Moral dilemmas

[Angrboda]

Spock: He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.

— Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan


The sins of omission are the hardest to prosecute.

“One should not as a rule reveal one’s secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again.”
— Joseph Goebbels, Churchill's Lie Factory, 1941

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn't comply with the guard, regardless of who I was supposed to help them hang or kill (even if i didn't like the motherfucker at the end of the noose). Your supposed to make life more difficult for your captors, not aide them in their dirty little business.

[Brian37]

One physcological moral delima often brought up in psychology classes and articals, one I read in Newsweek a few years goes something like this. The point of the article is that there in many cases cannot be a wrong answer.

But paraphrazing the example would go something like this:

There is a speeding individual train car that has disconected from the rest of the train with faild breaks about to pass under a bridge you and a fat guy are standing on. If you push the fat guy off the bridge, it will stop the train and save the 50 people in the car, but the fat guy dies. Or you don't push the guy onto the tracks the 50 people fly off the rails and over a cliff and die, but you don't kill the fat guy. What do you do?

Neither is wrong because the future is still a crap shoot. Say you don't push that fat guy, the 50 die, and then that fat guy goes on to be a cerial killer. Or you do push him, but one of the 50 you save is a kid who grows up to be a ceerial killer.


Now, as much as I hated Bush, if he had been able to get the fighter jets in the air before the planes hit the towers I would have given the order myself to shoot down those passenger Airliners. It would have sucked, but less people would have died.

The purpose of this thought experiment is to demonstrate that morals cannot be absolute and can only be taken on a case by case basis.

[downbeatplumb]

I wouldn't comply with the guard, regardless of who I was supposed to help them hang or kill (even if i didn't like the motherfucker at the end of the noose). Your supposed to make life more difficult for your captors, not aide them in their dirty little business.

Sometimes you just don't have a choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando

[Angrboda]

One physcological moral delima often brought up in psychology classes and articals, one I read in Newsweek a few years goes something like this. The point of the article is that there in many cases cannot be a wrong answer.

But paraphrazing the example would go something like this:

There is a speeding individual train car that has disconected from the rest of the train with faild breaks about to pass under a bridge you and a fat guy are standing on. If you push the fat guy off the bridge, it will stop the train and save the 50 people in the car, but the fat guy dies. Or you don't push the guy onto the tracks the 50 people fly off the rails and over a cliff and die, but you don't kill the fat guy. What do you do?

Neither is wrong because the future is still a crap shoot. Say you don't push that fat guy, the 50 die, and then that fat guy goes on to be a cerial killer. Or you do push him, but one of the 50 you save is a kid who grows up to be a ceerial killer.

You have critically misunderstood the nature of the hypothetical in question. In the actual example, the choice is between, a) you are standing by a switch, throwing the switch will divert the train away from killing 5 people and only end up killing 1 (5 people on one track, one person on the other), or, b) pushing a fat guy off a bridge, where he lands on the track, causing the train to stop, thus preventing the death of 5 people further down the track.

The stated point is, that while both throwing the switch and pushing the guy result in identical outcomes (five people saved, one person killed), we have very different moral intuitions about each. Throwing the switch is an easy decision to make. Intentionally pushing someone to their death is not as easy to do (either psychologically, or physically). If the result is the same, why do our minds react to the two as being very different. That is the mystery.

I would argue that the principle of mutatis mutandis has been violated, and the situations are not in fact sufficiently similar in act and outcome for a ceteris paribus to be acknowledged. Imo, the situations aren't sufficiently identical. Still, that's not to say we could not construct a successful hypothetical of this sort in which it was. It seems clear that not pure "rational" outcomes are what feeds the moral bulldog.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn't comply with the guard, regardless of who I was supposed to help them hang or kill (even if i didn't like the motherfucker at the end of the noose). Your supposed to make life more difficult for your captors, not aide them in their dirty little business.

Sometimes you just don't have a choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando

I'd be one of the fuckers in the grave. It's not a judgement on what others might do, or did do (at least not a binding one that should be given any credence beyond the arena of my own opinions). No suicide, no digging of graves. I'd want to be there consuming resources (including personnel and time - and ultimately...if nothing else, a bullet) as much as possible, if no other option was open.

[Brian37]

One physcological moral delima often brought up in psychology classes and articals, one I read in Newsweek a few years goes something like this. The point of the article is that there in many cases cannot be a wrong answer.

But paraphrazing the example would go something like this:

There is a speeding individual train car that has disconected from the rest of the train with faild breaks about to pass under a bridge you and a fat guy are standing on. If you push the fat guy off the bridge, it will stop the train and save the 50 people in the car, but the fat guy dies. Or you don't push the guy onto the tracks the 50 people fly off the rails and over a cliff and die, but you don't kill the fat guy. What do you do?

Neither is wrong because the future is still a crap shoot. Say you don't push that fat guy, the 50 die, and then that fat guy goes on to be a cerial killer. Or you do push him, but one of the 50 you save is a kid who grows up to be a ceerial killer.

