VOTE ON THE TROLLEY PROBLEM

I don't pull the lever.

Ethically speaking, I must preserve the rights and stake of this world to my family, my children, and my tribe. Killing those four frees up their resources for my people, much better than just killing the one guy.

yeah like judges and lawyers.

what the fuck do they know?

If you were a truly good person, the thought of actually pulling the lever and destroying that person would have never even crossed your mind.

Abhorrent.

As soon as you touch that switch, you cease to be a mere witness to tragedy and instead become it's agent.

If a person was stopping me from pressing the lever, that fucker's going in the train track's too. 2 is less than 5.

You could take the time you could have spent pulling the lever to run up to the one other guy and stomp his brains out.

>mathematical values == moral value

Wew lad

Goddamn cager fucks

What is the value of a human life?

Who are you to decide that?

This.

----

There is a man with 5 organs that can save 5 separate lives. He is healthy and conscious, but removing the organs kills him. Do you kill him, against his will, for the organs to save the 5, or do you do nothing?

Literally the same.

A human life itself? Nothing. the happiness experienced by a person? Everything.

The only information given is that there are 5 people vs 1 person. if that one person is a mega genius doctor and the other 6 people are 60-year old meth addicts, those 6 people are dying.

It isn't about my personal tastes, it's about the person's ability to allow others to pursue their individual tastes.

Depends on the legal repercussions I suppose.

>ITT: Numbnuts who think there's ONE correct solution to every moral problem

Holy shit, you're really stupid, man. That's all I have so say.

Not acting is an action in itself. Not pulling the lever means you killed those 6 people. Don't fool yourself with a naive view of the world, you are accomplice to every bad thing you allow to happen and covering your eyes doesn't change it.

This is an unrealistic scenario. How is it supposed to map onto real world scenarios? It seems like it was created to justify a utilitarian outcome. Anything else would be indefensible, unless someone wants to carry the expense of taking a life or lives. In the real world, we have more options than this binary case. I say the whole thing is invalid.

>not acting is an action

0 is actually 1.
No actually means yes.
Dog is cat.

Good job, Kant, you retard.

So you think it's okay not to save a drowning child from a pond because not acting is not an action so it can't be unethical?

>the happiness experienced by a person?

What gives that value?

Who the fuck are you to decide that? What gives you the moral authority to make that decision for those people?

Correct, I believe in basic human liberty of choice. Read this:

>dude, there's like multiple answers to 2+2
>truth is relative man, it's 5 or 7 depending on how you feel maaan

>people are in trouble in the world
>injustices are being dealt in the world
>innocents are suffering in the world
>You can make a change! You can help them!

But you don't because you are selfish just like everyone else. Everyone who says they would pull the lever are hypocrits UNLESS you are currently helping some random person in the world who you don't really care for. If you say you would pull the lever then you must give help to persons you don't know and who are currently being dealt injustices. If not then you are all lying hypocrites. A normal, healthy and sane person would not pull the lever, just as all of you are shitposting on Veeky Forums right now instead of campaigning for better human conditions for child workers in Pakistan.

pull while it's on the switch so it derails, obviously.

Throwing a child into a pond hoping they will drown is evil.

Saving a child from that pond is commendable and good.

Watching is neither.

All moral obligations can be reduced to the simple requirement to refrain from evil action. Good action is laudable and deserving of reward, but never a moral requirement.

>Having trouble with the trolley eh?

So much fucking this.

I can define an action as the non-realization of the negative of that action. It's simple logic. "pressing the lever" and "not not-pressing the lever " or "not standing around"(if you admit those two as contraries) are equivalent.
The non-realization of an action is the action of the contrary action, it's just word play.

I'm a utilitarian, this viewpoint is as objective as you can get. It isn't about me as a divine arbiter, it's me presenting an answer to the question "what will maximize global happiness?" and there not being anyone else to contest my answer.

> dude, there's like multiple answers to 2+2
Nice one but there actually exist multiple answers to this equations depending of choice of axioms or number theory that you try to apply.

0 is 1+1-1
Yes yes is no no
Dog cow is horse cat

You had the choice of saving a child and doing something good but you didn't. Because of your action, the world is in both a worse position relative to the past and relative to the world where you chose the best option. How is this not evil?

>it's me presenting an answer to the question "what will maximize global happiness?"

Indisputable.

But you've failed to answer why global happiness should be the measure of moral action.

Wew lad
>your actions and inactions are beholden to the world's good

I believe in personal liberty, sorry, you fucking commie.

>there actually exist multiple answers to this equations depending of choice of axioms or number theory that you try to apply.

fine then smart ass

2+2 in base 10, within a single stable theoretical system

fag

By the way, you Utilitarian asshats still haven't responded to

Read Eichmann in Jerusalem. Being a bystander is just as bad as being the fuck that caused the action. Unrelenting resistance is the only way

> How is this not evil?
You can do any other good thing. No need to do the most good. World slightly better than before you acted would be enough for you to be good.

