MORAL DILEMMAS: Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics. As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows: In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one. *This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand. In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children. Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard. An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously! Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct). The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one: Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher). In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules: Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed. Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted. Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
The solution to the Trolley problem when faced with an impossible choice, do something, save the most lives, maybe the one has to be sacrificed for the many. That is the way it always has been in religion but then Alex is not a religious person, so far as I know, he may be agnostic; which is nether/or. The theme of religion, even going back to Pagan times was sacrifice of one for the welfare of the many. It may symbolize sacrificing the ego for the greater good. In the case of the ego no one has to die, just an egocentric worldview has to bite the dust. Its holder still carries on, but hopefully as a much better adjusted human. Were inner states known or capable of being expressed in the dark age? Was it necessary to enact a drama to convey inner states and moral teachings. The Greek dramas may have done this as well. Freud who was from a literal culture of the book was clueless about myth and did an awful disservice to those myths he misinterpreted. For example no one wants to kill the father, who is not a competitor in a child’s mind for the mother’s affection. A culture that was moving from a goddess culture to a god culture, on the approach to a dark age wanted to emphasize the importance of reason over feeling. Reason represents the god; feeling represents the goddess. There are times when reason should be uppermost and cultivated, and a dark age is definitely one such time. It has been said that a god culture prevails in a lower age and a goddess culture in a higher age. Freud of course would know nothing about that. Carl Jung was good with myth, his culture prepared him to properly understand and interpreted it. Freud was clueless and should have stayed away from myth, as he did better with literalism, he butchered myth when he attempted to literalize it. Myth is meant to resonate and inform in that way, it is not meant to be taken literally. It expresses truths that cannot be easily explained or put into words. It is similar to the Catholic mass where transubstantiation is symbolized, as how could it be explained literally; there is no language likely even in a quantum age, that could literally explain it or understood it except through the resonance of ceremony which touches and informs at a deeper level of the psyche than the literal or cognitive does. There are people who do not get symbolism whether it is their culture or the part of their brain that is dominant, they are and remain clueless in relation to it. Consequently, they should stay away from it and leave it to those who are capable of understanding it; to literalize it is to turn it into nonsense.
You are urged to become VEGAN, since carnism (the destructive ideology that supports the use and consumption of animal products, especially for “food”) is arguably the foremost existential crisis.🌱
My favorite version of this problem: A trolley is heading towards an empty track; You can pull the lever to kill 1 person, or double the amount of people and give the same decision to another person down the tracks. This repeats for infinity OR until someone pulls the lever to kill these 2^(n-1) people. Once the train passes an iteration (choice gets doubled), the previously tied up people get freed. In theory, if nobody decides to pull the lever, you can infinitely double the amount of people, without ever letting anyone die. But you run the risk of giving a lunatic that choice, and your refusing to kill the 1 person might lead to hundreds of thousands dying instead. I'd argue killing 1 person, in order to prevent that disaster is moral; but how many people is the limit? If you're at iteration 8, there's 128 people on the track - would it still be worth killing them in order to save a potential infinite amount? What iteration would be the cutoff for pulling the lever?
I've seen that too. It is indeed a good one. Futhermore we know what percent of people is a lunatics, so we can even calculate all kinds of expected values (amount of steps, amount of victims, ect.).
assuming you care about minimizing the number of deaths, pulling the lever is the only reasonable choice. it doesn't matter how many people are already tied to the track. though, if you think about it, no matter which option you choose, a net amount of 1 person will die (kinda) if the 1st person pulls the lever, then 1 person will die if the 1st person doesnt pull the lever, then 1 person was saved, but 2 people will die, unless if the 2nd person doesnt pull the lever, then 3 people were saved but 4 people will die, unless if the 3rd person doesnt pull the lever, then 7 people were saved but 8 people will die, unless ... if the nth person doesnt pull the lever, then 2^n-1 people were saved but 2^n people will die. so the total number of people dead minus the total number of people saved will always be 1 i know, its silly to think of it this way. i mean, isnt the last person also saving a potentially infinite number of people by pulling the lever? does being "saved" matter when there was the possibility of not being involved at all? does it even matter how many people die when theres somehow infinitely many left over?
In only 33 iterations, all of humanity will be tied to the track. If "the rules" state that the same person cannot be tied to the track twice, then on 32 iterations, there will be about half of humanity tied to the track, and the other half is "saved" (actually a little less than half is now tied, since the numbers don't match exactly and technically 53% of humanity was already tied previously) Assuming the current population is around 8 billion, 83 million, 124 thousand and some change :p - from US world population census
It's also not just the lunatics that you need to be worried about. Long before a lunatic gets control of the lever, presumably there will be several more pragmatists who consider exactly this same calculation. From your point of view though, these pragmatists are practically indistinguishable from the lunatics; as you are from theirs. It suggests that perhaps someone *is* going to pull the lever a lot sooner than you might think if you were only considering lunatics, but then... do you pull the lever or do you double the number of lives on the line and shift the responsibility? You can probably deduce it is unlikely that a lunatic will ever have a turn with the lever - some pragmatist will likely pull it first - so by inaction, aren't you just doubling the number of lives that /will almost certainly/ be lost?
@@thombrucethis was my thought too. Someone pulling the lever eventually is inevitable the. So that makes this variation not much different than the original trolley problem. Do you pull the lever and kill x amount of people knowing that if you don't many magnitudes more than that will eventually die, or do you not bare the burden because making that decision is personally wrong. I am personally of the belief that doing nothing is almost always the right answer (unless it's clearly like things or people of course I would choose the people.) I didn't set up the trolley or put these people in such a situation. Why should I bare the psychological and emotional burden of such a decision when I had nothing to do with creating the situation?
The one I saw the other day established that "no one is on the tracks, and no one was in danger" but asked "do you jump in front of the moving trolley?" lol
It's still an ethical/moral dilemma unless you specify that there is no one on the trolley, no bystander/witness to traumatise, and no one waiting for the trolley's arrival who you would inconvenience by jumping in front of it.
The one about the Mona Lisa and the Louvre is especially interesting if you think of the reverse. Would whoever commissioned the construction of the Louvre have changed his mind if told, "at least one worker will die during the construction"? What about five? Ten? How many workers can be expected to die before a project is considered too dangerous?
My 9 year old son was playing that trolly problem game and intentionally selecting the “wrong” answer every time. He’d start giggling almost uncontrollably until the next question
But the fact he knows he's doing the wrong answer means that he's rational enough to figure out the right answer. That's an important distinction from picking the wrong answer because he thinks it's the right answer.
ah the mustache problem🤔 which seems to me it needs the beard and the beard needs the mustache or it just doesn’t work because without the beard, the mustache just looks like a 70’s porn star. Unless one is in to that.
What if there’s an option to kill the outer 1.5 inches of Alex’s mustache on both sides, with the middle remaining, giving him a somewhat Hitler-esque mustache?
@@ahgflyguy😮Hitler-esque I think ending that would be preferable to ending the Hitler clone, because the Hitler clone might be a different person despite all his memories. And so he might regret all his past actions The moustache however, is inexcusable
The last example is such a nobrainer. Of course I pull the lever! Letting it go straight is guaranteed to kill a person, while the other has a rather slim risk of killing tons of people. I sure wouldn't want the latter to happen and it would feel devastating, but I could still simply rationalize it as bad luck.
@@matseigel1622 What if instead of 1% for 100 it was 10% chance for 10 people? 50% chance for 2 people? Would you still try to save that one person? I'd say it's hard to rationalize with just "gg unlucky" if you're the reason you caused more deaths than necessary.
The plucking of one hair follicle, perhaps a slight twinge, the shaving of one alex mustache a step in the direction of all that is clean and good and right in this world
It's ironic because people say they should pull the leaver and destroy beautiful things, but most of the time they won't sacrifice their own beautiful enjoyments to save lives, which they know they could probably do tomorrow if they investigated it.
Thus proving what we all know deep down - Morality is subjective. And it's not even just selfishness - As an extreme case, most people would be reluctant to harshly punish even a stranger, for diverting the trolley away from a member of that strangers family.
@@SmileyEmoji42 what? How does it prove that! 🤣 What do you mean by subjective? That people choose to do different things and feel differently??? If two scientists are asked to build a bridge, and they come up with two different solutions, does this prove science is subjective? I mean, this is what you sound like right here...
@@theignorantcatholicthere are many debates that go on in science so in a way science in a way is subjective but the facts themselves are almost always objective. with the bridge example what you provided is 2 different objective ways to build a bridge but the best one is almost always subjective. morality however there is no moral facts we can rely upon. all we can rely upon is the opinion on how we should be and do so all of what we are as moral beings is a process of subjective values rather than objective
@@theignorantcatholic Morality is subjective, pulled from objective facts. Having facts is not enough, so Morality is meant to order it and make something useful out of a list of facts. The facts in this case being how people feel about something, what people are willing or not willing to do e.t.c.
@@theignorantcatholic If two scientists are asked to build a bridge, and they come up with two different solutions your assement of which is prettier is subjective. Your assement of which is "better" is subjective because your relative weightings of price,maintainability and capacity are subjective because your ultimate value function is yours and yours alone
On the "enhanced" Mona Lisa problem: Another interesting thing to consider is the perspective of the human victims in this case; how would you feel if the entire world's art has been sacrificed to save your life? Can you imagine the burden on your conscience you will have to carry all your life?
@random_bit art is more than materialism, its culture, its history. If i had been on the tracks, and saved in trade of all the worlds art, I'd be happy to be alive but. I'm not sure if i could live happily.
@random_bit on a strictly utilitarian mindset you could reason that destroying all of the art would lead to a lot of depression around the world for a lot of people, so it might not be worth to save 5 people for that. That said, if that effect was mitigated in some way and if we could start anew and make new art, it probably would be better to destroy all art. I really think that old things are not that important in the grand scheme of things
Also I feel like if all the world’s art vanished, more than 1 person on the planet would kill themselves in despair. How does that influence the equation?
Do you forcefully shave off Alex's moustache? On the one hand, you liberate this world of great evil, but at the same time, you overlook his personal freedoms.
When someone does something as criminal as what as Alex is doing repeatedly to the world by sporting that abomination, it is assumed that it may be necessary, nay, just!, that he be denied some of those personal freedoms.
Stop bullying Alex, he's just trying to look older. But let me ask you this. Would you shave Alex's moustache or erase the concept of pineapple pizza from humanity's memory (assuming you don't like pineapple pizza)?
it would be absolutely hilarious to see alex play through a game like detroit: become human and then over-analyzing every single choice or story beat in terms of their philosophical implications lmao
I like to think of the trolley problem this way: A razor is hovering around five faces. You have the option to pull a lever, diverting a razor onto another face where only one moustache is growing. The dilemma asks whether it's morally acceptable to actively intervene to save five faces from growing a moustache at the cost of one or to do nothing and allow the five to grow moustaches.
