A Normative Ethical Dilemma: The One's Who Walk Away from Omelas
I am trying to slowly workout my normative ethical theory, and this got me on the path of deontology vs. consequentialism which, in turn, I ended up formulating a thought experiment based off of the short novel "The One's Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin.
For those who don't know, "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" depicts an almost utopian society but there's a catch...there's this child that has to live in perpetual filth, torment, and suffering in order to sustain their societal bliss: that's the price that has to be paid.
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?
It seems like to me if the answer isn't yes in this scenario, then I cannot fathom when consequentialism would ever be right...unless perhaps we just stipulated instead that the child is sacrificed painlessly instead of being tortured. Anyways, my intuitions lie in a straight up, no ifs or buts, NO: one cannot torture a child nor kill a child even if it saves the entire human species.
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)?
For those who don't know, "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" depicts an almost utopian society but there's a catch...there's this child that has to live in perpetual filth, torment, and suffering in order to sustain their societal bliss: that's the price that has to be paid.
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?
It seems like to me if the answer isn't yes in this scenario, then I cannot fathom when consequentialism would ever be right...unless perhaps we just stipulated instead that the child is sacrificed painlessly instead of being tortured. Anyways, my intuitions lie in a straight up, no ifs or buts, NO: one cannot torture a child nor kill a child even if it saves the entire human species.
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)?
Comments (79)
No we cannot. And the reason for this is, all of us do not have the moral entitlement to live. None!
I find it amusing that with the hundreds and thousands of posts here at TPF, we're still not getting the point of ethics and morality. Entitlement is not the same as being treated as a moral agent. If you live in a civilized society, you have the right to be treated ethically, within reason. But to intentionally break a moral principle, so others could continue to live is unethical. If you have the money to buy the body organs, enticing the financially desperate and the greedy people to give up their lives so you could preserve your health, you're immoral and a criminal.
I agree. What normative ethical theory do you subscribe to? A form of deontology, perhaps virtue ethics?
Yes. Nicomachean ethics. Virtue ethics. Because we don't waste our time debating about its being objective or its being relative.
Someone would.
I am puzzled by your thought experiment. As it is formulated, it seems that the two scenarios are, respectively, one in which a single child X is annihilated and/or tortured while the rest of the human species is not immediately annihilated. The other scenario is one in which the entire human species (including millions of other children), including child X, is immediately annihilated. In other words, in both scenarios that child wont be safe anyways. Even if you meant that in at least one scenario the child would be safe, one may wonder: how would a child even live and evolve as a psychologically and biologically sound human being if the rest of humanity would be immediately annihilated?
Even if we want to put aside our suspension of disbelief (but why exactly?), I would also wonder: if we must choose, would it be permissible to have child X to be safe at the expense of the rest of the human species to be immediately annihilated? Because if neither killing/torturing a child is permissible even when the rest of humanity would be safe, nor having the rest of humanity safe at the expense of killing/torturing a child, and we must choose anyways (why exactly?), what lesson do you wish to draw from this hypothetical predicament? If your thought experiment was designed to lead to a moral choice paralysis, I do wonder: whats even the point of moral reasoning over thought experiments designed to fail in guiding choice and action exactly?
BTW, since we put aside our suspension of disbelief, we can be more fancy in elaborating the original thought experiment: lets imagine that that child X whom nobody is permitted to sacrifice, is somebody who will soon develop a torturing mortal disease for natural causes and die atrociously even if the rest of the human species was immediately annihilated to save the child, or that the child is a psychopath who enjoys torturing living creatures before killing them for the rest of his life or a Hitler on steroids which will torture and exterminate the entire human species anyways and repeatedly if he only had the chance. What would be morally legitimate to do? What if the lesson we draw from the thought experiment varies remarkably depending on how the thought experiment is construed?
