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> When those two instincts are at odds it causes this moral dilemma. We will not push the fat man but we will pull the lever. I think you've actually got close

> When those two instincts are at odds it causes this moral dilemma. We will not push the fat man but we will pull the lever. I think you've actually got close to the issue, but obscured it by referring to the action as "directly kill". The real issue, as I see it, isn't to it's the choice of killing to save, it's about being complicit in that person's death. By choosing to do nothing, your conscience is clear because although you might have saved some people from dying by taking action, you haven't done anything to cause the death. I think most people would still feel morally guilty for not acting, however if you had chosen to kill someone, even if it saved others, you could be found legally guilty for murder if it went to court. Part of the point of having so many different variations of this problem is that it allows you to probe the edges of your own value system. For instance, the variant with the plane that's lost power and is going to crash somewhere, the pilot choosing to go to somewhere less populated isn't choosing to kill anyone, they're trying to minimise risk by aiming for somewhere that's generally less populated. By going for a less populated area, there's more chance that they might be able to even avoid any ground deaths, and even better, more likely they could find somewhere where the landing might be gentler and minimise on-board deaths too. But in any case, even if this went to court, it'd be manslaughter rather than murder, because there weren't any individuals that he had identified and decided that their deaths were acceptable. Personally, I'm not sure I'd even pull the lever knowing that it would take someone's life because for me the moral guilt of participating in one innocent person's death would be worse than the moral guilt of not saving a larger number of other innocent people's deaths. It'd be a different situation if it was a choice of e.g. one armed person and 5 potential victims, but even then I don't think I would be able to choose to kill the aggressor and would only take action if there was a non-lethal option for incapacitating them that didn't put me at great risk of also becoming a victim. Obviously, the real solution if there was sufficient time, is to summon the police and let them take the moral and legal decision and consequences for it.

corethree 3y ago
>Part of the point of having so many different variations of this problem is that it allows you to probe the edges of your own value system. No the point isn't to probe your value system in this way. There are two points to this. 1. The first point is to show inconsistency and irrationality within morality itself. It's to show how random and arbitrary these moral instincts are. 2. Given how consistent the choice is across populations it shows that our moral system is biological. An irrational and inconsistent set of instincts that is biological and genetic as the situation has the same response across different cultures. From these two points, the final point is ultimately that there is no point. Morality is an arbitrary set of biological instincts like hunger or pain. There is no overarching deeper philosophical meaning. Your wasting your time trying to probe the depths of morality just like if you tried to find the deeper philosophical meaning behind your hunger instinct. Pointless. It reduces morality to nothing. It is an instinct like hunger... Nothing more.
- ralferoo 3y ago
  Except it isn't. People have different perceptions of moral and immoral, largely shaped by their culture and upbringing. There are many examples where people from countries or even the same country but a different period of time have wildly different moral values - just consider slavery, war etiquette, polygamy, cannibalism, eating certain kinds of animals, the death penalty, abortion, socialism, welfare state, age of consent, etc... In all of these areas, there any many viewpoints that are seen as abhorrent and immoral by others, yet either were or still are held by others. I wouldn't even say that it's an instinct not to kill other people, as I'd imagine an infant left in the wilderness to fend for itself probably wouldn't regard an encounter with a human any different to any other unfamiliar animal that may or may not want to kill it. If it seems to present a danger, they'd probably avoid them or kill them. If they killed them, that'd also be a source of food, possibly even an easier source of food than what they normally ate. However, we're taught by those around us the societal norms, including not killing others, from a very early age. It's a desire that most people have for acceptance and wanting to fit into a society that leads to following these rules. Sure, if you grow up in the absence of any kind of societal influence, your moral code might just be an instinctual "I must survive", but that's radically different to most people who have ever lived. What about acts of self-sacrifice for a greater purpose? Maybe it's instinctive for mothers to protect their children, but not so much for self-sacrifice to help strangers. Sure, it happens, but only some times, and only by certain types of people. But in any case, who are you to say that the point isn't to probe your value system? That's certainly one of the outcomes of thinking about these questions and questioning why you make certain choices in some situations that you wouldn't in other situations. There's also no way you can say with any certainty that not one single person who has ever posed this kind of question hasn't had the intention to make people think about their own value system.
  - corethree 3y ago
    No. It is biological. Why else does this moral conflict exist across ALL cultures and populations? The basis for morality is biological. We can build high level frameworks on top of that but the core tenets remain genetic. What you're describing is the high level interpretation of our core moral instincts. The attempt to codify morality the attempt to explain it. This like, culture, like religion is made up by the human imagination.

corethree 3y ago

>Part of the point of having so many different variations of this problem is that it allows you to probe the edges of your own value system. No the point isn't to probe your value system in this way. There are two points to this. 1. The first point is to show inconsistency and irrationality within morality itself. It's to show how random and arbitrary these moral instincts are. 2. Given how consistent the choice is across populations it shows that our moral system is biological. An irrational and inconsistent set of instincts that is biological and genetic as the situation has the same response across different cultures. From these two points, the final point is ultimately that there is no point. Morality is an arbitrary set of biological instincts like hunger or pain. There is no overarching deeper philosophical meaning. Your wasting your time trying to probe the depths of morality just like if you tried to find the deeper philosophical meaning behind your hunger instinct. Pointless. It reduces morality to nothing. It is an instinct like hunger... Nothing more.

ralferoo 3y ago
Except it isn't. People have different perceptions of moral and immoral, largely shaped by their culture and upbringing. There are many examples where people from countries or even the same country but a different period of time have wildly different moral values - just consider slavery, war etiquette, polygamy, cannibalism, eating certain kinds of animals, the death penalty, abortion, socialism, welfare state, age of consent, etc... In all of these areas, there any many viewpoints that are seen as abhorrent and immoral by others, yet either were or still are held by others. I wouldn't even say that it's an instinct not to kill other people, as I'd imagine an infant left in the wilderness to fend for itself probably wouldn't regard an encounter with a human any different to any other unfamiliar animal that may or may not want to kill it. If it seems to present a danger, they'd probably avoid them or kill them. If they killed them, that'd also be a source of food, possibly even an easier source of food than what they normally ate. However, we're taught by those around us the societal norms, including not killing others, from a very early age. It's a desire that most people have for acceptance and wanting to fit into a society that leads to following these rules. Sure, if you grow up in the absence of any kind of societal influence, your moral code might just be an instinctual "I must survive", but that's radically different to most people who have ever lived. What about acts of self-sacrifice for a greater purpose? Maybe it's instinctive for mothers to protect their children, but not so much for self-sacrifice to help strangers. Sure, it happens, but only some times, and only by certain types of people. But in any case, who are you to say that the point isn't to probe your value system? That's certainly one of the outcomes of thinking about these questions and questioning why you make certain choices in some situations that you wouldn't in other situations. There's also no way you can say with any certainty that not one single person who has ever posed this kind of question hasn't had the intention to make people think about their own value system.
- corethree 3y ago
  No. It is biological. Why else does this moral conflict exist across ALL cultures and populations? The basis for morality is biological. We can build high level frameworks on top of that but the core tenets remain genetic. What you're describing is the high level interpretation of our core moral instincts. The attempt to codify morality the attempt to explain it. This like, culture, like religion is made up by the human imagination.