The Conclusion for my Introduction to Ethics

Now I want to give a conclusion to my previous posts about ethics. In the last few weeks, I introduce some of the theories in philosophy to discuss trolley problems, including deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics and existentialism.

In my opinion, for those perspectives that try to explain the morality, we should put the emphasis on what is the controversial ideas lying in the problem instead of what is right to do. In other words, our goal is to clarify the controversy rather than to tell right from wrong. And we may finally find out that it is more important to see through the problems than to solve them for most of the disputes, controversies and dilemmas we are confronted.

After all, like what I said in the previous post, whenever we are faced with some dilemmas, we seem to make a choice as if we were throwing a die. The final choice seems to be random and we seems to hesitate our mind in a mixed feeling. Like Robert frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”, we stand at the intersection of a diverged road in the woods. We can’t make up our mind to choose which to travel, and we may eventually take the one less traveled by or the contrary. We may tell with a sign somewhere ages and ages hence, but whatever, choosing which to travel isn’t the most important things here; the essential part here is to clarify the difference between two roads, and to acknowledge the difference intrinsically.

And at last, let me repeat the emphasis again: Most of the time, as we are faced with some controversies, if we can see through the essence of them, then whatever the result might be, our heart will not be filled with hatred, and that is enough.

The Trolley Problem (continuing)

In the previous posts, I give an introduction to normative ethics. Those three theories (utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics) are traditional perspectives in philosophy as we mention moral law. However, there are still some points of view raised to deal with moral problems in 20^th century. That is what I want to use and what I prefer for solving the trolley problem.

It is existentialism(存在主義). In particular, I want to introduce the theory from Jean Paul Sartre (保羅‧沙特), whose quote “existence precedes essence” is widely known. Sartre believes that there are no pre-existing moral guidelines that determine how we must act in the dilemma. We are forced to create our moral values through our choice, and we have no choice but to make a choice. Moreover, in Sartre’s theory, if we deny that we have the responsibility to make our choice in the moral dilemma, such as following the religion or moral systems, then we must be humiliating our humanity of free will and act in “bad faith”.

Therefore, in the trolley problem, we may give such an answer: there are no absolute objective morality here! We could only create our own morality by choosing whether to divert the way or not. After all, we will never know what we may do if we really face the choice in the trolley problem. We even don’t know whether we will make the same choice in the same condition if we choose again. In our erratic free will, the enigma of humanity lies. 

The Trolley Problem -- An Introduction and discussion about Normative Ethics (continuing)

In the previous post, we talked about utilitarianism. Now, let’s carry on our discussion with deontology. Deontological ethics is widely known and usually associated with Immanuel Kant (康德), who considers morality to be a universal rule depending on the motives , or good will, in other words. That is, an act is moral if and only if everyone can do that way and will be considered moral doing that way. It implies that the morality is “absolute”, “impersonal”, and ”universal”.

More precisely, Kant believes that any human beings should not be thought of as a means to an end because humanity is the end itself! Hence, in the trolley problem, if you divert the trolley, then you seem to treat that one worker on the sidetrack as a means to save 5 lives. It will be seen as immoral in Kant theory.

However, there’s a question remained:

How can we explain the choice of sacrificing five instead of one?

The answer lies in duties, which is another important perspective in deontology. Kant thinks that as we make our choices, we should take responsibility for them. Perhaps we can’t deny that you have made a choice in your mind whether you switch the direction or not, but Kant thinks that we can’t attribute the responsibility of 5 death to you if you don’t do anything. That is because there aren’t any better solutions here! For instance, for someone who can’t swim, we will not blame him for not saving the man drawn in the river. We can do nothing in both cases, so the duties will not be imposed on us.

The Trolley Problem -- An Introduction and discussion about Normative Ethics (continuing)

Let’s home in on utilitarianism first. The utilitarianism claims that the best moral decision is to maximize utility. In other words, the more pleasure and happiness for more people the action can lead to, the more moral the action is.

In the trolley problem, we’ve known that utilitarianism assumes five people’s lives are more valuable than one. This aspect is severely denounced by those who believes the value of lives can’t be quantified. They think that if lives can be seen in that way, then our lives are ”objectified”(物化), which means lives are similarly to money, commodities, etcetera, and can be controlled or manipulated by other people. From this point of view, objectification may obliterate our personality. Therefore, the trolley problem should be discussed in concerns of our backgrounds, identities and life experience, which is who we are in other words.

However, those who believes in utilitarianism will reply that we use the quantity of lives to decide the utility just because the quantity of lives is the ”only information” we have in this thought experiment. After all, the problem must be discussed in qualitative researches before quantitative researches. Hence, exclusive of our personality, if we just think about the difference between “five workers” and “one worker”, we may not deny that “five workers” is the one of more value.

Actually, the biggest defect and merit of using utilitarianism both lie in simplification. That is, we simplify the condition so as to make a decision more easily. This is why this method are used more to deal with some controversial issues by the government. Perhaps the government will not insist that the decision of most utility is the most moral method, but the government will at least claim that it is necessary evil to make such a decision.

