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  • This is a course about "Justice"

  • and we begin with a story.

  • Suppose you're the driver of a trolley car,

  • and your trolley car is hurtling down the track

  • at 60 miles an hour. And at the end of the track

  • you notice five workers working on the track.

  • You try to stop but you can't,

  • your brakes don't work.

  • You feel desperate because you know

  • that if you crash into these five workers,

  • they will all die.

  • Let's assume you know that for sure.

  • And so you feel helpless until you notice

  • that there is, off to the right,

  • a side track and at the end of that track,

  • there is one worker working on the track.

  • Your steering wheel works, so you can turn the trolley car,

  • if you want to, onto the side track

  • killing the one but sparing the five.

  • Here's our first question: what's the right thing to do?

  • What would you do? Let's take a poll.

  • How many would turn the trolley car

  • onto the side track? Raise your hands.

  • How many wouldn't? How many would go straight ahead?

  • Keep your hands up those of you who would go straight ahead.

  • A handful of people would,

  • the vast majority would turn.

  • Let's hear first, now we need to begin

  • to investigate the reasons why you think

  • it's the right thing to do.

  • Let's begin with those in the majority who would turn to go

  • onto the side track. Why would you do it?

  • What would be your reason? Who's willing to volunteer a reason?

  • Go ahead. Stand up.

  • Because it can't be right to kill five people

  • when you can only kill one person instead.

  • It wouldn't be right to kill five if you could kill

  • one person instead. That's a good reason.

  • That's a good reason. Who else?

  • Does everybody agree with that reason? Go ahead.

  • Well I was thinking it's the same reason on 9/11 with regard

  • to the people who flew the plane into the Pennsylvania field

  • as heroes because they chose to kill the people on the plane

  • and not kill more people in big buildings.

  • So the principle there was the same on 9/11.

  • It's a tragic circumstance but better to kill one

  • so that five can live.

  • Is that the reason most of you had,

  • those of you who would turn? Yes?

  • Let's hear now from those in the minority,

  • those who wouldn't turn. Yes.

  • Well, I think that's the same type of mentality

  • that justifies genocide and totalitarianism.

  • In order to save one type of race,

  • you wipe out the other.

  • So what would you do in this case?

  • You would, to avoid the horrors of genocide,

  • you would crash into the five and kill them?

  • Presumably, yes.

  • - You would? - Yeah.

  • Okay. Who else? That's a brave answer.

  • Thank you.

  • Let's consider another trolley car case

  • and see whether those of you in the majority

  • want to adhere to the principle

  • "better that one should die so that five should live."

  • This time you're not the driver of the trolley car,

  • you're an onlooker. You're standing on a bridge

  • overlooking a trolley car track.

  • And down the track comes a trolley car,

  • at the end of the track are five workers,

  • the brakes don't work, the trolley car

  • is about to careen into the five and kill them.

  • And now, you're not the driver, you really feel helpless

  • until you notice standing next to you,

  • leaning over the bridge is a very fat man.

  • And you could give him a shove.

  • He would fall over the bridge onto the track right in the way

  • of the trolley car. He would die

  • but he would spare the five.

  • Now, how many would push the fat man over the bridge?

  • Raise your hand.

  • How many wouldn't?

  • Most people wouldn't. Here's the obvious question.

  • What became of the principle "better to save five lives

  • even if it means sacrificing one?"

  • What became of the principle that almost everyone endorsed

  • in the first case? I need to hear from someone

  • who was in the majority in both cases.

  • How do you explain the difference between the two? Yes.

  • The second one, I guess, involves an active choice

  • of pushing a person down which I guess that person himself

  • would otherwise not have been involved in the situation at all.

  • And so to choose on his behalf, I guess, to involve him

  • in something that he otherwise would have escaped is,

  • I guess, more than what you have in the first case

  • where the three parties, the driver and the two sets of workers,

  • are already, I guess, in the situation.

  • But the guy working, the one on the track

  • off to the side, he didn't choose

  • to sacrifice his life any more than the fat man did, did he?

  • That's true, but he was on the tracks and...

  • This guy was on the bridge.

  • Go ahead, you can come back if you want. All right.

  • It's a hard question. You did well. You did very well.

  • It's a hard question.

  • Who else can find a way of reconciling the reaction

  • of the majority in these two cases? Yes.

  • Well, I guess in the first case where you have the one worker

  • and the five, it's a choice between those two

  • and you have to make a certain choice and people

  • are going to die because of the trolley car,

  • not necessarily because of your direct actions.