With the last one, I think you have to take into consideration the number of trials. Sure, the EV over multiple trials is equal, but you only have to gamble on 1/100 once. Also, without pulling the lever there is a 100% chance of death (failure), whereas pulling the lever actually gives you a 99% chance of success. Sure, this reasoning can seem to equate 1 death with 100, but I still think it's worth putting it into consideration.
There's a huge difference between zero and one deaths, far more than one and one hundred I think. So it's worth a try to avoid killing anyone, if you only have one shot. If you're going to do a few hundred attempts then yeah I guess you might not avoid having the same expected value. Counterpoint though is that in life our ethical approach will be used many times as we go through life so over time the decisions we make will add up based on the way we make these decisions even if they aren't this exact case.
Yeah- 99% is so close to guaranteed in my brain and letting someone die seems like it might eat at you. In terms of real world situations, when an ambulance runs a red light, they are putting other lives at risk by a small fraction to increase their chances to save another.
@@DobesVandermeer While I do think you should pull the lever, I don't think your reasoning is correct. There really is no difference between 0 and 1 deaths, compared to 99 and 100 deaths. It's not like the death of one person lessens the consequences of the death of another person. The reason death is bad (whether it be depriving an individual of life, or the sadness it inflicts upon the individual's loved ones) scales linearly with the number of people who are killed. If my friend is killed by the trolley, it makes my grief no less intense knowing that 99 other people also died.
While you raise an interesting point the EV is always equal regardless of the number of trials. With more trials both EVs are just multiplied. The actual result will get closer to EV as you approach infinite trials, and taking the chances could start out great but it could also start out catastrophically. Personally, I would not pull the level as it feels wrong to gamble on a 100 people's lives and 1/100 events happen all the time in life. If the 100 people turned out to be there I could not live the rest of my life in peace whereas not getting involved and indirectly causing the death of one person is better in comparison.
@@haykkhulyan6201 I think there's also a interesting point here about the randomness of the outcome. If you don't pull the lever, you are almost guaranteed to have caused someone to die via your inaction, as there was a 99% chance that you could have saved them and anyone else. If you pull the lever, even if 100 people die, this is a result of a highly unlikely 1% scenario which was out of your control, so from an emotional standpoint there is an argument that while your choice was sound given the information provided, due to sheer bad luck it turned out to be the worse outcome. While statistically the expectation values are the same for each, on an individual trial basis not only is there a 99% chance of noone dying, but in the 1% of situations where 100 people die the perceived unlikeliness of this having happened perhaps alleviates the shame felt, instead attributing it to bad luck or the universe or some such outside causes, which perhaps makes it the preferable choice. What is really interesting to me then is what if there was actually a 1% chance of 101 people (or more) in the box, and how does that affect the outcome? Is there an expectation value or a suitably large group where a 1% chance of catastrophe is once again is perceived as too high a risk? A lottery could be considered the inverse of this, where rationally speaking the chance of an individual ticket winning is so vanishingly small that you'd be better off not playing if your expected net earnings is the motivator, but the potential prize is so big that even with the low odds it is a risk worth taking.
I remember a trolley problem (but not a trolley, a truck) where you were beforehand asked for your favourite things, and then it would be those favoured things or one human life. So it would be "your family or one human life" then so by so with an extra human life, then when you finally decide to sacrifice the thing, it said "___ is worth [number] human lives". Keep in mind I was a child at the time, and this was in fact, a dream.
The interesting thing with the Mona Lisa is that it is probably worth millions and millions of dollars which could be used to save way more than five people, so does the French government have an obligation to sell it to a buyer and use that money to fund life-saving work? (Sorry to pull a Singer)
That depends. If it just went to another museum then yes but if it went to a private collection then you would be losing millions of microenjoyments for an indeterminate number of years - That could certainly sum up to more than a life.
You say much the same about charitable giving. People will say that they would give up every penny they have to save just one life, but when given that option through a charity which almost certainly would be able to save a life with that money, they don't.
I like this one: "The trolley has already run over dozens of people and will continue to run over dozens more. You could flip the switch to stop it, but in doing so, you would hurt the trolley company's profits."
The Mona Lisa Trolley Problem made me realize something. Sure in the case of the Trolley Problem, while actively considering the value of human life, most would immediately choose the painting. Or any Art or City etc. However, if you would compare the reactions to the news "five people tragically died on a train track yesterday" and the "Louvre was set on fire, and all of the artworks are now gone forever", would definitely be more extreme on the Louvre news. Probably just because we're just so used to the news of people dying, and we don't attribute value to nameless people in the news.
@@patu8010 I think that's fair for the viewers. It can be during the video, no issues, but when it's hidden like this, I always feel a bit betrayed by the creator.
@@KB28L Ads are not inserted into the video such that the viewers don't even see them. They literally exist to show and sell you something. And ESPECIALLY when the product is good, which Alex seems to think about this VPN, he is _morally obligated_ to let the people know. The more interested he makes the viewers, the more plausible that they will take a look. Again, for GOOD products.
@@KB28L I saw this ad coming from a mile away which makes me hate it even more. It shows how we've already been trained to recognize these transitions.
@@kevinqwen221 Nope, sorry you gotta keep it long and have it hang off the sides. I have basically the same mustache as he does, except for my soul patch.
Adapted utilitarian thinking: 7:25 the horror of the 5 people you’re about to purposefully kill as they watch a random person murder them for no reason. honestly more people should think of the victims in trolley problems. must answer that for the utilitarians
MORAL DILEMMAS: Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics. As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows: In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one. *This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand. In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children. Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard. An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously! Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct). The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one: Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher). In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules: Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed. Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted. Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
@@karimshawagfeh3630 MORAL DILEMMAS: Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics. As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows: In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one. *This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand. In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children. Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard. An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously! Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct). The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one: Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher). In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules: Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed. Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted. Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
@@karimshawagfeh3630 I think I'd feel more survivors guilt if someone pulled the lever for my life than if nobody did anything, so in my experience it would be worse to survive as a person on the original track than as a person on the diverted track
What you're missing with regard to the expected value problem is that the expected value is a mathematical concept with a specific purpose. It is only really relevant when you have a random experiment that is *repeated*. The expected value is the expected average of all experiments, when you do the experiment an infinite amount of times. So, in all cases where you only do the experiment once (the Deal or no Deal scenario, or the trolley problem scenario), the expected value is of very little relevance. It becomes much more relevant, if you can do the experiment many times. This is where a better understanding of mathematics can help in philosophy.
I was just about to write this exact thing. Expected value is what you'd expect _on average_. That is not a very useful information when you know there won't be any averaging happening because you have sample size of 1.
Expected value is still useful in scenarios when the experiment is not repeated. Say you have two people: one is risk averse and avoids "gambling" even with better expected values. The other is trying to follow what has the biggest EV. Most of choices like these in life are one-offs. So one would say that you should not use expected values. But over the course of one's life you have many such one-off choices. And if you follow the greatest EV, you will come out on top. Let's go to the trolley problem. And let's modify the odds so that taking the risk brings greater EV so it's actually beneficial to pull the lever on average and not just the same on average. Say 1% to kill 50 people and 99% to kill noone. Surely you won't be presented with a problem with stakes like these multiple times in your life. Certainly not enough to take advantage of the law of large numbers. But let's think on a scale of the whole world over a long period of time. Dillemas like these happen and people have to make those choices. In a society, where most people choose to take the risk, more people would survive, even though for each of the people making the decision, this is a once in a lifetime event. It might be different stakes, different odds, different overall situations. But a society that generally follows maximizing the expected value, does get greater values than a society that doesn't. Note: Of course, there are objections to this. It's not that you should always follow the greatest expected value. You can always make up odds so ridiculous that the EV is great, but the scale over which you expect it to average out is unreasonable. So you have to keep that scale in mind. In some situations, the whole humanity over a long period of time is still not enough to get to the law of large numbers. I certainly wouldn't take that bet. One can also assign different values to improvements on different scales. Am I willing to risk *my own* resources for an average improvement in the world that I would likely not feel or do not really care about? Or you can also analyze this from the standpoint that a person has some kind of threshold of value, and you can assign value to passing that threshold. Like a homeless person getting a house guaranteed is a more rational choice than gambling on a better house vs nothing because taking just the monetary value does not paint the full picture. It's not the expected values don't work, it's just that the expected value calculation might not always be straightforward, there are different tangible and intangible gains and losses which need to be accounted for
Odds and values being less relavent for 1 iteration is pretty silly. Obviously a 50% chance of $100 is better than a 1% of $1000 even if the experiment only happens only once. A rational gambler would only consider the expected value.
On the bottom track, a trolley heads for 5 people. On the top, there is one person, an identical clone of yourself. If you pull the lever you are instantaneously swapped with the clone of yourself, you experience the full pain of being crushed by the trolley and your life and conscious experience ends. The clone of you goes on to live your entire life exactly how it would have played out had you continued to live it yourself. Do you pull the lever?
@@hatchet62 MORAL DILEMMAS: Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics. As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows: In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one. *This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand. In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children. Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard. An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously! Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct). The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one: Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher). In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules: Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed. Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted. Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
@@dbcooperslilbrother MORAL DILEMMAS: Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics. As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows: In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one. *This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand. In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children. Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard. An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously! Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct). The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one: Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher). In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules: Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed. Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted. Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
1:21 "And so we decide to make this clone in order to punish him... and we do it for the sake of that feeling of justice." That is like one decently-large cognitive step away from vicarious atonement.
that last problem can be reworded as "is it right to save a life if that action endangers a large number of other people." to which the answer seems to be pretty obviously yes.
Trolley problem: On one side you've got Alex's moustache. And without interference the trolley will run it over. On the other side you've got Alex's full beard from earlier this year and if you pull the lever it will run over the beard and the moustache would survive. Do you pull the lever?
0:41 "for some people punishment is all about retribution" then alex grins and says "for others, punishment is..." AND I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING A TOTALLY DIFFERENT DIRECTION
7:47 IMO, there's actually a utilitarian argument for why it's right to pull the lever. Assuming that all of the people in this scenario would experience the same amount of happiness during the rest of their life if they were to continue living, then all you would be taking into account is their differing average happinesses during this situation, presumably immediately after you pull the lever. While the people who survive if you don't pull the lever would expect to survive and therefore be less likely to be grateful or happy that they made it out, the people who only survive if you pull the lever would be more surprised and therefore more happy and grateful that they did so.
