THE MORAL SIDE OF MURDER
I just watched a Harvard course:
http://www.youtube.com/wat
which starts with:
"
If you had to choose between (1) killing one person to save the lives of five others and (2) doing nothing even though you knew that five people would die right before your eyes if you did nothing—what would you do? What would be the right thing to do?
"
If you have time and you are interested, please watch all the examples from video, especially the last real one and bring your arguments to justify one opinion or another.
http://www.youtube.com/wat
which starts with:
"
If you had to choose between (1) killing one person to save the lives of five others and (2) doing nothing even though you knew that five people would die right before your eyes if you did nothing—what would you do? What would be the right thing to do?
"
If you have time and you are interested, please watch all the examples from video, especially the last real one and bring your arguments to justify one opinion or another.
SOLUTION
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SOLUTION
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ASKER
@dhsindy
You did not get the point. Here is not about driving too fast or by not respecting the traffic rules.
It is about the choice and why you do it in a certain way from moral point of view.
The proposed example is a presumptive one. We can just assume that you were under the max. allowed speed and the guys appeared faster in front of you…, but actually if you watch a bit of video, then you will see that come more examples to illustrate the idea of murder and your moral choice.
It may be the fault of all 6 people, you do not know that at the moment when you drive, but you have to decide who will live and then to explain your choice.
For example, the course continue with the next example:
- You are now on a bridge and the 5 workers are below the bridge. As you look down, you notice that suddenly a trolley/wagon comes from somewhere towards the 5 workers and they do not see it. There is no time to let them know in any way. In exchange, near you, suddenly you see a fat man. If you push the fat man over the bridge in front of the trolley, then the 5 workers are saved.
- The question is then: would you push him? If yes, what are your arguments?
- Later, the example evolved a bit: imagine that instead of pushing him, you have something similar with the steering wheel of the track form the first example and a hatch open under the fat man who is falling in front of the trolley.
You did not get the point. Here is not about driving too fast or by not respecting the traffic rules.
It is about the choice and why you do it in a certain way from moral point of view.
The proposed example is a presumptive one. We can just assume that you were under the max. allowed speed and the guys appeared faster in front of you…, but actually if you watch a bit of video, then you will see that come more examples to illustrate the idea of murder and your moral choice.
It may be the fault of all 6 people, you do not know that at the moment when you drive, but you have to decide who will live and then to explain your choice.
For example, the course continue with the next example:
- You are now on a bridge and the 5 workers are below the bridge. As you look down, you notice that suddenly a trolley/wagon comes from somewhere towards the 5 workers and they do not see it. There is no time to let them know in any way. In exchange, near you, suddenly you see a fat man. If you push the fat man over the bridge in front of the trolley, then the 5 workers are saved.
- The question is then: would you push him? If yes, what are your arguments?
- Later, the example evolved a bit: imagine that instead of pushing him, you have something similar with the steering wheel of the track form the first example and a hatch open under the fat man who is falling in front of the trolley.
SOLUTION
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ASKER
I am not so sure I understood properly your question. Do you mean to kill yourself instead of others? You cannot do that. The examples does not allow the self-sacrifice. You will understand later why.
The examples in video continue as follows:
- instead of the above situations, let's imagine a doctor and 5 injured persons.
- one of them is very bad injured and the other 4 not so bad.
- now comes the "trick": if the doctor will take care of the one bad injured, then needs more time and all the other 4 will die. Opposite, if the doctor takes care of the other 4 first time, then they will survive, but the bad injured one will die.
- then the question is: what would you do as doctor and why from moral aspect point of view?
Then the examples continue with another one:
- supposing there are 4 ill patients, each suffering badly because 1 organ is almost not functional.
- suddenly comes a healthy person for a control. The doctor thinks for a moment that if will take the organs from the healthy one, then the other 4 will live.
- again, how would you decide instead of the doctor from moral point of view?
- here one student proposed a similar alternative as the one from the post above: why not to take the good organs from one of those 4 and treat the rest of 3. But let's take this option out of the discussion.
The examples in video continue as follows:
- instead of the above situations, let's imagine a doctor and 5 injured persons.
- one of them is very bad injured and the other 4 not so bad.
- now comes the "trick": if the doctor will take care of the one bad injured, then needs more time and all the other 4 will die. Opposite, if the doctor takes care of the other 4 first time, then they will survive, but the bad injured one will die.
- then the question is: what would you do as doctor and why from moral aspect point of view?
Then the examples continue with another one:
- supposing there are 4 ill patients, each suffering badly because 1 organ is almost not functional.
