Sorry its all scrunched... I wish I could fix that! I tried editing it but it wouldn't work... Sorry guys!
Lol... regardless of what they say, people are truly capable of anything, for good or ill. They just don't know it yet.
Man, I realise I can't even kill one man if it means 5 others are saved. For me, it wouldn't matter that those 5 now continue to live, but that I killed that one guy.
Same goes for all other questions, the only one that was giving me a real hard time and I don't know if I would react like that is the first question about the baby =/
Even if it's a culture thing, I don't think slavery could ever be seen as something different than "un fair/evil/whatever you call that". It's not just a matter of culture.
And on the polls : noone can answer, unless they already have made such decision. In great danger noone can know precisely how they would react. You don't know if you'll be scared, or in such a rage you would kill the baby without an eye blink.
I agree with vieuxchat on both points. Even if slavery is a fundamental aspect of a culture, it doesn't make it OK. In fact, for the thousands of years that slavery has been implemented it WAS a fundamental aspect of the relevant cultures. To say that the morality of a thing is dependent on the culture makes the assumption that all cultures and ways of life are equal - which many people actually do. Personally I think that is wrong and naive. Murderers and intentional criminals follow ways of life that justify their crimes - nonetheless we still punish them for the wrongs they've done, even if they did nothing wrong according to their own way of life. Likewise, stoning is still a culturally acceptable death sentence in much of the world for adultery and other offenses; that it is accepted makes me think that there is something immoral about the culture itself.
That isn't to say that I think western culture, or any other, is the be-all and end-all of culture, we have our own moral plagues. Using local culture as a baseline for judging the morality of an action trivializes and demeans the concept of morality. Nonetheless this is a tricky subject, because even though I might be appalled when a women in Iran is stoned to death for adultery, some Iranians might be appalled by the revealing clothing worn by so many american women. Who is right?
And to the second point, I agree that nobody can truthfully answer questions that involve taking the life of one or more innocent people. You can think them through, but you will never be able to predict how you'll act. Maybe some of the people in the way of the trolly strike a chord with you and you are inspired to save their lives even at the cost of the other man's. And even if you think the right thing to do would be to divert the trolley, maybe you'd be too nervous or scared to act on it.
And something that's always bothered me about the baby question: why do you have to suffocate the baby to death? Why can't you just cut of his air supply until he faints, then let him breathe again? Unconscious babies don't cry, but they usually do breathe...
Well as long as the morality argument is purely subjective the concept is a good one.
On a side note and to support my position consider this... I think we have a new form of slavery now. The slaves don’t wear chains anymore, there are no whips either and they are free to travel and it is insidious in its incarnation, but make no mistake, it is slavery nonetheless. We have millions of people called "working poor" people who work their fingers to the bone only to be able to pay rent and maybe have a small meal every day. This "life style" is what they have to look forward for most of their life with no reasonable chance of change.
Regarding the questions, if one simply uses the old maxim that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one, then the morale answer to all these questions is simple.
An interesting thing to note, when I was asked the trolley question as part of a military psychological evaluation, my answer was to jump off the bridge as it was the most expedient thing without any chance of failure. The doctor giving the test told me in all the years he asked the question no one had ever responded that way.
I disagree. The ancient world was built on slavery, and for the most part until Christianity made an appearance there seemed to be very little spoken about it from a moral perspective (and by that point slavery was nowhere near as widespread as it had been in the early days of Empire or at the end of the Republic). Why? Because slavery wasn't a permanent status, nor was it (at least in many cases) what we think of when we think of slavery (normally we get an image of cotton fields being worked by African slaves with the overseer standing watch). While there was some extremely unpleasant slavery in the ancient world (mines were death sentences), large numbers of slaves were household slaves, and for most there was an opportunity to gain freedom if they truly wished to work towards that end. As a result most people of the ancient world neither viewed slavery as unnatural or evil... it was simply the way things were. Most of the objections that occured in the early republic was the soldiers who left to fight and had their families enslaved for debt collection while they were gone (which led to the laws that only foriegners could be enslaved).
I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, "was ancient Rome an Empire that leaned evil or good?" Personally, I think that the later Roman Empire (where there were far fewer slaves) had more in common with how an "evil" empire should look than the Early Principate under Augustus (where slavery was very common). The later Roman Empire was characterized by a despotic, oriental regime whose rapacious pursuit of taxes (always levied against those who could least afford to pay them) drove freeholding citizens to serfdom and whose increasing corruption and oppressive rule oftentimes meant that Roman citizens welcomed foriegn rule as a relief from the Empire's governance. A land whose economy was increasingly strangled by over-regulation, disincentives to modernize and a massive burden of taxation, and where the countryside was increasingly empty and untended. The Principate of Augustus on the otherhand was characterized by a healthy urban life throughout the empire, increasing prosperity and good governance (certainly much better governance than what had been found under the republic). The institution of slavery was much stronger in the early empire than it was in the late (many more wars of conquest), however the governance was far better and society much healthier. I'm not saying that slavery was good for Rome (arguments can be made for either perspective), however I am saying that it did not really seem to have an impact on the moral quality of government one way or the other.
