Soapbox: The source of morality - what it means.

[El_Machinae]

The trolley problem shows that we run into hiccups in our intuitions that don't really make sense according to the metrics we think we're using. When people articulate their intuitive reasoning, the trolley problem shows they weren't really thinking that way.

 

[warpus]

That explains in how far it is useful to handle murder as something inherently bad. It however doesn't make it so. To the contrary, this reasoning makes murders not something inherently bad, but a mere tool to organize society.
I.e. - it wouldn't be bad to murder at all - wasn't it for the phenomena of fairly widespread murder and its consequences for society at large.
Which is precisely the ideology I adhere to.

If people were murdering eachother left and right, you'd end up having to deal with all the problems I listed. That's like where some of the "murder is bad, mmkay?" thinking came from. Tribes that cut down on murder would have been on average more successful, very generally speaking.

Though doesn't this "complex morality" rest on "hardwired" responses all the same?

No, I don't think so. Some of it does, some of it doesn't. I think there are several "layers" of morality. The lower level is the hardwired stuff. The stuff sitting on top could have multiple sources - for example something partially based on a moral framework that was invented by humankind. I don't think it all devolves into primal urges and instincts.

 

[lovett]

This conclusion I disagree with completely. What alternate standard do you judge morality by to dismiss the nuances of our moral intuition as error? And why is that moral standard superior?

Hmm. A confusion and a misinterpretation here. The misinterpretation: I don't dismiss (all) our moral intuitions as error. I say that the trolley problems show that our moral intuitions must be [prone to error. That is simply because when we combine our intuitions about trolley cases with other firmly held intuitions we get contradictions. So some of these intuitions must be wrong. This means, so I think, that we should be fairly open to very revisionary moral theories. It also means we should engage with psychological work in moral philosophy. I can talk more about this if you like.

The confusion: we do not judge moral systems by moral standards. We judge actions, and maybe characters, by moral standards. We judge moral systems by epistemic standards. We judge them by whether they are true or false.

 

[Gary Childress]

Good, bad, wrong, right.
It is all a matter of perspective, right?

It does sort of seem that way when we look across a broad array of different cultures. If we take birdjaguar's example of a drug cartel into account we might come to the conclusion that murder is not seen in quite the same way there as it is by other cultures. Still murder is not something that goes unpunished, even in the drug cartel world. If I kill a drug lord, then it is seen as a wrong against that drug lord and possibly his or her cartel. I don't think even drug cartels think that murder is good. Maybe they define murder a bit differently than we do. Maybe to them murder is killing your own people but killing someone else's isn't. That may be similar to the way a soldier on the battlefield views things. Purposely killing an enemy soldier is not evil but purposely killing your own is. So I would venture to guess even drug cartels have specific rules pertaining to what they view as unjust or inappropriate killing.

This is sort of like incest. I've heard it said that every culture has rules against what it terms "incest", however, not all cultures view quite the same things as "incest". So in my culture any parent having intercourse with their own child is incest. I believe I've heard there is some African tribe out there (too lazy to look up the name right now) that allows a father to have sex with a daughter before a hunt or something like that. HOWEVER, a father having sex with a daughter on other occasions might be viewed as "incest".

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Sill: you might find Nietzsche's "The Genealogy of morals" to be of interest

Everybody with a modicum of interest in moral philosophy must read this book.

Gentleman, you have sparked my curiosity.

Based upon a priori standards. Which is how most of the population sees morality as being obtained.

If you are going to argue with hearsay you really shouldn't argue at all.
I am not interested in a democratic determination of morality. I am not interested in what the most think something is. I am interested in arguments. And the argument that "many see it so and so" is I believe established to be a rather weak argument. Especially, when I came up with a much better one.

Further, I need to prove that feelings are the only source of quality value? Isn't it - rather obvious? What else would there be after all? An imagined god? Something besides fairy tales? I don't believe so. So there is your evidence. And proof.

What I said was that emotional actions generally are not the result of rational consideration and therefore not utilitarian. That's not the same as saying one cannot rationally analyze emotions or emotional actions.

How is this relevant? Is it in principle possible to rationally asses what makes one feel good? If yes - that's all there is required for morality to be inherently utilitarian. How able we are then also to do so is an entirely different question. That is a question which leads us from realizing what morality is to thinking about how morality can be realized. An interesting discussion to be sure*, but not what this thread is primarily about.