  • The trolley car is a runaway thing and you're making a split second choice.

  • Whereas pushing the fat man over is an actual act

  • of murder on your part.

  • You have control over that whereas you may not have control

  • over the trolley car.

  • So I think it's a slightly different situation.

  • All right, who has a reply? That's good. Who has a way?

  • Who wants to reply? Is that a way out of this?

  • I don't think that's a very good reason

  • because you choose to... either way you have to choose

  • who dies because you either choose to turn and kill the person,

  • which is an act of conscious thought to turn,

  • or you choose to push the fat man over

  • which is also an active, conscious action.

  • So either way, you're making a choice.

  • Do you want to reply?

  • I'm not really sure that that's the case.

  • It just still seems kind of different.

  • The act of actually pushing someone over onto the tracks

  • and killing him, you are actually killing him yourself.

  • You're pushing him with your own hands.

  • You're pushing him and that's different

  • than steering something that is going to cause

  • death into another...

  • You know, it doesn't really sound right saying it now.

  • No, no. It's good. It's good. What's your name?

  • Andrew.

  • Andrew. Let me ask you this question, Andrew.

  • Yes.

  • Suppose standing on the bridge next to the fat man,

  • I didn't have to push him, suppose he was standing over

  • a trap door that I could open by turning a steering wheel like that.

  • Would you turn?

  • For some reason, that still just seems more wrong.

  • Right?

  • I mean, maybe if you accidentally like leaned into the steering wheel

  • or something like that.

  • But... Or say that the car is hurtling

  • towards a switch that will drop the trap.

  • Then I could agree with that.

  • That's all right. Fair enough.

  • It still seems wrong in a way that it doesn't seem wrong

  • in the first case to turn, you say.

  • And in another way, I mean, in the first situation

  • you're involved directly with the situation.

  • In the second one, you're an onlooker as well.

  • - All right. - So you have the choice of becoming involved or not

  • by pushing the fat man.

  • All right. Let's forget for the moment about this case.

  • That's good. Let's imagine a different case.

  • This time you're a doctor in an emergency room

  • and six patients come to you.

  • They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck.

  • Five of them sustain moderate injuries,

  • one is severely injured, you could spend all day

  • caring for the one severely injured victim.

  • But in that time, the five would die.

  • Or you could look after the five, restore them to health

  • but during that time, the one severely injured person

  • would die.

  • How many would save the five? Now as the doctor,

  • how many would save the one?

  • Very few people, just a handful of people.

  • Same reason, I assume. One life versus five?

  • Now consider another doctor case.

  • This time, you're a transplant surgeon and you have five patients,

  • each in desperate need of an organ transplant

  • in order to survive.

  • One needs a heart, one a lung, one a kidney,

  • one a liver, and the fifth a pancreas.

  • And you have no organ donors. You are about to see them die.

  • And then it occurs to you that in the next room

  • there's a healthy guy who came in for a check-up.

  • And he's – you like thatand he's taking a nap,

  • you could go in very quietly, yank out the five organs,

  • that person would die, but you could save the five.

  • How many would do it? Anyone? How many?

  • Put your hands up if you would do it.

  • Anyone in the balcony?

  • I would.

  • You would? Be careful, don't lean over too much.

  • How many wouldn't? All right. What do you say?

  • Speak up in the balcony,

  • you who would yank out the organs. Why?

  • I'd actually like to explore a slightly alternate possibility

  • of just taking the one of the five who needs an organ

  • who dies first and using their four healthy organs

  • to save the other four.

  • That's a pretty good idea. That's a great idea

  • except for the fact that you just wrecked

  • the philosophical point.

  • Let's step back from these stories and these arguments

  • to notice a couple of things about the way the arguments

  • have begun to unfold.

  • Certain moral principles have already begun to emerge

  • from the discussions we've had.

  • And let's consider what those moral principles look like.

  • The first moral principle that emerged in the discussion

  • said the right thing to do, the moral thing to do

  • depends on the consequences that will result from your action.

  • At the end of the day, better that five should live

  • even if one must die.

  • That's an example of consequentialist moral reasoning.

  • Consequentialist moral reasoning locates morality

  • in the consequences of an act, in the state of the world

  • that will result from the thing you do.

  • But then we went a little further, we considered those other cases

  • and people weren't so sure about consequentialist moral reasoning.