@Froahk Realistically, survivor's guilt would happen roughly equally no matter who you choose to kill. After all, both sets of people would know that the other set died for them to survive, and they don't really care about a lever.
A one up on the mona lisa problem: would you save one person for the sake of humanity’s creative capacity (say, the ability to paint, ability to make beautiful buildings, ability to make music)?
I think a lot of people would say yes only if that person were themself. I also think that some of those people would value their own life over another's if they were asked the right way.
No. I find this trolley problem quite different because its comparing material reality to a sense of magical idealism. In my opinion, removing humanities creativity is also 'killing' humanity itself in the sense that it turns them into a new unrecognizable species than before.
@@WellDoneOnTheInternetEverybody I feel like I also just don’t value random human lives that much. Specific people, people I can touch yes. but if I could make a trolley problem decision, and then have that memory erased so I never knew, I’d probably save a lot of material possibilities.
@@DevourerSated In a contradictory way you do though. Because the ultimatum of needing your memory wiped for the moral justification of the action would imply you actually do value random human life in regard to your own mental well-being and moral compass.
Me who knows that statistically the final question isn’t a 1 to 1, if you do nothing someone dies 100% of the time, but if you pull it manny people die 1% of the time. It’s not like you’re sending 100 Trolleys, it’s one trolley! So statistically pulling the lever almost ensures you save a life without loosing more
The thing you said about replacing London with brutalist apartment blocks - I think if you do that, you’d have some suicides on our hands. The thing with art or living spaces is that they teach us things and give life meaning. Life is not only there to live, but also to give it purpose
The entire open web is on HTTPS now, meaning it is encrypted for the whole trip between your computer and the web server. All your ISP sees is what sites you visit - not your username, not your password, not the comments you post. Your personal data is not at risk from lack of a VPN. If anything, routing all of your browsing through one unregulated company makes you more vulnerable.
I believe it's always morally correct to put the human lives above the art, simply because of the recreatibility of the art. The art can be recreated, in the future humans will rebuild their beautiful buildings and create new beautiful paintings, yet a human life is (statistically) truly one of a kind. Because of that I think the human life is always worth more.
Do you really think that people woud queue for hours to see a recreation? You will have lost millions of microenjoyments times a, possibly infinite, number of years - That's a, potentially, huge cost. ...And if you believe that a human life is always worth more then do a trolley problem with The Mona Lisa versus Hitler
The sheer number of lives that were lost in building these historical buildings would feel as if it were all for nothing if they were all destroyed to save a few lives. Still don’t know what I’d do though..
From a utilitarian perspective, you could argue that since it doesnt matter what you do, the same amount of people are dying and so you are not morally obligated to pull it. Let's assume that you are not related to them, and you actually don't know them at all). You are taking somebody's lives either way, because NOT pulling the lever is also a decision you have to make, and doing so means that those people die. With that in mind, then you can justify using utilitarianism for either decision. Not pulling the lever also means that people die because of your action (or lack of), so if you "want to know how it feels to take a life" (which is the catch in this sneaky problem) then either pulling or not pulling the lever take you into that direction. We can see then, that the real "catch" here is the fact that you WANT to do it (because the problem states so), and this is the sole reason why you seem to (erroneously) get to that grotesque conclusion. One can simply argue that, for most people, the sense of "guilt" of taking someones life is ultimately what justifies NOT pulling the lever using utilitarianism. In any case, you are doomed from the get go, as I pointed out at the beginning, as both pulling or not the levee can be seen as the cause of people dying (and the same amount of them). Stop the utilitarian slander.
But your decision not to pull is not taking someone's life. You wouldn't say you took a life just because you saw someone bleed to death on the a street would you? I know I wouldn't, nor would lots of people, it would still be wrong given in real life you could help that bleeding person, but you're still not the one who took that person's life if they die. Your choice of inaction did not determine the fate of death for the set of 5 that are already in the path of the trolley, the scenario is what determined it, so your inaction is the moral choice.
Its a bad example of utilitarianism because prioritizing hedonistic pleasure is anti-thetically to its philosophy in a systemic way. You are developing such tendencies that would not benefit society going forward after the trolley problem was finished.
Trial by Trolly is a fun party card game by Skybound Tabletop that creates ad hoc strategically crafted trolly thought experiments. Pretty devilish good fun.
with that last one, my default was to leave it alone and not risk 100 people due to that outcome being more catastrophic. might have to do with my thoughts of minimizing Σ(suffering^2) (exponential penalties to increasing the same person's suffering) and maximizing Σ(log(pleasure)) (diminishing returns on increases to the same individual's pleasure) as a way to disincentivize things like causing 1 person an inordinate amount of slightly suffering to slightly benefit most people (came to mind when contemplating how long it is ok to force 1 person to sit at a red light to benefit the more numerous cross traffic with faster/smoother travel), or causing everyone discomfort to give 1 person extreme bliss. in this instance, it's reducing suffering^2 (especially when considering the odds of someone knowing multiple people in the box -> getting heightened suffering values that get compounded when squared)
2:01 No, absolutely not. I'd have no reason to be scared personally, as I'm not going to experience any of that torture myself. However, I would find the thought upsetting as the idea of someone being tortured for crimes (I'm assuming in this hypothetical I've committed some terrible crimes??) that they are innocent of, even if they wrongly believe they're guilty, is evil in my opinion.
"... I'm not going to experience the torture myself" is the bit I wonder about. If it's a perfect clone with every single memory you have, every neuron in the exact same state, part of me wonders if you *would* experience it. I guess it comes down to what and where consciousness is and what "you" happens to be, but I worry that when that clone opens its eyes, I would be looking out of them.
@@jimbakes2782 so if you have a clone made of you right now instead of after your death, you are afraid that you will have 2 bodies? 2 sets of eyes to look out of? I don’t know how that would even work.
@@jl4018 me neither. And I can't even think of a way to test it even if it were possible. However, I often think of the ship of Theseus- if it were possible to make a computerised replacement for a little part of your brain, and you kept swapping out tiny sections, how much of it would need to replace before it was no longer "you"?
The only definition of "you" that makes sense to me is that "you" are the current state of your persona that is made up of the physical hardware of your brain/body and the taint of your memories and experiences. So I agree, it kinda feels like "you" will experience the torture 😢
@@samteebo1994Yeah, at least a person with the exact same ideas and experiences as you, while you might not feel or experience it personally, someone you rly like does. Unless you hate yourself ig then maybe you see the thought of yourself being eternally punished as justice, but then again, it isn’t you
Really? Then why aren't you donating every last one of your penny to charity? Sell all of your belongings and donate all the money other than the bare minimum for your survival to humanitarian charities. Even buying a single malaria net could mean the difference between saving that person and having that person die, and I'm sure your money can buy much more than 1 malaria net.
@@RGC_animation "You don't give all your money to charity, therefore, X number of things > than a human life"? Your argument is flawed. Not giving all my money to charity has no bearing on whether a person’s worth can be compared to a certain number of things. You’re making a logical leap that doesn’t follow. The taxes I pay help support the less fortunate, while the money I keep helps support me-I’m a person too.
@Artisan_GenZ Yes, that's why I said you can keep the bare minimum for your survival. You said that no amount of things is worth more than a human life, but clearly some amount of things are worth more than a human life with the way you, and everyone, is living right now.
@@RGC_animation Your argument doesn’t disprove my initial statement. At most, it suggests people could be doing more. UN statistics show that more people have been lifted out of poverty in the last few decades than in all of human history. Yes, we could be doing better, but we could also be doing a lot worse. Regardless of our actions the truth of my statement isn’t dependent on them.
You should pull the lever in he last one. EVs are stats, they depend on big numbers (Central Limit Theorem), i.e. if you were to do whatever infinite times, then that's the expected outcome. But if you're pulling it once it's better to do it, the probability of killing people is very low.
but you also have a small probability of killing a lot of people! that's the entire problem: do you risk the low probability when the bad outcome is so much worse? also, pedantic point: i don't think you're using the central limit theorem there, that's specifically about the distribution of an average as you get more samples (and it assumes finite variance which isn't strictly necessary). funnily enough, the theorem you need is actually just called the law of large numbers.
@bayleev7494 True, law of large numbers indeed. I know it wouldn't be a trolley problem if it was so easy, but my point was that you don't have the same EV with single chances (i.e. you're not causing the same damage, but rather betting). I'd bet for the empty boss, as the probability of killing people is low, and otherwise I'm for sure killing someone. We do this kind of bets all the time, like you could get cancer from a radiograph that was made for a minor issue, but the probability is so incredibly low that we do it. But if you start having radiographs every day then it won't payoff. Same for many medicines. Of course here it is engineered for making up the same EVs, and in real life if not so simple.
What if it's 1% chance of killing 1 million people, versus the one? Or one billion? Now the expected value is way more but you still have very low probability.
The last case fascinates me a great deal. I think I would pull the lever because in a once-off situation, I think expected values are less relevant, i.e. it's a risk I'd be willing to take for the chance of no one getting hurt. But I think that might also be the diminishing returns effect. What's really interesting is looking at either extreme of this: 1. Would you pull the lever if it had 0.5 chance of killing 2 people? 2. Would you pull the lever if it had 1/8000000000 chance of killing all humans except you? Or perhaps including you? Would it make a difference? I find myself more reluctant in both these cases than the 100 people one, which is fascinating to me. But that might just be because I'm not able to fathom the scale of 1/8000000000 as a chance. 0.5 chance of killing 2 people feels like more of an equal trade, but more "messy" both because I'd have a hand in it and because it might be twice as many people (and 0.5 chance feels entirely possible). I definitely think the feeling of different probabilities is non-linear as well. And 0.5 chance of something bad feels different from 0.5 chance of something good.
About the Mona lisa problem: destroying an amount of "beautiful objects" at some point turns into destroying something much more important than an object. These things are all crafted - by people. Destroying ALL paintings in the world means destroying a really significant chunk of culture and thereby humanity. The exact number of paintings where the equation switches from objects to culture I don't know. But it's probably not even that high. Somewhere in the thousands maybe, if we're starting at the Mona Lisa and working out way down.
@@QuintarFarenor good take! I think that is exactly where my thoughts diverge though. I'm not sure either. But I feel like there's a point where we're no longer destroying re-craftable items but a piece of what makes us all human in the first place. Call it arts, call it culture. That's what we're eliminating. Or at least a piece of it. And if I have to consider erasing a piece of what we as humans are today vs five lives, I wanna say we should at least consider what we're doing there. Destroying the 10 biggest libraries. That's such a hit to who we are as a species. So much history just forgotten in an instant. So many lessons and life stories, gone. Idk man, I hear you but I feel like there's a point where this outweighs a human life
@@truefunghi9351 No *representation* of culture should outweigh the possibility of crafting new artefacts of culture. (Human) life should always be worth more than anything that's not. Yes, knowledge can and will bee destroyed or forgotten but it's still not something that can't be recreated. The life's you offered on the altar of "culture" you can'T bring back, their potential, their hopes and dreams and what theey might have built to expand our and our futures culture, you can't bring back. Offering life for some "culture" is way too shortsighted, it's back sighted to be precise.