*And incidentally, I think that the practice of morality benefits from some constructed moral absolutes. In other words, I think that we are ill-advised to directly refer back to the utilitarian nature of morality in every instance. For example - to treat murder as something wrong in itself is probably a good idea from a moral POV. But not because murder itself actually was immoral, merely because it is a morally useful assumption.

What? No. That's not what rationality is. Rationality is the quality of having reason, of being coherent. There is nothing inherent in rationality that it must be about the pursuit of goals. I can say:

Max is a cat.
All cats have four legs.
∴ Max has four legs.

That's a perfectly rational argument, and it has nothing to do with goals.

True, I talked some bull here. However, the point remains that it is possible to rationally pursue goals. You eat the broccoli because you believe you will feel better for it, even if not on the shortest and direct route - i.e. even if not because it tastes so wonderful.

That's a big element of what are missing in your post. You seemingly only look at the consequences for the actor in determining whether or not an action is moral. You neglect to review the consequences for other people.

Not at all. Me making two others happy instead of only me is naturally more morale than only making me happy. Making me and two others happy is even more moral etcetera.

Those consequences can extend beyond the emotional realm. The victim of a confidence game may be quite happy to be defrauded of his money and the con man may be perfectly happy to obtain it, but neither of those facts modify the morality of the action. Neither the desire of the victim nor that of the con man changes the morality.

Why?
Why does a consequence matter if it moves beyond the emotional realm? Does it matter if a stone rolls down a hill without any consequence on the emotional realm? How? To whom?

I think that while an objectively ideal moral system can exist, I don't think humans are capable of discovering it.

See IMO a moral system is already the first step in aiming for something less than ideal. Systems are about generalized patterns, generalization comes hand in hand with rough edges, unfairness etc. System and ideal is already in itself as a misnomer IMO.
An ideal moral society would require some sort of almost magical mutual understanding and mutual interaction guided by the aim to get the most out of life for everyone. Even if we had the technology and data for such a thing, I doubt humans could sufficiently interact with the tech and the data. Basically, we would need to breed a new kind of human.

Can we get to 'perfect'? No, but that doesn't mean we should let perfect be the enemy of good.

Amen, brother.

This conclusion I disagree with completely. What alternate standard do you judge morality by to dismiss the nuances of our moral intuition as error? And why is that moral standard superior?

*Hint OP hint*

 

[lovett]

The experience machine rather puts paid to your position.

 

[Souron]

The trolley problem shows that we run into hiccups in our intuitions that don't really make sense according to the metrics we think we're using. When people articulate their intuitive reasoning, the trolley problem shows they weren't really thinking that way.

I agree. But to me the implication of this is that the simplistic articulated reasoning is wrong, not that our moral intuition is wrong. Now I'm not saying that moral intuition is never wrong, but the Trolley Problem does not show that. What it shows is nuance in morality. And in particular the nuance that moral prudence not being simple utility.

Hmm. A confusion and a misinterpretation here. The misinterpretation: I don't dismiss (all) our moral intuitions as error. I say that the trolley problems show that our moral intuitions must be [prone to error. That is simply because when we combine our intuitions about trolley cases with other firmly held intuitions we get contradictions. So some of these intuitions must be wrong. This means, so I think, that we should be fairly open to very revisionary moral theories. It also means we should engage with psychological work in moral philosophy. I can talk more about this if you like.

Again, I disagree. The articulated moral justifications of the trolley problem are often wrong or imprecise, not our moral intuitions. Quite the opposite, the trolley problem uses moral intuition as the metric to challenge our stated moral beliefs.

The confusion: we do not judge moral systems by moral standards. We judge actions, and maybe characters, by moral standards. We judge moral systems by epistemic standards. We judge them by whether they are true or false.

We judge moral systems by two criteria: our own moral compass and internal consistency. So a reasonable approach to explore the morality of a specific situation and apply broad, consistent principles to our justification. Which we do in exploring the Trolley problem.

As another example of a similar approach to judging moral systems, I invite you to play Battleground God, a game about the definition of God and His relation to morality. In it you "take a hit" if your beliefs are not rationally consistent, and bite a bullet if they lead to odd and unpopular implications. Will you emerge unscathed?