  • When people hesitated

  • to push the fat man over the bridge

  • or to yank out the organs of the innocent patient,

  • people gestured toward reasons having to do with

  • the intrinsic quality of the act itself,

  • consequences be what they may. People were reluctant.

  • People thought it was just wrong, categorically wrong,

  • to kill a person, an innocent person,

  • even for the sake of saving five lives.

  • At least people thought that in the second version

  • of each story we considered.

  • So this points to a second categorical way of thinking about moral reasoning.

  • Categorical moral reasoning locates morality

  • in certain absolute moral requirements,

  • certain categorical duties and rights, regardless of the consequences.

  • We're going to explore in the days and weeks to come

  • the contrast between consequentialist and categorical

  • moral principles.

  • The most influential example of consequential moral reasoning

  • is utilitarianism, a doctrine invented

  • by Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century

  • English political philosopher.

  • The most important philosopher of categorical moral reasoning

  • is the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

  • So we will look at those two different modes

  • of moral reasoning, assess them,

  • and also consider others.

  • If you look at the syllabus, you'll notice that we read

  • a number of great and famous books,

  • books by Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Stewart Mill,

  • and others.

  • You'll notice too from the syllabus

  • that we don't only read these books

  • we also take up contemporary political, and legal controversies

  • that raise philosophical questions. We will debate equality and inequality,

  • affirmative action, free speech versus hate speech, same sex marriage,

  • military conscription, a range of practical questions. Why?

  • Not just to enliven these abstract and distant books

  • but to make clear, to bring out what's at stake

  • in our everyday lives, including our political lives,

  • for philosophy.

  • And so we will read these books and we will debate these issues,

  • and we'll see how each informs and illuminates the other.

  • This may sound appealing enough, but here I have to issue a warning.

  • And the warning is this, to read these books

  • in this way as an exercise in self knowledge,

  • to read them in this way carries certain risks,

  • risks that are both personal and political,

  • risks that every student of political philosophy has known.

  • These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us

  • and unsettles us by confronting us with

  • what we already know.

  • There's an irony. The difficulty of this course consists in the fact

  • that it teaches what you already know.

  • It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings

  • and making it strange.

  • That's how those examples worked, the hypotheticals with which we began,

  • with their mix of playfulness and sobriety.

  • It's also how these philosophical books work.

  • Philosophy estranges us from the familiar,

  • not by supplying new information but by inviting and provoking

  • a new way of seeing but, and here's the risk,

  • once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again.

  • Self knowledge is like lost innocence, however unsettling you find it

  • it can never be un-thought or un-known.

  • What makes this enterprise difficult but also riveting

  • is that moral and political philosophy is a story and you don't know

  • where the story will lead.

  • But what you do know is that the story is about you.

  • Those are the personal risks. Now what of the political risks?

  • One way of introducing a course like this would be to promise you

  • that by reading these books and debating these issues,

  • you will become a better, more responsible citizen

  • you will examine the presuppositions of public policy,

  • you will hone your political judgment,

  • you will become a more effective participant in public affairs.

  • But this would be a partial and misleading promise.

  • Political philosophy, for the most part,

  • hasn't worked that way.

  • You have to allow for the possibility that political philosophy

  • may make you a worse citizen rather than a better one

  • or at least a worse citizen before it makes you a better one,

  • and that's because philosophy is a distancing,

  • even debilitating activity.

  • And you see this going back to Socrates, there's a dialogue,

  • the Gorgias, in which one of Socrates' friends, Callicles,

  • tries to talk him out of philosophizing.

  • Callicles tells Socrates "Philosophy is a pretty toy

  • if one indulges in it with moderation

  • at the right time of life. But if one pursues it further than one should,

  • it is absolute ruin."

  • "Take my advice," Callicles says, "abandon argument.

  • Learn the accomplishments of active life,

  • take for your models not those people who spend

  • their time on these petty quibbles but those who have a good livelihood

  • and reputation and many other blessings."

  • So Callicles is really saying to Socrates "Quit philosophizing, get real,

  • go to business school."

  • And Callicles did have a point. He had a point because philosophy

  • distances us from conventions, from established assumptions,

  • and from settled beliefs.

  • Those are the risks, personal and political.

  • And in the face of these risks,

  • there is a characteristic evasion.

  • The name of the evasion is skepticism, it's the idea...

  • well, it goes something like this... we didn't resolve once and for all

  • either the cases or the principles we were arguing when we began

  • and if Aristotle and Locke and Kant and Mill

  • haven't solved these questions after all of these years,

  • who are we to think, that we here in Sanders Theatre,

  • over the course of a semester, can resolve them?

