Another "Divert the Train" Moral Philosophy Question

[devonin]

Originally Posted by archbishopjabber

1 The little girl will give when she grows up. 2 Also, I never said how far the HIV had progressed. 3 They could lead several years of healthy life, that does not necessarily mean they will. They just aren't going to die 24 hours after you pulling the lever. While with the information it is impossible to truly gauge which is going to be more economically beneficial, 4 we can say the girl will put less strain on the health care system.

1/ You don't know that
2/ If you give us incorrect or insufficient information you cannot expect us to make an informed decision.
3/ It doesn't necessarily mean they won't either
4/ No you can't, she could go into a coma tomorrow and spend the rest of her days in the hospital.

It is common knowledge that AIDS lowers your life expectancy considerably.

Then its a good thing that you specified that the men were all HIV positive, not that they all had AIDS.

I think your numbers are a bit low there, but even if that is not true, it does not change the fact that there is a net loss in fitness if you don't pull the lever. I mean fitness in the biological/ecological sense.

Do you mean economical or actually ecological? I'm not sure the effect those men living or dying will have on the environment. Also...The girl could grow up and decide to not have kids. If she works a random unskilled labour job in a department store, never marries or procreates, her contributions aren't exactly -guarenteed- to be substantial. 200 men, even if they have low levels of education and not many skills, can still between the 200 of them generate more man-hours of labour than the girl could in her entire life.

What I am saying is a woman's life is more important than a mans because a mans reproductive role can be easily replaced or overlapped by another mans responsibility while a woman's cannot.

You cannot seriously be trying to contend that a man's life is WORTH LESS than a woman's just because it is what...easier to find a replacement man than a replacement woman for the purposes of procreation? I don't even buy that as a statement, let alone as reasoning for your conclusion. With no men, the species dies out, with no women the species dies out. And yes, while you -can- propogate a species with fewer men provided there are enough women than you can with lots of men but few women, the entirety of existence does not in fact boil down to procreation -only- and so the "superior importance" of women in that one thing does not make them intrinsically more valuable than "some number" of men.

They could contribute much more than they would take away, but they could also do the opposite.

The exact same can be said of the girl, so either it is totally irellevant to the situation, or you have to acknowledge that even with a 1% chance that any of the men could contribute as much as the girl, that's still 2 of the men compared to the one gorl.

It is impossible to know for sure, so that would just need to be an instinctive judgment call. Either way, society won't fall no matter which group you picked.

If you always picked 200 men over 1 girl, and did this several hundred thousand times, I bet it would stop being the "correct" decision sooner rather than later.

Also, basically, being a male I instinctively feel that the lives of females are more valuable than the lives of males.

While that statement might impress the ladies into swooning, you cannot possibly state that any man's life is universally, automatically worth less than the life of any woman. I'm quite sure you can think of no shortage at all of cases where one specific man is more valuable than one specific woman, so...universal statements don't avail you here.

[Maid]

Originally Posted by devonin

While that statement might impress the ladies into swooning, you cannot possibly state that any man's life is universally, automatically worth less than the life of any woman. I'm quite sure you can think of no shortage at all of cases where one specific man is more valuable than one specific woman, so...universal statements don't avail you here.

Actually historically men are superior to women. This view still widely propagates, even more so in less economically developed countries, although a lot less in more developed parts. So I don't where the archbishopjabber got the idea about this. Venus?

Whether this is true or not, is another debate of course.

I myself believe that both have similar resources and can do things similarly yet there are things men suited to do better, simply because of biological make up and vice versa.

[devonin]

Nono, he clearly has the (surprisingly common) view that you must somehow credit as a contribution by a woman, both her ability to have children and also -every single contribution those children go on to make-

In this case, the girl cannot possibly have 200 children, so even if "A man's decade of hard work and labour contributing to society" is the equal of "A woman's ability to bring a new future-contributing life into the world" the 200 men -still- outweigh the contributions of the girl.

