral to kill people to save the lives of others... yet we have had wars that everyone feels were completely justified. The best example is WW2, we as a society sent people out to their deaths knowing that if we did not, far more people would die. Does anyone feel it was immoral to do so? I've never heard a person say so or argue such.

 

[superwolf]

No he is not.
It would be immoral to blow up 500 people. Period.

Not if the only alternative is blowing up 1500.

 

[Cyrus]

What if both boats crash into each other? Kaboom.

 

[Pengwuino]

What if both boats crash into each other? Kaboom.

Then the manufacturer of the navigation system is immoral. Or something.

 

[superwolf]

You are thinking inside the box.

That was the intention of this thread.

The choice is not "500, 100 or 1500", the choice is do I kill people with my own hands or do I choose not to".

There is no moral difference as long as the outcome of passivity is known.

 

[Oscar Wilde]

LoL ITS JUST A MOVIE!

What if killer zombie cows with laser beams come at us?

What-if scenarios may appear to lead nowhere and run on wild tangents, but they have utility nonetheless. Such "movies" often allow us to evaluate and develop our own personal moralities and philosophies by which we live. In this sense, something that may appear to be "just a movie" transcends that and becomes something much more meaningful. If you don't recognize this, then I don't know why you are in the Philosophy forum to begin with.

 

[superwolf]

If you were on a business trip away from your wife and had the opportunity to have an affair with someone really hot. You knew with 100% certainty that you could not be caught and your wife would never find out.

Do you do the deed?

No, because that would give me a feeling of guilt. I don't, however, find it problematic if someone else would do that, because it doesn't cause any suffering. But as you say, that's a 100% theoretic scenario.

 

[Oscar Wilde]

My thoughts are similar to those of John Stuart Mill, pioneer of Utilitarian ethics. Regardless of which boat I am on, I have the moral obligation to do the most good, and in this case, inflict the least pain. Therefore, I would press the button if I were on the boat with more people. If I had 100% assurance that the other boat would not press the button, I would also press the button if I were on the boat with fewer people.

Even when looked upon from a Deontilogical view, my intent is still "good", therefore I am.