What do you think about these philosophical questions?

Question

1) (these are theoretical situations)

i heard this question asked somewhere else... on the radio maybe

A.) there is a train headed towards a track which 10 people are tied to. if the train continues on that track it will kill them all. you are in control of a switch, which could direct the train onto a different track on which one person is tied. do you flip the switch?

B.) what if there wasn't a switch and you were on the sidelines, and the only way to stop the train from hitting those people would be to shove the really fat person in front of you onto the track (lets just assume that this would, without a doubt, stop the train. ignore physics or whatever). do you do it?

2) about the batman movie... he wouldn't want to kill the joker because he didn't want to succumb to vigilante (sp?) justice. although he probably knows that if he doesn't do it, the joker will probably kill lots of other people. do you agree with his logic?

or: is it worth it to obey a government justice system even if the cost is a lot of innocent lives?

3) (another theoretical situation) if you had the choice between condemning 10 randomly chosen people to death, or killing yourself, what would you do? what if it was 100 people? 1000? where do you draw the line? self preservation vs morality.

4) how would you define "good"? is it whatever results in the greatest number of humans being alive, happy, and healthy? (in that order?) to what extend would you sacrifice free will for those three things?

lastly, does your religion (or the lack thereof) play any part in your answer? (as an atheist, i'm especially interested in answers of atheists/agnostics)

if your answer is "who cares?", don't bother to reply :)

THANKS!!!! these questions have been bugging me lately

Answer 1

Michael Gazzaniga, an agnostic or non-believer, wrote "Human" and included the information that different parts of the brain--those of the mentative, and those of the emotions--process such fantastic "ethical dilemmas" differently.  I.e., pushing the fat lady is icky, because it's emotional, whereas flipping the switch is ok, because lives are saved and one's brain is not emotionally processing "switch = killing one fat lady."

Atheism which claims to know "God is not" is illogical, as it would involve Omniscience and Omnipresence.  Some less-dogmatic position, e.g. basic agnosticism, is logical.

"The Path of the Higher Self" and "The Masters and Their Retreats," Mark Prophet,

"The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and Wilcock,

and "The Master of Lucid Dreams," Dr. Olga Kharitidi, are worthwhile.

Answer 2

long

Answer 3

1A flip the switch

1B shove the fat person onto the track

2 if it results in the sacrafice of due process to save a thousand people then a million people will suffer because the law is being flaunted in the name of good. so he must let the Joker live to have his day in court.

3 self preservation always wins in my book even if it means my family and friends must die so that I can survive...unless my death is already in progress from some disease that is always fatal then I would choose to die to save them. situational ethics and all that.

4 "Good" and "Evil" is a concept that is viewed differently by every person...IE Adolf Hitler knew he was doing "good" by having Jews tortured and killed, yet to the rest of us it was "evil". The overall view of what society sees as "good" also involves the giving up of a lot of free will on the part of individuals for the betterment of society such as laws or rules about personal behavior towards other individuals or institutions.

My non-belief in any religon even a non-belief in any form of higher power tells me that there is nothing wrong with killing another human even if it is just for the fun of it...but society says that it is wrong and that if I kill someone for no reason then I must pay a price. Because that price is too high for me to be willing to pay I exercise self control and allow other humans to live.

Answer 4

There is nothing philosophical about these questions as they are -- that is, about us just giving you our opinions. What's philosophical is the question "Why?" -- the *foundation* of our opinions. For although ethics is a branch of philosophy, it is not philosophy proper ("first philosophy"). Rather, philosophy proper provides the foundation of ethics.

As for me, an "atheist" (Nietzschean): my answers are the following.

1a. It depends on who the ten people are and who the one person is. If I know nothing about them except their numbers, I will flip the switch. REASON: I do not believe in equality. I believe no two people are equally valuable, and some very valuable people are worth tens of thousands of less valuable people (cf. Heraclitus).

1b. It would depend on who the ten people are and who the fat person is. REASON: idem.

2. I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet, so thanks a lot for the spoiler! Just kidding, it doesn't matter. -- A strange thing, considering that Batman is in his very essence a vigilante. Anyway, the same applies here as above. I think Heath Ledger would be worth many figurants to me. As for the Joker and Batman, I think that if I were Batman I would not necessarily be on the side of the "good" (as opposed to "evil")... So let me just answer the question in its alternative form. The question for me is in the service of what that government justice system stands.

3. I would have to know what percentage of people ranked higher in value to myself. Then it would depend on the chance that one of those people is a higher-ranking person. I think it would have to exceed 50%.

This is in theory, of course. In reality, I don't know. I might succumb to the temptation of becoming a martyr. Or I might be so selfish as to only draw the line if there would be no other people left but myself! But now that I think of it: what if one of those people were my significant other? Could I live without her? (I suppose, of course, that I cannot be among those random kills -- otherwise the chance of that happening would also be a factor, of course.) I might not be able to live without my significant other, but so might she not without me. So I guess I'd bet on her not being among those people.

4. "Good" for me is (obviously) *not* whatever results in the greatest number of humans being alive, happy, and healthy. "Good" for me is beyond good and evil: it stands opposed to *bad*. Good is whatever enhances the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. Bad is whatever stems from weakness.

I don't understand your question about free will. At any rate, I don't believe in free will (only in the *feeling* of freedom of will, which is actually a feeling of power, that is, of strength of will).

My lack of religion (Christianity) obviously plays a big part in my answer.

Answer 5

1a yes, 1b yes, 2 kill the joker, 3 kill myself in all cases, 4 good is living by absolute moral standards. There are absolute standards, they are in the Bible. Happy or healthy has nothing to do with it. Without absolute moral standards, one person's happiness depends on another person's suffering. Lastly, already answered in question 4.