The problem is not much that there is a moral rule (where?!) that says do not torture or kill any child ever for whatever reason but more why would we be committed to such rule exactly? Saying because it is moral, it would shift the problem: how did this rule get the label moral in the first place? What is there in claiming morality that would me make me feel (?!) or taken (?!) to be committed to it or compelled BY DEFAULT and without consulting me first? And if it is not that what is implied, what else is exactly?
I know thought experiments are supposed to abstract away details to get to the principles involved, but I like to know the practical details anyway. The thing is, there never is an idealised context-free situation, so we never actually have to make such a determination. And it's not as if we have to decide in the abstract before we must decide in the concrete.
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
is still under copyright, so I won't post a link. However, a quick copy and paste and Google will turn up lots of sites hosting pdf copies.
It is very short, and very well worth reading.
In unnatural situations like this one, which our intuitions weren't designed for, things are bound to fall apart.
My own intuition says, torture the child, since it doesn't really distinguish between that and killing them. Would you agree to kill the child?
Why a child? What if it were middle aged, or elderly?
I don't quite follow: doesn't Aristotle believe that the good is objective?
I think you missed the point of the OP, it is not about would but should.
Fair question, but not the point of the thought experiment. It could be the case that no one is morally justified in sacrificing that child and that the child would have, if they were the sole survivor, no feasible living arrangement afterwards.
Perhaps this factors into your moral reasoning though: to you, does that reason count in favor of potentially sacrificing the child? I dont believe so.
My answer would also be no. That child nor I can use other people as a means to and end, even if that end is saving other people. I cannot throw you into a moving car to stop it from running over my child.
You have the choice to refrain from actively violating someones rights in both scenarios: what you dont have control over is the predestined stipulations of the thought-experiment. You can say no and simply not be morally blameworthy for the annihilation of the human species (by my lights).
Is consequentialist normative ethical theories valid in any scenario? Thats the question.
To make our moral intuitions and principles consistent and coherent.
I like it (: and I would say an emphatic NO, you cannot violate that childs rights, period. Doesnt make baby hitler right in doing atrocities later in life, but we cannot violate peoples rights period; especially over forseeable consequences of their existence (which I find really unreliable, but thats irrelevant to my main point).
That is anticipated and good for working out ones normative ethical theory. Afterall, theres no way one will magically just know that their theory works as expected in applied ethics without putting in the work to test it.
Metaethically, I would say there arent any moral facts. With respect to normative ethics, I would say we must treat persons with respect as objects of intrinsic respect. Admittedly, I am still working out the details.
I would suggest reading it yourself: there's free PDFs online and it is only like 5 pages (if I remember correctly).
Fair. I typo'd it. Let me update that.
Interesting. What problems can you construct for deontology? I lean much more towards that than consequentialism.
It isnt that unnatural, and thats why The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is such a good, quick read. Enslaving 1% of the population would increase the well-being of the 99% (if we presuppose specifically utilitarianism), wouldnt it? Etc.
Nope. Seems like we shouldnt violate that childs rights to me.
Good idea: what about 99 year old man that you know is going to die tomorrow anyways? I still say nah.
For instance, an example that came up in one of your other threads: Would you lie to the Gestapo about Jews hiding in your house?
Quoting Bob Ross
I'll read it when I get a chance. This seems to be a problematic case for utilitarianism, and consequentialism in general. What if the benefit for the 99% exceeds the harm done to the 1%? Would that make it ok? I think not. But your case goes the other way. The harm done to all humanity grossly exceeds the harm done to the child.
Quoting Bob Ross
But what of the rights of everyone else? Are you not maximally violating the rights of every person on earth, by making the decision to preserve the child?
Consequentialism comes in a very wide variety of forms: from the proof is in the pudding type mentality that can be used as evidence that might makes right (with its associated potential atrocities) to notions such as that of karma (which at base is about cause and consequence).
