Philosophy discussion

To our moderator: this might be worth its own folder, but I can't set one up. If you agree, please set up a folder for this lecture series and move this post there. thanks

Harvard has posted a series of twelve lectures on Justice with professor Michael Sandel. They can be found here
http://www.justiceharvard.org/
If anybody is interested, let's view these one per week or so and discuss.

On lecture 1, in the first hypothetical, I was in the minority which would not turn the wheel. My reason: as the hypo was set up, fate (or whatever you consider the equivalent) had decreed that the five would die. I had no role or responsibility in or for their deaths. But if I turned the wheel, I would be taking a deliberate, intentional act to kill the one person. I would be interfering in the workings of fate; instead of allowing fate to determine the outcome of the situation, I would be choosing who was to die, and causing their deaths by an intentional act. I don't think I could do that, morally or ethically.

One thing amazed me. The Sanders Theater, in which these lectures are presented, holds, 1,166 students. It appears to be essentially full. If it is even close to full, it holds for this one lecture series three times the total number of students at my college. These students are studying philosophy in a class of 1,000 plus students. I studied philosophy in classes the largest of which in my entire four years of college was about 25 students. It's an amazing difference, or at least so it seems to me.

Hi Everyman --

Everyman wrote: "To our moderator: this might be worth its own folder, but I can't set one up. If you agree, please set up a folder for this lecture series and move this post there.

I have not been able to set up separate folders without knocking other folders off the display. I don't know why this is the case. In the meantime, it's best to put this in the permanent General folder. It will stay on top as long as people are posting to it.

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I have seen the Sandel lectures broadcast in the United States on Sunday evenings on PBS. They are very informative. In lecture 1 -- I forgot this -- what theories is Sandel juxtaposing? I know the example of the five versus the one is an example of utilitarianism, but I forgot what the counter-argument was!

I have seen the Sandel lectures broadcast in the United States on Sunday evenings on PBS. They are very informative. In lecture 1 -- I forgot this -- what theories is Sandel juxtaposing? I know the example of the five versus the one is an example of utilitarianism, but I forgot what the counter-argument was!


He discussed consequentialism (not sure that is his exact term) in which the moral judgment of a decision is based on the consequences of the action. That is, will the outcome be good or bad.

The alternative, I forget which term he used, is the view that some actions are right or wrong irrespective of the consequences; that in the lifeboat incident, for example, even if all four sailors died from starvation, that was morally better than killing and eating one of them, since murder and cannibalism are wrong no matter what the consequences.

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialist thinking -- that you look at the outcome of the decision and judge based on the greatest good for the greatest number. But in my experience none of us is a true utilitarian. If we were, we would support, for just one example, taking virtually all of Bill Gates's money and handing it out to all the citizens of the country. Better for 300 million vs. worse for one family. There's utilitarianism at work for you! But very few people would advocate such a course -- especially those of us who have amassed a bit of money over the years and don't want it all taken away to give to those who haven't!

Yes, now I remember the discussion. Utilitarianism was popular in the 1800's and still is, but Kant poses the point that some things, like murder, are categorically wrong. So the problem in this lecture is the balance between the two: At what point does a utilitarian line of reasoning have to give way to a categorical imperative? To be sure, laying out morality as a series of imperatives doesn't account for a lot of things that would occur, especially at the societal level. So as I understand it: How do we balace consequentialist theories with other kinds?

I didn't watch the lecture but I am familiar with the trolley car thought experiment and I actually hold the same position as Everyman.

By holding these positions we assume responsibility for ethics resides within us. With that being said, how does the lecturer begin the series in relation to the concept of right and wrong? If we know right and wrong stem from our actions how can a lecturer posit right and wrong on hypotheticals which we are not immediately present.

Does the series begin with the assumption that ethical right and wrong are somewhere out there in the universe (imperatives) or is the approach ambiguous?

That was an excellent post Patrice. Very Captain Kirk like with his defeating the no win scenario test at star fleet academy by finding a way to make a win (although he cheated).

I get frustrated with ethical philosophy because it just seems impossible to formulate without putting your own value on things in there. Like with the respirator, 4 people have to get flown out increasing their chances of serious physical damage or death. If one of the patients was the doctors mother or daughter it changes everything and I for one would choose the 4 strangers to be flown out.

Same with the train tracks. If the 1 person is your kid and the five are strangers decision made. Saving lives is great, saving multiple lives is even better, but saving your loved ones life is the greatest of all and no metric for the value of life is going to change that for some people.

It seems impossible to get around this fact unless one practices the renunciation of love for one and encompasses love for life. It is qualitative judgments banging heads with quantitative. I for one am not convinced by quantity of life.

Here is what is so frustrating about ethics and justice. I see justice and malice in both actions in the Illinois Hospital example. Maybe not malice but if a better word comes to mind I'll use it.