- suddenly comes a healthy person for a control. The doctor thinks for a moment that if will take the organs from the healthy one, then the other 4 will live.
- again, how would you decide instead of the doctor from moral point of view?
- here one student proposed a similar alternative as the one from the post above: why not to take the good organs from one of those 4 and treat the rest of 3. But let's take this option out of the discussion.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
For those who did not watched the video, worth to mention that next and last example given in the video is a real case:
The Queen vs Dudley and Stephens (1884) (The Lifeboat Case)
(Criminal Law - - Murder - - Killing and eating Flesh of Human Being under Pressure of Hunger - - "Necessity" - - Special Verdict - Certiorari - Offence on High Seas)
http://www.justiceharvard.org/resources/the-queen-vs-dudley-and-stephens-1884-the-lifeboat-case/
https://la.utexas.edu/users/jmciver/357L/QueenvDS.PDF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens
The Queen vs Dudley and Stephens (1884) (The Lifeboat Case)
(Criminal Law - - Murder - - Killing and eating Flesh of Human Being under Pressure of Hunger - - "Necessity" - - Special Verdict - Certiorari - Offence on High Seas)
http://www.justiceharvard.org/resources/the-queen-vs-dudley-and-stephens-1884-the-lifeboat-case/
https://la.utexas.edu/users/jmciver/357L/QueenvDS.PDF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens
SOLUTION
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@viki2000:
Nice/interesting 'type' of question, 'trading' of some lives for others ... has many forms. As this one has both over-abundance of forms, and incompleteness (missing remainder of classes not to mention the outside reading requirements for background), consider revisit of this, ask a different way...
Re: Lifeboat, what's next on menu?
Nice/interesting 'type' of question, 'trading' of some lives for others ... has many forms. As this one has both over-abundance of forms, and incompleteness (missing remainder of classes not to mention the outside reading requirements for background), consider revisit of this, ask a different way...
Re: Lifeboat, what's next on menu?
ASKER
Thank you for your thoughts.
I had/have no time to comment more on the subject and general on EE.
I had/have no time to comment more on the subject and general on EE.
ASKER
I was a bit disappointed by the answers given by the students in video.
First of all a crime is treated different on the globe in different countries, local laws and history times according with the people understanding of what is moral and just.
In the past was common that a crime to end with the death penalty.
The same crime done somewhere on the globe may be judged different. That is the relativity of our moral and justice.
The teacher framed the examples to limit the possibilities, by leading the student in one direction. He manipulated them. And that is happening also in reality many times in courts. The teacher tried to force the students to offer a neutral, universal answer as if the justice and moral values are universal. But on the planet Earth, in the past and as well on our times, the reality is different. The justice and moral values are influenced by tradition, religion, culture, history and so on. We tend to have a universal value for life, but we do not have and we change these values local, many times according with the our momentary understanding. When we generalize and we extrapolate then we end in already old known main values, shades of the ten commandments and additional social moral laws given to Moses, which will lead in the end to a religion without God, worse than before.
Those sailors did not come from nowhere, from vacuum. They had a history, education, knowledge of good and bad, moral, according with local times and place.
At that time, on that part of the globe, the people used to consider themselves Christians, knowing and understanding the meaning of life also from that point of view.
If you ask me, then there is no way to justify what they did.
And for what purpose? To save their lives? For how long? Few more years on Earth?
First of all a crime is treated different on the globe in different countries, local laws and history times according with the people understanding of what is moral and just.
In the past was common that a crime to end with the death penalty.
The same crime done somewhere on the globe may be judged different. That is the relativity of our moral and justice.
The teacher framed the examples to limit the possibilities, by leading the student in one direction. He manipulated them. And that is happening also in reality many times in courts. The teacher tried to force the students to offer a neutral, universal answer as if the justice and moral values are universal. But on the planet Earth, in the past and as well on our times, the reality is different. The justice and moral values are influenced by tradition, religion, culture, history and so on. We tend to have a universal value for life, but we do not have and we change these values local, many times according with the our momentary understanding. When we generalize and we extrapolate then we end in already old known main values, shades of the ten commandments and additional social moral laws given to Moses, which will lead in the end to a religion without God, worse than before.
Those sailors did not come from nowhere, from vacuum. They had a history, education, knowledge of good and bad, moral, according with local times and place.
At that time, on that part of the globe, the people used to consider themselves Christians, knowing and understanding the meaning of life also from that point of view.
If you ask me, then there is no way to justify what they did.
And for what purpose? To save their lives? For how long? Few more years on Earth?
My brother was asked in class what the only justifiable reason for murder is, and brought the class down laughing when he answered 'The Birdy Song'