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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 sixty miles an hour

  • and at the end of the track, you notice five workers working on the track

  • you tried 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

  • at the end of that track

  • there's one worker

  • working on track

  • your steering wheel works

  • so you can turn the trolley car if you want to

  • onto this 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 hand.

  • How many wouldn't?

  • How many would go straight ahead

  • keep your hands up, those of you who'd 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 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 was the same reason as it was on 9/11

  • we regard the people who flew the plane

  • 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 have, 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 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 wouldYeah.

  • 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

  • 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 principal

  • better to save five lives even if it means sacrificing one, what became of the principal

  • 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

  • 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 this 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 guy did, did he?

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

  • this guy was on the bridge.

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

  • Alright, it's a hard question

  • but 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 on a runway,

  • then you need to make in 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 that it's a slightly different situation.

  • Alright who has a reply? Is that, who has a reply to that? no that was 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

  • either way you have to choose who dies because you either choose to turn and kill a 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?

  • Well 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 and

  • than steering something that is going to cause death into another...you know

  • it doesn't really sound right saying it now when I'm up here.

  • No that's good, what's your name?

  • Andrew.

  • Andrew and let me ask you this question Andrew,

  • 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 it?

  • For some reason that still just seems more

  • more wrong.

  • I mean maybe if you just accidentally like leaned into this steering wheel or something like that

  • or but,

  • or say that the car is

  • hurtling towards a switch that will drop the trap

  • then I could agree with that.

  • 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.

  • So you have the choice of becoming involved or not by pushing the fat man.

  • Let's forget for the moment about this case,

  • that's good,

  • but let's imagine a different case. This time you're doctor in an emergency room

  • and six patients come to you

  • they've been in a terrible trolley car wreck

  • five of them sustained 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

  • on 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 checkup.

  • and he is...

  • you like that

  • and he's taking a nap

  • you could go in very quietly

  • yank out the five organs, that person would die

  • but you can save the five.

  • How many would do it? Anyone?

  • How many? Put your hands up if you would do it.

  • Anyone in the balcony?

  • 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 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 began 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 from 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 towards

  • 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 these people thought that

  • in the second version of each story we reconsidered

  • so this points

  • to a second categorical way of thinking about moral reasoning

  • categorical moral reasoning locates morality in certain absolute moral requirements

  • in 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 eighteenth century English political philosopher.

  • The most important philosopher of categorical moral reasoning is the

  • eighteenth century German philosopher Emmanuel 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

  • Emanuel Kant, John Stuart 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.

  • 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 carry certain risks

  • risks that are both personal and political,

  • risks that every student of political philosophy has known.

  • These risks spring from that 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 work, 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 unthought

  • or unknown

  • what makes this enterprise difficult

  • but also riveting,

  • is that

  • moral and political philosophy is a story

  • and you don't know where this 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 of 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'll 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 Socratesfriends

  • 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 Calicles 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 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 reoccurred and persisted

  • may suggest

  • that though they're impossible in one sense

  • their 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 their hands and giving up on moral reflection,

  • is no solution

  • Emanuel 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 restless of reason.

  • I've tried to suggest through theses 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 you?

  • You've gotta do what you gotta do.

  • pretty much, If you've been going nineteen days without any food

  • someone 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 re-examining 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.

  • We called is consequentialist

  • moral reason.

  • But we also noticed that

  • in some cases

  • we weren't swayed only by the results

  • 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 save 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 eighteenth 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

  • it's 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 we 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 are thinking of what to do in our own lives

  • or whether

  • as legislators or citizens

  • we are thinking about what the law 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 Stephens.

  • This was a nineteenth-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

  • and then I want to hear

  • how you would rule

  • imagining that you are 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 foundered in the south Atlantic

  • thirteen hundred miles from the cape

  • there were four in the crew,

  • Dudley was the captain

  • Stephens 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

  • seventeen 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 that 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 a corner

  • because he had drunk sea water

  • against the advice of the others

  • and he had become ill

  • and he appeared to be dying

  • so on the nineteenth day Dudley, the captain, suggested

  • that they should all have a lottery.

  • That they should all 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 that 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 a Dudley told Brooks to avert his gaze

  • and he motioned to Stephens

  • that the boy Parker had better be killed.

  • Dudley offered a prayer

  • he told a 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, quote:

  • "on the twenty fourth 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 trialed

  • Brooks

  • turned state's witness

  • Dudley and Stephens 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,

  • and 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 sizable 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 Stephens.

  • Why would you morally exonerate them?

  • What are your reasons?

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

  • but I think that there's a distinction between what's morally reprehensible

  • 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 any illegal act,

  • at some point your degree of necessity does in fact

  • exonerate you form any guilt. ok.

  • other defenders, other voices for the defense?

  • Moral justifications for

  • what they did?

  • yes, thank you

  • I just feel 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

  • ya, you gotta do what you gotta do, pretty much.

  • If you've been

  • going nineteen days without any food

  • you know someone just has to take the sacrifice has to make sacrifices and people can survive

  • and furthermore from that

  • let's say they survived and then they become productive members of society who go home and then start like

  • a million charity organizations and this and that and this and that, I mean they benefit everybody in the end so

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

  • gone on and killed more people

  • but whatever.

  • what? what if they were going home and turned out to be assassins?

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

  • You would want to know who they assassinated.

  • That's true too, that's fair

  • I would wanna know who they assassinated.

  • alright that's good, what's your name? Marcus.

  • We've heard a defense

  • a couple voices for the defense

  • now we need to hear

  • from the prosecution

  • most people think

  • what they did was wrong, why?