@@QuintarFarenor hm. I understand why and how you would categorically value a human life over anything it creates, including culture. I'm not sure I can follow you when you talk about potentials. At that point are we not weighing potential up against evidence? In that moment the factor life is entirely removed from the problem. Unless of course you'd say life over creation, but if for some reason life is not an argument, then potential over evidence. I like this statement because it interestingly puts any amount of possibility, however small, categorically over anything manifested, however grandiose. Feels a little radical but healthy in a way.
@@truefunghi9351 Well to be fair, I value life over creation. *Dunno if relevant but I|m a natural materialist atheist, so I value everything existing over non/existing things, every existing over principials and every living over unliving things, and most (caan'T say 'every' here) human over non-human living beings. I wouldn't say "Evidence is less than potential" the contrary would be too stringent for me so I can'T affirm that ether.
Obviously, the "expected value" only makes sense if you have a statistically significant number if trolley runs. If there is a single run, as implied, the answer should be to pick the box.
Expected value holds true for just 1 run. That said, I still feel better taking the risk on the box. The only thing a statistically significant number of runs will do is prove the expected value. If a million people pull the lever and a million people don't, each option kills approximately the same number of people.
The part of the Trolly Problem thats always glossed over is that its a QUICK decision. A trolly is speeding towards a scenario and you need to decide NOW! It would be great if the game version had a 15-30 second time limit.
7:28 the nice thing about combining the simple moral code of Kant and the idea of maximizing things of utilitarianism is it solves a lot of problems in both thought processes, kantism is great at telling you not to do something, but isn’t strong enough to even help with the base case of the trolly problem because it can’t choose the lesser of two evils, therefore by saying instead of “thou shalt not used people as means to an end” you instead say “thou shalt minimize the amount of people used as means to an end” it fixes this problem quite nicely as choosing to flick that lever would use the five people as means to your deranged ends of finding out what killing feels like
A trolley is heading towards your worst ennemi, but by pulling the lever you will divert the trolley to Alex O'Conner's moustache, forever destroying it. What do you do ?
From mathematical pov, I would say in expected value examples, the naïve multiplication doesn't work for different reason. It doesn't work because expectations work ONLY in repeated experiments. Even rather 'it is the limit when number of repetitions tends to infinity".
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Not getting involved (or taking too much time to think about it) for all problems where the solution is not immediately obvious, is actually an elegant way of breaking out the quagmire
MORAL DILEMMAS: Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics. As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows: In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one. *This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand. In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children. Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard. An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously! Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct). The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one: Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher). In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules: Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed. Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted. Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
On the example with the same number of people on both tracks - I think there is also some utility gained from actively saving those on the original track, as well as the ‘kick’ from killing those on the alternative track. If you are a utilitarian I see it as you getting ‘double utility’ from switching the tracks. They would surely be obligated to switch the tracks.
cant believe i just watched a 13 minute ad for piaVPN and not only that, I would do it again. >< i couldnt stop laughing with "the hacker dilemma" lol. i enjoyed this video becuase its light hearted and a nice break away from lifes drama
In the percentages and expected value problem he fails to acknowledge that the expected value only occurs when you run the simulation over and over again. In the problem if you switched the trolley direction thousands of times it would avg out to 1 person killed per simulation, but this isnt the case in this context as we are being asked what we would do in only one simulation of the problem and no more. The deal or no deal example is a perfect representation of this. On the show you only get one chance so you take the offer of less money with a 100% gauruntee rather than going for the 50/50 as the expected value doesn't mean anything. You either get the money or you don't. Personally I would pull the lever and take the chance as a 99% chance of noone being in there is significant enough for me to take the risk. Side note: I also think that these trolley problems also become far more interesting if you start talking about family and loved ones.
I almost never throw praise people's way for a cheesy sponsor read, but that one was pretty good... was already gonna like the video (ofc), but had to drop a like for that one, at least.
Sad truth…I work at a maximum security prison. People there have taken lives because the person wore the wrong color. Saying we would sacrifice a work of art or a building for the life of a person gives me hope for humanity .
The first one is interesting though, because experience is usually tied directly to your actions. Hitler was Hitler, because he did everything he did. In this scenario, sure the fake Hitler isn't literally Hitler, but he has the experiences of what the real Hitler did, which to him he probably sees as his past actions. To him it is real and he will presumably continue these acts despite his current situation. Because of this, he essentially becomes a new Hitler and you are morally obligated to kill him to prevent him escaping and doing more awful things.
I just saw you covered this. Very well done. 👏 😂 On another note, I have a trolley problem to eliminate abstainers. *Ahem..* In front of you is a trolley holding 5 people. It's currently heading towards a blocked tunnel which if crashed into will result in the deaths of all of the trolley's passengers. You can divert the trolley left or right with the lever beside you. If you divert it left, it will run over 1 person who is tied to the tracks, killing nobody else, whereas if you divert it right, it will run over 5 people, killing nobody else. What do you do?
Informed by my start over attitude, I would never sacrifice a person for any inanimate object or objects nor would I feel bad. I would only cringe when the hostess and little Debbie companies fell and would have to get as many snacks on the trolley as I could.
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no thx but great content :)
MORAL DILEMMAS:
Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics.
As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows:
In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one.
*This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand.
In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children.
Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard.
An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously!
Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct).
The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one:
Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher).
In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules:
Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed.
Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted.
Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
The solution to the Trolley problem when faced with an impossible choice, do something, save the most lives, maybe the one has to be sacrificed for the many. That is the way it always has been in religion but then Alex is not a religious person, so far as I know, he may be agnostic; which is nether/or.
The theme of religion, even going back to Pagan times was sacrifice of one for the welfare of the many. It may symbolize sacrificing the ego for the greater good. In the case of the ego no one has to die, just an egocentric worldview has to bite the dust. Its holder still carries on, but hopefully as a much better adjusted human.
Were inner states known or capable of being expressed in the dark age? Was it necessary to enact a drama to convey inner states and moral teachings. The Greek dramas may have done this as well. Freud who was from a literal culture of the book was clueless about myth and did an awful disservice to those myths he misinterpreted.
For example no one wants to kill the father, who is not a competitor in a child’s mind for the mother’s affection. A culture that was moving from a goddess culture to a god culture, on the approach to a dark age wanted to emphasize the importance of reason over feeling. Reason represents the god; feeling represents the goddess. There are times when reason should be uppermost and cultivated, and a dark age is definitely one such time.
It has been said that a god culture prevails in a lower age and a goddess culture in a higher age. Freud of course would know nothing about that. Carl Jung was good with myth, his culture prepared him to properly understand and interpreted it.
Freud was clueless and should have stayed away from myth, as he did better with literalism, he butchered myth when he attempted to literalize it. Myth is meant to resonate and inform in that way, it is not meant to be taken literally. It expresses truths that cannot be easily explained or put into words.
It is similar to the Catholic mass where transubstantiation is symbolized, as how could it be explained literally; there is no language likely even in a quantum age, that could literally explain it or understood it except through the resonance of ceremony which touches and informs at a deeper level of the psyche than the literal or cognitive does.
There are people who do not get symbolism whether it is their culture or the part of their brain that is dominant, they are and remain clueless in relation to it. Consequently, they should stay away from it and leave it to those who are capable of understanding it; to literalize it is to turn it into nonsense.
@@infiniteworfare5089
Great and lowly are RELATIVE. 😉
Incidentally, are you VEGAN? 🌱
You are urged to become VEGAN, since carnism (the destructive ideology that supports the use and consumption of animal products, especially for “food”) is arguably the foremost existential crisis.🌱
My favorite version of this problem:
A trolley is heading towards an empty track; You can pull the lever to kill 1 person, or double the amount of people and give the same decision to another person down the tracks.
This repeats for infinity OR until someone pulls the lever to kill these 2^(n-1) people.
Once the train passes an iteration (choice gets doubled), the previously tied up people get freed.
In theory, if nobody decides to pull the lever, you can infinitely double the amount of people, without ever letting anyone die. But you run the risk of giving a lunatic that choice, and your refusing to kill the 1 person might lead to hundreds of thousands dying instead.
I'd argue killing 1 person, in order to prevent that disaster is moral; but how many people is the limit?
If you're at iteration 8, there's 128 people on the track - would it still be worth killing them in order to save a potential infinite amount? What iteration would be the cutoff for pulling the lever?
I've seen that too. It is indeed a good one.
Futhermore we know what percent of people is a lunatics, so we can even calculate all kinds of expected values (amount of steps, amount of victims, ect.).
assuming you care about minimizing the number of deaths, pulling the lever is the only reasonable choice. it doesn't matter how many people are already tied to the track.
though, if you think about it, no matter which option you choose, a net amount of 1 person will die (kinda)
if the 1st person pulls the lever, then 1 person will die
if the 1st person doesnt pull the lever, then 1 person was saved, but 2 people will die, unless
if the 2nd person doesnt pull the lever, then 3 people were saved but 4 people will die, unless
if the 3rd person doesnt pull the lever, then 7 people were saved but 8 people will die, unless
...
if the nth person doesnt pull the lever, then 2^n-1 people were saved but 2^n people will die. so the total number of people dead minus the total number of people saved will always be 1
i know, its silly to think of it this way. i mean, isnt the last person also saving a potentially infinite number of people by pulling the lever? does being "saved" matter when there was the possibility of not being involved at all? does it even matter how many people die when theres somehow infinitely many left over?
In only 33 iterations, all of humanity will be tied to the track.
If "the rules" state that the same person cannot be tied to the track twice, then on 32 iterations, there will be about half of humanity tied to the track, and the other half is "saved" (actually a little less than half is now tied, since the numbers don't match exactly and technically 53% of humanity was already tied previously)
Assuming the current population is around 8 billion, 83 million, 124 thousand and some change :p - from US world population census
It's also not just the lunatics that you need to be worried about. Long before a lunatic gets control of the lever, presumably there will be several more pragmatists who consider exactly this same calculation. From your point of view though, these pragmatists are practically indistinguishable from the lunatics; as you are from theirs.
It suggests that perhaps someone *is* going to pull the lever a lot sooner than you might think if you were only considering lunatics, but then... do you pull the lever or do you double the number of lives on the line and shift the responsibility?