Having touched upon that:
Of what good is deontology if it doesnt produce good results, i.e. good consequences? If no satisfactory answer can be given to this question other than that of affirming it to be good on account of its good consequences, then deontology (as can then be likewise said of virtue ethics and so forth) will itself be a form of consequentialism broadly defined.
Of course, this is not to confuse all forms of consequentialism as being forms of utilitarianism (which can itself be understood in different ways).
BTW, the OP gives a nifty thought experiment. At this juncture, Ill simply object to its supposition of necessity. I cant yet fathom any logical scenario irrespective of possible worlds - wherein it is necessary that an innocent being A be perpetually tortured so as to grant all other beings the opportunity to live, and this in a utopian state no less (other than it being so ordained by a not so nice omnipotent deity, kind of thing; but then I don't deem omnipotent deities to be logically possible to begin with ... different topic though).
(Edit: made some typos, now corrected.)
Yes, because they have forfeited their right to be told the truth by actively engaging in the violation of other peoples rights: I dont see how this is incompatible with deontology, although certainly incompatible with Kantianism (or at least its original formulation).
I would say no. Theres a difference between violating someones rights (which requires active participation therein) and letting someones rights get violated (which is an inactive, passive, allowing of it to happen). In the latter, one is not morally blameworthy; whereas in the former they are.
If my child is about to get run over by a car and I save them by pushing you in the way, then I have actively participated in the violation of your rights, and are blameworthy for that violation. If I let my child get run over because the only way would have been to push you in the way but I refrained, then I am not, all else being equal, morally blameworthy for my child getting run over: it is the drunk driver, or what not, that is presumably at fault (all else being equal). No one would say why didnt you sacrifice that other person by shoving them in the way to save your child?.
Same with not killing the child to stop the immanent death of all people: I am not blameworthy for whatever event is going to wipeout the human populationI am not killing everyonebut I am at fault if I kill that child.
True, and they all have to contend with similar issues like this thought experiment in the OP.
Deontology is exactly not consequentialism: if a deontologist cites the consequences as the kernel of why they thought something was moral/immoral, then they are not a deontologist. Good is measured in deontology by intentions towards ones duties and not the consequences they bring about. Consequences can help inform deontological decisions, but they are not what makes something good or bad.
This is not a valid response: it is not a false dilemmathat is why it is a thought experiment. If I say hypothetical if you had to choose A or B, which would you choose? and you answer neither, because I dont have to choose A or B then you have misunderstood the nature of hypothetical scenarios.
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.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is the trolley problem, and seems to be one of those cases where intuitions sharply differ. I am on the side of not considering the active/passive distinction, and I doubt I will be able to convince you. But consider:
[i]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.[/i]
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.
You asked for potential problems with deontology. Don't get me wrong. I've read up on deontology a bit. It's just that I so far find it lacking. 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, for one example. Going hand in hand with this, Harriet Tubman then being decried as immoral for not honoring the established duties of her slave-owning community but, instead, escaping slavery. All the same, if this avenue of reasoning doesn't matter, then never mind.
Here is Book II:
He is not arguing for a universal, objective right reason.
Okay, good exegesis!
@Bob Ross, Nicomachean does not condone moral perfection at the expense of the happiness of others.
Quoting Bob Ross
IMO, that's instrumental reasoning (re: things, i.e. means-to-ends) and not moral reasoning (re: persons, i.e. ends-in-themselves) which I'd sketched out in this old post mentioning Le Guin's "Omelas":
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/365307
It would factor in my moral reasoning. Not sure that would be enough to reach my conclusion though, Ill come back to this later.
Quoting Bob Ross
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 peoples 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?
Quoting Bob Ross
Quoting Bob Ross
But if the premises of your thought experiment are:
- your choice determines the fate of humanity
- the moral rule is something like do not sacrifice any life to save another for whatever reason in all possible scenarios (so it is neither permissible to sacrifice the remaining human species to save a child, nor to sacrifice a child to save the remaining human species)
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).
