Flying Pig's Interesting Bits of Philosophy

[CCRunner]

* Imagine that you are present while Hitler is giving the orders for the Final Solution. You can see a mechanism including a switch, which if pressed will trigger a complicated trap involving killing Hitler before he can say anything. However. there is a prisoner from a foreign country attactched over the switch in such a way that only by decapitating him (hypothetical situation here!) can you press the switch. Why would so many people hesitate or refuse to do so?

Well, Germany is a foreign country to me....and since we're in the time period, lets say that the prisoner is Heimler or however you spell it

 

[Narz]

• If you had a lifeboat in the middle of a freezing ocean, in which there were 4 men, a child and a dog, and it was a child/dog too heavy, most people would consider it immoral to throw the child overboard to save the dog. However, supposing the child had a rare, incurable defect giving it a mind identical to the dog, most people would still think that throwing the child overboard would be wrong. Why?

Because it's harder emotionally, to kill a human

• A man out for a drink is drugged, carried to a room, placed on a bed and locked in. When he wakes up, he sees that the room is comfortable, and so he decides, without testing the door, to stay in the room. To what extent is he making a free choice?

He's choosing to not test the door.

• [Religious People only] Can you find a reason why you should belive in your particular God rather than any other concievable one?

N/A

• Assume that it is possible that you live in another world, and are plugged into a computer giving you an incredibly realistic hallucination of this world. You have been like that from birth. How can you tell that anything outside your mind exists?

You can't.

• On a similar note, how do you know that other people are not simply robotic, and you are the only person alive?

You can't. But it's quite hubristic to imagine that someone created a world just for me with 6 billion robots for my entertainment (and pain). Also, if everyone is a robot how did my momma birth me?

• Imagine that you are present while Hitler is giving the orders for the Final Solution. You can see a mechanism including a switch, which if pressed will trigger a complicated trap involving killing Hitler before he can say anything. However. there is a prisoner from a foreign country attactched over the switch in such a way that only by decapitating him (hypothetical situation here!) can you press the switch. Why would so many people hesitate or refuse to do so?

How about I just shoot him instead?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

You can't. But it's quite hubristic to imagine that someone created a world just for me with 6 billion robots for my entertainment (and pain). Also, if everyone is a robot how did my momma birth me?

Artificial womb?

 

[aelf]

Could you then do it with 4 British men and one Frenchman because the one is French? Where is the morally relevant difference in the situation?

It's obviously not the same, because membership in a species is much more actual than membership in a (temporary) nation state. People pretty much function the same way, whereas different animals function differently.

 

[Earthling]

These are a few questions designed to make you think about the way you think. I find them quite interesting:

• If you had a lifeboat in the middle of a freezing ocean, in which there were 4 men, a child and a dog, and it was a child/dog too heavy, most people would consider it immoral to throw the child overboard to save the dog. However, supposing the child had a rare, incurable defect giving it a mind identical to the dog, most people would still think that throwing the child overboard would be wrong. Why?

The child could have family that cared about it much more so than the dog.

• A man out for a drink is drugged, carried to a room, placed on a bed and locked in. When he wakes up, he sees that the room is comfortable, and so he decides, without testing the door, to stay in the room. To what extent is he making a free choice?

It's a free choice in the sense that any choice the man makes at all is; the general existence of "free will" is something else entirely.

• Assume that it is possible that you live in another world, and are plugged into a computer giving you an incredibly realistic hallucination of this world. You have been like that from birth. How can you tell that anything outside your mind exists?

You can't, this is a standard philosophical question and it involves an unfalsifiable premise. BUT, it's also true that this shouldn't change the way you live at all - one might as well live as though this world is real, since if it's not nothing can be done to change things.

• On a similar note, how do you know that other people are not simply robotic, and you are the only person alive?

You don't know for sure that anyone experiences things the way you do, however there is lots of evidence. As for people not being robots, the difference between something mechanical and something organic is rather obvious anyway.

• Imagine that you are present while Hitler is giving the orders for the Final Solution. You can see a mechanism including a switch, which if pressed will trigger a complicated trap involving killing Hitler before he can say anything. However. there is a prisoner from a foreign country attactched over the switch in such a way that only by decapitating him (hypothetical situation here!) can you press the switch. Why would so many people hesitate or refuse to do so?

I don't see where other people have answered otherwise - this one is a bit vague to answer. If you're assuming time travel (ie. rather than being a person at the time not knowing how WWII/subsequent events were going to turn out) this isn't the most direct way to go about things either. So - person at the time may consider their own life/survival (plus the prisoner's) more important than getting killed by Hitler's guards, especially, without foresight or hindsight, if killing Hitler alone wouldn't really do much. Time traveler could probably guarantee his own safety but would have to be sure that he could actually change things through this action, so more details would be need to not make things worse.