 

[Souron]

*Hint OP hint*

The follow up question is, why is that a superior standard? It seems wrong to push an innocent bystander in front of a speeding train, even if it does saves others' lives.

 

[lovett]

Again, I disagree. The articulated moral justifications of the trolley problem are often wrong or imprecise, not our moral intuitions. Quite the opposite, the trolley problem uses moral intuition as the metric to challenge our stated moral beliefs.

Well, I think talking in these sweeping terms isn't really going to get us anywhere. Let us be more solid. Here are a few trolley problems:

A runaway trolley (i.e. tram) is headed down a main track and will hit and kill five unless you divert it onto a side track, where it will hit and kill one. You are not the driver of this trolley. Rather, you are a bystander alongside the tracks who is presented with the opportunity to divert the trolley by pushing a lever.

A runaway trolley (i.e. tram) is headed down a main track and will hit and kill five. There is just a single track that leads to the five. There is, however, a ‘person [who] is on a bridge over the track and cannot move off it. If we move a pole, then it will topple him gently into the [path of the] trolley that is headed toward [the] five people; his being hit will stop that trolley and kill him’ Let us suppose, further, that you would move the pole by pushing a lever on a remote-control device

In this case, as in the Trolley Case, if you do nothing, the trolley will travel along a main track and hit and kill the five. Again, as in the Trolley Case, you can divert the trolley onto a side track by pushing a lever. Yet in the Loop Case, unlike the Trolley Case, the side track loops back towards the five on the main track from the other direction. Hence, if there were no obstructions on this side track, diversion would be pointless, as the trolley would continue along the track and loop around and rejoin the main track, whereupon it would hit and kill all five from behind. As it happens, there is a person stuck on the side track who is large enough to prevent the trolley from looping back around. A diverted trolley will come to a halt by hitting and killing him.

Consider also the following Ramp Case. In this case you can stop the trolley from hitting the five by opening a drawbridge. So doing will send the trolley up the ramp of the open drawbridge and into the air, where it will hit one person standing on a pedestrian bridge overhead. The trolley's hitting the one will stop its forward progression and cause it to fall into the water below the drawbridge. The trolley's hitting the one will also kill him. If, however, the one had not been overhead, then the trolley would have managed to fly over the gap, land on the downward sloping ramp, and hit and kill the five.

What are the normal intuitions about these cases? Well, in my experience they go like this: people think it permissible to divert the trolley in both the Trolley Case and the Loop Case. They think it impermissible to pull the lever in the Bridge Case. When presented in this order, they are unsure about the Ramp Case. Seeing the similarity with the Bridge Case, they tend to judge it impermissible to open the drawbridge.

But here's another intuition people have: the difference between the vertical dimension and the horizontal dimension is not morally significant. This means the Ramp Case and the Loop Case must be judged the same. That is because the only difference between the two -its seems to most- is that in one case the trolley gets diverted horizontally and in the other the trolley gets diverted vertically. Incidentally, similar considerations mean the Bridge Case and the Ramp Case must be judged the same. So it looks like there's a problem here.

But perhaps I know what you want to say now. Perhaps you want to say: Morality is complex! All these cases show is that there is incredible nuance to moralities. We could keep all the intuitions, if we recognise this instead of imposing order when none can be imposes. Well, maybe. But I think there is also another very firmly held moral intuition: the intuitions that our moral obligations and permissions are explicable. So it is possible to explain why we are permitted to do something in one case, but not in the other. It looks like we have no possible explanation here but the explanation that the vertical and horizontal dimension differ in moral weight. There is no other difference between the Bridge Case and the Loop Case (and we can just stipulate that). But we have ruled this out, as clashing with our intuitions. So we cannot explain any difference in our moral intuitions here. And so the appearance of a problem wasn't deceiving. There really is a problem.

Precisely, here are the intuitions many of us have:

It is permissible to pull the lever in the Loop Case.
The difference between the vertical and horizontal dimensions is not morally significant.
It is impermissible to raise the drawbridge in the Bridge Case.
Our moral obligations and permissions are explicable.

And these intuitions contradict. So some must be false. So trolley cases show our intuitions to be prone to error after all.