Quoting Bob Ross
Im reluctant to accept the distinction between consequentialism and deontology because Im not sure to find it intelligible. Sometimes we reason in terms of rules as it happens with non-moral rules, like when playing games according to conventional rules. Sometimes we reason in terms of consequences or instrumentally given certain goals. Other times we reason in terms of basic social norms: e.g. those related to human rights. But even basic social norms dont need to be intrinsically and unconditionally compelling. How would I identify such basic norms? In hierarchical terms, if I see other social norms based on them. And/or in temporary terms, if I see social norms that vary, while these are preserved. And/or in psychological terms, how they have been internalised: as default behaviour/habit or degree of readiness to willingly sacrifice at least ones or beloved ones comfort and life for the sake of it. Your deontological position seems to me focusing on cases testing such internalisation/commitment in some form toward other people as people. What I would find more interesting is to explicit the reasons for such internalisation/commitment and to what extent they are taken/expected to be universal.
Quoting Bob Ross
OK, take a more real life case: abortion.
- 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 wouldnt be blameworthy for it?
Quoting Bob Ross
You can at least draft arguments for why people must follow what you claim to be moral rules, cant you?
This story has been used for a long time to justify antinatalist arguments that refute consequential reasons for procreation that too easily dismiss the suffering of some for the many.
Given these are, either in restricted senses, or in other jurisdictions, completely legal, we have to accept that this is the case. People as means-to-ends seems imbedded in human interactions.
It seems 'morality' consists in the preventing ourselves from taking an advantage over those means as opposed to some form of co-operation.
Quoting Patterner
On some accounts... I don't really understand how Bob is getting his 'must's. I'm also awaiting that draft of why we should assent.
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 aggressors advances and deal justly with the consequences however they turned out.
Quoting NOS4A2Good 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.
I completely agree that Kantianism is counter-intuitive; but I was wondering about deontology in general. On this specific point, I think a deontologists, and even a neo-Kantian, can circumvent this example by appealing to rights forfeiture.
I like this. My intuition is that at least B is true. I am not advocating that a person should not save someone when it is of little cost to themselves on the grounds of letting it happen entails no culpability. 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. I am not culpable like the person who pushed that person into the water knowing they would drown: I didnt violate their rights. Perhaps me morally blaming me for going by instead of saving them at little cost to myself is contradictory to the letting vs actively participating in the violation of a person...not sure.
You cant control the consequences of ones actions but, rather, only ones intentions. Sure, if I am negligent in my reasoning and some bad consequent becomes of it, then I may be punished for it; but the point of deontology is that analyzing the consequences of an action doesnt relate to whether anything is good or bad: if you have a duty to not violate a persons rights, then what does it matter what consequences one calculates in relation to violating a persons rights to save another? It doesnt. You just cant do it: period.
I see your point though: shouldnt we at least analyze the reasonable consequences of our actions? Isnt it negligent to just focus on intentions? I sort of agree, but I dont think the deontologist is against using consequences to make inform decisions, they just disagree with determining what is good from it. I can determine that if I perform action X it will most likely result in saving this persons life and since I have a duty to uphold their sanctity, then I should do it. Notice that the consequence just informs the intention, but this is not the case in consequentialism.
I dont see how this is a critique of deontology. It is perhaps a contention with a deontological theory that I havent heard of, but deontology in general is not contended with here in your example (as far as I can tell). Most deontologists dont think we have a duty to just anything.
Interesting: I am leaning towards a virtue ethical theory myself. I just always thought Aristotelian ethics was a form of moral realism.
That is fair. I think deontologists usually mean it in the sense of their rights, and they dont consider those to be rights we have. So we cannot use a person as a means to an end is short-hand for you cannot violate their rights, whatever they may be.
This is the main reason I reject Kantian ethics. I dont think humans are all that special, and I think persons are objects of respect, which includes animals (or at least the vast majority of them). I just think it is permissible to kill them (as painlessly as possible and treated prior to death with respect) for the sake of our own health.