You have critically misunderstood the nature of the hypothetical in question. In the actual example, the choice is between, a) you are standing by a switch, throwing the switch will divert the train away from killing 5 people and only end up killing 1 (5 people on one track, one person on the other), or, b) pushing a fat guy off a bridge, where he lands on the track, causing the train to stop, thus preventing the death of 5 people further down the track.

The stated point is, that while both throwing the switch and pushing the guy result in identical outcomes (five people saved, one person killed), we have very different moral intuitions about each. Throwing the switch is an easy decision to make. Intentionally pushing someone to their death is not as easy to do (either psychologically, or physically). If the result is the same, why do our minds react to the two as being very different. That is the mystery.

I would argue that the principle of mutatis mutandis has been violated, and the situations are not in fact sufficiently similar in act and outcome for a ceteris paribus to be acknowledged. Imo, the situations aren't sufficiently identical. Still, that's not to say we could not construct a successful hypothetical of this sort in which it was. It seems clear that not pure "rational" outcomes are what feeds the moral bulldog.

If the result is the same, why do our minds react to the two as being very different. That is the mystery.

Ok you are arguing details when we came to the same conclusion. There is no right answer and that is why humans react differently.

Most people would say that aborting Hitler at birth would have saved lives but these same people can be anti abortion.

There simply in this example, and you quoted it as stated where as I was going on recolection, still no way one can determine the future outcome of such dicisions.

It is safe to say compassionate people would not want to be put in such life or death dicision making pulling the switch or not pulling it, pushing the guy off the bridge or not.

But evolution has always produced life and death situations and we are constantly conflicted. It always boils down mostly to we can say on the sidlines what we would do. But the reality is no one really knows how they will react untill or unless they are in reality put in a real life situation.

Ultimately it is simply saying there is a huge grey area.

[genkaus]

Post dilemmas and your view on the most moral action. When replying, please make it clear which dilemma your comment relates to. I hope this thread can help people explore relative vs absolute and secular vs religious morals.

You know, there is a common recurring themes in all these so called moral dilemmas - the actual right choice is never an option. The situations presented are not ones that a common man would find himself in. And yet, we'd consider whatever the "less" wrong choice would be in that case as a basis for our day to day morality.

Dilemma 1. A Father's Agonizing Choice
You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

---

Re concentration camp. Pull the chair out. :-(

Let's consider the the facts here:
- the son is going to die, whether or not the father pulls out the chair or not.
- the father, not having any relation with the other inmate is under no obligation to save his life.

The right option here would have been to find a way to save the son - but that's not on the table. Failing that, the best the father could do is make the choice he'd find easier to live with which would then depend on his own mentality and beliefs and thus cannot be dictated by another person.

If he can come to terms with the fact that his son's death is not going to be his fault and neither is the bystander's and yet he believes that preserving that innocent life could be of value, then he should pull the chair.

If he cannot live with the idea of cooperating with his son's murderers and being an participant in the murder himself, then he should refuse. Even so, the blame for the bystander's death does not lie with him. Personally, this would be my choice.

---

2. Writing the history. This interests me because I'm not sure what I would do, even though I can rationalize the choices. I thought this up after noticing the inconsistencies in certain "official history" compared to what anyone can now read up on the Internet.
You are from a small country with its own language. There are no notable history books written about this country. You have been commissioned to write the official history book which you know will be used in all schools, and will be translated into major languages for sale globally. Whatever anyone else writes, you are confident that your version of history will be the dominant one. However,... There is an episode in your national history that is hardly talked about and no one in your country is proud of. Genocide, abuse, something considered immoral and embarrassing. Do you a) include it fully b) gloss over it c) exclude it?

Include it fully, ofcourse. Pursuant to the obligation you have undertaken - that of recording the history - your primary moral obligation as a historian is to record it truthfully and meticulously to the best of your ability. If there is a conflict of interest due to your sense of some nationalistic morality, then you should not have undertaken the job in the first place.

Also, to what extent is your own personal opinion of the morality of the episode factor in vs the collective /prevailing national sense of morality?

Actually, neither should be a factor here. When you undertake a job, there are some moral obligations that come with it. If the job requires you to be conflicted with your personal morality (or collective morality which you have also chosen to uphold), then either you must find a way to factor them out or bow out.

[Doubting_Thomas]

- the father, not having any relation with the other inmate is under no obligation to save his life.

What has blood relation got to do with the morality of the situation? We are most of us more motivated to protect our relatives than strangers, but that's instinct not morality (?).

[IATIA]

IATIA, you might have missed the bit about the consequences

The boy will die anyway, so that leaves the question of, should I be a killer or not. In this situation, I do not feel I am saving anybody. Not the boy obviously, maybe death is better than the camp for the other.

My wording may have been a bit fuzzy, but I missed nothing.

Kid dies anyway; First bold.

Second person dies; Second bold.

Someone is going to die, but not by my hand (unless, of course I can get the upper hand on the gurads). In this case, I do not feel omission of action is unjustified or murder.