@lwarmonger - Sounds like you are describing modern cooperate America and the new world order in your last post. Hmmm... The times they are a changin'....
BTW: Speaking of morality and ethics, Edge recently published an article that is worth a read on the topic. Would you like to know more? Then click here.
You can say whatever you want, slavery is a bad bad thing. How can someone think that losing it's freedom is a good thing or even a neutral thing? A slave can be feed well, masters can take care of his slaves, but they remain slaves!! Objects!! The ancient world was built on slavery? And? People in that age didn't really care about it? And? That don't, in no way, make slavery acceptable. It wasn't a shame in that age? And? It is from a philosophical point of view.
You're arguing from a singular point of view, but it's only one of many. Wheter or not slavery is excusable may be an adamant "no" to you, but to the majority of people throughout the history of mankind, it's been a casual shrug and a "whatever". Rome, for example, was entirely built around slavery, not because humans became objects, but because their concept of personal freedom was so different to ours. As lwarmonger said, the legitimity of Rome's usage of slaves is debatable (some argue that it fell due to the extensive use of slaves, others say that Rome would've been impossible to realize without slaves; I argue both).
You say that none of this makes slavery acceptable, but if we accept that the morality, and the nature of good and evil, is the product of a fluidous social contract between the influential base of a society or civilization (of which there are many, not only one, even today - although the borders themselves are hard to discern) we see that it's just not true - slavery is very much acceptable, to a great many people, and if you think you've seen the last of it, you're sorely mistaken. The nature of man hasn't fundamentally changed, and the acceptance or rejection of slavery is simply a function of necessity (or lack thereof).
The nature of man and morality (which we are both a product of, producer of, and yet devoid of) is the same reason I didn't get into the argument in the first place, since the premise is flawed. It's based on people's perception of themselves as persons, not as humans. Truth be told, I don't think a single person truly knows how they'd react or act upon any of the situations described in the opening post. There's not even a "I'd lie there in a catatonic state of shock"-option, which is more likely than not! The only thing a test like that gauges is the perception people have of themselves, which is much, much greater than the truth.
And? It's not "a" philosophical point of view. It's a "philosophical" point of view. I'm not talking about perception or people's point of view. Philosophicaly speaking there's no argument to make slavery acceptable. Even if it helped build a civilization as powerfull as the romans.
I don't think we've seen the last of it. The fact that "modern" slavery, as Spartan pointed out, just show that the nature of slavery has changed, but it's not still acceptable. And as you said ... it's not because a lot of people think it's acceptable that it is. Slavery isn't just an absence of freedom, it's also a denial of one's humanity. It's making people just objects.
Anyway, I think like you about the OP. Noone knows how they would react, they just imagine how they would react.
Perceptions and people's point of view IS a part of philosophy. It can be argued wheter or not philosophy is a science, but by it's very nature it seeks to define and argue for that which isn't fact. You're trying to enforce philosophy and it's supposed inability to excuse slavery as a fact to support the argument that slavery is inexcusable. This just isn't true, since philosophy just as easily can touch upon the worth of man.
What is a man, and what seperates it from objects? How is objectification an inherently bad thing, if we've ever been anything else? Some could even argue that a return to objectification or materialism is the natural state of things, rather than the ensouling of said objects (in this context, man). Philosophy isn't linear, and it doesn't have a final (or finite) conclusion, even if some (including me) do see it as means to a theory of everything, but we're millenia away from that, if we even persist for long enough.
So yes, it's "A" philosophical point of view, since there's a multitude of philosophical viewpoints on this matter.I recommend a hearty dose of Nietszche, followed by Might is Right (or Survival of the Fittest) by Ragnar Redbeard. I haven't gotten into it yet, but I wouldn't be suprised if Evola & the traditionalists also have entire chapters on slavery and the "worth" of man (or lack thereof), and their views on "human rights". Of course, most ultimately end up discarding the idea of slavery to the slag heap of history, but for wholly different reasons.While I can't think of anyone that openly advocates the very specific area of slavery, I'm confident that they do exist, at least as an end result of other philosophical doctrines (Certain satanistic leanings comes to mind).
I wouldn't go so far as to say that, as all power is relative and while the fall of Rome was accompanied by the rise of a multitude of other powers, the US's faltering in recent months has been accompanied by the even worse collapse of our competetors and rival's economies (yes even China has suffered more from this than us).