 

[BvBPL]

If you are going to argue with hearsay you really shouldn't argue at all.
I am not interested in a democratic determination of morality. I am not interested in what the most think something is. I am interested in arguments. And the argument that "many see it so and so" is I believe established to be a rather weak argument. Especially, when I came up with a much better one.

If you're going to say you have this new, superior system for morality then it is perfectly fair to contrast it with existing systems. The system that you've posited is sufficiently different from the common lay understanding of morality that you should be obliged to explain why it is a morality system and not some other system.

I think you are perfectly capable of doing so, but that doesn't mean you're not obliged to do so.

Further, I need to prove that feelings are the only source of quality value? Isn't it - rather obvious?

Yes, yes you do and no it is not. You whole premise rests upon the idea that feeling good is inherently good. It is unfair to ask you to defend that.

Asking us to accept it on faith is not dissimilar from the fairy tale systems you dismissed.

How is this relevant? Is it in principle possible to rationally asses what makes one feel good? If yes - that's all there is required for morality to be inherently utilitarian.

It isn't a question of assessing the reason for emotions, but an issue of whether or not such rational analysis occurs at the moment of decision. Most emotionally-driven act do not occur because of an rational analysis of the consequences, instead they are performed in response to immediate stimuli.

True, I talked some bull here. However, the point remains that it is possible to rationally pursue goals. You eat the broccoli because you believe you will feel better for it, even if not on the shortest and direct route - i.e. even if not because it tastes so wonderful.

So in your system eating broccoli is an immoral act because it creates a negative emotion even though the eventual result, health, is good.

That doesn't have face validity for me.

Not at all. Me making two others happy instead of only me is naturally more morale than only making me happy. Making me and two others happy is even more moral etcetera.

Fair enough.

 

[Souron]

What are the normal intuitions about these cases? Well, in my experience they go like this: people think it permissible to divert the trolley in both the Trolley Case and the Loop Case. They think it impermissible to pull the lever in the Bridge Case. When presented in this order, they are unsure about the Ramp Case. Seeing the similarity with the Bridge Case, they tend to judge it impermissible to open the drawbridge.

But here's another intuition people have: the difference between the vertical dimension and the horizontal dimension is not morally significant. This means the Ramp Case and the Loop Case must be judged the same. That is because the only difference between the two -its seems to most- is that in one case the trolley gets diverted horizontally and in the other the trolley gets diverted vertically. Incidentally, similar considerations mean the Bridge Case and the Ramp Case must be judged the same. So it looks like there's a problem here.

But perhaps I know what you want to say now. Perhaps you want to say: Morality is complex! All these cases show is thati there is incredible nuance to moralities. We could keep all the intuitions, if we recognise this instead of mposing order when none can be imposes. Well, maybe. But I think there is also another very firmly held moral intuition: the intuitions that our moral obligations and permissions are explicable. So it is possible to explain why we are permitted to do something in one case, but not in the other. It looks like we have no possible explanation here but the explanation that the vertical and horizontal dimension differ in moral weight. There is no other difference between the Bridge Case and the Loop Case (and we can just stipulate that). But we have ruled this out, as clashing with our intuitions. So we cannot explain any difference in our moral intuitions here. And so the appearance of a problem wasn't deceiving. There really is a problem.

Precisely, here are the intuitions many of us have:

It is permissible to pull the lever in the Loop Case.
The difference between the vertical and horizontal dimensions is not morally significant.
It is impermissible to raise the drawbridge in the Bridge Case.
Our moral obligations and permissions are explicable.

And these intuitions contradict. So some must be false. So trolley cases show our intuitions to be prone to error after all.

I agree that vertical and horizontal diversion of the train is not morally significant, but disagree that that's the only difference between the drawbridge case and the loop case.

The fact that you have not been able to articulate another morally significant difference does not mean your intuition, which seems to be telling you that it's not ok to raise the drawbridge is wrong. Nor does it mean that your intuition is unexplainable, only that you so far have been unable to explain it. It just means your subconscious intuition seems to have grasped a detail that your conscious analysis has missed. You're encountering your own lack of creativity in explaining your subconscious mind, and concluding that no explanation is possible.

Note that whether or not I can articulate another difference is irrelevant. But as It happens I can name at least one such difference.