You can probably deduce it is unlikely that a lunatic will ever have a turn with the lever - some pragmatist will likely pull it first - so by inaction, aren't you just doubling the number of lives that /will almost certainly/ be lost?
@@thombrucethis was my thought too. Someone pulling the lever eventually is inevitable the. So that makes this variation not much different than the original trolley problem. Do you pull the lever and kill x amount of people knowing that if you don't many magnitudes more than that will eventually die, or do you not bare the burden because making that decision is personally wrong. I am personally of the belief that doing nothing is almost always the right answer (unless it's clearly like things or people of course I would choose the people.) I didn't set up the trolley or put these people in such a situation. Why should I bare the psychological and emotional burden of such a decision when I had nothing to do with creating the situation?
Always loved this one "You are a philosophy professor. Noone is in danger. Do you tie people to the trolley tracks to save your job?"
The one I saw the other day established that "no one is on the tracks, and no one was in danger" but asked "do you jump in front of the moving trolley?" lol
Ngl, this one _actually_ made me lol irl🤣
@@johnchesterfield9726 I chuckle every time I think about it lol
You are the danger
It's still an ethical/moral dilemma unless you specify that there is no one on the trolley, no bystander/witness to traumatise, and no one waiting for the trolley's arrival who you would inconvenience by jumping in front of it.
I love your solo content, I’m glad you’ve not fully abandoned it for the interviews
Same, I've missed these general philosophy videos. The interviews are nice but these are just better.
The one about the Mona Lisa and the Louvre is especially interesting if you think of the reverse.
Would whoever commissioned the construction of the Louvre have changed his mind if told, "at least one worker will die during the construction"? What about five? Ten? How many workers can be expected to die before a project is considered too dangerous?
woah yes this is much more interesting!
of course they wouldn't have changed their mind. people die historically in every major construction.
Meanwhile; Saudi Princes: "You mean we can build more garish towers AND reduce the size of our workforce? Sign me up!"
Pharaoh: Hold my 2.5 ton stone block.
I think thats totally different because the workers can know the dangers and Arnt just tied up to a track
My 9 year old son was playing that trolly problem game and intentionally selecting the “wrong” answer every time. He’d start giggling almost uncontrollably until the next question
You should check on him...
@@emmanuelalagbala9590 Yeah, I probably should.
But the fact he knows he's doing the wrong answer means that he's rational enough to figure out the right answer. That's an important distinction from picking the wrong answer because he thinks it's the right answer.
What do you mean by "wrong" answer?
@@JuanManuel-ii1ov probably the one which causes more suffering
Me detecting the goddamn vpn ad as soon as it starts because I've heard so goddamn many of them
I didn't see it because I have the sponsorblock browser extension installed
@@jackgreenearth452is that a real thing?
I feel you. Somewhat i know when someone is making an ad just bye their voice and word used. Atleast on people i watch regularly
@totallyrealnotfakelifeadvi7547 its the coolest extension ever, the sponsors are skipped in videos!
I really appreciate the shoutout Alex, extremely generous. Another great video!
What about the case where you pull the lever to kill Hitler’s clone or you don’t pull the lever and you kill Alex’s mustache?
ah the mustache problem🤔 which seems to me it needs the beard and the beard needs the mustache or it just doesn’t work because without the beard, the mustache just looks like a 70’s porn star. Unless one is in to that.
May I suggest multi track drifting?
What if there’s an option to kill the outer 1.5 inches of Alex’s mustache on both sides, with the middle remaining, giving him a somewhat Hitler-esque mustache?
@@ahgflyguythus resulting in two hitler clones. I see this as an absolute win.
@@ahgflyguy😮Hitler-esque
I think ending that would be preferable to ending the Hitler clone, because the Hitler clone might be a different person despite all his memories. And so he might regret all his past actions
The moustache however, is inexcusable
The last example is such a nobrainer. Of course I pull the lever! Letting it go straight is guaranteed to kill a person, while the other has a rather slim risk of killing tons of people. I sure wouldn't want the latter to happen and it would feel devastating, but I could still simply rationalize it as bad luck.
Total my view
yeah one is absolute while the other has a chance, so even with same EV pulling the lever still is good or am I missing sth?
@@matseigel1622 What if instead of 1% for 100 it was 10% chance for 10 people? 50% chance for 2 people? Would you still try to save that one person?
I'd say it's hard to rationalize with just "gg unlucky" if you're the reason you caused more deaths than necessary.
11:00 a quote often attributed to Stalin "The death of a single man is a tragedy, the death of a million a mere statistic"
Its attributed to him but he likely didn't say it
"...and I fucking love statistics!!"
communism killed 100 billion iphones in venezuela be careful with that
The plucking of one hair follicle, perhaps a slight twinge, the shaving of one alex mustache a step in the direction of all that is clean and good and right in this world
Missatributed
It's ironic because people say they should pull the leaver and destroy beautiful things, but most of the time they won't sacrifice their own beautiful enjoyments to save lives, which they know they could probably do tomorrow if they investigated it.
Thus proving what we all know deep down - Morality is subjective. And it's not even just selfishness - As an extreme case, most people would be reluctant to harshly punish even a stranger, for diverting the trolley away from a member of that strangers family.
@@SmileyEmoji42 what? How does it prove that! 🤣 What do you mean by subjective? That people choose to do different things and feel differently???
If two scientists are asked to build a bridge, and they come up with two different solutions, does this prove science is subjective? I mean, this is what you sound like right here...
@@theignorantcatholicthere are many debates that go on in science so in a way science in a way is subjective but the facts themselves are almost always objective. with the bridge example what you provided is 2 different objective ways to build a bridge but the best one is almost always subjective.
morality however there is no moral facts we can rely upon. all we can rely upon is the opinion on how we should be and do so all of what we are as moral beings is a process of subjective values rather than objective
@@theignorantcatholic Morality is subjective, pulled from objective facts. Having facts is not enough, so Morality is meant to order it and make something useful out of a list of facts. The facts in this case being how people feel about something, what people are willing or not willing to do e.t.c.
@@theignorantcatholic If two scientists are asked to build a bridge, and they come up with two different solutions your assement of which is prettier is subjective. Your assement of which is "better" is subjective because your relative weightings of price,maintainability and capacity are subjective because your ultimate value function is yours and yours alone
On the "enhanced" Mona Lisa problem:
Another interesting thing to consider is the perspective of the human victims in this case; how would you feel if the entire world's art has been sacrificed to save your life?
Can you imagine the burden on your conscience you will have to carry all your life?
@random_bit art is more than materialism, its culture, its history.
If i had been on the tracks, and saved in trade of all the worlds art, I'd be happy to be alive but.
I'm not sure if i could live happily.
@random_bit on a strictly utilitarian mindset you could reason that destroying all of the art would lead to a lot of depression around the world for a lot of people, so it might not be worth to save 5 people for that.
That said, if that effect was mitigated in some way and if we could start anew and make new art, it probably would be better to destroy all art. I really think that old things are not that important in the grand scheme of things
@random_bit Oh i would not sacrifice much for all the classical paintings but art means more than just those, all music, writing, etc is art
@random_bit No one is stopping humans creating more babies. They are not rare.
Also I feel like if all the world’s art vanished, more than 1 person on the planet would kill themselves in despair. How does that influence the equation?
Rule 51 of the internet, if it exists there is a trolley problem based on it
Make a trolley problem out of Skibidi Toilet
... Fine you monster
Do you forcefully shave off Alex's moustache? On the one hand, you liberate this world of great evil, but at the same time, you overlook his personal freedoms.
You're assuming that he's grown it by choice.
No just shave off the sides for relevance.
When someone does something as criminal as what as Alex is doing repeatedly to the world by sporting that abomination, it is assumed that it may be necessary, nay, just!, that he be denied some of those personal freedoms.
Stop bullying Alex, he's just trying to look older. But let me ask you this. Would you shave Alex's moustache or erase the concept of pineapple pizza from humanity's memory (assuming you don't like pineapple pizza)?
@@gabor6259 ooh, tough one. Pineapple pizza of the tash of doom....
it would be absolutely hilarious to see alex play through a game like detroit: become human and then over-analyzing every single choice or story beat in terms of their philosophical implications lmao
Okay wow i would pay for that
2:40 okay that was an AMAZING segue
Literally the same one as “trolley problems seriously 1”, except with a different VPN
I like to think of the trolley problem this way:
A razor is hovering around five faces. You have the option to pull a lever, diverting a razor onto another face where only one moustache is growing. The dilemma asks whether it's morally acceptable to actively intervene to save five faces from growing a moustache at the cost of one or to do nothing and allow the five to grow moustaches.
With the last one, I think you have to take into consideration the number of trials. Sure, the EV over multiple trials is equal, but you only have to gamble on 1/100 once. Also, without pulling the lever there is a 100% chance of death (failure), whereas pulling the lever actually gives you a 99% chance of success. Sure, this reasoning can seem to equate 1 death with 100, but I still think it's worth putting it into consideration.
There's a huge difference between zero and one deaths, far more than one and one hundred I think. So it's worth a try to avoid killing anyone, if you only have one shot. If you're going to do a few hundred attempts then yeah I guess you might not avoid having the same expected value.
Counterpoint though is that in life our ethical approach will be used many times as we go through life so over time the decisions we make will add up based on the way we make these decisions even if they aren't this exact case.
Yeah- 99% is so close to guaranteed in my brain and letting someone die seems like it might eat at you. In terms of real world situations, when an ambulance runs a red light, they are putting other lives at risk by a small fraction to increase their chances to save another.
@@DobesVandermeer While I do think you should pull the lever, I don't think your reasoning is correct. There really is no difference between 0 and 1 deaths, compared to 99 and 100 deaths. It's not like the death of one person lessens the consequences of the death of another person.
The reason death is bad (whether it be depriving an individual of life, or the sadness it inflicts upon the individual's loved ones) scales linearly with the number of people who are killed. If my friend is killed by the trolley, it makes my grief no less intense knowing that 99 other people also died.
While you raise an interesting point the EV is always equal regardless of the number of trials. With more trials both EVs are just multiplied. The actual result will get closer to EV as you approach infinite trials, and taking the chances could start out great but it could also start out catastrophically. Personally, I would not pull the level as it feels wrong to gamble on a 100 people's lives and 1/100 events happen all the time in life. If the 100 people turned out to be there I could not live the rest of my life in peace whereas not getting involved and indirectly causing the death of one person is better in comparison.
