RE: Moral Obligations toward Possible Worlds
May 8, 2021 at 11:18 am
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2021 at 11:37 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Isn't it possible for a person to want something very much and for that thing to be bad? With respect to assisted suicide, the moral nature of the thing -in some systems- is not equivalent between the two moral agents in the relationship. A person wanting to die may not be bad - but another person willing to kill them - or a society willing to do so, could be. We could repeat the same for abortions or for environmental activism. Another thing that might be working on our conclusions here, is that the setup rules out doing good things and asks us to consider whether there's a difference between two bad things. Presumably, there are many, but two bad things with many differences are both similar in being bad things. The good thing to do -again in some systems- would be to eliminate their pain without eliminating their life..and it's only when circumstances dictate that this is impossible when we begin to consider the alternatives from an exclusively sub-optimal list. Do we let the man suffer, or kill him?
Here's a fun one. Is it our moral responsibility to kill the man? Would we be considered bad people for refusing to kill a person begging for the mercy of death? I'd suspect that even people who can see the moral argument for assisted suicide will stop long before the point where that moral argument for the sufferers desires extends to the responsibilities of the man with the knife. Individual petitions will be more or less compelling based on the feelings that the assistant has for the sufferer rather than the state or assumption of a given moral postulate held apprehended or constructed by either person. "Do it for me", I think, can be expected to work better than "do it because it's the right thing to do". In alot of those cases, the person doing it might end up having severe misgivings about it, and do it anyway. I doubt that the person who smothers granny with a pillow, for her own good, will tell that story often at the water cooler.
Here's a fun one. Is it our moral responsibility to kill the man? Would we be considered bad people for refusing to kill a person begging for the mercy of death? I'd suspect that even people who can see the moral argument for assisted suicide will stop long before the point where that moral argument for the sufferers desires extends to the responsibilities of the man with the knife. Individual petitions will be more or less compelling based on the feelings that the assistant has for the sufferer rather than the state or assumption of a given moral postulate held apprehended or constructed by either person. "Do it for me", I think, can be expected to work better than "do it because it's the right thing to do". In alot of those cases, the person doing it might end up having severe misgivings about it, and do it anyway. I doubt that the person who smothers granny with a pillow, for her own good, will tell that story often at the water cooler.
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