You are not blameworthy because the reason they will all die is out of your control and is there prior to your decision: you killing the child is an intervention to try and prevent the annihilation of the human species. You did not actively violate anyones rights by refusing to kill the child.
By analogy, imagine a pyschopath serial killer walks up to you, shows you sufficient evidence that they are torturing 12 people in their basement, tells you if you stab an innocent person that is walking by they will let the 12 people go, and lets say you know 100% they are telling the truth (so they will actually let them go if you stab that innocent person to death) and everything else is equal (so forget about calling the cops). Can you stab that innnocent person to save the 12? I say no. You are not blameworthy for what is happening to those 12 people: the serial killer is. You are, however, blameworthy if you stab that innocent person to death.
Analyzing consequences of actions or having duties to rules does not make one a consequentialist or deontologist respectively: the kernel of the view has to center around such.
This is a good thought experiment: the deontologist route would be yes. We cannot violate that kids right to exist because we anticipate it to die (or actually know with 100% certainty it will) shortly thereafter. A person is someone which we cannot violate (in terms of their rights). I see how this seems, though, like the right answer is kill the kid.
I would say that since I know in this scenario that the kid is going to die that I would go the consequentialist route, or at least my intuition leads me that way, but in practical life where I dont know it for certain I would say we cannot violate that persons rights because we dont actually know 100% they will die. Of course, that isnt relevant to the thought experiment you said.
This is also a good example. I would say kill one of them...so consequences win on this one.
I am still working on my normative ethics, and originally was going down the deontologist route; but I am now working on a virtue ethics account. I dont want to share that yet because it is too premature.
I didn't know that: interesting. Can you please elaborate?
Fair enough.
But that is just making it easy for yourself: all else being equal, you should not violate someone's rights.
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?
Prima facie, I would say slap him around, but, I am inclined to say no because this is how torturing people gets justified: where is the line we are drawing here? Can I slap him? Yes. Can I punch him? How many times? Can I just cut a bit of his flesh off? Is that too far?
Perhaps the answer is yes to slapping him, and it is just intuited from considering the balance between other people and the rights of that particular person. To me, I am starting to think there is no equation possible that accurately calculates right and wrong for every possible situation; and 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. Not sure yet, but that is a good thought experiment!
:up:
Quoting Bob Ross
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%.
Of course, there is no objective answer to how much to weigh injustice or any of the other factors. It ultimately must come down to human judgement. But I think it is the right framework.
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.
Unfair enough.
Absolutely yes. We torture our and kill our food every day for our own survival. Yet I still eat to live. 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.
You don't have to go to extremes. Just look how we live today.
My money would be on "Walk away".
Quoting Baden
I had a somewhat different take. She presented this city and its inhabitants in an overly idyllic way that belied this interpretation; these people were not cogs in a well-oiled machine, rather, their inner children were flourishing. To me, this was a riff on the kind of saccharine, Disneyfied utopias one encounters in children's entertainment. Why do we find these fantasies so unsatisfying? "Do you believe this?" Le Guin keeps asking. No, we do not. Why? "On whose backs does this blissful utopia rest?" our inner cynic asks. What is missing from these utopias is the pervasive moral corruption that the exploitation, necessary for such utopias, creates. Only when Le Guin provides this corruption, in the form of a single wretched child, that everyone knows about without explicitly acknowledging, can we, also denizens of a corrupted world, allow such a place to exist, even in our minds.
Do you think moral judgment in situ is more a matter of habit or "choice"?
Like Aristotleans, Epicureans, Stoics, Spinozists, Nietzscheans, Peircean-Deweyans et al, I say moral judgments are mostly matters of habit and that so-called "moral choosing" comes ex post facto (or in a speculative exercise / rehearsal).
addendum to ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/862582
Quoting Banno
:up:
Once I have it fleshed out, I will create a new discussionjust like my moral subjectivism discussion board. For now, I am just inquiring other peoples views and contemplating them.