 

[Camikaze]

These are a few questions designed to make you think about the way you think. I find them quite interesting:

• If you had a lifeboat in the middle of a freezing ocean, in which there were 4 men, a child and a dog, and it was a child/dog too heavy, most people would consider it immoral to throw the child overboard to save the dog. However, supposing the child had a rare, incurable defect giving it a mind identical to the dog, most people would still think that throwing the child overboard would be wrong. Why?

Humans are humans, regardless of their mental mindset. The nature of being a human is determined not through thoughts but through scientific classification.

• A man out for a drink is drugged, carried to a room, placed on a bed and locked in. When he wakes up, he sees that the room is comfortable, and so he decides, without testing the door, to stay in the room. To what extent is he making a free choice?

To the extent that he wants to stay in the room. His free choice ends when he does test the door, and want to leave.

• [Religious People only] Can you find a reason why you should belive in your particular God rather than any other concievable one?

Yes. I like mine. 'My' God is different from everyone else's Christian God, and everyone else's Christian God is unique, also. This is because your God is what you conceive it to be. So, out of all the 'conceivable' Gods, obviously the one that I conceive is the one I should believe in.

• Assume that it is possible that you live in another world, and are plugged into a computer giving you an incredibly realistic hallucination of this world. You have been like that from birth. How can you tell that anything outside your mind exists?

You can't. If you are like that from birth, than everything you experience is in your mind. Seeing as everything you have experienced/will experience is inside your mind, there is nothing that can tell you that there is anything outside your mind.

• On a similar note, how do you know that other people are not simply robotic, and you are the only person alive?

Bisection.

• Imagine that you are present while Hitler is giving the orders for the Final Solution. You can see a mechanism including a switch, which if pressed will trigger a complicated trap involving killing Hitler before he can say anything. However. there is a prisoner from a foreign country attactched over the switch in such a way that only by decapitating him (hypothetical situation here!) can you press the switch. Why would so many people hesitate or refuse to do so?

Killing is wrong in all circumstances, and, assuming you did not have the benefit of hindsight, it is reasonable to think that nothing will come out of such a farfetched idea.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

These are a few questions designed to make you think about the way you think. I find them quite interesting:

• A man out for a drink is drugged, carried to a room, placed on a bed and locked in. When he wakes up, he sees that the room is comfortable, and so he decides, without testing the door, to stay in the room. To what extent is he making a free choice?

He can act in accordance with his desires and wishes. As soon as he wants to get out, this is no longer true. He is not free to leave, if he wanted to.

And I take it that he assumes, if even only subconsciously, that the door is not locked.


But then again, I am only a borderline compatibilist anyway.

 

[holy king]

Solipsism is a thought experiment, not a way of life.

 

[Flying Pig]

Humans are humans, regardless of their mental mindset. The nature of being a human is determined not through thoughts but through scientific classification.

I know; but what I'm getting at is there seems to be nothing here than what would otherwise be called racism. There seems to be no difference between two beings identical except that one is human and one is not that is morally relevant.

 

[Camikaze]

I know; but what I'm getting at is there seems to be nothing here than what would otherwise be called racism. There seems to be no difference between two beings identical except that one is human and one is not that is morally relevant.

I don't think humans have progressed so far as to accept animals as our rightful equals. So, current morality would have it that racism and specieism are incomparable.

 

[Flying Pig]

Does it only become right when people agree it is?

 

[Camikaze]

Does it only become right when people agree it is?

Depends what you mean by 'right'. I assume you mean inherently right, so no. This are either inherently right or not. It is just our perceptions of them that dictate whether they are part of our morality. So, no, things don't become 'right' in that sense just because people decide they are.

 

[Flying Pig]

So is it right that almost everyone would throw the dog?

 

[Camikaze]

So is it right that almost everyone would throw the dog?

Well, seeing as the two are equal in all aspects apart from one being designated human and one designated dog, then it couldn't be worse to throw the dog. And you could always save the child to eat later. Dog liver is poisonous.

 

[Flying Pig]

The dog might be more useful (no need for an NHS support, maybe it's a sheepdog) etc. Eating the child is another point that most people would consider wrong.

 

[Camikaze]

The dog might be more useful (no need for an NHS support, maybe it's a sheepdog) etc. Eating the child is another point that most people would consider wrong.

NHS?

What good would a sheepdog be in the middle of an ocean? And yes, eating the child would probably be considered wrong, in most people's opinion. Which is another point again. If you were starving, why would it be any more wrong to eat the child instead of the dog?

 

[Flying Pig]

NHS - I am referring to the government needng to spend money on th child. And we are assuming that all the passngers wll get home safely.

 

[Camikaze]

Why shouldn't the government also spend money on the dog, if it is an equal?

 

[Flying Pig]

The do doesn't cost anything because it doesn't need medical treatment/attention or special education

 

[Camikaze]

Why shouldn't the dog also receive medical treatment? Also, if the minds of the two are identical, what will special education do for one that would not be done for the other?