  • And so, maybe it's just a matter of each person having his or her own

  • principles and there's nothing more to be said about it,

  • no way of reasoning.

  • That's the evasion, the evasion of skepticism,

  • to which I would offer the following reply.

  • It's true, these questions have been debated for a very long time

  • but the very fact that they have recurred and persisted

  • may suggest that though they're impossible in one sense,

  • they're unavoidable in another.

  • And the reason they're unavoidable, the reason they're inescapable

  • is that we live some answer to these questions every day.

  • So skepticism, just throwing up your hands and giving up on moral reflection

  • is no solution.

  • Immanuel Kant described very well the problem with skepticism

  • when he wrote "Skepticism is a resting place

  • for human reason, where it can reflect upon

  • its dogmatic wanderings, but it is no dwelling place

  • for permanent settlement."

  • "Simply to acquiesce in skepticism," Kant wrote,

  • "can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason."

  • I've tried to suggest through these stories

  • and these arguments some sense of the risks

  • and temptations, of the perils and the possibilities.

  • I would simply conclude by saying that the aim of this course

  • is to awaken the restlessness of reason and to see where it might lead.

  • Thank you very much.

  • Like, in a situation that desperate, you have to do what you have to do to survive.

  • You have to do what you have to do?

  • Yeah. You got to do what you got to do, pretty much.

  • If you've been going 19 days without any food, you know,

  • someone just has to take the sacrifice.

  • Someone has to make the sacrifice and people can survive.

  • Alright, that's good. What's your name?

  • - Marcus. - Marcus, what do you say to Marcus?

  • Last time, we started out last time

  • with some stories, with some moral dilemmas

  • about trolley cars and about doctors

  • and healthy patients vulnerable to being victims

  • of organ transplantation.

  • We noticed two things about the arguments we had,

  • one had to do with the way we were arguing.

  • We began with our judgments in particular cases.

  • We tried to articulate the reasons or the principles lying behind

  • our judgments.

  • And then confronted with a new case,

  • we found ourselves reexamining those principles,

  • revising each in the light of the other.

  • And we noticed the built in pressure

  • to try to bring into alignment our judgments

  • about particular cases and the principles

  • we would endorse on reflection.

  • We also noticed something about the substance

  • of the arguments that emerged from the discussion.

  • We noticed that sometimes we were tempted to locate

  • the morality of an act in the consequences, in the results,

  • in the state of the world that it brought about.

  • And we called this consequentialist moral reasoning.

  • But we also noticed that in some cases,

  • we weren't swayed only by the result.

  • Sometimes, many of us felt, that not just consequences

  • but also the intrinsic quality or character

  • of the act matters morally.

  • Some people argued that there are certain things

  • that are just categorically wrong even if they bring about

  • a good result, even if they saved five people

  • at the cost of one life.

  • So we contrasted consequentialist moral principles with categorical ones.

  • Today and in the next few days, we will begin to examine

  • one of the most influential versions of consequentialist moral theory.

  • And that's the philosophy of utilitarianism.

  • Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century

  • English political philosopher gave first the first clear

  • systematic expression to the utilitarian moral theory.

  • And Bentham's idea, his essential idea,

  • is a very simple one.

  • With a lot of morally intuitive appeal,

  • Bentham's idea is the following,

  • the right thing to do, the just thing to do

  • is to maximize utility.

  • What did he mean by utility?

  • He meant by utility the balance of pleasure over pain,

  • happiness over suffering.

  • Here's how he arrived at the principle of maximizing utility.

  • He started out by observing that all of us,

  • all human beings are governed by two sovereign masters,

  • pain and pleasure.

  • We human beings like pleasure and dislike pain.

  • And so we should base morality, whether we're thinking about

  • what to do in our own lives or whether as legislators or citizens,

  • we're thinking about what the laws should be.

  • The right thing to do individually or collectively is to maximize,

  • act in a way that maximizes the overall level of happiness.

  • Bentham's utilitarianism is sometimes summed up

  • with the slogan

  • "The greatest good for the greatest number."

  • With this basic principle of utility on hand,

  • let's begin to test it and to examine it

  • by turning to another case, another story, but this time,

  • not a hypothetical story, a real life story,

  • the case of the Queen versus Dudley and Stevens.

  • This was a 19th century British law case

  • that's famous and much debated in law schools.