The person who was bumping the non near death patients up the list would have been doing it for their own personal reasons. If one of those reasons was that it was their grandfather, or someone who is absolutely pertinent to the hospitals function (like an Einstein or some other genius type figure who presents massive contributions) then the one doing the choosing is acting ethical by doing the right thing for the person who holds higher value. The difference is what assigns value to something. If we assign value to life in-itself then one has every right to ask "why does that trump individual values placed on saving family and/or the Einsteins/Jonas Salks of the world?"

I guess I question why value must be placed on life alone or quality of life and not a composite of quality of life with quality of contribution to society. If it is society determining these decisions, meaning if we are to collectively agree what value is to be placed on life, then by dint of collective agreement we assume there is a higher good for society. These higher goods are immediately recognized in the works of the Albert Schwietzers and Mother Theresa's of the world. If higher goods can be recognized, and praised, then they are by dint higher then life itself, they possess a quality of greatness which trumps ordinary life.

This recognition should be applied to choosing who gets the operation first because the whole notion of value on life stems from this same value on quality. By being able to put a blanket claim to life being the most precious means that one can estimate value. This estimation is individual and shares within a democratic system with like minded individuals. In this case moral action is democratic. If it is, then absolute value on life in-itself seem contradictory because of the absolutes validity. I say this because the validity of life as highest value is a democratic judgment.

All in all it frustrates me because it seems to be able to go in circles, for example if we put value on the quality of the life's contributions, then it would should be the case that that individual will renounce being brought to the front of the list out of turn making fairness complete. However, that individual could also see it as a shirk of duty if they allow themselves to deteriorate from disease, keeping themselves from the good work they do when all along it could be prevented and with that extra time they can invent a cure to the same disease.

Oh, my head hurts.

Patrice wrote: "she said that being passive is the attitude of some religions that believe in fate, if a baby falls into a river, one should not interfere with what was meant to be. Of course we don't think that way. We believe that everything must be done to save lives. That rang a bell because eman did use the word "fate". Fate is a troubling concept. Is someone who has a terminal illness fated to die? Should we do nothing to save him? I think fate is a dangerous concept, meant to alleviate pain after the fact, but should not be used before a decision is to be made."

Fate is indeed a troubling concept. But so is the alternative.

First, we save the baby because we are fated to save the baby as much as it is fated to get ill.

My problem is that the more we find that the brain is a physical entity functioning entirely through physical processes, the more fate/predestination become almost necessary unless you reject the basic law of physics/chemistry that under fixed circumstances, doing process A will always result in consequence B. If we see a baby in distress, that triggers certain chemical processes, which interact with the chemical makeup of the observer's brain and causes other chemical reactions which may cause him to turn away, or may cause him to help, but over which he has no control because the end result of his physical actions is a necessary consequence of every action that went before it.

Everyman wrote: "My problem is that the more we find that the brain is a physical entity functioning entirely through physical processes, the more fate/predestination become almost necessary unless you reject the basic law of physics/chemistry that under fixed circumstances, doing process A will always result in consequence B."

This is purely descriptive and tells us nothing about what happens when the baby falls in the river. An action will be governed by things that can describe it, but the description is not the action, the action is discerned by the being behind the action and only that being can describe the motivation behind the action. There may be a triggering of certain chemical reactions but the influence of the particular action by said chemical process is not a universal law of physics, rather the fact of the reaction must be described physically but does not need to adhere to a certain determined causal path.

Furthermore the laws governing the physical world are still only recognized by the conceptual understanding of human beings. This means that, unless human beings created everything they can not decree to know the finite conditions of physical phenomena. Physical science is very useful, but it is still a description and not reality in-itself.

Fate is problematic for me to. I hate the idea of taking responsibility for actively ending a life, like with the train and switch example, but the baby is all choice. I can choose to save it or not but I am in no way regulated to fate. The five people on the track are determined to get hit by physical laws. The baby is determined to drown due to physical laws. Yet the baby does not involve a deterministic choice of fate where the one person on the track does. The possibility of me drowning saving the baby is my choice but the one getting smashed by me pulling the lever is not. The choice in that instance is made and all that is left is understanding and agreeing with that choice.

Choice should not be understood or agreed upon, in my opinion, until the death of the free agent. The fate=genetics postulate is incomplete because genetics=fate, not the other way around.

Brian wrote: "There may be a triggering of certain chemical reactions but the influence of the particular action by said chemical process is not a universal law of physics, rather the fact of the reaction must be described physically but does not need to adhere to a certain determined causal path."

It seems to me that if you take that position, you are taking the position that a chemical stimulus can have a random chemical result. Which seems to deny a basic rule of chemistry, doesn't it?

Certainly everything that goes into our brains affects our chemical makeup. This explains the question Patrice raises, why different cultures react differently to the same external stimulus. The answer is that the development of the brain in those cultures has been different over the years, so the same stimulus will have different consequences just as pouring a reagent into a test-tube will produce different outcomes depending on what's in the test-tube.

Patrice wrote: "Btw, i was discussing this with someone who agreed that "all humans are equal" except for members of my family. He would throw the fat man off of the bridge in a heartbeat if it would save his fam..."