Back on track though, vieuxchat you are trying to make an absolute argument on a subjective topic (namely morality), and that rarely works out well. The fact remains that arguments were made for slavery being "right," anything from a rationalization based on the "white man's burden" to "they were are enemies and deserve what happens to them." Since morality is subjective (the Aztecs and Druids saw nothing at all wrong with human sacrifice for example, while modern society finds it repulsive... just as I and many Americans see nothing wrong with the death penalty, while many others see it as immoral), it is impossible to "prove" an argument one way or another on such an issue, and to say that something is inherently wrong philisophically is to misunderstand the nature of the topic.
1) You don't actually have to kill the baby to forcibly shut it up. You should be able to gag it (not healthy exactly but it'll do the job) and/or induce unconsciousness without doing too much damage. For reference: "The use of choking to induce unconsciousness is a temporary incapacitating technique of short duration whose proper execution is quite harmless." Admittedly, this is not going to be easy if you're trying it on a baby, but worst case scenario you kill it (which you were probably going to do anyway), and best case scenario it's unconscious and you all survive. You are assuming that I have enough time to actually do something before the soldiers identify the source of the sound (we're actually probably looking at hearing), though, and you may even be assuming that if the soldiers cannot identify the source of the sound that they will not check every building (this is false, by the way). So my guess is I have at least 8-10 seconds, perhaps even 15, which is more than enough time.2) Define "certain to die soon". Further, are there sharks? How far out at sea are we? I can swim; bring it on.3) Flip the switch and go save his inattentive ass. It's a lot easier to save one person than five. For this version of it you can argue that it's not possible since I'm not on location, but it doesn't work for at least the second one and possibly the third one. Still, if you can flip the switch as the train hits it, then we can either get a stuck train or a derailed train, in which case no one is in the path anymore. Yes, I'm aware that would be tough.3.1) I'm not understanding how this works, but my theory is him getting hit by the train is supposed to alert the other five to it and/or slow the train down enough for them to get away (note: extremely unlikely, as he's made of flesh and bone). In case it's the first, my pants should do the job as well, unless we're looking for a crunch noise, in which case, I'm not sure what I have in my pockets that day.3.2) Same as above, I'm not understanding how this is a valid solution to the problem.3.3) For the record, if these people are standing on the tracks, then I'm not sure I want to save them in the first place. If, however, we've got some kind of thing going on where track is unfinished and the train in question is going to be going off of the track, then we may have an actual issue at hand.The first and the second one aren't bad, exactly...in terms of decisions, at least. The third one seems unnecessarily complicated any way you put it.At least you can determine from my responses that I am 1) too moral and 2) too logical to accept that the options you've given me are the limit of the options that I have.
This reminds me somewhat of the theoretical situation where there's a fire in a building and you can save x amount of people on one floor or you can save y amount of people on another floor. It doesn't work like this. It really doesn't. Saving a given person is going to take you a amount of time, getting back in to save another is going to take you b amount of time (we're assuming that you can't save them all at once, i.e. they're unconscious or something and simple reason/helping them over a single obstacle won't cut it), and unless the fire started on one of the higher floors and you're trying to get people out from the lower floors (read: kind of stupid, as it tends to go upwards, but will eventually burn the building down, so the floor the fire's on should be prioritized first), you're simply not going to have enough time to get perhaps two people out, most likely one, before you just can't fucking get back in there anymore. This is why we have firefighters, people. (Also Spider-Man. But let's not go there, okay?)Also, unless this is a chemical fire that's going to cause an explosion in a very short amount of time, in which case you're going to have a helluva time even getting one person out, where the hell are the fire extinguishers? I thought we had to have them by law by this point. Maybe that's just this area? I guess forest fires help for something.Yes, I know I added an example you didn't even include and might not agree with, without fleshing it out to boot. But it seemed to be somewhat relevant.
I think the questions are poorly phrased. Could I kill someone in the mentioned circumstances? Yes, I think I could. Would I do it? No, I would not. You can rephrase the basic question in infinite ways. For example, do you think it is ok to do lethal experiments on homeless people if it might lead to a cure for cancer?
vieuxchat: "Philosophicaly speaking there's no argument to make slavery acceptable."
Sure there is, plenty actually. For POWs it might be a choice between death or slavery. If you have nothing and need 300 000$ fora life saving operation for your daughter, for how long would you accept to be a slave for that?These are not black or white types of questions... mostly it's shades of gray.
Work you can quit and so on, you still have choices. And you have a life outside of work. Or the other way around, slaves are usually given food and housing, so maybe slavery is just work were you don't get paid more than that? Thus no morality issue?
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