Spoiler the difference :

A pedestrian bridge above a drawbridge is not a train track. Unlike the people down the line, the man on the bridge is not standing in a path that trains normally go. People walking on train tracks must accept more risk of being hit by trains than people walking on pedestrian walkways above train tracks.

And this is a very good specific example of a Trolley problem, and is exemplary of exactly what the trolley problem shows. It shows how our moral intuition is more nuanced than we realize, but does not rule out the possibility of a grand moral theory that is consistent with our moral intuition and itself.

 

[lovett]

Well, change the pedestrian bridge to another train track.

In any case, I find your 'subconscious mind' explanation pretty implausible. I could enumerate each scenario in a list of bullet pointed sentences and stipulate 'No other differences obtain.' They are my hypotheticals, after all. I could then enumerate, for all the differences, an intuition 'This difference is not morally significant'. So to add to the morally insignificance of the vertical/horizontal distinction, I also think the presence of water in the Ramp Case is not morally significant. And the fact a trolley will leave the ground in one is not significant. Or at least, I am pretty sure I could do this. Your 'subconscious mind' explanation entails I could not because it entails there is somehow somewhere a difference I've missed -which is morally significant- in my own hypotheticals. Well, if I cannot even consciously tell what differences obtain in my own stipulated situations I am in a pretty bad epistemic state. I don't know that i'm able to tell the difference between much of anything in that case. In which case I have more to worry about than what it is that Trolley Problems show.

 

[Souron]

Well, change the pedestrian bridge to another train track.

In any case, I find your 'subconscious mind' explanation pretty implausible. I could enumerate each scenario in a list of bullet pointed sentences and stipulate 'No other differences obtain.' They are my hypotheticals, after all. I could then enumerate, for all the differences, an intuition 'This difference is not morally significant'. So to add to the morally insignificance of the vertical/horizontal distinction, I also think the presence of water in the Ramp Case is not morally significant. And the fact a trolley will leave the ground in one is not significant. Or at least, I am pretty sure I could do this. Your 'subconscious mind' explanation entails I could not because it entails there is somehow somewhere a difference I've missed -which is morally significant- in my own hypotheticals. Well, if I cannot even consciously tell what differences obtain in my own stipulated situations I am in a pretty bad epistemic state. I don't know that i'm able to tell the difference between much of anything in that case. In which case I have more to worry about than what it is that Trolley Problems show.

Yes, change the pedestrian bridge to another train track going lengthwise with the track, and make it so that the fat man makes the train fall short, and most people will probably view it as very similar to the loop scenario, and say that it is acceptable to raise the bridge. You'd need to work out exactly how the fat man stops the train from going on the lower track to make it a proper trolley problem though.

I would support creating a table for many possible variations on the trolley problem, and enumerate the differences. But the trolley problem specifically involves having details that are not morally significant to set the scene. When the details are too few, you can no longer think of it as a specific dilemma, but a broad application of moral principle, which does not invoke intuition at all. On the other hand, with all those situational details that allow our intuition to kick in, enumerating the morally relevant ones is difficult, you just demonstrated.

In the specific example, your initial conscious judgment was that there is no significant difference between dieing on a pedestrian walkway and on a train track. You didn't try to think of all the differences, and say which ones matter. But I've now explained a plausible reason why dieing on a train track may be significant indirectly. So here specifically you weren't able to list all morally relevant differences in your own hypothesis. But you're not in a "bad epistemic state". You just didn't think long enough or out of the box enough. It's not a bad epistemic state to know that you are capable of overlooking details.

In short, my evidence is you. You presented a trolley problem, and wrongly deduced that there are no morally significant differences between two scenarios, when in fact there are some. You made a logical error, not an error in your moral intuition.

 

[lovett]

I will tell you why we don't bother enumerating all the variables when describing a hypothetical scenario. It is because it is bloody obvious -in many cases- how they can be changed to take into account an objection. So you think it might be morally significant that a pedestrian walkway is involved in Ramp instead of a train track. And you think that's because people assume less risk when on a pedestrian walk-way then on a train track. But it surely isn't obvious to just me that we can nullify this objection easily enough in many ways. So, we can change the pedestrian walk way to a train track. Or we can stipulate the loop in Loop is unused. Or the walkway in Ramp is just as dangerous as the loop in Loop. Or whatever. This is precisely a case of not bothering about irrelevant details, rather than overlooking morally significant factors.