>heres a claim
>instead of supporting it I'll tell you to buy a book

wew

By removing his organs against his will, you are turning him into a martyr who was sacrificed to save 5 lives.
By not removing his organs you are letting him turn into an asshole/guilt-wracked coward who watched 5 people die without volunteering to save them.

T O P K E K

Please wear a sign that says, "I would kill the unwilling donor" so I can strangle you in order to prevent you from ever harming another person's liberty and life, you authoritarian shitbag.

If it's possible for you to do the most good but you chose to only do half of it, then you are still responsible for the half that didn't materialize.

Worth can only exist in relation to consciousness, rocks by themselves cannot have any moral charge. Consciousness is split between emotions, concepts, senses and combinations of the three. Senses are the reconstruction of objects in the mind, therefore they cannot have an additional characteristic that wasn't there before. Concepts are the construction of objects that are not detected by the senses, they are just as barren, the difference being they aren't palpable.
Of emotions, they can all be constructed as happiness or unhappiness regarding concepts or senses stringed together to form a narrative, we can experience both to see happiness if good and unhappiness bad.

>By not removing his organs you are letting him turn into an asshole/guilt-wracked coward who watched 5 people die without volunteering to save them.
so what if he never actually saw them?

1. It's like modern phil 101 if you want to engage in more postmodern studies it's typically a good book to have read.

2. you can get it online for free.

3. I can explain the thesis, but Arendt does a way better job of explaining things and I don't want to muddle what she says.

The basic thesis is the same as the bystander effect, wherein being a bystander when events such as the killing of 5 people is just as bad as causing it since you didn't stop the action. Arendt blames a lot of the zionists for not stopping the holocaust.

At this point, from a deontological perspective at least, no matter what action you pursue, it will be immoral either way since it causes a cessation of the life of somebody who wanted to live, which basically means that you HAVE to resort to utilitarianism. That doesn't mean that people that pull the lever jack off to the greater good in every instance, it just means that cost-benefit analysis is good to have when we don't know how to compare equally immoral actions.

tl;dr pull the damn lever, it's not a good thing to do, but it's better than doing nothing.

> then you are still responsible for the half that didn't materialize
I could pay you more moneys doesn't counts as stealing a money from you. Everyone who made situation better is good already.

>rocks by themselves cannot have any moral charge

how do you know which bundles of atoms are conscious and which aren't?

how can you know another person is even conscious, or if they're just a zombie appearing to have consciousness?

Respond to this

>how can you know another person is even conscious, or if they're just a zombie appearing to have consciousness?
what's the difference?

Same thing as long as he was informed that his organs could save them.

I haven't even advocated anything, I've just pointed out which approach is more virtuous.

But what if you're hitler and those are jews on the tracks?

>the same as the bystander effect, wherein being a bystander when events such as the killing of 5 people is just as bad as causing it since you didn't stop the action.

That isn't what the bystander effect is.

Please educate yourself, this is basic Psychology 101 stuff here.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

>not stopping the holocaust

umm...

>the lesser of two evils

this jew thinks he's real fucking deep or some shit

That isn't a relevant question, it's a different problem altogether.

I disagree. If you consciously picked a choice that wasn't the ideal one, you're evil because the best solution was at your grasp, you brought unnecessary lack of good to the world which is equivalent to bringing evil into it.

I hadn't thought about Ethics in a long time, this is fun.

>what's the difference between an actual fish and a holographic projection of a fish that appears for all purposes to be a fish

>lololol this means they're the same thing!!!! XDXD

Indeed.

You can't tell the difference, can you?

What does this mean?

it's relevant only because the utilitarian has attempted to measure moral action by the relative consciousness value of it's affect.

If you can prove to me that I'm the only real consciousness in the entire world then to not be an egoist would be evil, yes.

You just advocated murdering that user to save lives.

> How do you know which bundles of atoms are conscious and which aren't?
There are physical theories that allows to predict that like Integrated Information Theory. The better question is how we know that you can made an a some kind of free moral choice i.e. questions of modality.

> you brought unnecessary lack of good to the world which is equivalent to bringing evil into it.
It isn't. Giving your less money that I could isn't equal to stealing. Lesser good is a good option because situation better even if it isn't the best.

Why should I have to prove that you are the only conscious entity to simply assert that the impossibility of certain knowledge as regards the consciousness of other entities disqualifies conscious value as a measurement for moral action?

Yes, because he is willingly going to remove the liberties of others through choice. Not the same as any of the ethical issues presented in the thread.