@@haykkhulyan6201 I think there's also a interesting point here about the randomness of the outcome. If you don't pull the lever, you are almost guaranteed to have caused someone to die via your inaction, as there was a 99% chance that you could have saved them and anyone else. If you pull the lever, even if 100 people die, this is a result of a highly unlikely 1% scenario which was out of your control, so from an emotional standpoint there is an argument that while your choice was sound given the information provided, due to sheer bad luck it turned out to be the worse outcome.
While statistically the expectation values are the same for each, on an individual trial basis not only is there a 99% chance of noone dying, but in the 1% of situations where 100 people die the perceived unlikeliness of this having happened perhaps alleviates the shame felt, instead attributing it to bad luck or the universe or some such outside causes, which perhaps makes it the preferable choice.
What is really interesting to me then is what if there was actually a 1% chance of 101 people (or more) in the box, and how does that affect the outcome? Is there an expectation value or a suitably large group where a 1% chance of catastrophe is once again is perceived as too high a risk? A lottery could be considered the inverse of this, where rationally speaking the chance of an individual ticket winning is so vanishingly small that you'd be better off not playing if your expected net earnings is the motivator, but the potential prize is so big that even with the low odds it is a risk worth taking.
I remember a trolley problem (but not a trolley, a truck) where you were beforehand asked for your favourite things, and then it would be those favoured things or one human life. So it would be "your family or one human life" then so by so with an extra human life, then when you finally decide to sacrifice the thing, it said "___ is worth [number] human lives". Keep in mind I was a child at the time, and this was in fact, a dream.
The interesting thing with the Mona Lisa is that it is probably worth millions and millions of dollars which could be used to save way more than five people, so does the French government have an obligation to sell it to a buyer and use that money to fund life-saving work? (Sorry to pull a Singer)
French government can fund life-saving work without selling Mona Lisa.
Indeed, Said buyer can just sell the painting for more Money, saving even more people.
Rich art collectors are the most moral of all billionaires!
That depends. If it just went to another museum then yes but if it went to a private collection then you would be losing millions of microenjoyments for an indeterminate number of years - That could certainly sum up to more than a life.
You say much the same about charitable giving. People will say that they would give up every penny they have to save just one life, but when given that option through a charity which almost certainly would be able to save a life with that money, they don't.
I really hate utilitarianism…
I like this one: "The trolley has already run over dozens of people and will continue to run over dozens more. You could flip the switch to stop it, but in doing so, you would hurt the trolley company's profits."
Destroy the switch and buy stocks
that rhymed 🫢
It's past 11pm in Brazil and here I am breaking my promise of going to sleep early. I'm blaming you, O'Connor, with your 13min video.
Me too🇧🇷
I have to go to school tomorrow 😭😭
Ah. The classic trolley problem with Alex and sleep on different tracks 🤔
1.5 speed for a 10 min vid
Cool name for a Channel!
The Mona Lisa Trolley Problem made me realize something. Sure in the case of the Trolley Problem, while actively considering the value of human life, most would immediately choose the painting. Or any Art or City etc. However, if you would compare the reactions to the news "five people tragically died on a train track yesterday" and the "Louvre was set on fire, and all of the artworks are now gone forever", would definitely be more extreme on the Louvre news. Probably just because we're just so used to the news of people dying, and we don't attribute value to nameless people in the news.
That has to be the best segue into a sponsor 2:19
I hate it.
@@KB28L You like your ads clearly distinct from the content? I get it.
@@patu8010 I think that's fair for the viewers. It can be during the video, no issues, but when it's hidden like this, I always feel a bit betrayed by the creator.
@@KB28L Ads are not inserted into the video such that the viewers don't even see them. They literally exist to show and sell you something. And ESPECIALLY when the product is good, which Alex seems to think about this VPN, he is _morally obligated_ to let the people know. The more interested he makes the viewers, the more plausible that they will take a look. Again, for GOOD products.
@@KB28L I saw this ad coming from a mile away which makes me hate it even more. It shows how we've already been trained to recognize these transitions.
You can't kidnap a crazy person and send them to saint Helena just because he believes he is Napoleon.
Well, maybe you can't.
idk man I think I totally could.
yes i can, watch me
He IS NAPOLEON!!!
The mustache is good, don’t let the haters make you think otherwise.
If he shaves about 80% of the edges, he would look great. 😉
I'm sorry but no
@@kevinqwen221 Nope, sorry you gotta keep it long and have it hang off the sides. I have basically the same mustache as he does, except for my soul patch.
@@kevinqwen221 Ah yes, he would look like Charlie Chaplin. That was who you were after right?
10:20 - it’s because the opportunity is rare. It’s better to have some rare benefit than to lose the opportunity.
I've missed this so much. Glad you made it
"What if I destroy all of art..." You're accidentally becoming you're own godwin there. ;)
Adapted utilitarian thinking: 7:25 the horror of the 5 people you’re about to purposefully kill as they watch a random person murder them for no reason. honestly more people should think of the victims in trolley problems. must answer that for the utilitarians
Surely the 5 people on the other track feel as much relief that a person has diverted the track and saved their lives. Does that balance the terror?
how do we know the folks have any idea about their situation? What if all ten are unconscious?
MORAL DILEMMAS:
Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics.
As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows:
In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one.
*This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand.
In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children.
Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard.
An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously!
Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct).
The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one:
Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher).
In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules:
Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed.
Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted.
Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
@@karimshawagfeh3630
MORAL DILEMMAS:
Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics.
As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows:
In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one.
*This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand.
In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children.
Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard.
An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously!
Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct).
The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one:
Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher).
In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules:
Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed.
Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted.
Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
@@karimshawagfeh3630 I think I'd feel more survivors guilt if someone pulled the lever for my life than if nobody did anything, so in my experience it would be worse to survive as a person on the original track than as a person on the diverted track
What you're missing with regard to the expected value problem is that the expected value is a mathematical concept with a specific purpose. It is only really relevant when you have a random experiment that is *repeated*. The expected value is the expected average of all experiments, when you do the experiment an infinite amount of times.
So, in all cases where you only do the experiment once (the Deal or no Deal scenario, or the trolley problem scenario), the expected value is of very little relevance. It becomes much more relevant, if you can do the experiment many times.
This is where a better understanding of mathematics can help in philosophy.
I was just about to write this exact thing. Expected value is what you'd expect _on average_. That is not a very useful information when you know there won't be any averaging happening because you have sample size of 1.
Expected value is still useful in scenarios when the experiment is not repeated.
Say you have two people: one is risk averse and avoids "gambling" even with better expected values. The other is trying to follow what has the biggest EV.
Most of choices like these in life are one-offs. So one would say that you should not use expected values. But over the course of one's life you have many such one-off choices. And if you follow the greatest EV, you will come out on top.
Let's go to the trolley problem. And let's modify the odds so that taking the risk brings greater EV so it's actually beneficial to pull the lever on average and not just the same on average. Say 1% to kill 50 people and 99% to kill noone. Surely you won't be presented with a problem with stakes like these multiple times in your life. Certainly not enough to take advantage of the law of large numbers. But let's think on a scale of the whole world over a long period of time. Dillemas like these happen and people have to make those choices. In a society, where most people choose to take the risk, more people would survive, even though for each of the people making the decision, this is a once in a lifetime event. It might be different stakes, different odds, different overall situations. But a society that generally follows maximizing the expected value, does get greater values than a society that doesn't.
Note: Of course, there are objections to this. It's not that you should always follow the greatest expected value. You can always make up odds so ridiculous that the EV is great, but the scale over which you expect it to average out is unreasonable. So you have to keep that scale in mind. In some situations, the whole humanity over a long period of time is still not enough to get to the law of large numbers. I certainly wouldn't take that bet. One can also assign different values to improvements on different scales. Am I willing to risk *my own* resources for an average improvement in the world that I would likely not feel or do not really care about? Or you can also analyze this from the standpoint that a person has some kind of threshold of value, and you can assign value to passing that threshold. Like a homeless person getting a house guaranteed is a more rational choice than gambling on a better house vs nothing because taking just the monetary value does not paint the full picture.
It's not the expected values don't work, it's just that the expected value calculation might not always be straightforward, there are different tangible and intangible gains and losses which need to be accounted for
Yes. In this single case there is either a 99% chance no one dies or a 100% chance someone does. It seems simple to me, mathematically speaking.
Odds and values being less relavent for 1 iteration is pretty silly. Obviously a 50% chance of $100 is better than a 1% of $1000 even if the experiment only happens only once. A rational gambler would only consider the expected value.
@@virtuallyreal5849 One was going with that especially if it happens once, you're onto nothing.
On the bottom track, a trolley heads for 5 people. On the top, there is one person, an identical clone of yourself. If you pull the lever you are instantaneously swapped with the clone of yourself, you experience the full pain of being crushed by the trolley and your life and conscious experience ends. The clone of you goes on to live your entire life exactly how it would have played out had you continued to live it yourself. Do you pull the lever?
Before finding Christ, I would have saved myself. Now, I would save the five
@@hatchet62
MORAL DILEMMAS:
Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics.
As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows:
In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one.
*This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand.
In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children.
Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard.
An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously!
Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct).
The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one:
Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher).
In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules:
Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed.
Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted.
Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
no because I'm selfish
@@dbcooperslilbrother
MORAL DILEMMAS:
Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics.
As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows:
In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one.
*This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand.
In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children.
Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard.
An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously!
Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct).
The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one:
Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher).
In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules:
Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed.
Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted.
Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
Wait, so there can be two of me if I don't? Deal!
1:21 "And so we decide to make this clone in order to punish him... and we do it for the sake of that feeling of justice."
That is like one decently-large cognitive step away from vicarious atonement.
I'm the guy who pulls the lever before you even finish giving me the proposition. I just like being involved is all. 🥰
Loved the transition to the vpn ad 😄
always thoroughly excited and thereafter entertained when alex uploads
that last problem can be reworded as "is it right to save a life if that action endangers a large number of other people." to which the answer seems to be pretty obviously yes.
Trolley problem:
On one side you've got Alex's moustache. And without interference the trolley will run it over. On the other side you've got Alex's full beard from earlier this year and if you pull the lever it will run over the beard and the moustache would survive.
Do you pull the lever?
smooth ad segue, alex; very well done!
0:41 "for some people punishment is all about retribution" then alex grins and says "for others, punishment is..."
AND I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING A TOTALLY DIFFERENT DIRECTION
Evil Alex can't hurt you.
Evil Alex:
Nope. He didn't grin and he didn't say that like that. Listen again.
Get your mind out of the gutter
Join a BDSM club
@@thekeysman6760 A funny thought nonetheless.
