Over the past year, I have learned a lot about ethics. It seems a subject that is not very widely taught, at least to teenagers. There are two approaches to it that I would like to outline.
The first is known as utilitarianism. The proponents of it believe that the worth of an act results from the consequence of the act. Thus, if a train will kill five people who are tied to its track, but can be shifted to another track with only one person tied up, it is morally right to shift the train. You have a better consequence (5 lives saved and 1 death) versus the alternative (1 life saved and 5 deaths). The act does not matter, but the result does. Another example would be stealing food to save a starving person. The end justifies the means.
The other approach to ethics is called deontology. It judges the act based on how it follows rules, so they believe that that some actions are wrong regardless of the outcome. Most religions follow deontology, with various codes of behavior like the 10 Commandments. If God commanded an action, then it should be preformed because it is a duty.
Most people believe it would be wrong to kill a person to harvest his organs in order to save the lives of five others, but how is that different from the trolley scenario? Deontologists believe that the difference is respecting the rights of individuals.
very nice article however as most of the times with life things are not black and white most of the time it seems that the ethical standpoint is based on the circumstances that a person is forced to make a ethical decision under.
ReplyDeleteCannibalism is justified under the utilitarianism ideals. I just want to point that out.
ReplyDeleteVery intriguing, Colin. Very zesty. I do have a question, however. What if the 5 people on the train were your closest family, and the one person was a total stranger? Wouldnt that affect the outcome? And Mr. Socks, why did you bring up cannibalism? Is there something we need to talk about?
ReplyDeleteno because if getting the nutrients needed involves eating your best friend then it is utilitarianism but like i said it depends on your situation if there is a alternative you wouldn't eat someone else if you were in the dessert and your friend was dead and there was no other food for a hundred miles then i would definitely eat your dead body Danial and i would hope you would do likewise to save yourself because honestly its a waste if not
ReplyDeletebut now we come back to ethics and religion. if you value the body of your friend as sacred because he is deceased, then it would be morally wrong to devour his body. although ethics and morals are similar, they have their differences and it depends on which one you value more. i would rather die than eat my best friends body to survive long enough to just die again. its just not worth it
ReplyDeleteI believe so, Mr. Gato. Most people would save the five, I think. The hard part with deontology would be if one man was going to destroy the world and everyone in it, would it be acceptable to kill him to stop it?
ReplyDeleteWhy is the one man so angry at the world? We shouldn't fall into the trap of developing systems that solve for ultimatums and disasters, we should devise a system that solves for causes, and makes it so such an occurrence will never happen.
ReplyDeleteMr. Socks has a point, these are situations that will probably never happen. And Mr. Awesome, your comment brings me back to a situation like this. In 1972 in Uruguay, a rugby team's plane crashed in the Andes. 45 people were on the plane, and the only people to survive were the ones that ate their dead friends. Now if they had a strong moral passion against cannibalism, they wouldnt survive. If they didnt eat their friends, who would win? Nobody, of course. But i believe that 9 out of 10 people would eat a human body to survive because they are staring death in the face.
ReplyDeleteThat is a beautiful point, Mr Socks. How can you claim that destroying that murder is 'wrong' when you will just as quickly kill him? And because of that I think utilitarianism is the worst path the world could follow.
ReplyDeleteBut, el gato, would surviving be worth it if you knew your friend's resting place was your own intestines?
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