To be continued……

The Trolley Problem -- An Introduction and discussion about Normative Ethics (continuing)

 (continuing)
     The third approach is virtue ethics (德行論/行為者倫理學), which consider morality mostly on the role or characteristic of a people who do the act. More precisely, the judgement of good and evil will depend on not only the act you do but also who you are. That is because the people with different backgrounds, different identities, and different life experiences will perhaps be obligated with different duties. For example, what we expect a teacher to do may not be the same as what we anticipate a student doing, and hence we shouldn’t hold up the same standard for both teachers and students for the same act. In this case, those who support this concept will insist that we can’t define or determine the morality just by the given information due to the difference between each person.

The trolley problem caused a sensation in recent years because the Harvard professor, Michael Sandel, discussed about this problem in his lecture. Moreover, after he published his writing, Justice— What’s the Right Things to Do(正義──一場思辨之旅), the problem has been more and more widespread in the world. In fact, Sandel is a supporter of the third approach. Therefore, if you take a lesson in his class, you will probably find out that he raise the issue just wanting to criticize utilitarianism and deontology. And perhaps the third approach has gradually developed to be the mainstream solution to the problem.

However, if you ponder on the third approach, you may find some extra disadvantages of the concept, such as vagueness. That is, who, in the trolley problem, should be criticized for diverting the trolley? Because we only reply that “the information is insufficient”, there would be the next question here: with what given information will we be able to judge good and evil for diverting the trolley? Perhaps there aren’t any precise standard we can set up to answer the question above. Hence, maybe it’s time to revisit the first and second approach and rethink about the advantage and disadvantage of them. 

To be continued…….

For more information, watch the video of Sandel's lecture:
     http://www.justiceharvard.org/2011/03/episode-01/

The Trolley Problem -- An Introduction and discussion about Normative Ethics

In the following weeks, I would like to discuss about the trolley problem, which is the media to approach learning normative ethics (規範倫理學) in my opinion.

To begin with, what is the trolley problem? Consider the following situation: You are a driver of a runaway trolley. On the railway track are five workmen who are right in front of the trolley and can’t get out of the way. Now you have two choices: one is to do nothing and let the trolley bump into those workmen, while the other one is to switch the direction and divert the trolley to the side track, where there is only one worker immersing in his work. Would you choose to kill one and save five, or select the opposite?

Well, to answer this question, the philosophers think about three major approaches to viewing this moral dilemma and giving a reason for their choice.

The first one is utilitarianism (效益主義/功利主義), which locates morality just by the result of an act. That is, they judge good and evil mostly on the consequence of your action. And in this case, those who support this perspective will choose to divert the trolley because five lives are more valuable than one!

The second point of view is deontology (義務論), which think of morality as some duties and right. In other words, there are some of universal obligations and duties that we should abide by to approach morality. Specially, in the trolley problem, those who approves of this viewpoint will not choose to switch the trolley because if you switch it, then you will be responsible for the one life. However, if you doesn’t do any actions, then the responsibility of five lives would not be imposed on you!

The third viewpoint and more discussion will be post in the next few weeks. Let's expect it!

Self-Reference in Philosophy

This week, I want to discuss the similarities of the paradoxes I have mentioned in the previous weeks and give a brief summary to these paradoxes.

First of all, let’s start with self-reference. Actually, the word self-reference implies a sentence, a statement or an idea which refers to itself. For example, if you says,” I’m what I describe in this sentence”, then you talk about “the sentence itself”, and hence the sentence is self-referring.

In fact, there are lots of jokes induced by self-reference. For instance, look at the following picture:

                  

The joke is amusing because the dog use what the man just utters to make the man embarrassed. That question from the dog is an example of self-reference.

Moreover, self-reference can be used for controverting others’ ideas. It is common that we hear about the following conversation:

A says,” I have no beliefs.”

B asks,” Is it what you believe?”

A replies,” Yes, I believe that all beliefs are neither true nor false.”

B replies,” So it is your belief! You do have your belief!”

The conversation actually reveals how self-reference can work for debating and controverting.

Finally, get back to our topic. Most of the paradoxes are induced by self-reference! Think of the Pinocchio paradox. Pinocchio says,” My nose will be growing.” What he says has already referred to the rule imposed on him, because the result of telling lies will be the growth of his nose!

Pondering on the Curry paradox and the barber paradox, you will find their similarities that all of them talk about themselves in the statement! Therefore, it is why self-reference plays a significant role in philosophy.

And let me give a brief summary for the post in these weeks.

Perhaps you will wonder why we should learn the paradoxes. Are they useful? Are they close to our life? The answer may be no. Nonetheless, as the noted philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel says, everything evolves and develops in the unity and conflict of opposites, and undergoes a progress of “negation of negation” (continuously negating itself), finally being rational and approaching to the truth, or what he calls, absolute knowledge. Perhaps by getting deep thoughts of paradoxes and contradiction, we can really understand the world more clearly and intrinsically.

The pictures are from

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~frankh/dilbert.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ZezObYZTM