I find your current position a little incongruous, if I'm honest. You are arguing that my moral intuitions are highly accurate. Not infallible, but close enough! However, concurrently you think me prone to important logical errors. You think that my conscious faculties are pretty feeble, because I can't consciously grasp differences which have enormous moral importance (and the importance must be enormous - for we are talking about killing and saving lives). So the picture of my mind you have is of fragmented between one highly accurate cognitive faculty and one highly innaccurate cognitive faculty. Well, I see no reason to think the mind is variegated in this way. There is no evidence for it.

It is important to acknowledge here that you have provided no positive reason to believe your hypothesis. You are appealing to a possibility: the possibility that we are making persistent mistakes and overlooking them. This sort of manoeuvre is available in pretty much any argument (What? You don't think there is any evidence for the existence of God? But couldn't you be making an error in your reasoning?). For that reason, amongst others, we shouldn't find it very convincing. We should need some reason to believe a hypothesis like this. Given the implausibility of the picture of our cognitive faculties you are drawing, you are advised to provide one. I should note at this juncture that once we venture into the psychological data relevant to these cases we have quite independent reason to believe a large class of the relevant intuitions suspect. I can explain this if you like.

 

[Souron]

I will tell you why we don't bother enumerating all the variables when describing a hypothetical scenario. It is because it is bloody obvious -in many cases- how they can be changed to take into account an objection. So you think it might be morally significant that a pedestrian walkway is involved in Ramp instead of a train track. And you think that's because people assume less risk when on a pedestrian walk-way then on a train track. But it surely isn't obvious to just me that we can nullify this objection easily enough in many ways. So, we can change the pedestrian walk way to a train track. Or we can stipulate the loop in Loop is unused. Or the walkway in Ramp is just as dangerous as the loop in Loop. Or whatever. This is precisely a case of not bothering about irrelevant details, rather than overlooking morally significant factors.

But there is a reason why people are likely to say that one should not raise the drawbridge. It's not part of your personal analysis of the morality the situation, but for other people, for some reason, the conclusion is different. There's sorta three possible reasons for this: 1) your overlooking something that they consider, 2) they are overlooking something you consider, 3) you have totally different considerations. 3 is unlikely because people do tend to agree on morality, especially within the same culture. 2 cannot be, because you claim there's no morally significant differences, so they cannot be considering fewer factors than 0. That leaves 1: the analysis of people who say you should not raise the bridge are considering a factor to be morally relevant that you overlooked. And In the example, I've named what that factor might be.

I find your current position a little incongruous, if I'm honest. You are arguing that my moral intuitions are highly accurate. Not infallible, but close enough! However, concurrently you think me prone to important logical errors. You think that my conscious faculties are pretty feeble, because I can't consciously grasp differences which have enormous moral importance (and the importance must be enormous - for we are talking about killing and saving lives). So the picture of my mind you have is of fragmented between one highly accurate cognitive faculty and one highly innaccurate cognitive faculty. Well, I see no reason to think the mind is variegated in this way. There is no evidence for it.

It is important to acknowledge here that you have provided no positive reason to believe your hypothesis. You are appealing to a possibility: the possibility that we are making persistent mistakes and overlooking them. This sort of manoeuvre is available in pretty much any argument (What? You don't think there is any evidence for the existence of God? But couldn't you be making an error in your reasoning?). For that reason, amongst others, we shouldn't find it very convincing. We should need some reason to believe a hypothesis like this. Given the implausibility of the picture of our cognitive faculties you are drawing, you are advised to provide one. I should note at this juncture that once we venture into the psychological data relevant to these cases we have quite independent reason to believe a large class of the relevant intuitions suspect. I can explain this if you like.

Our moral compass is accurate because of the large role it plays in defining what morality is in the first place. If a moral theory disagrees too greatly with our moral intuition it cannot be truly called a moral theory.

As for our conscious faculties being feeble, they're not feeble in logic, but in your ability to recognize your own values. In other words we're bad at describing how we feel. That's not a far out statement. And I've demonstrated it.

