I think that, in your scenario, most reasonable people would say the guy with the babies tied to him (lol!) would be liable for their deaths as he was the one that purposefully put them at risk. That's why I tried to change the original trolley case to remove the evil philosopher tying the guys to the tracks, but that the people just happened to be on the tracks (we don't know why).
JonBostwick: Richard A Garner: . However, one can revise the scenario such that B has an even bigger bomb that would kill far more people in the crowd if he threw it at A. In this case, the doctrine of double effect seems to justify A throwing his bomb at B. I disagree. The premise assumes that individuals have perfect knowledge of the future. I have no way of truly knowing how someone else will act or if my actions achieve a smaller amount of damage.
Richard A Garner: . However, one can revise the scenario such that B has an even bigger bomb that would kill far more people in the crowd if he threw it at A. In this case, the doctrine of double effect seems to justify A throwing his bomb at B.
. However, one can revise the scenario such that B has an even bigger bomb that would kill far more people in the crowd if he threw it at A. In this case, the doctrine of double effect seems to justify A throwing his bomb at B.
I disagree.
The premise assumes that individuals have perfect knowledge of the future. I have no way of truly knowing how someone else will act or if my actions achieve a smaller amount of damage.
Perfect knowledge is not required - some knowledge is. Human action in a social environment would be impossible unless people were able to be reasonably sure, if not 100% certain, how other people would act.
Richard A Garner:However, this seems to violate rights. If, then, we may never violate rights, then how would a libertarian solve the trolley problem? I don't think the trolley problem has enough information to be solved from a libertarian perspective because the scenario does not address the issue of property, and property rights are the source of all other rights.
Richard A Garner:However, this seems to violate rights. If, then, we may never violate rights, then how would a libertarian solve the trolley problem?
I don't think the trolley problem has enough information to be solved from a libertarian perspective because the scenario does not address the issue of property, and property rights are the source of all other rights.
People own themselves. Killing them may well by thought of as a violation of their property rights, then. Property is plainly addressed.
JonBostwick: Ego: Does that mean that it becomes immoral to stop him? Does that mean that I become an aggressor if I shoot and kill him (of course, killing at least one of the babies as well). I think if an agressor creates a situation where innocent life must be lost in order to stop him/her, any life lost should be blamed squarely on the aggressor. If I use a nuclear bomb to stop the man, killing him, the babies, and the entire city, should that be blamed on the aggressor? As I previously said, I have a right to defend myself but I do not have a right to sacrifice others in order to do so. If innocent life is going to be lost whether the man is stopped or not whats so desireable about stopping him?
Ego: Does that mean that it becomes immoral to stop him? Does that mean that I become an aggressor if I shoot and kill him (of course, killing at least one of the babies as well). I think if an agressor creates a situation where innocent life must be lost in order to stop him/her, any life lost should be blamed squarely on the aggressor.
Does that mean that it becomes immoral to stop him? Does that mean that I become an aggressor if I shoot and kill him (of course, killing at least one of the babies as well).
I think if an agressor creates a situation where innocent life must be lost in order to stop him/her, any life lost should be blamed squarely on the aggressor.
If I use a nuclear bomb to stop the man, killing him, the babies, and the entire city, should that be blamed on the aggressor?
As I previously said, I have a right to defend myself but I do not have a right to sacrifice others in order to do so.
If innocent life is going to be lost whether the man is stopped or not whats so desireable about stopping him?
The scenario's are not analogous: Using a nuclear bomb to save the few people the gunner would kill is not proportionate, using a rifle to shoot a few sufficient babies to be able to take the gunner out is: In Ego's example, you kill a few to save a few more. In yours, you kill many in order to save a few.
Ego:No one is saying to use a nuclear bomb to stop him; you have to try to minimize the loss of innocent life. So whats most moral is whatever achieves the fewest deaths?
Ego:No one is saying to use a nuclear bomb to stop him; you have to try to minimize the loss of innocent life.
So whats most moral is whatever achieves the fewest deaths?
Not in the scenarios as I set them up, as can be seen by the differences between pulling the switch in the trolley case, but not pushing the fat man in the second case or butchering the traveller in the third case.
Ego: I hold a gun to your head and inform you that unless you kill a particular person, I'll kill you. You kill that particular person. Who gets charged with murder?
I hold a gun to your head and inform you that unless you kill a particular person, I'll kill you.
You kill that particular person.
Who gets charged with murder?
The scenario is not analogous to the trolley case, but to the pushing the fat man case. In the trolley case you action (pulling the switch) kills the single person. However, you did not intend their death, and their death was not the means to save the five other people. In your example, though, if I kill someone because you have a gun to my head telling me to, the death of the other is something I intend, and their death is the means by which I save myself.
Grant: IMO, this scenario highlights a limitation in traditional natural rights ethics. Can we say that the presence of a villain alters the preferred outcome? Why? If the cause of the problem is a conscious decision as opposed to an engineering mistake, why does that alter what the 'best' outcome is? What if the villain is a qualia-less zombie or machine AI?
IMO, this scenario highlights a limitation in traditional natural rights ethics. Can we say that the presence of a villain alters the preferred outcome? Why? If the cause of the problem is a conscious decision as opposed to an engineering mistake, why does that alter what the 'best' outcome is? What if the villain is a qualia-less zombie or machine AI?