  • Here's what happened in the case. I'll summarize the story

  • then I want to hear how you would rule,

  • imagining that you were the jury.

  • A newspaper account of the time described the background.

  • A sadder story of disaster at sea was never told

  • than that of the survivors of the yacht, Mignonette.

  • The ship floundered in the South Atlantic,

  • 1300 miles from the Cape.

  • There were four in the crew, Dudley was the captain,

  • Stevens was the first mate, Brooks was a sailor,

  • all men of excellent character or so the newspaper account tells us.

  • The fourth crew member was the cabin boy,

  • Richard Parker, 17 years old.

  • He was an orphan, he had no family,

  • and he was on his first long voyage at sea.

  • He went, the news account tells us,

  • rather against the advice of his friends.

  • He went in the hopefulness of youthful ambition,

  • thinking the journey would make a man of him.

  • Sadly, it was not to be. The facts of the case

  • were not in dispute.

  • A wave hit the ship and the Mignonette went down.

  • The four crew members escaped to a lifeboat.

  • The only food they had were two cans of

  • preserved turnips, no fresh water.

  • For the first three days, they ate nothing.

  • On the fourth day, they opened one

  • of the cans of turnips and ate it.

  • The next day they caught a turtle.

  • Together with the other can of turnips,

  • the turtle enabled them to subsist for the next few days.

  • And then for eight days, they had nothing.

  • No food. No water.

  • Imagine yourself in a situation like that,

  • what would you do? Here's what they did.

  • By now the cabin boy, Parker, is lying at the bottom

  • of the lifeboat in the corner

  • because he had drunk seawater against the advice of the others

  • and he had become ill and he appeared to be dying.

  • So on the 19th day, Dudley, the captain,

  • suggested that they should all have a lottery,

  • that they should draw lots to see who would die

  • to save the rest.

  • Brooks refused. He didn't like the lottery idea.

  • We don't know whether this was

  • because he didn't want to take the chance

  • or because he believed in categorical moral principles.

  • But in any case, no lots were drawn.

  • The next day there was still no ship in sight

  • so Dudley told Brooks to avert his gaze

  • and he motioned to Stevens that the boy, Parker,

  • had better be killed.

  • Dudley offered a prayer, he told the boy his time had come,

  • and he killed him with a pen knife,

  • stabbing him in the jugular vein.

  • Brooks emerged from his conscientious objection

  • to share in the gruesome bounty.

  • For four days, the three of them fed

  • on the body and blood of the cabin boy.

  • True story. And then they were rescued.

  • Dudley describes their rescue in his diary with staggering euphemism.

  • "On the 24th day, as we were having our breakfast,

  • a ship appeared at last."

  • The three survivors were picked up by a German ship.

  • They were taken back to Falmouth in England

  • where they were arrested and tried.

  • Brooks turned state's witness. Dudley and Stevens went to trial.

  • They didn't dispute the facts. They claimed they had

  • acted out of necessity, that was their defense.

  • They argued in effect better that one should die

  • so that three could survive. The prosecutor wasn't swayed

  • by that argument.

  • He said murder is murder, and so the case went to trial.

  • Now imagine you are the jury. And just to simplify the discussion,

  • put aside the question of law, let's assume that you as the jury

  • are charged with deciding whether what they did

  • was morally permissible or not.

  • How many would vote 'not guilty',

  • that what they did was morally permissible?

  • And how many would vote 'guilty',

  • what they did was morally wrong?

  • A pretty sizeable majority.

  • Now let's see what people's reasons are and let me begin with those

  • who are in the minority.

  • Let's hear first from the defense of Dudley and Stevens.

  • Why would you morally exonerate them?

  • What are your reasons? Yes.

  • I think it's... I think it is morally reprehensible

  • but I think that there is a distinction

  • between what's morally reprehensible and what makes someone

  • legally accountable.

  • In other words, as the judge said,

  • what's always moral isn't necessarily against the law

  • and while I don't think that necessity justifies theft

  • or murder or any illegal act, at some point your degree

  • of necessity does, in fact, exonerate you from any guilt.

  • Okay. Good. Other defenders. Other voices for the defense.

  • Moral justifications for what they did. Yes.

  • Thank you. I just feel like

  • in the situation that desperate, you have to do

  • what you have to do to survive.

  • You have to do what you have to do.

  • Yeah, you've got to do what you've got to do.

  • Pretty much. If you've been going

  • 19 days without any food, you know, someone just has to take the sacrifice,

  • someone has to make the sacrifice and people can survive.