Let's up the ante
Five nigs who violently raped your mother vs a man who will, unbeknownst to your mother but magically known to you, will rape her in the future.

Don't do anything

It literally doesn't change the situation at all.

Oh and the nigs have also threatened to kidnap her and rape her again, but you don't know if they will

>... Dad? Is that you?

Is other man a nigger too?

>Integrated information theory (IIT) attempts to explain what consciousness is and why it might be associated with certain physical systems.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory#Axioms:_essential_properties_of_experience

this is fucking retarded, they're just saying that the hard problem doesn't exist because consciousness must be a material property

>The better question is how we know that you can made an a some kind of free moral choice i.e. questions of modality.

I agree, the issue of free will is far and away the biggest moral question because the entire field depends on the assumption that we possess moral agency.

He is the one that can reach the lever. That is why he gets to choose.

>moral authority is derived from power

I disagree.

What would God do?

>truly good person
>soft cunt
pick one. courage is a virtue.

> consciousness must be a material property
Seems logical to me. Just say that everything real is physical and if you sure that conscious is a real thing try to find physical manifestations of it. If you think about it... Entire distinction between material and mental phenomena is pretty arbitrary one.

Nothing. He respects your free will.

>I can define an action as the non-realization of the negative of that action. It's simple logic.
It's a rationalization, it's goal is to absolve you of your moral pains.

Why is this a dilemma? If you value human life, you should pull the lever. If you don't, watch the fun ensue. It's not that hard, fuckers. I could come up with a better ethical dilemma in five minutes while waxing my carrot.

Descriptivism>prescriptivism.

>everything real is physical

that's kind of a hard thing to prove.

>Entire distinction between material and mental phenomena is pretty arbitrary

Agreed, the same thing can be said of material and non-material.

Suppose the base substance is consciousness, and materiality is just a property of that consciousness. Does this not solve the hard problem?

>he is willingly going to remove the liberties of others through choice.
You are imposing on his liberty to save people, by killing people - by killing him, so you can save people.

If you can't tell the difference, you will act like they are the same.

That's just how it is.

>muh feels
>linguistic deconstruction of moral claims

literally sophism

That twist.

Just because you can't know (not that I actually support this point of view) the truth values of prepositions doesn't mean you can't come up with arguments.

>If you can't tell the difference, you will act like they are the same.

Not if you know you can't tell the difference, especially when there are lives in the balance.

Should a blind man pull a random life and death switches to try and save people if he knows he's blind?

Of course not, he might kill people by mistake and do a great deal of harm because of a misguided sense of agency.

They all have the right to life.
There is no moral conundrum. Mental stress and scarring are guaranteed and it's not easy emotionally or mentally but it is easy logically.

Do you take action by pulling a lever and violating the right to life of one person in exchange for upholding the right to life of five people.

Do you still take action by taking no action and violate the right to life of five people in exchange for upholding the right to life of one person.

You're still taking action regardless.

Afterwards, you'll either say to yourself a. I killed a person or b. I killed five people.

The ones claiming that doing nothing is right are the ones that are wrong. Doing nothing is still an action affecting the outcome, and you will beat yourself up over it for the rest of your life. You'll still do the same for the other option too, but for the sake of the question there is no deep, "ebinly brofound whoa dude u kant reduce ppls lives 2 numbers bcuz u take an action how can u dcide" because you're taking an action regardless. With all of that said, literally the only thing you can do in that situation IS consider numbers.

Not when those arguments assume complete knowledge of the truth as a basis for complete moral agency.

This. It serves no purpose but to promote utilitarianism. It isn't a valid scenario for philosophical thought.

>take action by not taking action

lol

If there is no way to tell the difference, there is none.

>my opinions are better
>watch me defend my opinions with more opinions
I like your strawman. How is mine?

If you won't press that lever, I don't think you are any more or less guilty than the guy that will.

This one is easy. I would flip a coin. Tails doesn't flip a switch. Head does flip a switch.

>If there is no way to tell the difference, there is none.

A blind man cannot tell the difference between the color of two pieces of paper, therefore there is no difference between them?

Positivists need to get a fucking grip, omniscience is outside the realm of mere human possibility.

wew lad

You didn't address any arguments, you just provided a long-winded and ordinary utilitarian argument. Absolute trash.

>Should a blind man pull a random life and death switches to try and save people if he knows he's blind?
>Of course not, he might kill people by mistake and do a great deal of harm because of a misguided sense of agency.
If the odds are even, pulling the switch or not pulling the switch are equivalent and it doesn't really matter what he does.

For all I know everyone but me is a philosophical zombie - what does it matter to me? I won't know better and that idea is sketchy. I'll make decisions based on what I find to be more likely, whether I'm wrong or right. I just know I will, and I know you will too - I suppose one of us may make a decision for inertia.