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.🌱
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 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
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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 ?
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
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.
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)
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?
Love this. Reminds me of utility theory or the book "thinking fast and slow". I think people also avoid uncertainty so would take a loss vs expected value to avoid it.
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.
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".
I have thought regarding two trolly problems: 1. The one with the Mona Lisa: I'd destroy all artwork and buildings if it meaans saving people. Art can be (re)made, people's life not like that. 2. 1% vs 100% is my EV, not some mathematical calculation. If I pull the lever and thee dice faalll "wrongly" then I killed 100. If I don'T do anything I killed definitly 1. Mathematically II always kill one but only in one decissiion do I have the chance(!) to rescue 1.
I have just started watching Alex's content. Really awesome. Has he discussed the signing of the Magna Carta? If not, I would be very interested in a video about that.
07:20 - There is uncertainty about how you feel after pulling the lever. You have a desire to know how it feels. But you also have a more general desire not to feel bad. There is a reasonable chance that the guilt you feel afterwards outweighs the knowledge of "how it feels". Therefore the utilitarian calculus might say that you should not pull the lever.
7:33 Yes there is a version of utilitarianism that still won't let you pull the lever even if it maximizes pleasure. Rule Utilitarians would argue that excusing behavior for individuals who have a satisfaction of murder to be able to pull the lever, regardless of it not changing the outcome of deaths involved would set a bad example for society as a whole. Because we basically have put an excuse onto people who love to kill people, to not kill people unless they are aware the outcome doesn't change anything. We have to ask questions like what would constitute awareness of the outcome? Too much trust is put upon an individual to not act on their impulses that cause a net negative on others pleasure when acted upon. It's like a parent having to trust someone to babysit their kid and the babysitter tells them they're actually a pedophile, but they only act on their impulses with fictional kid characters, so they say that actually the outcome of pleasure is positive since they haven't hurt anyone. But the stress of knowing this and thinking about the probability of something happening to their kid is in itself causing a lot of psychological suffering to the parents, and when something does happen it's even more negative with the trauma that follows the child. The probabilities are heavily skewed to a net negative in pleasure. There's a lot of cans opened when we set the bar there for murderous people too. So no, don't pull that lever.
3:42 I work in a field with safety-critical requirements, and something that blew my mind when I started working here is the monetary value of a human life. It's a public sector service with a constrained budget that often requires safety works. The way it's determined whether we do the safety works is by evaluating the cost of the works against lives the works will save. The value of one life in this equation is £1,300,000. If the works cost more than that and will only save one life, the works don't get done. So I guess you could extrapolate from that that, if it costs the Mona Lisa, a painting with a value of 860 million to 1 billion dollars, to save five people, my employer does not believe you should save the five people :')
With regards to the art question, I consider art and culture to be grounding forces in human life. They add richness, link us to our ancestors, and in many ways are continuations of human existence beyond the death of the artist or builder. If we consider, as I do, the value of life to derive from human experiences (Would a human born in a dark and empty room, who does nothing and just gets sustinance from a drip have value?), and consider that the mere existence of the Mona Lisa adds to the value of seeing the piece compared to seeing a photograph of a destroyed piece, I'm dubious about whether five lives would be enough.
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.
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.
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.
I have a different take on the EV question, it's about the singular nature of the of an event. It's financially better to take £90k than risk getting £0, if you told people you get to open the boxes 1,000 times, with an expected value of £125,000, but it could be less or more, depending how many coin flips they win or lose, they would almost certainly take the gamble. I think most people would conclude that's it's better to take the gamble and hit the box in a single occurrence, but change it to 1,000 times and they would take no action
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 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.
It might be worthwhile to discuss Value of Statistical Life (VSL) in decision making from a few angles including, but not limited to, how folks will declare some crazy-high value of a life and then do things that show they really value life far less. Consider VSL as it’s often used, as part of a benefit/cost analysis.
Arguably, every morning that Hitlers original 1940s body woke up his brain produced a new unique consciousness who had memories and believed he was the prior Hitler. That’s not much different than a future clone who believed it was the historical Hitler. Couldn’t that be true of all of us? The only difference between current Me going to sleep and expecting to wake up as the same Me tomorrow, and current Me dying and not expecting to revive as a cloned Me (so I don’t care if a postmortem cloned Me gets tortured because that’s not really Me) is that I seem to remember sleeping and waking up as Me many times before but I have no memory of dying and reviving. But my memories of the same Me waking up each morning are indistinguishable from being a different Me who has the memory of being all the prior Me’s. Maybe this is why I can’t go to sleep without alcohol. And maybe alcohol is why I post rambling nonsensical comments on RU-vid before going to sleep.
