Seasons

Once again I have the wrong answer. Who am I to play God? They are people and have some right in being informed of the situation. No doubt, some will be altruistic enough to pass on treatment. The ones that are left could have the barbaric system that is used today in real life..The double blind, half get a placebo, have medicine. I can't say I will pick so-and-so to die. It may be the Correct answer for the moral dilemmas, but it seems to me there are always some way to be a possitive force, without trying to play God.

Once again I have the wrong answer.

There are no wrong answers. Only facts and choices. The facts as I have given them is that no one volunteers to die. Whether you choose to let them all die, give half placebos without knowing which, give the medicine to the first in line, or pick the ones who you think should get it for whatever reason is simply a choice. Choosing not t decide is a choice. The choices are based on subjective values and beliefs, and it is possible for "good" people and "bad" people to differ in opinion.

I am just pointing out that morals are subjective and personal. That is not to say morals are "wrong". I think I may have a few myself, somewhere (though perhaps a bit dusty for lack of use). It's just that there is no absolute "good" or "evil" just people. Society has norms, government has laws, and churches have precepts or commandment to regulate behaviors. Nonetheless, the label we give it is a human construct, some thing we created. It's a good thing we created it too, because people need some sore of capacity for moral and ethical behavior for the survival of the species. It's just that the details of what those morals should be, and how they should be applied are arguable.

Personally, I like the idea of ethics, precepts, and laws balances by an investigation of all the facts and circumstances involved. I hate zero tolerance rules that are blindly and stupidly applied. To me that is both immoral and inhuman, and it teaches that rules are more important than people. If that opens the door for excusing "evil", then I will live with it, because I believe good and evil are part of the human experience and it balances out in the end. Again, that doesn't mean I do nothing when I think an action is wrong, and it doesn't mean I think people should not have consequences for their actions. I just think justice should take all facts into account, and that the spirit of justice and mercy is more important than the letter of the law, even if that allows some human error. But that's just me.

BTW I'm pretty amoral and I would give the medicine to my family and friends first, people I knew second, and people who reminded me of myself and people I liked until I ran out. Then I'd try to help the dying. Ulrike's way strikes me as the moral and pragmatic high ground, but I know myself. I'd give it to those I loved.

I am just pointing out that morals are subjective and personal.

Perhaps I misunderstand, but as I understand you, I have to disagree.
If I prefer lima beans to black beans, that is a purely personal preference, and the 'greater niceness' of lima beans to me might be purely subjective. There is nothing about preferring lima beans to black beans that would make it inconsistent for me to be completely accepting of somene else's preferring black to lima. If anything, it would please me: more lima beans for me!

But moral judgments are not like that. If I judge that torturing babies just for fun is morally wrong, I am no doubt implying a personal preference not to torture babies for fun, but I am also implying a lot more. If I judge that torturing babies just for fun is morally wrong, it would be inconsistent of me to be completely tolerant of other people who torture babies for fun. On the contrary, to be consistent I would have to consider myself as having a moral duty to try to prevent people from torturing babies just for fun, and also a moral duty to try to convert them to my point of view, if I can do either of these things without immorality on my own part.

To be sure,various people have disagreed about various moral issues, but then, various people have disagreed about the flatness of the Earth. The presence of disagreement about something does not prove that it is purely personal or merely subjective. If it did, we would have to conclude that whethher an issue was purely personal and subjective was itself purely personal and subjective.

If I judge that torturing babies just for fun is morally wrong, I am no doubt implying a personal preference not to torture babies for fun, but I am also implying a lot more. If I judge that torturing babies just for fun is morally wrong, it would be inconsistent of me to be completely tolerant of other people who torture babies for fun. On the contrary, to be consistent I would have to consider myself as having a moral duty to try to prevent people from torturing babies just for fun, and also a moral duty to try to convert them to my point of view, if I can do either of these things without immorality on my own part.

{DEVILSADVOCATE}

Ah, but what if a crazed sadist is holding you hostage in an orphanage full of helpless babies. And he tells you that if you will torture one baby to death for him, he'll spare all the others.
But if you refuse, he'll torture them all to death one by one. And repeat the offer before starting on the next one.

How many babies are you going to watch him torture to death before you agree to save the rest by killing just one more?