7:47 IMO, there's actually a utilitarian argument for why it's right to pull the lever. Assuming that all of the people in this scenario would experience the same amount of happiness during the rest of their life if they were to continue living, then all you would be taking into account is their differing average happinesses during this situation, presumably immediately after you pull the lever. While the people who survive if you don't pull the lever would expect to survive and therefore be less likely to be grateful or happy that they made it out, the people who only survive if you pull the lever would be more surprised and therefore more happy and grateful that they did so.
But if we take this into account then we have to also consider survivors guilt
@Froahk Realistically, survivor's guilt would happen roughly equally no matter who you choose to kill. After all, both sets of people would know that the other set died for them to survive, and they don't really care about a lever.
@@Cleb3D good point
A one up on the mona lisa problem: would you save one person for the sake of humanity’s creative capacity (say, the ability to paint, ability to make beautiful buildings, ability to make music)?
If you took away humanity's creative capacity completely you would no longer have humanity.
I think a lot of people would say yes only if that person were themself. I also think that some of those people would value their own life over another's if they were asked the right way.
No.
I find this trolley problem quite different because its comparing material reality to a sense of magical idealism. In my opinion, removing humanities creativity is also 'killing' humanity itself in the sense that it turns them into a new unrecognizable species than before.
@@WellDoneOnTheInternetEverybody
I feel like I also just don’t value random human lives that much.
Specific people, people I can touch yes. but if I could make a trolley problem decision, and then have that memory erased so I never knew, I’d probably save a lot of material possibilities.
@@DevourerSated In a contradictory way you do though.
Because the ultimatum of needing your memory wiped for the moral justification of the action would imply you actually do value random human life in regard to your own mental well-being and moral compass.
I was literally seeing trolley problems 1 hours before you posted haha
Me who knows that statistically the final question isn’t a 1 to 1, if you do nothing someone dies 100% of the time, but if you pull it manny people die 1% of the time. It’s not like you’re sending 100 Trolleys, it’s one trolley! So statistically pulling the lever almost ensures you save a life without loosing more
The thing you said about replacing London with brutalist apartment blocks - I think if you do that, you’d have some suicides on our hands. The thing with art or living spaces is that they teach us things and give life meaning. Life is not only there to live, but also to give it purpose
2:41 smooooth
I don't think I've ever seen a slicker transition to an ad in my life... fair play
The entire open web is on HTTPS now, meaning it is encrypted for the whole trip between your computer and the web server. All your ISP sees is what sites you visit - not your username, not your password, not the comments you post. Your personal data is not at risk from lack of a VPN. If anything, routing all of your browsing through one unregulated company makes you more vulnerable.
They are mainly used for bypassing legal geofencing. If they didn't keep banging on about security they'd be banned.
Its not. I ran into an old unprotected site a couple weeks ago
@josephschaefer9163 and the reason you noticed is that your browser refused to show it?
This has to be one of the greatest series on TH-cam
The trolley problem is old news!
The 2024 version is "The Mustasch Problem"
'The Mustache Problem' in inverted commas implying so-called or supposedly, not quotation marks quoting someone. 🕊️
that segue to the private security sponsorship was brilliant
I believe it's always morally correct to put the human lives above the art, simply because of the recreatibility of the art. The art can be recreated, in the future humans will rebuild their beautiful buildings and create new beautiful paintings, yet a human life is (statistically) truly one of a kind. Because of that I think the human life is always worth more.
Have you seen what people have been painting lately though
the mona lisa cannot be recreated, it is 1 of 1.
@@fignewtoneaterI’m really not that fond of it tbh.
Do you really think that people woud queue for hours to see a recreation?
You will have lost millions of microenjoyments times a, possibly infinite, number of years - That's a, potentially, huge cost.
...And if you believe that a human life is always worth more then do a trolley problem with The Mona Lisa versus Hitler
on the contrary, people can and are created all the time by the billions. but leonardo da vinci will never return and re paint the mona lisa.
I already pulled the lever that directs my data through PIA, thank you very much
Destroy the Mona Lisa, easy. I hate that painting, I' pull the lever even if nobody was on the other track.
The sheer number of lives that were lost in building these historical buildings would feel as if it were all for nothing if they were all destroyed to save a few lives.
Still don’t know what I’d do though..
From a utilitarian perspective, you could argue that since it doesnt matter what you do, the same amount of people are dying and so you are not morally obligated to pull it.
Let's assume that you are not related to them, and you actually don't know them at all). You are taking somebody's lives either way, because NOT pulling the lever is also a decision you have to make, and doing so means that those people die.
With that in mind, then you can justify using utilitarianism for either decision. Not pulling the lever also means that people die because of your action (or lack of), so if you "want to know how it feels to take a life" (which is the catch in this sneaky problem) then either pulling or not pulling the lever take you into that direction.
We can see then, that the real "catch" here is the fact that you WANT to do it (because the problem states so), and this is the sole reason why you seem to (erroneously) get to that grotesque conclusion. One can simply argue that, for most people, the sense of "guilt" of taking someones life is ultimately what justifies NOT pulling the lever using utilitarianism.
In any case, you are doomed from the get go, as I pointed out at the beginning, as both pulling or not the levee can be seen as the cause of people dying (and the same amount of them).
Stop the utilitarian slander.
utilitarianism on top
Perfect
But your decision not to pull is not taking someone's life. You wouldn't say you took a life just because you saw someone bleed to death on the a street would you? I know I wouldn't, nor would lots of people, it would still be wrong given in real life you could help that bleeding person, but you're still not the one who took that person's life if they die. Your choice of inaction did not determine the fate of death for the set of 5 that are already in the path of the trolley, the scenario is what determined it, so your inaction is the moral choice.
Its a bad example of utilitarianism because prioritizing hedonistic pleasure is anti-thetically to its philosophy in a systemic way. You are developing such tendencies that would not benefit society going forward after the trolley problem was finished.
I think the utilitarian perspective must consider a few additional things, for example: you already have a taste for blood, will this reinforce it?
Great to hear the Liberator getting a shout out - he’s been working so hard for the last month or so!
Trial by Trolly is a fun party card game by Skybound Tabletop that creates ad hoc strategically crafted trolly thought experiments. Pretty devilish good fun.
Please do these every single week mister Skeptic. My favourite type of content
with that last one, my default was to leave it alone and not risk 100 people due to that outcome being more catastrophic.
might have to do with my thoughts of minimizing Σ(suffering^2) (exponential penalties to increasing the same person's suffering) and maximizing Σ(log(pleasure)) (diminishing returns on increases to the same individual's pleasure) as a way to disincentivize things like causing 1 person an inordinate amount of slightly suffering to slightly benefit most people (came to mind when contemplating how long it is ok to force 1 person to sit at a red light to benefit the more numerous cross traffic with faster/smoother travel), or causing everyone discomfort to give 1 person extreme bliss. in this instance, it's reducing suffering^2 (especially when considering the odds of someone knowing multiple people in the box -> getting heightened suffering values that get compounded when squared)
Wot wuz them ppl doing in that box tho? Bit sus.
That's not exponential, that's quadratic.
@@julioaurelio you've got a point there, though i don't feel like editing it as the main point still stands
this is how i found your channel from your trolley problem videos!
2:01 No, absolutely not. I'd have no reason to be scared personally, as I'm not going to experience any of that torture myself. However, I would find the thought upsetting as the idea of someone being tortured for crimes (I'm assuming in this hypothetical I've committed some terrible crimes??) that they are innocent of, even if they wrongly believe they're guilty, is evil in my opinion.
"... I'm not going to experience the torture myself" is the bit I wonder about. If it's a perfect clone with every single memory you have, every neuron in the exact same state, part of me wonders if you *would* experience it. I guess it comes down to what and where consciousness is and what "you" happens to be, but I worry that when that clone opens its eyes, I would be looking out of them.
@@jimbakes2782 so if you have a clone made of you right now instead of after your death, you are afraid that you will have 2 bodies? 2 sets of eyes to look out of? I don’t know how that would even work.
@@jl4018 me neither. And I can't even think of a way to test it even if it were possible. However, I often think of the ship of Theseus- if it were possible to make a computerised replacement for a little part of your brain, and you kept swapping out tiny sections, how much of it would need to replace before it was no longer "you"?
The only definition of "you" that makes sense to me is that "you" are the current state of your persona that is made up of the physical hardware of your brain/body and the taint of your memories and experiences. So I agree, it kinda feels like "you" will experience the torture 😢
@@samteebo1994Yeah, at least a person with the exact same ideas and experiences as you, while you might not feel or experience it personally, someone you rly like does. Unless you hate yourself ig then maybe you see the thought of yourself being eternally punished as justice, but then again, it isn’t you
What a treat this upload was!
0:38 aang-the last Airbender
There’s no amount of things you can stack up that will outweigh the value of even one person.
Really? Then why aren't you donating every last one of your penny to charity? Sell all of your belongings and donate all the money other than the bare minimum for your survival to humanitarian charities. Even buying a single malaria net could mean the difference between saving that person and having that person die, and I'm sure your money can buy much more than 1 malaria net.
@@RGC_animation "You don't give all your money to charity, therefore, X number of things > than a human life"?
Your argument is flawed. Not giving all my money to charity has no bearing on whether a person’s worth can be compared to a certain number of things. You’re making a logical leap that doesn’t follow.
The taxes I pay help support the less fortunate, while the money I keep helps support me-I’m a person too.
@Artisan_GenZ Yes, that's why I said you can keep the bare minimum for your survival. You said that no amount of things is worth more than a human life, but clearly some amount of things are worth more than a human life with the way you, and everyone, is living right now.
@@RGC_animation Your argument doesn’t disprove my initial statement. At most, it suggests people could be doing more. UN statistics show that more people have been lifted out of poverty in the last few decades than in all of human history. Yes, we could be doing better, but we could also be doing a lot worse. Regardless of our actions the truth of my statement isn’t dependent on them.
I would easily destroy every painting that anyone has ever painted in order to save the life of even just one person
you clearly don't know how much art affects our lives... So many people would suffer if all paintings were gone with no backup
@@derpyslurp8779
Not really, you could do pretty good fakes of them afterwards.
The segue into the vpn ad was pure class 👌🏼
You should pull the lever in he last one. EVs are stats, they depend on big numbers (Central Limit Theorem), i.e. if you were to do whatever infinite times, then that's the expected outcome. But if you're pulling it once it's better to do it, the probability of killing people is very low.
but you also have a small probability of killing a lot of people! that's the entire problem: do you risk the low probability when the bad outcome is so much worse?
also, pedantic point: i don't think you're using the central limit theorem there, that's specifically about the distribution of an average as you get more samples (and it assumes finite variance which isn't strictly necessary). funnily enough, the theorem you need is actually just called the law of large numbers.
@bayleev7494 True, law of large numbers indeed.