It is only if you further grant to the woman credit for every contribution that the child goes on to make, can you say with any kind of accuracy that her life is more valuable than a man's

[talisman]

If you want to make it really interesting, make the girl your daughter or something, and then think about it. Not like most of us are of the age where we'd have daughters, but one can imagine. It becomes much harder to go purely utilitarian.

[devonin]

Which was, in case anyone cares, the exact point that you are supposed to come to by this experiment. Mill's utilitarianism says that you should always pick the same thing every time: many > one and so on. This thought experiment was proposed at all as a way of saying "That doesn't actually work in reality"

[Wilkin]

To add on to my 200 families point, you're also affecting 200 sets of friends as well. As heartless as it may sound, the little girl hasn't lived out much of her life at all, much less made a real group of friends. When you sacrifice 200 people, you're also affecting friends and family, which could easily push past 10,000 people affected by your choice of "get rid of the AIDS" or "the little girl will live longer."

[archbishopjabber]

The world is also kind of overpopulated....

[devonin]

So now you're justifying killing 200 people because what...there are too many people? Would you therefore feel okay with decimating the population (In the actual sense of the word, not the absurdly inaccurate common defintion) as a means of population control?

If someone gets murdered, and the family is told "well...I mean there are an awful lot of people in the world, does it really matter?" how do you think they would feel?

[archbishopjabber]

I wasn't being serious about the overpopulation thing. But I dunno, I'm rethinking my answer to this question. It is quite a tough one. I guess there is just that difficult to break association of innocence with a little girl.

[slipstrike0159]

Originally Posted by devonin

In this case, the girl cannot possibly have 200 children, so even if "A man's decade of hard work and labour contributing to society" is the equal of "A woman's ability to bring a new future-contributing life into the world" the 200 men -still- outweigh the contributions of the girl.

Ahh.. but you see, even if she cannot have 200 children she can still have a child or two who each can have a child or two (you see where im going?) Whereas the HIV positive men provide a threat to the future generations.

Regardless, the moral decision rests on the idea that not all 200 men will die and a lot will continue living their lives just fine. All of the people who justify killing the girl bank on the idea that all 200 men will die.
Because of this idea i would feel more justified sending the train to the men, not because they are HIV positive necessarily but rather that its not black and white "200 lives to 1 life".

[devonin]

I fail to see any way in which this is not a black and white "200 lives to 1 life" situation, unless the person describing the situation has infallible knowledge of future events.

[slipstrike0159]

Originally Posted by archbishopjabber

You have all heard the classic "If there are two train tracks, one with one person on it and two with the other, and you can divert the train to hit one rather than two, would you?" moral ethics greater good question, but I have a spin on it.

There is a train, and it is about to hit a healthy little girl. You can pull a lever, but if you do so the train will go to a different track where 200 HIV positive men are standing. These men are not going to imminently die and could lead several years of normal life after the event. Would you pull the lever and save the girl but kill the 200 HIV positive men? Or would you let the little girl get killed?

I'll wait a bit before stating my opinion.

This is why, they would live a normal live after the event. They will not die instantly and are destined to die soon regardless. Shortening some peoples life by a couple years and completely extinguishing a life comes out to being very unbalanced.

[devonin]

Where in there did you get any impression that they would die "soon" regardless? "They are not going to imminently die" means they could live anywhere from 1 day to decades more.

-EVERYONE- is destined to die regardless, in that respect are all lives equal.

You are "shortening" their life not by "A few years" but by "However many years they happen to live" a number which is not knowable by us. By the same token that you condemn them for "dying soon" the girl could get hit by an entirely non-philosophical train -tomorrow- and then where is your weighing of lives?

At some point people are going to realise that since we have no way of telling the future, we CANNOT weigh any decision on "what people -might- do" if we want to claim our decision was at all legitimate.

We do not imprison people for crimes they haven't yet committed, and yet you could comdemn 200 men to death because you -think- they -might- not contribute as much to the world as one girl? Hogwash.