  • One of the first things that I was thinking was, oh well if they haven't been eating for a really long time,

  • maybe

  • then

  • they're mentally affected

  • that could be used for the defense,

  • a possible argument that oh,

  • that they weren't in a proper state of mind, they were making

  • decisions that they otherwise wouldn't be making, and if that's an appealing argument

  • that you have to be in an altered mindset to do something like that it suggests that

  • people who find that argument convincing

  • do you think that they're acting immorally. But I want to know what you think you're defending

  • you voted…I’m sorryyou voted to convict right? yeah I don't think that they acted in 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 I did

  • yes

  • that you've got to do what you've got to do in a case like that.

  • What do you say to Marcus?

  • They didn't,

  • that there is no situation that would allow human beings to take

  • the idea of fate or the other people's lives into their own hands that we don't have

  • that kind of power.

  • Good, okay

  • thank you, and what's your name?

  • Britt? okay.

  • who else?

  • What do you say? Stand up

  • I'm wondering if Dudley and Stephens had asked for Richard Parker's consent in, you know, dying,

  • if that would

  • would that exonerate them

  • from an act of murder, and if so is that still morally justifiable?

  • That's interesting, alright consent, now hang on, what's your name? Kathleen.

  • Kathleen says suppose so 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 desperately hungry

  • you're not going to last long anyhow,

  • you can be a martyr,

  • would you be a martyr

  • how about it Parker?

  • Then, then

  • then what do you think, would be morally justified then? Suppose

  • Parker

  • in his semi-stupor

  • says okay

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

  • 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?

  • 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 anyway 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,

  • and I think that

  • if he was making a decision to give his life then 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 the 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 you're 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 when three at least were still alive.

  • Now if

  • if Parker did give his consent

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

  • No, it still wouldn't be right.

  • Tell us why wouldn't be all right.

  • First of all, cannibalism, I believe

  • is morally incorrect

  • so you shouldn’t be eating a human anyway.

  • So

  • cannibalism is morally objectionable outside

  • so then even in the scenario

  • of waiting until someone died

  • still it would be objectionable.

  • Yes, to me personally

  • I feel like of

  • it all depends on

  • one's personal morals, like we can't just, like this is just my opinion

  • of course other people are going to disagree.

  • Well let's see, let's hear what their disagreements are

  • and then we'll see

  • if they have reasons

  • that can persuade you or not.

  • Let's try that

  • Let's

  • 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. Say there was a lottery,

  • cabin boy lost,

  • and the rest of the story unfolded. How many people would say it's morally permissible?

  • So the numbers are rising if we add 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 desire is a more important than yours and mine take precedent

  • and if they had done a lottery were 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.

  • 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

  • And can someone who agrees with Matt

  • say a little bit more

  • about why

  • a lottery

  • would make it, in your view,

  • morally permissible.

  • 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 it something was going to happen to him even though 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. Yes that's what happened in the actual case

  • but if there were a lottery and they all agreed to the procedure

  • you think that would be okay?

  • Right, because everyone knows that there's gonna be a death

  • whereas

  • you know the cabin boy didn't know that

  • this discussion was even happening

  • there was no

  • you know forewarning

  • for him to know that hey, I may be the one that's dying. Okay, now suppose the everyone agrees

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

  • you know if you know you're dying for the reason for at others to live,

  • you would, you know

  • if the someone else had died

  • you know that you would consume them, so

  • But then he 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 that's

  • what makes it the most horrible

  • is that he had no idea what was even going on, that if he had known what was going on

  • it would

  • be a bit more understandable.

  • Alright, good, now I want to hear

  • so there's some who think

  • it's morally permissible

  • but only about twenty percent,

  • 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 from Parker

  • at the

  • very last moment

  • it would still

  • be wrong

  • and why would it be wrong

  • that's what I want to hear.

  • well the whole time

  • I've been leaning towards the categorical moral reasoning

  • and I think that

  • there's a possibility I'd be okay with the idea of the lottery and then 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 and also I don't think that there's any remorse like in

  • Dudley's diary

  • we're getting our breakfast

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

  • you know that whole idea of not valuing someone else's life

  • so that makes me

  • feel like I have to take the categorical stance. You want to throw the book at him.

  • when he lacks remorse or a sense of having done anything wrong. Right.

  • Alright, good so are there any other

  • defenders who

  • 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 and every way our society looks down at it in the same light

  • and I don't think it's any different in any case. Good now let me ask you a question,

  • there were three lives at stake

  • versus one,

  • the one, that 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 the time

  • and popular opinion sympathized with them

  • Dudley and Stephens

  • and the paper said if they weren't

  • motivated

  • by affection

  • and concern for their loved ones at home and dependents, surely they wouldn't have

  • done this. Yeah, and how is that any different from people

  • on the corner

  • trying to having 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

  • of that in the same light. Instead of criminalizing certain

  • activities

  • and making certain things seem more violent and savage

  • when in that same case it's all the same act and mentality

  • that goes into the murder, a necessity to feed their families.

  • Suppose there weren't three, supposed there were thirty,

  • three hundred,

  • one life to save three hundred

  • or in more time,

  • three thousand

  • or suppose the stakes were even bigger.

  • Suppose the stakes were even bigger

  • I think it's still the same deal.

  • Do you think Bentham was wrong to say the right thing to do

  • is to add

  • up the collected happiness, you think he's wrong about that?

  • I don't think he is 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.

  • Alright thank you, well done.

  • Alright, 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 defense has had to do with

  • necessity

  • the 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 tried 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's said

  • what they did was categorically wrong,

  • right here at the end

  • categorically wrong.

  • Murder is murder it's always wrong

  • even if

  • it increases the overall happiness

  • of society

  • the 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 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.

  • 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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