  • And furthermore from that, let's say they survive

  • and then they become productive members of society

  • who go home and start like a million charity organizations

  • and this and that and this and that.

  • - I mean they benefited everybody in the end. - Yeah.

  • So, I mean I don't know what they did afterwards,

  • they might have gone and like, I don't know,

  • - killed more people, I don't know. Whatever but. - What?

  • Maybe they were assassins.

  • What if they went home and they turned out to be assassins?

  • What if they'd gone home and turned out to be assassins? Well...

  • You'd want to know who they assassinated.

  • That's true too. That's fair. That's fair. I would want to know

  • who they assassinated.

  • All right. That's good. What's your name?

  • - Marcus. - Marcus. All right.

  • We've heard a defense, a couple of voices

  • for the defense.

  • Now we need to hear from the prosecution.

  • Most people think what they did was wrong. Why?

  • - Yes. - One of the first things that I was thinking was

  • they haven't been eating for a really long time

  • maybe they... they're... they're mentally like affected and so

  • then that could be used as a defense,

  • a possible argument that they weren't

  • in the proper state of mind, they weren't making decisions

  • they might otherwise be making.

  • And if that's an appealing argument that... that you have to be

  • in an altered mindset to do something like that,

  • it suggests that people who find that argument convincing

  • do think that they were acting immorally.

  • But what do you... I want to know

  • what you think. You defend them.

  • - No, no, no. - I'm sorry, you vote to convict, right?

  • Yeah, I don't think that they acted in a morally

  • appropriate way.

  • And why not? What do you say,

  • here's Marcus, he just defended them.

  • He said... you heard what he said.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • That you've got to do what you've got to do

  • - in a case like that. What do you say to Marcus? - Yeah.

  • That there's no situation that would allow

  • human beings to take the idea of fate or

  • the other people's lives in their own hands,

  • that we don't have that kind of power.

  • Good. Okay. Thank you.

  • And what's your name?

  • Britt.

  • - Britt. Okay. Who else? What do you say? Stand up. - Yes.

  • I'm wondering if Dudley and Stevens had asked Richard Parker's... for Richard Parker's

  • consent in you know, dying, if that would exonerate them

  • from... from an act of murder and if so,

  • is that still morally justifiable?

  • That's interesting. All right. Consent.

  • Wait wait, hang on. What's your name?

  • Kathleen.

  • Kathleen says suppose they had that,

  • what would that scenario look like?

  • So in the story Dudley is there, pen knife in hand,

  • but instead of the prayer or before the prayer,

  • he says "Parker, would you mind?"

  • "We're desperately hungry",

  • as Marcus empathizes with, "we're... we're desperately hungry.

  • - You're not going to last long anyhow." -Yeah. You can be a martyr.

  • "Would you be a martyr? How about it Parker?"

  • Then, then, what do... what do you think? Would it be morally justified then?

  • - I don't think... - Suppose... suppose Parker in his semi-stupor says "Okay."

  • I don't think it would be morally justifiable but I'm wondering if...

  • - Even then, even then it wouldn't be? - No.

  • You don't think that even with consent

  • it would be morally justified?

  • Are there people who think, uh, who want to take up

  • Kathleen's consent idea and who think that

  • that would make it morally justified?

  • Raise your hand if it would, if you think it would.

  • That's very interesting. Why would consent

  • make a moral difference? Why would it? Yes.

  • Well, I just think that if he was making

  • his own original idea and it was his idea

  • to start with, then that would be

  • the only situation in which I would see it

  • being appropriate in any way because that way

  • you couldn't make the argument that he was pressured,

  • you know it's three-to-one or whatever the ratio was.

  • - Right. - And I think that if he was making a decision

  • to give his life and he took on the agency

  • to sacrifice himself which some people

  • might see as admirable and other people might disagree

  • with that decision.

  • So if he came up with the idea,

  • that's the only kind of consent we could have

  • confidence in morally then it would be okay.

  • Otherwise, it would be kind of coerced consent

  • under the circumstances, you think.

  • Is there anyone who thinks that even the consent of Parker

  • would not justify their killing him? Who thinks that? Yes.

  • Tell us why. Stand up.

  • I think that Parker would be killed with the hope

  • that the other crew members would be rescued so there's no

  • definite reason that he should be killed

  • because you don't know when they're going to get rescued

  • so if you kill him, it's killing him in vain,

  • do you keep killing a crew member until you're rescued

  • and then you're left with no one because someone's going

  • to die eventually?

