Runaway Train !!!

Quite a few interesting turns in this thread.

Obviously I didn't set out the runaway train scenario as precisely as I could have done. This has led a few people to seek clarification or to make erroneous assumptions.

I made the mistake of asking YOU to make a decision. Not too many decision-makers on this forum….and before you all whinge that you didn't have all the facts available - you did. But as in real life, you don't always know that you have all the facts and you don't know how much time you have left before your decision is required etc etc.

Trevor said he couldn't see the purpose of the thread. Hopefully he now can, since I posted a clear explanation just before his post - probably simultaneous posts.

Beano, I never thought you were having a pop at me. Your post helpfully stopped anybody suggesting that the scenario was far-fetched.

I'll look up the article that inspired this (and the hospital waiting list) thread and see where that leads………

Cheers

Don

Nigel,

A thought grown on an imaginary tree and as such I would become the possessor of a choice of evils, a decision made from the heart and try to use my head to work it out. Once the “what” is decided, the “How” would follow, I’d then have to live with and accept the “how” without making excuses for the “What”.

Beano

quote:

Originally posted by Beano:

Here are my thoughts on it.

The Celestial fire that a man calls conscience is the sentinel of virtue, It has nothing to do with a solicitor or judge, but it does witness against me if I do wrong and approves if I do right, acting against it is acting against reason, or, if you hold a religious persuasion against Gods law.

Conscience has guilt and remorse, it’s the moral compass that can be a curse sometimes, and it acts like a moral umpire preserving the ease and serenity within us, act against it and say goodbye to a tranquil mind.

Whenever conscience is mentioned I think of the words in the Bob Dylan song:

"You can't rely on conscience to be your guide, when it's you who must keep it satisfied."

This is what was written in New Scientist -

How do we tell right from wrong?

In a hospital emergency room, five critically ill patients desperately need organ transplants. A healthy man walks in. Should the doctors remove his organs to save the sick five? Most people will respond in milliseconds with a resounding "No way". Now imagine an out-of-control train about to run down five workers standing on the track. There's a fork ahead and throwing a switch could divert the train to another line on which there is only one worker. It's the same question - should we sacrifice the one to spare the other five? - yet most of us would say "yes" just as quickly. How do we make these lightning moral judgements? Are we born with an innate moral faculty?

There you have it. No tricks. No options. Someone else made the decisions. Do you agree with the (alleged) majority that these decisions were right? Do you think we are born with an ability to tell right from wrong?

Cheers

Don

The scenario seems to throw up several interesting questions which could be better articulated if separated from the dichotomy as presented.

Is it morally worse to do wrong by inaction or action?
The prevention of the death of the 5 requires an intervention, that intervention will kill the one who previously would have lived.

Do we all have a duty at all times to consider the world around us and act towards minimising wrong - even when this involves us influencing the course of events toward "another" wrong? Are we less guilty of the wrong we create – this being justified by the wrong we avoid?

Is an act, done for the best motives, which results in a wrong justified by that motive - even when the motives are proved to be misplaced?
Train hurtles toward points - Don directs it toward single worker - original target workers move from between tracks and one dies where none would have if Don had not re-directed "fate".

I think the problem here is that a hypothetical question seldom mirrors the complexity of real life. Neither course of action would necessarily allow the maker of that choice to walk away with an entirely clean conscience.

Is it better that 100 should die than 101? Is every life of equal value? Is what feels morally comfortable on an individual basis (moral intuitivism?) cognate with any universal morality?

Perhaps no answers but the conversation is worth having.

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:

Do you think we are born with an ability to tell right from wrong?

I've certainly witnessed very small children (trying to) sort out their conflicts based on some sense of fairness. As to whether that indicates an inate ability to discriminate right from wrong - unsure.

It's probably an acculturated thing though, given the research that shows that children don't even develop the ability to lie until a certain age.

BTW, Don, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your barrister/Deane F inquest examination.

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:
BTW, Don, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your barrister/Deane F inquest examination.

Train hurtles toward points - Don directs it toward single worker - original target workers move from between tracks and one dies where none would have if Don had not re-directed "fate".

Active or passive?

No, not speakers/amplifiers. Intervention.

In the hospital scenario, all that is needed, is non-intervention. Most of us accept that it would be wrong to slaughter a healthy individual to save five others. We don't need to do anything, and we achieve the "right" solution simply by doing nothing. This decision is easy to make and to live with.

In the train scenario, we are required to act in order to achieve the morally "right" solution. (New Scientist is pretty straight forward in claiming that most people see this intervention as "right"). But this intervention is causing lots of people problems. They are trying to find "reasons" to avoid making this decision to intervene or to act.

Even Adam is trying to avoid it, by suggesting that the intervention might produce unexpected results!!!! The scenarios don't permit unexpected outcomes, it's just straight-forward, even if if this means it's purely hypothetical.

My conclusion at the moment is, that of the people on this forum who have responded, most would be content to see five hospital patients die, and feel this would be right. Most would let the runaway train kill five workmen rather than be held responsible for throwing the switch. If this is not the case, I'm sure you will let me know.

But see my next post.