Absolutely. At heart we are a biological species, and the core imperative of all biological species is perpetuation of their genes.

Patrice wrote: "I just watched the cannibalism discussion and all I could think of was that eating human beings is extremely unhealthy! "

But eating nothing for an eighth day is even more unhealthy.

Everyman wrote: "Brian wrote: "There may be a triggering of certain chemical reactions but the influence of the particular action by said chemical process is not a universal law of physics, rather the fact of the r..."

Good catch, that came out rather vague and off course from my thoughts. I tried to convey that the description of certain chemical processes can not explain the action as a particular action because no one has a device strapped around their head 24/7. I also meant that, while the description of physical laws will in fact produce a result conforming to the known laws of the universe it in no way explains all unknown events because it can only describe the events it(the laws) knows about.

If I tested my brain functions against a simulated test of drowning babies I may push out a certain result which will be consistent every time I save virtual babies. If I save a drowning baby, no one could ever calculate the causal determinacy of that event.

If I save a drowning baby, no one could ever calculate the causal determinacy of that event.

Where exactly the causal determinacy lies is a further question, because at some level the operation of the brain will involve a degree of physics that expresses outcomes only in terms of probability.

At another level, the operation of the brain yields an emergent property, consciousness. So is decision-making a property of the brain state, or this new entity?

Tyler wrote: "If I save a drowning baby, no one could ever calculate the causal determinacy of that event.

Where exactly the causal determinacy lies is a further question, because at some level the operation ..."

Philosophy of mind is rather tricky and not my strong point. As of now I hold the view that decision making may reflect a certain brain state, but that certain brain state would have to hold true for the particular state every time I experienced that certain decision and decision making process. It seems unlikely because I suspect every brain state would have to be unique since every decision is unique despite its similarities.

For example, if I desire pizza, my brain state should be identical for every time I desire pizza, yet my decision making process is not based on the same reason. One day I may want pizza because my friend is getting it too, on other days I may feel obligated to by pizza because I'm hosting some kind of sporting event party. I desire pizza in both scenarios but in radically different ways.

If decisions come from consciousness then they can not be completely deterministic because of the ambiguous nature of consciousness. While consciousness may be determined by the specific operations of the brain to produce this emergent property, causally determining conscious decisions suffers from the fact that these decision making processes are emergent themselves, they are emergent properties from empirical data, consciousness in-itself, and physical chemical reactions, all holding their own level of probabilities.

I favor the view that the decision making process itself is an emergent property from specific causal determinacy of physiological chemical processes exerting action on consciousness. I think consciousness, as an emergent property, can have no specified path for every moment of consciousness, but rather like lightning strikes the earth via path of least resistance. As lightning does not strike the same place more then once often, neither does the collection of operations needed to fire consciousness, and may be a reason of its elusive nature in the lab. If consciousness offers an opposing, random nature, then physical necessity can not determine the outcome of its action on it(consciousness).

The key word being emergent property. It is a vague way to describe things which are indescribable but do the job well. I've just gone further and posited the idea that everything at the level of conscious action is itself an emergent property. This includes decision making, self reflection, free will, tastes, and many other "qualia" attributes.

Boy that is a lot to swallow. Anyway I see the validity in what all of you are expounding. For the doctor he has a Hippocratic Oath of treating and helping everyone. As far as the drowning baby, I would just try to jump in and save him/her. As far as the wheel, it is like that movie lifeboat who would you save, who needs to leave, that is something that I would not like to be in on. But I can see Patrice's idea that if four were terrorist and one was an FBI agent, I would say knock off the terrorists, but this is a morale and ethical dilemma that we all can't concretely sanctify.

The "trolley-car problem," the way Sandel presented it first, said just that there was one person one one track and five on the other, and you were in a position to change the direction of the moving trolley.

Interestingly, you can add other things -- make some of them terrorists and others FBI agents, and that makes the situation more interesting.


On the other hand, what you have is a different problem in that case, the reason being that your knowledge of the people involved has changed. You might legitimately answer the trolley-car dilemma one way when you know nothing of the people on the tracks, and quite another in light of added information. It would be fine to have different responses because the additional information means the second scenario isn't the first one anymore.

That is hard one to answer there is so many what ifs, but on a personal light what if one of them was your relative wouldn't you want to save your relative? Just a question.

It turns out that the "trolley car problem" was invented by the philosopher Phillipa Foot several decades ago as a thought experiment. On a sad footnote, I read yesterday that she died this October 4th.

I will google her to find out what the outcome of her thought experiment was.

Hi Robin --

Foot's trolley car problem is a thought experiment intended to force us to take our moral points of view to an extreme to see how they hold up. In that sense, there's no particular outcome to it.

However, when this problem comes up it seems most people favor the alternative of running over one person to save four. Personally, I wouldn't do it, but if popular vote is the measure, that would be the outcome.

It is a what if question or dilemma for me. I don't know if people would be so crass to let one person die to keep four people alive. That is like playing God.