RE: Trolley Problem/Consistency in Ethics
January 24, 2018 at 1:46 pm
(This post was last modified: January 24, 2018 at 1:58 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
I agree with Steve, somewhat, until he starts rambling about "totally naturalistic this or thats" as a symptom of his compulsions.
An organ harvesting doctor who becomes the cause of death directly for one to save many has not stumbled upon anything. Further, he has a consequentialist duty to -be- a doctor, rather than play angel of death. Imagine the state of medicine and the world when going to a hospital with stomach pain gets you eyed as a bodyfarm for other sick people rather than medical attention. There are always his own organs to consider. Death..in his example, is a slow moving trolley and he has a decidedly more ethical option from among a field of exclusively suboptimal solutions. He could choose to kill one to save five...or he could heal the patient and then forfeit his own life to kill one and save six. Tell me, from a consequentialist standpoint which is a better trade for 1 life, 5 or 6?
In the trolley example..the switch thrower does not have the option of forfeiting his own life to save others. He does still have a normative consequentialist duty, as the doctor does, to try and save people. In this, the choice to save five over one is to seek the best possible outcome in his field of exclusively sub-optimal solutions. If we propose that this were the same person in two different situations in their life it;s easy to see that in saving five in the trolley example a person is being consistent with their consequentialist ethics.,..but having had their moral agency compromised by mortality has chosen a course of action in body farming quantitatively less optimal in killing 1 to save 5 rather than killing 1 and saving 6.
In the one, the subject could do no better. In the other, he has failed by degree and made himself a murderer in the process.
An organ harvesting doctor who becomes the cause of death directly for one to save many has not stumbled upon anything. Further, he has a consequentialist duty to -be- a doctor, rather than play angel of death. Imagine the state of medicine and the world when going to a hospital with stomach pain gets you eyed as a bodyfarm for other sick people rather than medical attention. There are always his own organs to consider. Death..in his example, is a slow moving trolley and he has a decidedly more ethical option from among a field of exclusively suboptimal solutions. He could choose to kill one to save five...or he could heal the patient and then forfeit his own life to kill one and save six. Tell me, from a consequentialist standpoint which is a better trade for 1 life, 5 or 6?
In the trolley example..the switch thrower does not have the option of forfeiting his own life to save others. He does still have a normative consequentialist duty, as the doctor does, to try and save people. In this, the choice to save five over one is to seek the best possible outcome in his field of exclusively sub-optimal solutions. If we propose that this were the same person in two different situations in their life it;s easy to see that in saving five in the trolley example a person is being consistent with their consequentialist ethics.,..but having had their moral agency compromised by mortality has chosen a course of action in body farming quantitatively less optimal in killing 1 to save 5 rather than killing 1 and saving 6.
In the one, the subject could do no better. In the other, he has failed by degree and made himself a murderer in the process.
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