Cheers

Don

Now for a little variation (not in New Scientist)

Imagine an out-of-control train about to run down one worker standing on the track. There's a fork ahead and throwing a switch could divert the train to another line on which there are five workers.

Would you throw the switch?

Cheers

Don

I'm not so sure the answer is quite so obvious as to require only a millisecond of thought. Yes, there are sins of commission and sins of omission e.g. I might not be the one raping a girl but if I stood by and watched am I not also culpable to some degree? Is the scenario here the same? Would I be committing a sin of omission if I let the trolley plough through the 5 instead of the 1? I don't think so. Why would I be guilty when the guilt lies with those who accidentally released the brake? I am not motivated to kill the 5 and I have not taken any action to kill them so the fault lies elsewhere . If, however, I altered the route of the trolley I would be killing the 1 and even if I am not motivated to harm him I must realise my actions will harm him nonetheless and I am therefore guilty of killing the 1 but my actions are mitigated by saving the 5? I wonder what the law would say about that? I'm not sure what I would do - it is a hypothetical situation.

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
Even Adam is trying to avoid it,

I'm not - it not real.

My point is - only in the hypothetical are unexpected outcomes not permitted.

If we ARE to limit ourselves to the strict world of this question - why not just ask "Would you kill one person to save five?" which, I would suggest, is a different question to "Is it better that one person should die or five?"

I have no problem with the second but the first I think I am permitted to consider - while realising that it bears no present or likely relevance to the world in which I live.

Don

Acts of ommission are still actions. The focus of any moral comprehension (or reprehension) is awareness and consequence - not action alone. This is why the law requires the guilty act (actus reus) to be accompanied by a guilty mind (mens rea).

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:
Don

[QUOTE]
Acts of ommission are still actions.

Obviously. But is allowing the 5 to die a culpable act of omission when the only possible alternative is a culpable act of commission?

quote:

The focus of any moral comprehension (or reprehension) is awareness and consequence - not action alone. This is why the law requires the guilty act (actus reus) to be accompanied by a guilty mind (mens rea).

If that were true then murdering psychopaths who had no awareness of their wrongdoing would never be found guilty.

"If that were true then murdering psychopaths who had no awareness of their wrongdoing would never be found guilty."

Is this not the case?

Trying to boil the question down to mathematics is absurd, by the way:

"Are five units of equal value preferable to one unit?"

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:
I've certainly witnessed very small children (trying to) sort out their conflicts based on some sense of fairness. As to whether that indicates an inate ability to discriminate right from wrong - unsure.

maybe it is simply survival instinct that drives the development and adherence to moral systems?

quote:

Originally posted by Adam Meredith:
"If that were true then murdering psychopaths who had no awareness of their wrongdoing would never be found guilty."

Is this not the case?

I live in hope that Bush and Blair will be convicted of war crimes.

quote:

Originally posted by Jay:

maybe it is simply survival instinct that drives the development and adherence to moral systems?

Starting to sound like a mechanistic argument.

quote:

If we ARE to limit ourselves to the strict world of this question - why not just ask "Would you kill one person to save five?" which, I would suggest, is a different question to "Is it better that one person should die or five?"

Because the situation is now so generalised that we really DO need more information before answering.

However, I agree, the two questions (or scenarios) ARE different and require different thoughts/decisions before providing an answer.

The two scenarios that I described were [intended to be] very simple and straightforward, such that most people would have no difficulty identifying right from wrong or good from evil, in these specific cases. I also agree that your simplification of the wording does help to focus the concept behind the scenario.

However, once the scenario is "generalised" along the lines you have suggested, my answers (No and Yes in that sequence) could easily be ascribed by others, to a whole range of specific scenarios, where the details would cause me to really answer differently. In other words, we would be trying to establish "principles" from which we are are not permitted to deviate, without being candidates for hypocrisy.

I think we often learn best, by dealing with specifics, and only moving to the generalised, when there is a clear case to justify the generalised position.

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:

In other words, we would be trying to establish "principles" from which we are are not permitted to deviate, without being candidates for hypocrisy.

I think we often learn best, by dealing with specifics, and only moving to the generalised, when there is a clear case to justify the generalised position.

I believe that moral reasoning gets very difficult at this level. Are there any absolute moral principles? Or does every situation that requires moral examination revolve around the particulars of that situation?

It's very easy to set aside a situational approach by pointing out that if you make the entire universe the situation, you are no better off than if you had chosen an absolute approach.

WWJD?

quote:

Originally posted by Roy T:
WWJD?

Get a lawyer? Escalate the problem to management? Who knows with these South Americans?

Life is full of problems where the issue is a "grey question" - for example, of who gets hurt worse by one's actions. The is no black or white answer, only a grey one where theure is a judgement. Though there might be a clear answer in the case in this thread, if we could know All there is to know, but that is not my point.

In a divorce case between one's brother and his wife, is one's greatest loyalty to one's sister-in-law, one's nephews and nieces, or one's brother? Only a direct connection with the actual situation can allow the individual concerned to make the best decison, and even then it may prove to be wrong later...

Hypothetical cases are really not possibly answered in these conditions...

Fredrik

Fredrik

Is incest not wrong in all cases then?

Perhaps there are some situations where it is morally permissable to kill and eat human babies?

Deane