  • Well, the moral logic of the situation seems to be that,

  • that they would keep on picking off the weakest maybe,

  • one by one, until they were rescued.

  • And in this case, luckily, they were rescued when three at least

  • were still alive. Now, if Parker did give his consent,

  • would it be all right, do you think or not?

  • - No, it still wouldn't be right. - And tell us why

  • it wouldn't be all right.

  • First of all, cannibalism, I believe, is morally incorrect

  • so you shouldn't be eating human anyway.

  • So cannibalism is morally objectionable as such so then,

  • even on the scenario of waiting until someone died,

  • still it would be objectionable.

  • Yes, to me personally, I feel like it all depends

  • on one's personal morals and like we can't sit here and just,

  • like this is just my opinion, of course other people

  • are going to disagree, but...

  • Well we'll see, let's see what their disagreements are

  • and then we'll see if they have reasons that can

  • persuade you or not.

  • Let's try that. All right.

  • Now, is there someone who can explain,

  • those of you who are tempted by consent,

  • can you explain why consent makes such

  • a moral difference?

  • What about the lottery idea? Does that count as consent?

  • Remember at the beginning, Dudley proposed a lottery,

  • suppose that they had agreed to a lottery,

  • then how many would then say it was all right?

  • Suppose there were a lottery, cabin boy lost,

  • and the rest of the story unfolded, then how many people would say

  • it was morally permissible?

  • So the numbers are rising if we had a lottery.

  • Let's hear from one of you for whom the lottery

  • would make a moral difference. Why would it?

  • I think the essential element, in my mind,

  • that makes it a crime is the idea that they decided

  • at some point that their lives were more important than his,

  • and that, I mean, that's kind of the basis for really any crime.

  • Right? It's like my needs, my desires are more important

  • than yours and mine take precedent.

  • And if they had done a lottery where everyone consented

  • that someone should die and it's sort of like they're all

  • sacrificing themselves to save the rest.

  • Then it would be all right?

  • - A little grotesque but... - But morally permissible?

  • - Yes. - And what's your name?

  • - Matt. - So Matt, for you,

  • what bothers you is not the cannibalism

  • but the lack of due process.

  • I guess you could say that.

  • Right? And can someone who agrees with Matt say a little bit more

  • about why a lottery would make it, in your view, morally permissible.

  • Go ahead.

  • The way I understood it originally was that

  • that was the whole issue is that the cabin boy

  • was never consulted about whether or not

  • something was going to happen to him,

  • even with the original lottery whether or not

  • he would be a part of that, it was just decided

  • that he was the one that was going to die.

  • Right, that's what happened in the actual case.

  • Right.

  • But if there were a lottery and they'd all agreed to the procedure,

  • you think that would be okay?

  • Right, because then everyone knows that there's going to be a death,

  • whereas the cabin boy didn't know that this discussion was even happening,

  • there was no forewarning for him to know that

  • "Hey, I may be the one that's dying."

  • All right. Now, suppose everyone agrees

  • to the lottery, they have the lottery, the cabin boy loses,

  • and he changes his mind.

  • You've already decided, it's like a verbal contract.

  • You can't go back on that, you've decided,

  • the decision was made.

  • If you know that you're dying for the reason of others to live.

  • If someone else had died, you know that you would

  • consume them so...

  • Right. But then you could say, "I know, but I lost".

  • I just think that that's the whole moral issue

  • is that there was no consulting of the cabin boy

  • and that's what makes it the most horrible

  • is that he had no idea what was even going on.

  • That had he known what was going on,

  • it would be a bit more understandable.

  • All right. Good. Now I want to hear...

  • so there are some who think it's morally permissible

  • but only about 20%, led by Marcus.

  • Then there are some who say the real problem here

  • is the lack of consent, whether the lack of consent

  • to a lottery, to a fair procedure or, Kathleen's idea,

  • lack of consent at the moment of death.

  • And if we add consent, then more people are willing

  • to consider the sacrifice morally justified.

  • I want to hear now, finally, from those of you

  • who think even with consent, even with a lottery,

  • even with a final murmur of consent by Parker,

  • at the very last moment, it would still be wrong.

  • And why would it be wrong? That's what I want to hear. Yes.

  • Well, the whole time I've been leaning off towards

  • the categorical moral reasoning and I think that there's a possibility

  • I'd be okay with the idea of a lottery

  • and then the loser taking into their own hands to kill themselves

  • so there wouldn't be an act of murder,

  • but I still think that even that way, it's coerced.