What I'm defending here is a method of evaluating moral systems. You evaluate them by applying them to specific situations and seeing if they match up with out moral intuition. If they do, that gives them credence. If not, especially in the cases we are confident in our moral intuition, then the system is suspect. I think most people would agree that this is a sensible approach, and can lead to conclusions about what we should or should not do.

And to tie things in to the OP: this approach challenges the conclusion that emotional sensation is the only ethical value we should hold.

 

[carmen510]

The follow up question is, why is that a superior standard? It seems wrong to push an innocent bystander in front of a speeding train, even if it does saves others' lives.

But doesn't it also seem wrong to make the choice to do nothing and allow more people to be killed?

For that matter, why should we simply follow our intuitions on what seems to be right or wrong, as natural law ethicists would have it?

 

[Souron]

But doesn't it also seem wrong to make the choice to do nothing and allow more people to be killed?

No. But if you want an even clearer example, it seems wrong to harvest a man's organs to save 5 others.

For that matter, why should we simply follow our intuitions on what seems to be right or wrong, as natural law ethicists would have it?

I'm not claiming that we should not reason about ethics, only that our moral principles should line up with our sense of morality.

Buf if you're asking why to listen to our sense of morality ever, I posit the following reason: Our sense of morality stems from our values. Our values are the only thing that gives anything worth. We should do what's worth doing.

 

[carmen510]

No. But if you want an even clearer example, it seems wrong to harvest a man's organs to save 5 others.

There is a big difference between those two scenarios though, in that the trolley scenario is very unlikely to occur, whereas relatively healthy people with organs and people who need such organs come into the hospital all the time. I don't believe that making scenarios that remove real-world factors, like laws against homicide, are useful.

If the trolley scenario were universalized, fat people still wouldn't have to worry too much about crossing the tracks. But there is a real fear of doctors or medically trained people killing some of their patients to alleviate the suffering of others; some may even kidnap patients to do this. In addition, if doctors were to harvest organs, people would probably find out and not want to come to the hospital, which would be a terrible outcome. No doubt that doctors harvesting organs would try to keep their activities secret, but it's very likely that the story would eventually come out.

In addition, in the trolley scenario, someone is going to die immediately, regardless of what action you take. In the organ harvesting scenario, the one patient is not going to die soon, at least in most variations I have seen.

I'm not claiming that we should not reason about ethics, only that our moral principles should line up with our sense of morality.

Buf if you're asking why to listen to our sense of morality ever, I posit the following reason: Our sense of morality stems from our values. Our values are the only thing that gives anything worth. We should do what's worth doing.

Fair enough. I'm assuming that these values are subjective and vary between people and cultures in a morally relativistic sense, correct?

 

[Souron]

There is a big difference between those two scenarios though, in that the trolley scenario is very unlikely to occur, whereas relatively healthy people with organs and people who need such organs come into the hospital all the time. I don't believe that making scenarios that remove real-world factors, like laws against homicide, are useful.

If the trolley scenario were universalized, fat people still wouldn't have to worry too much about crossing the tracks. But there is a real fear of doctors or medically trained people killing some of their patients to alleviate the suffering of others; some may even kidnap patients to do this. In addition, if doctors were to harvest organs, people would probably find out and not want to come to the hospital, which would be a terrible outcome. No doubt that doctors harvesting organs would try to keep their activities secret, but it's very likely that the story would eventually come out.

In addition, in the trolley scenario, someone is going to die immediately, regardless of what action you take. In the organ harvesting scenario, the one patient is not going to die soon, at least in most variations I have seen.

My point is that exploring hypothetical like these shows that having a single unnuanced moral imperative to optimize "emotional sensation" can lead to wrong moral conclusions. Although there may be practical considerations like public outcry to harvesting a healthy patient for organs, that's not the biggest reason why doing so is would be immoral. In this circumstance the would be donor's right to life and his body outweighs the imperative to keep people from dieing. So the source of morality is not what the OP suggests.

Fair enough. I'm assuming that these values are subjective and vary between people and cultures in a morally relativistic sense, correct?

You may call values subjective, but all people are fundamentally alike. People all over the world recognizing the same primal values, though they may not agree on the relative priorities. What differences there are could in principle be reconciled through reasoned discussion and sharing of experience. So there is a universal moral code that is that reconciliation.