It just seems wrong to be to violate someones rights to save other people, like in the 1 to 5 trolley example. However, depending on how you factor in injustice I may be able to get on board.
For example, what if a doctor has 100,000 super sick patients that are going to die insufferable deaths and the doctor knows that abducting, killing, and harvesting the organs of one innocent, healthy person (to transplant parts to the 100,000) would definitely save those sick patients: should they do it? To me, it doesnt matter how many sick patients there are: it is wrong to abduct, kill, and harvest the organs of that one personperiod.
I just don't have enough fleshed out yet, I am working on it and will share when it is substantive enough.
The intent to torture an animal is wrong, even if we end up eating it. We can kill and eat animals in ways that give them basic respect, which would involve not unnecessarily torturing them.
That is fair; but the intent to crush and torture a bug with no good reason behind it is wrong. Likewise, I dont think it is analogous to the OP because we were not talking about a bug: it is a human child.
Imagine that in order to walk on that sidewalk, instead of crushing a bug, you had to brutally pummel and crush a human child: I think now the answer is an emphatic YES. You cant really compare a bug or even eating pigs/cows to perpetually torturing a human being.
Yes, human society turns a blind eye to a lot of things: I dont see why we couldnt pollute (to some extent) without getting people sickthere has to be a way to do it that isnt killing people. However, this also isnt very analogous to the OP: 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 thats permissible to do? Does it depend on how many people you think will be saved from whatever you are manufacturing?
Yes, it does depend on how many people are saved, and a host of other factors. How many get sick? Does this sow distrust and chaos in society? There are a ton of factors.
At the end of the day I'm weighing the life of one child vs the lives of every other human being on this planet. The benefit vs cost is overwhelming in the case of torturing the child. Now, if we could also have humanity live and not torture a child? Sure. Just like if we could get the benefits we do in producing things minus the pollution. Or be able to eat animals without enacting any suffering on them at all.
Its not that we don't wish for a better situation, but the situation as given is the horrible outcome we must pick vs the even more horrible outcome of the elimination of the entire human race. This of course is all tantamount to "What is good?" Without an answer there, its just opinion vs opinion.
I like this, I will try and add it.
And refusing to vote on that, I can't vote at all.
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.
It depends on whether the "habits" we have built up over a lifetime are adequate to the situation or not. If the particular situation which requires judgement is easily analogous to previously learned moral rules, we might make the judgement without much conscious effort. But this is not always the case. I'm sure you can think of times in your life where moral judgement required a great deal of difficult, even agonizing deliberation. I'm guessing the op's dilemma be one of these times.
I genuinely have no clue what you are talking about: you are upset that I added in the question that is the essence of the OP? Both are very clear questions, and have nothing to do with justifying moral nihilism, so I don't see why you would have a problem answering them.
I see your line of thinking, but I think we could justify going to war under deontology which would preclude any justification for torturing a child to save us all.
Just as an example, a deontologist that believes that one does not have the duty to uphold the rights of a person who is engaged in the violation of other peoples' rights, which is usually called a principle of forfeiture, will have no problem going to war with people that have forfeited those rights. However, that innocent child has not done anything warranting forfeiture of their rights, and we would actually be the one forfeiting our rights by violating the child's.
This is the danger I see with consequentialism, is it gets people sucked into the view that 'the greater good is best' and blurs the lines of what a 'right' even is anymore and whether we actually have any.
Hey Banno...
I know we disagree, so just want to set aside the obvious disagreement here - I'm interested in how you envision one making the 'claim' (assumably, one that isn't prima facie wrong) yet 'pretend' to be nihilist? I understand you're saying that the experience of being transgressed against, as it were, presents essentially an hypocrisy, but i guess i'm interested in the psychology of that 'pretend' part. Do you think of it as a conscious hypocrisy or just a naivety?