Good question. Or, what if the people were on the tracks because they were backing off from prowling tigers. We don't normally assign moral responsibility to animals, so the animals cannot be blamed for purposefully constructing the set up, unlike the evil professor.
I'm not sure that this undermines traditional rights theory, it just means that rights theory is more complex and multi-facetted if it is to account for people's moral intutions in cases like these.
Brainpolice: In all of these scenarios, noone has a positive obligation to do anything.
In all of these scenarios, noone has a positive obligation to do anything.
That would suggest that not saving the five people would be moral? How can you square that with people's moral intutions?
It is one thing to say that the people involved have no right that you save them, and so you have no obligation correlative to that right. But, unless you can show that all obligations to others are correlative to rights that they hold against you, it is quite another to say that you have no obligations to help them that are not correlative to any right they hold against you.
I suppose doing nothing would in fact be better than doing something in the case of pulling the switch. In the case of pulling it one has now caused a death to take place. In the case of doing nothing, one has eschewed no obligations that they can be said to have.
Duress removes moral culpability from the one, yet it does not remove the rights of the current possessor to defend himself and what he owns. Not as simple a world as some would like, but the one I think exists nonetheless.
Surely the rights-violator would at least owe the victim compensation?
Grant, at best the natural sciences can tell us what phenomena occur when we engage in ethicizing. Facts cannot speak for themselves though, and this is perhaps why Kant was so intent on stressing that morality must be known a priori. All the natural sciences can reveal is which internal bodily functions coincide with which actions we take. If I recall correctly, Steven Pinker associates cognitive as well as emotive facets of the brain as active when engaging in moral reasoning. But such explanatory accounts of what morality consists in biologically, how it arose &c. are of little use in grappling with it. Conceptual work is necessary to resolve the issue of what morality is, exactly, if we are to achieve more than mere correlation. I agree with Richard's counter on natural rights.
-Jon
I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools. Irenicus' Diaries.
Ego:Let's say that a man walks into a local daycare, weapons drawn, and proceeds to tie several of the babies to his legs, torso, arms, and head in a manner that made it nearly impossible to kill him without killing one of the babies (not to mention what happens if his dead body were to hit the ground).
This is so funny and disturbing for a Monday morning.
I would make a great bureaucrat. Wanna see? Click here. It's fun.
liberty student: This is so funny and disturbing for a Monday morning.
Lol. definetly.
...And nobody has ever taught you how to live out on the street, But now you're gonna have to get used to it...
equack:You are still the murderer as in both cases, you have decided with your own free will to coerce another individual. It does not matter what forces have caused you to commit murder, you have still committed the act.
Well, now, free will is a thorny idea, is it not? Is a woman who acquiesces to sex under threat of death not raped because that was her free will? Since we seem to be using examples of strapping ridiculous things to ourselves, ought the Somalian, watching his children die of starvation, stand by idly while a fat European, wearing a jumper made of donuts, skips merrily through, refusing to part with a single one? I know many here will say yes. Yet I think the ethics of civilized man operate only in civilization. When people starve, when killers threaten, we have lost civilization, and are now dealing with a primal and animal situation. We are animals, just as we are men, and while it is very nice and convenient for people to moralize from an armchair for those facing death, I am unconvinced that it is legitimate.
You are still the murderer as in both cases, you have decided with your own free will to coerce another individual. It does not matter what forces have caused you to commit murder, you have still committed the act. As towards claims that you were acting in self-defense since you could still live if you murdered Smith when Jones put a gun to your head, you weren't. For it to be self-defense, you would need to combat Jones' aggression. Thus, its always and still be murder in those situations.
I can't agree with any of this. It's not fair to claim that someone acted in free will when he/she is being subjected to torture. In that case, the real agressor is the coercer, and that's who should be charged with the crime.
Ignoring whether or not you want the coerced to be charged with the crime, do you want the coercer to be charged with the crime?
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
JCFolsom: equack:You are still the murderer as in both cases, you have decided with your own free will to coerce another individual. It does not matter what forces have caused you to commit murder, you have still committed the act. Well, now, free will is a thorny idea, is it not? Is a woman who acquiesces to sex under threat of death not raped because that was her free will? Since we seem to be using examples of strapping ridiculous things to ourselves, ought the Somalian, watching his children die of starvation, stand by idly while a fat European, wearing a jumper made of donuts, skips merrily through, refusing to part with a single one? I know many here will say yes. Yet I think the ethics of civilized man operate only in civilization. When people starve, when killers threaten, we have lost civilization, and are now dealing with a primal and animal situation. We are animals, just as we are men, and while it is very nice and convenient for people to moralize from an armchair for those facing death, I am unconvinced that it is legitimate.
Those are all straw man arguments. Obviously the women was coerced into having sex under threat of force which goes against the whole idea behind libertarianism.
But that's beside the point. You're using the same logic as the statists - we must sacrifice the individual to benefit the masses. That kind of thinking leads us down a long and slippery slope not to mention that it isn't compatible with libertarianism at all.
justinx0r:You're using the same logic as the statists - we must sacrifice the individual to benefit the masses. That kind of thinking leads us down a long and slippery slope and isn't compatible with libertarianism at all.
On the contrary, it is you who asks the individual to sacrifice his life to preserve the smooth operations of the contractural society. I do not propose that one who is hired to steal (as if a starving person has the resources to do so) for a starving man is right to do so, but only the party who is actually operating under coercion.
JCFolsom:Yet I think the ethics of civilized man operate only in civilizat