No but that's really true. I think the problem is that people mistakenly implicitly assume that we all have a "soul" of sorts, so that there'd be a metaphysical way in which you could tell whether one is a clone or not. It's like people assume that consciences have "id's" that persist through time
I had a similar discussion about the Mona Lisa after watching Glass Onion with some friends. It also bled into talking about giving up all sorts of different types of art to save a persons life. Every movie, every song, every photograph. Personally, I was much more willing to sacrifice the person than anyone else there. I feel there is so much value and worth in art, and I strongly believe that people have the capacity to create a body of work more valuable than themselves or any particular person. Tough to draw the line though I guess
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.
I'm quite interested in your view about pulling the lever. There is a very serious underlying discussion about the relative merits of "sins" of commission versus "sins" of omission.
My utilitarian take on "the same number of people": To see the lives of real people as something you can toy with for your own enjoyment is bound to impact your capacity for empathy and moral decision making in the future, and therefore, tolerating the decision to flip the lever in this case will lead to negative consequences in the future. But this applies to the observers (like us) as well: It's their moral duty to condemn the person who flicks the lever, and so it doesn't even change our judgement of a scenario where the one pulling the lever for fun has a terminally illness and will pull the lever as their last act. From their own perspective, they don't need to make any of these considerations about their deteriorating psychology causing problems in the future, but as an observer, I must condemn that same person to protect my own psychology.
With the Mona Lisa case, you could imagine that you could sell the painting for large sums of money that you could donate to charity, saving much more than 5 lives. I think that complicates it a bit.
The problem with material thigns vs lives become even more complex if you consider the monetary value you could sell them for, and what a similar contribution in aid (e.g. malaria nets) could accomplish.
For the first one there is an excellent section in the Iain Banks Culture series novel, Surface Detail. Here a woman who is about to die is remotely scanned, cloned, and recreated by an advanced civilisation. She is extremely upset when she is told that this has happened because her former self is dead. The advanced culture then explains to her that the copy they made is so perfect that the clone is more similar to her at the point of her former self's death than everyone is from the point they go to sleep to the point they wake up. If the clone isn't herself then it goes to stand that nobody is every day of their lives. I think you'd like the book - another civilisation finds out that hell doesn't exist, so makes one.
Considering the Mona Lisa problem I think the stakes have to surpass whatever value a person has of the 5 people, as it relates to other people. Specifically, at what point does the damage caused by destroying art, art buildings, etc cause more harm and potential death than saving 5 people? If theres even a way to calculate that Because Surely if every artwork was destroyed that would have disaster effects on the economy, such as international Tourism. Potentially trickling down to the next Einstein, who now starves to death due to a global great depression. Which the problem then becomes, would you save 5 people to kill the next Einstein? And so forth
I also find the “art vs life” problem interesting. I will say that obviously art and buildings can somewhat be substituted for other pieces while it’s impossible to even attempt to substitute a human life. And if it’s based on a certain building being erased from ever existing, I would probably always chose the human life over the building, even though it may be hard depending on the number of buildings as you pointed out. I would like to bring up an interesting point, though. If it is NOT simply removing the piece from existence and is instead destroying it, there’s something else to consider. Depending on the number of landmarks, the mental health of people may be severely harmed. If I’m a random bystander unaware of this choice and suddenly.. say the 7 Wonders of the World are all destroyed in an instant for seemingly no reason, my mental health would be in a very bad state, and I’m not even passionate about architecture like some people. Of course, I would be understanding if I knew about the decision and knew the alternative was the death of someone, but the assumption that every bystander would be informed of the gravity of the situation is adding something extra to the problem that probably isn’t there. As for the last one, I would absolutely leave the lever and let the one person die. It’s like “Would you rather something kind of bad happen or a 1% chance of something absolutely horrible happening”. I imagine it with owing money. Would I rather pay $50 or have a 1% chance of paying $5000? I’m definitely going to pay the 50.
Yes exactly because of that. That'S the "Trolley problem" ether "you" do something, or you do not and *some* say you therefore have no responsibility for the outcome.