[slipstrike0159]

Regardless, because they are adults they have less years to live on this earth than the girl (assuming they all die at the average life expectancy). Also, the fact that it doesnt kill them instantly shows that the "pro-girl death" side of this argument isnt as bad as it is made out to be. Dying instantly is much different than dying eventually such as 1 day is greater than 0 days of life left. If you send it to the group of people, you satisfy the instant notion to save everyone (as many as you can). Because in reality, you only have a split moment to decide and naturally you want to save as many as you can.

[devonin]

Originally Posted by slipstrike0159

Regardless, because they are adults they have less years to live on this earth than the girl (assuming they all die at the average life expectancy).

You can't just make that assumption, but even if you are, the combined "less years" of 200 people adds up to "more years" than the girl.

Also, the fact that it doesnt kill them instantly shows that the "pro-girl death" side of this argument isnt as bad as it is made out to be. Dying instantly is much different than dying eventually such as 1 day is greater than 0 days of life left. If you send it to the group of people, you satisfy the instant notion to save everyone (as many as you can). Because in reality, you only have a split moment to decide and naturally you want to save as many as you can.

So you can justify killing 200 people because "They are going to die eventually anyway, so it is better than they die quickly"?? I imagine if you asked them "Would you rather die of a random selection of causes in 20 years, some painless some excrutiating, or die instantly right now" you would have a 100% instance of "I'll take my chances"

[slipstrike0159]

I cant believe you still dont get it. You wouldnt be killing them on the spot. THEY WOULDNT DIE WHEN THE TRAIN HITS THEM. If anything all it would do is take like a year off of each of their lives.

Also, i wasnt comparing the total number of years together for justification. I was simply saying that one way you are extinguishing a life that could live a FULL and COMPLETE life as opposed to some men who are already half done with their life.

[devonin]

THEY WOULDNT DIE WHEN THE TRAIN HITS THEM.

I'm pretty sure that the purpose of the exercise is that they will in fact die.
I wasn't aware that dying after you've lived a few years wasn't dying.

Oh, or are you somehow trying to think along the lines of "surely a train hitting a pile of people would knock a bunch around without their actually dying" or something. As I said, the tacit assumption in the problem is that you have -death- on one side and -death- on the other side.

[slipstrike0159]

While i would agree with you that the point of the exercise would be to weigh 200 lives of HIV positive men to 1 life of innocence, that is not what was specified in the original post. I am purely going off of the fact that the original post stated that the men wouldnt die instantly from being hit by the train and most would probably go on living life as normal beings.

Originally Posted by devonin

Oh, or are you somehow trying to think along the lines of "surely a train hitting a pile of people would knock a bunch around without their actually dying" or something.

If you want to argue the logistics of this situation, then why in the h*** are 200 HIV positive men standing in a line along a train track and dont make any indication of moving when they see the train down the line?

[devonin]

Well, we'll need Archbishopjabber to clarify, but since there was a full stop in there, I think that "These men are not going to imminently die and could lead several years of normal life after the event." refers to "If you -save- the men, they are going to live several years of normal life" as a means of pointing out that they aren't on death's door from AIDS etc, though I can see how you might read that and get "EVen if hit by the train they won't die" but I really don't think that was what jabber meant.

[slipstrike0159]

Originally Posted by devonin

Well, we'll need Archbishopjabber to clarify, but since there was a full stop in there, I think that "These men are not going to imminently die and could lead several years of normal life after the event." refers to "If you -save- the men, they are going to live several years of normal life" as a means of pointing out that they aren't on death's door from AIDS etc, though I can see how you might read that and get "EVen if hit by the train they won't die" but I really don't think that was what jabber meant.

Hmmm... hadnt thought about that. Let me go back and reread....

Yep, i do think i interpreted it wrong. My bad...

In light of new information i think i would let the men live because while you cant weight the amount of a life to another one, you can definitely sacrifice one for the good of many.