Quoting AmadeusD
This is a clear question related to something you said. Would you mind answering it? If you don't want to, that's fine too.
Why would this not apply to young people who are conscripted (if not to voluntary soldiers)?
I would say that a draft is ethical under at least my original deontological theory because people implicitly consent to it via social contract. If a person is living completely sans a society and some random society tries to abduct them and draft them into their military, then that would be wrong. However, one is not using them as a means to an end in the sense that it is meant as a violation of a person because their participation in society is consent to defend it if need be. It also depends on why the draft is happening as well: is the society just going to war for the fun of it? Or is that society being attacked?
No, the child cannot consent to being tortured for society's sake; but I see your point and will have to think about it: if, let's say, it was an adult then they would have implicitly consented to potentially being 'drafted' to be the one tortured. That's a fair critique.
Hello Janus,
I agree that most people dont know what they implicitly consent to unless it relevant to their every day-to-day lives; but my thing is that conscription to the military seems fair (to me) if it is for self-defense style wars because adults in the society are benefiting from the protection and help of that societyso why wouldnt they be obligated to defend it?
Defending your society if invaded is a very different matter than conscription to fight in wars that are based on political alliances. The point really is that just because some ethos is entrenched in societal law, on what we might want to refer to as " the social contract", it certainly does not seem to follow that it is therefore somehow objectively, or even inter-subjectively, validated.
Hello Janus,
Thats fair. I was speaking more towards justified wars, and I dont consider (necessarily) political wars to be justified.
In reality, many societies used sacrifice, including numerous child sacrifices, to insure their continuing prosperity. In reality, our own society owes its prosperity, to a very large degree, on creating marginal or untenable conditions for peoples far away and by actively torturing or incidentally endangering helpless animals. We don't seem to object: just buy the coffee, the latest cellphone, performance-enhancing medication, the ivory carving, cheap shoes and beauty products. If the displaced people migrate to our borders, we incarcerate or shoot them. If the animals become rare, we make a fetish of eating their flesh, wearing their skin, mounting their heads on trophies.
What's one kid, when we do 10,000 a day as a matter of routine?
Why is Business as Usual an ethical question only when framed as a thought-experiments that costs nothing to engage?
This is a fair critique of modern society, but I would equally say that child (essential slave) labor in underdeveloped countries for the sake of affordable products in developed countries is also immoral. Your argument seems to be: we do something wrong that is similar, so why not just do more wrong? Two wrongs do not make a right.
Also, I saw what @Vera Mont posted as demonstrating the child's plight in "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" is not inherently different than the plight of those we oppress in order to enjoy our accustomed lifestyles; I did not take her to be claiming, or even suggesting, that any of it is morally right.
Perhaps I misread it.
True. I concede that point.
Not at all: it was wrong in my book when the Incas did it, and it's wrong now.
But it only ever appears as a "serious" ethical question in an environment untainted by by politics or economics, in a purely theoretical context, far from the participants' daily experience.
Never, never as a practical question posed to those with any power to alter the situation.
Afterthought: No, that's not true. It is asked in practical terms; executives and decision-makers are challenged from time to time. The standard result is an ad campaign about the company's 'ethical investments' or 'fair trade' product, but the power remains steeply tilted toward the owner/consumer nations, who continue to support whichever foreign dictators can keep their people meek and productive. Closer to home, we are aware how many are homeless, hungry and without adequate medical care; we know the conditions in which factory-farmed animals live ... but, but, but we cannot upset the The Holy Economy.
We are simply not, collectively, willing to give up our comfort and convenience.
We are a species of self-interested hypocrites,
the best example of which is Christianity, wherein 2.5 billion people currently subscribe to the idea that's it's virtuous to accept the torture and sacrifice of one innocent for all of them to be forgiven sins they had not yet committed at the time of that sacrifice
and I can't imagine that changing within the available time-frame.
Fair enough!