I know it wouldn't be a trolley problem if it was so easy, but my point was that you don't have the same EV with single chances (i.e. you're not causing the same damage, but rather betting). I'd bet for the empty boss, as the probability of killing people is low, and otherwise I'm for sure killing someone. We do this kind of bets all the time, like you could get cancer from a radiograph that was made for a minor issue, but the probability is so incredibly low that we do it. But if you start having radiographs every day then it won't payoff. Same for many medicines. Of course here it is engineered for making up the same EVs, and in real life if not so simple.
What if it's 1% chance of killing 1 million people, versus the one? Or one billion?
Now the expected value is way more but you still have very low probability.
the mona lisa one was easy for me as I simply don’t care about paintings, but the buildings part was much harder ngl
Gonna listen to his voice while I sleep. 😎 Hopefully my brain take in all the main points subconsciously.
The last case fascinates me a great deal. I think I would pull the lever because in a once-off situation, I think expected values are less relevant, i.e. it's a risk I'd be willing to take for the chance of no one getting hurt. But I think that might also be the diminishing returns effect.
What's really interesting is looking at either extreme of this:
1. Would you pull the lever if it had 0.5 chance of killing 2 people?
2. Would you pull the lever if it had 1/8000000000 chance of killing all humans except you? Or perhaps including you? Would it make a difference?
I find myself more reluctant in both these cases than the 100 people one, which is fascinating to me. But that might just be because I'm not able to fathom the scale of 1/8000000000 as a chance.
0.5 chance of killing 2 people feels like more of an equal trade, but more "messy" both because I'd have a hand in it and because it might be twice as many people (and 0.5 chance feels entirely possible).
I definitely think the feeling of different probabilities is non-linear as well. And 0.5 chance of something bad feels different from 0.5 chance of something good.
About the Mona lisa problem: destroying an amount of "beautiful objects" at some point turns into destroying something much more important than an object. These things are all crafted - by people. Destroying ALL paintings in the world means destroying a really significant chunk of culture and thereby humanity. The exact number of paintings where the equation switches from objects to culture I don't know. But it's probably not even that high. Somewhere in the thousands maybe, if we're starting at the Mona Lisa and working out way down.
Paintings, art, music, everything can be remadee or newly crafted. A human live, even if it's just one, is not that easily replaced.
@@QuintarFarenor good take! I think that is exactly where my thoughts diverge though. I'm not sure either. But I feel like there's a point where we're no longer destroying re-craftable items but a piece of what makes us all human in the first place. Call it arts, call it culture. That's what we're eliminating. Or at least a piece of it. And if I have to consider erasing a piece of what we as humans are today vs five lives, I wanna say we should at least consider what we're doing there. Destroying the 10 biggest libraries. That's such a hit to who we are as a species. So much history just forgotten in an instant. So many lessons and life stories, gone. Idk man, I hear you but I feel like there's a point where this outweighs a human life
@@truefunghi9351 No *representation* of culture should outweigh the possibility of crafting new artefacts of culture. (Human) life should always be worth more than anything that's not. Yes, knowledge can and will bee destroyed or forgotten but it's still not something that can't be recreated. The life's you offered on the altar of "culture" you can'T bring back, their potential, their hopes and dreams and what theey might have built to expand our and our futures culture, you can't bring back.
Offering life for some "culture" is way too shortsighted, it's back sighted to be precise.
@@QuintarFarenor hm. I understand why and how you would categorically value a human life over anything it creates, including culture. I'm not sure I can follow you when you talk about potentials. At that point are we not weighing potential up against evidence? In that moment the factor life is entirely removed from the problem.
Unless of course you'd say life over creation, but if for some reason life is not an argument, then potential over evidence.
I like this statement because it interestingly puts any amount of possibility, however small, categorically over anything manifested, however grandiose. Feels a little radical but healthy in a way.
@@truefunghi9351 Well to be fair, I value life over creation. *Dunno if relevant but I|m a natural materialist atheist, so I value everything existing over non/existing things, every existing over principials and every living over unliving things, and most (caan'T say 'every' here) human over non-human living beings.
I wouldn't say "Evidence is less than potential" the contrary would be too stringent for me so I can'T affirm that ether.
1:13 good point, it reminds me of that idea we saw on movies of a machine predicting the future and arresting people before they even do something
Obviously, the "expected value" only makes sense if you have a statistically significant number if trolley runs. If there is a single run, as implied, the answer should be to pick the box.
Expected value holds true for just 1 run. That said, I still feel better taking the risk on the box. The only thing a statistically significant number of runs will do is prove the expected value. If a million people pull the lever and a million people don't, each option kills approximately the same number of people.
Why is that?
Too many commenters are saying this. I feel like he left it out on purpose for engagement.
How is that obvious to you? What am I missing?
Apologies everyone, I wrote that while falling asleep, @countryman032 is right, the expected value is independent on runs
That was the best embedded ad I've seen.
The moustache looks so fucking good please say it's staying xo
Alex.... w the moustache.... & my heart.... 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The part of the Trolly Problem thats always glossed over is that its a QUICK decision.
A trolly is speeding towards a scenario and you need to decide NOW!
It would be great if the game version had a 15-30 second time limit.
7:28 the nice thing about combining the simple moral code of Kant and the idea of maximizing things of utilitarianism is it solves a lot of problems in both thought processes, kantism is great at telling you not to do something, but isn’t strong enough to even help with the base case of the trolly problem because it can’t choose the lesser of two evils, therefore by saying instead of “thou shalt not used people as means to an end” you instead say “thou shalt minimize the amount of people used as means to an end” it fixes this problem quite nicely as choosing to flick that lever would use the five people as means to your deranged ends of finding out what killing feels like
A trolley is heading towards your worst ennemi, but by pulling the lever you will divert the trolley to Alex O'Conner's moustache, forever destroying it.
What do you do ?
Depends on how bad your worst enemy is. But what if your biggest enemy is also Alex’s mustache?
LoL best sponsored section this month!😂
From mathematical pov, I would say in expected value examples, the naïve multiplication doesn't work for different reason. It doesn't work because expectations work ONLY in repeated experiments. Even rather 'it is the limit when number of repetitions tends to infinity".
Not getting involved (or taking too much time to think about it) for all problems where the solution is not immediately obvious, is actually an elegant way of breaking out the quagmire
I would debate pulling the lever also scares the other 5 in fear of your capabilities which doesn't maximise satisfaction or happiness.
MORAL DILEMMAS:
Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics.
As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions, in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows:
In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party*. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one.
*This, of course, is a general rule, since, as it will be amply demonstrated in a later subsection, one may be accountable for the actions of one’s immediate subordinates. Again, the lesson to be learnt here, is that moral liability is entirely dependent on the specifics of the case in hand.
In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual/moral guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a quite worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children.
Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard.
An extreme example of a moral dilemma, would be the scenario in which a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby, in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs, is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder, if one does not murder, obviously!
Another example of an extreme scenario, would be the option of saving the life of an already-born human, on the one hand, or else, a number of newly-fertilized human eggs, on the other hand. Assuming, of course, that the birthed human was not convicted of a capital crime (most of which are listed in a subsequent subsection), and that the human race was not in danger of going extinct, in the opinion of the lord and master of the known universe, and saviour of humanity, who authored this Holiest of All Holy Scriptures, the life of the already-born human is more morally-valuable than trillions of zygotes. This is because the birthed human, even if he or she is afflicted with serious cognitive impairment, has achieved a level of physical and mental maturity, light years beyond a mere zygote has reached, and I cannot imagine any decent person choosing to rescue a billion unconscious zygotes, rather than a three-year-old child (not that popular intuitions are consistently accurate, of course, for that would constitute an “Argumentum ad Populum” informal logical fallacy, though in this particular instance, it would be correct).
The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one:
Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher).
In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules:
Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that college professors seem to enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed.
Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted.
Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.
More of these please!!! And put them in a playlist!
I love the creative ad reads.
On the example with the same number of people on both tracks - I think there is also some utility gained from actively saving those on the original track, as well as the ‘kick’ from killing those on the alternative track. If you are a utilitarian I see it as you getting ‘double utility’ from switching the tracks. They would surely be obligated to switch the tracks.
cant believe i just watched a 13 minute ad for piaVPN and not only that, I would do it again. >< i couldnt stop laughing with "the hacker dilemma" lol. i enjoyed this video becuase its light hearted and a nice break away from lifes drama
the sponsor transition is so good
Grief is not scalable. I think you make a really good point about the diminishing returns.
In the percentages and expected value problem he fails to acknowledge that the expected value only occurs when you run the simulation over and over again. In the problem if you switched the trolley direction thousands of times it would avg out to 1 person killed per simulation, but this isnt the case in this context as we are being asked what we would do in only one simulation of the problem and no more. The deal or no deal example is a perfect representation of this. On the show you only get one chance so you take the offer of less money with a 100% gauruntee rather than going for the 50/50 as the expected value doesn't mean anything. You either get the money or you don't. Personally I would pull the lever and take the chance as a 99% chance of noone being in there is significant enough for me to take the risk.
Side note: I also think that these trolley problems also become far more interesting if you start talking about family and loved ones.
That sponsor transition is god-tier
I almost never throw praise people's way for a cheesy sponsor read, but that one was pretty good... was already gonna like the video (ofc), but had to drop a like for that one, at least.
Sad truth…I work at a maximum security prison. People there have taken lives because the person wore the wrong color.
Saying we would sacrifice a work of art or a building for the life of a person gives me hope for humanity .
That was one of my favorite VPN ads outside of Internet comment etiquettes work😂
The first one is interesting though, because experience is usually tied directly to your actions.
Hitler was Hitler, because he did everything he did.
In this scenario, sure the fake Hitler isn't literally Hitler, but he has the experiences of what the real Hitler did, which to him he probably sees as his past actions. To him it is real and he will presumably continue these acts despite his current situation. Because of this, he essentially becomes a new Hitler and you are morally obligated to kill him to prevent him escaping and doing more awful things.
I just saw you covered this. Very well done. 👏 😂
On another note, I have a trolley problem to eliminate abstainers. *Ahem..*
In front of you is a trolley holding 5 people. It's currently heading towards a blocked tunnel which if crashed into will result in the deaths of all of the trolley's passengers.
You can divert the trolley left or right with the lever beside you. If you divert it left, it will run over 1 person who is tied to the tracks, killing nobody else, whereas if you divert it right, it will run over 5 people, killing nobody else.
What do you do?
Informed by my start over attitude, I would never sacrifice a person for any inanimate object or objects nor would I feel bad. I would only cringe when the hostess and little Debbie companies fell and would have to get as many snacks on the trolley as I could.
Petition to have you and other people from the popular philosophy scene to play together the trolley problem board game live.