[lit-ideas] Re: On being called a Lyre [apology]
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:41:13 -0700
Phil writes, re the AIDS bandit
I will expose my ignorance: How is the above any less useful a
scenario than the 'Trolley Problem'? Or perhaps I am misreading
Robert's mention of the 'Trolley Problem'?
There is ultimately no difference, I think, except that few people, I
would guess, would be able to imagine any sort of plausible story in
which one's only option was to kill the AIDS bandit or else allow him
to pursue his nasty plans. I can't even imagine where this is supposed
to be taking place. On a bus? In the Senior Commons Room? At a cocktail
party? How do things unfold? A says to B that he has AIDS and intends to
infect as many other people as he can with the HIV virus before he
himself dies. Whereupon B must kill him straightaway, or else. Poor
script, surely.
In the trolley case, we're at least given an imaginable scenario,
however fanciful it is. (We're even provided with diagrams of the
situation.) This may seduce people into thinking that such a situation
is not only completely described, but, however unlikely, possible. In
any event, these are the sorts of cases 'neuroethicists' think they can
present to subjects in an experiment and gain from their responses
useful information about the role of the emotions in moral decision-making.
The point of these 'dilemmas' has always been lost on me. In part,
this is because of the sorts of reasons Robert mentions, namely that
one is artificially forced into an either/or situation. But also,
that moral (perhaps all?) issues are not defined by their most extreme
cases. It seems to me that moral issues are defined under the most
mundane circumstances, so that what we do under extraordinary
circumstances follows from what we do ordinarily.
This is a nice point. There may be, in real life, genuine moral
dilemmas, but the ones usually presented as test cases are no more
compelling than a 'non-moral' case—A gives B the rules for a game:
'You're to raise your right hand whenever I say something true, and your
left hand when I say something false.' (Various successful responses are
given.) Then: 'Your left hand is in the air.' Whatever B does it will be
'wrong.' There's no right response here. This failure has nothing to do
with B's reasoning powers. It's just the result of the ill-formed rules
of a game that nobody is forced to play. The illusion that there is a
right response in the AIDS/trolley cases seems to be of the same form.
'I cannot decide here,' doesn't show that one cannot decide in the sorts
of cases that ordinary people ordinarily have to deal with.
'But you must decide!' is just a philosophical illusion.
Coincidently, I was just reading Kant's discussion of whether one
might be permitted to lie to protect someone's life and it struck me
that this was not Kant at his best.
True. This isn't the part of Kant's ethics that I would suggest people
read first.
Robert Paul
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