  • Also, I don't think that there is any remorse,

  • like in Dudley's diary, "We're eating our breakfast,'

  • it seems as though he's just sort of like, you know,

  • the whole idea of not valuing someone else's life.

  • So that makes me feel like I have to take the...

  • You want to throw the book at him when he lacks remorse

  • or a sense of having done anything wrong.

  • Right.

  • So, all right. Good. Are there any other defenders

  • who say it's just categorically wrong, with or without consent?

  • Yes. Stand up. Why?

  • I think undoubtedly the way our society is shaped

  • murder is murder.

  • Murder is murder in every way

  • and our society looks at murder down on the same light

  • and I don't think it's any different in any case.

  • Good. Let me ask you a question. There were three lives at stake versus one.

  • Okay.

  • The one, the cabin boy, he had no family,

  • he had no dependents, these other three had families

  • back home in England, they had dependents,

  • they had wives and children. Think back to Bentham.

  • Bentham says we have to consider

  • the welfare, the utility, the happiness of everybody.

  • We have to add it all up so it's not just numbers,

  • three against one, it's also all of those

  • people at home.

  • In fact, the London newspaper at that time and popular opinion

  • sympathized with them, Dudley and Stevens,

  • and the paper said if they weren't motivated

  • by affection and concern for their loved ones at home

  • and their dependents, surely they wouldn't have done this.

  • Yeah and how is that any different

  • from people on a corner trying, with the same desire

  • to feed their family. I don't think it's any different.

  • I think in any case, if I'm murdering you

  • to advance my status, that's murder,

  • and I think that we should look at all that

  • in the same light instead of criminalizing

  • certain activities and making certain things

  • seem more violently savage when in the same case,

  • it's all the same, it's all the same act and mentality that goes

  • into murder, necessity to feed your family so...

  • Suppose it weren't three, suppose it were 30? 300?

  • One life to save 300? Or in wartime? 3000?

  • Suppose the stakes are even bigger.

  • Suppose the stakes are even bigger?

  • I think it's still the same deal.

  • You think Bentham is wrong to say the right thing to do

  • is to add up the collective happiness?

  • You think he's wrong about that?

  • I don't think he's wrong but I think murder is murder

  • in any case.

  • Well, then Bentham has to be wrong.

  • If you're right, he's wrong.

  • Okay, then he's wrong. I'm right.

  • All right. Thank you. Well done. All right.

  • Let's step back from this discussion and notice how many objections

  • have we heard to what they did?

  • We heard some defenses of what they did.

  • The defenses had to do with necessity, their dire circumstance and,

  • implicitly at least, the idea that numbers matter.

  • And not only numbers matter but the wider effects matter,

  • their families back home, their dependents.

  • Parker was an orphan, no one would miss him.

  • So if you add up, if you try to calculate the balance

  • of happiness and suffering, you might have a case

  • for saying what they did was the right thing.

  • Then we heard at least three different types of objections.

  • We heard an objection that said what they did

  • was categorically wrong, like here at the end,

  • categorically wrong, murder is murder,

  • it's always wrong even if it increases the overall

  • happiness of society, a categorical objection.

  • But we still need to investigate why murder is categorically wrong.

  • Is it because even cabin boys have certain fundamental rights?

  • And if that's the reason, where do those rights come from

  • if not from some idea of the larger welfare

  • or utility or happiness?

  • Question number one. Others said a lottery

  • would make a difference, a fair procedure Matt said,

  • and some people were swayed by that.

  • That's not a categorical objection exactly.

  • It's saying everybody has to be counted as an equal

  • even though at the end of the day, one can be sacrificed

  • for the general welfare.

  • That leaves us with another question to investigate.

  • Why does agreement to a certain procedure,

  • even a fair procedure, justify whatever result flows

  • from the operation of that procedure?

  • Question number two. And question number three,

  • the basic idea of consent. Kathleen got us on to this.

  • If the cabin boy had agreed himself, and not under duress, as was added,

  • then it would be all right to take his life to save the rest

  • and even more people signed on to that idea.

  • But that raises a third philosophical question:

  • What is the moral work that consent does?

  • Why does an act of consent make such a moral difference,

  • that an act that would be wrong,

  • taking a life without consent, is morally permissible with consent?

  • To investigate those three questions, we're going to have to read

  • some philosophers.

  • And starting next time, we're going to read Bentham

  • and John Stuart Mill, utilitarian philosophers.

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