And no, you can't overpower him, or escape. He's 6'8", armed to the teeth, and you're locked in.

{/DEVILSADVOCATE}

Hee hee Irina,

Well it may just be that I have brain damage http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-empathy22mar22,
1,3646035.story?track=rss. However, I don't think you are fairly portraying my position. I never said we had to be tolerant of harmful behavior.

You mistake the assertion that morals are subjective and relative with the assertion that no laws or ethical rules should ever be enforced. I think they should be enforced, but I think each case needs to be looked at, and all the facts and circumstances should be considered, and that rules were made for people rather than people being made to serve rules.

Just because morals are personal and relative doesn't mean I won't promote mine own. As I said, it's my vote as t how I think people "should be" and part of how I think people should be is that they should stop people from hurting others or themselves. Just because it's subjective and relative doesn't mean I won't act on it.

Do you think it's immoral for a cat to play with a wounded mouse? It is different for humans, largely because we evolved moral capacity and most human societies have chosen life and protecting young as positive morals. If you have ever spend quality time with a 4 year old you will know that humans are not born with morals either.

Psimagus: If I torture a baby in order to save the others, I'm not torturing it just for fun!

Bev:

You wrote:

You mistake the assertion that morals are subjective and relative with the assertion that no laws or ethical rules should ever be enforced.

I don't think so. Try as I may, I do not remember ever believing or saying such a thing. But I can understand why you might think that, because indeed, if my moral beliefs are just subjective and relative, imposing them on others would be like imposing my preference for Lima beans on others: very silly.

but I think each case needs to be looked at, and all the facts and circumstances should be considered, and that rules were made for people rather than people being made to serve rules.

But if morals are merely subjective and personal, what would it mean to "look at" a case, and what would such looking be? If I am trying to find some objective truth, it behooves me to look for evidence. But if morals are purely subjective, where is there evidence to be found? If I think that torturing babies is morally obligatory on even-numbered days and morally forbidden on odd-numbered days, and if morals are purely subjective, then it is so, for me.

Just because morals are personal and relative doesn't mean I won't promote mine own.

No, it doesn't. Just as the fact that my preference for Lima beans is subjective (let's assume that this is so) doesn't prevent me from (should I have the power) forcing everyone to eat Lima beans only. You never know what a human might do; they are not tied to canons of rationality or even sanity.

But if I think of my bean preference as purely subjective, it is hard to see any rational reason for my enforcing it. It would just be an utterly arbitrary thing to do, like demanding that everyone wear a pink tie on Fridays.

but if you believe that it is objectively morally wrong to wear pink ties on Fridays, that makes your enforcement bahavior more understandable.

Psimagus:

But your question is a good one, and the answer is, to the best of my present knowledge, that the right thing to do would be to kill one of the babies in order to save the others.

Which is not so different from what we do when we require the inoculation of babies with various deadly diseases. A small number of babies will die from the inoculation, but the remainder will be safer from the disease.

Battlefield triage is another example. It aims to save the greatest number of people in the end, in a way that seems fair. Actually, the medical profession and society in general practices triage in lots of ways, without coming out and calling it that. There are few countries that couldn't budget more money for medical purposes than they do; this amounts to a decision to let some people die. Likewise, when a government makes pollution controls less stringent than they might be, this means that some people will die.
The notion that human life cannot be measured by a finite amount of money is often paid lip service, but no one acts that way. Go to, say, the construction industry, and see how much more people are paid for the more dangerous jobs (where the death rates are known quantitatively). with a little elementary decision theory, you can then calculate the value of a human life according to the construction industry.

I might add that workers who accept hazardous jobs in order to get more money are acquiescing in this.

In fact, if we regarded our own lives as infinitely precious, we'd behave in ways that would by current standards be regarded as pathological.

Addendum to message 2007:

I add that in real life, it would be hard to be sure of all the information you posit. Why should I trust such a person, for example, to keep his end of the deal? How could I know that it was absolutely impossible to overpower him? My answer above is, however, based on an acceptance of all your conditions.

Hmmm...an aspect of it that I hadn't thought of before has just occurred to me. I'm not sure my answer is correct unless we add the condition that only a small number of people will ever know what I did. Otherwise, one might argue that giving in to one madman will encourage others.