Morals....................................

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

http://www.time-blog.com/graphics_script/2007/moralityquiz/index.html

there was only one I could not do

try it

[Leverage87]

I think that I could do them all.

In those kind of situations I kinda feel that the needs of the many out weigh the few, although who can judge the value of a life? You just have to go on potential I suppose, 5 people have more potential then 1 person, from a nuetral stand point with no further knowledge about them.

[PghTGrlLvr]

I was with the majority on every Q.

[PghTGrlLvr]

As Spock once said the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. The off question involves you pushing him or taking the plunge yourself. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the "one".

[Legend]

TIME.com Reader Results

Scenario 1: The Crying Baby

45% said they could not

55% said they could

28560 total votes

WTF

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

yeah kill me, the baby is getting knocked out at the very least

but throwing the dude on the tracks, i couldn't do by my own hand, i just had issues with it

[Leverage87]

Yeah scenario 1 is sort of like an Anne Frank situation... apparently the situation is not about killing the baby, as if you don't quiet it down, the child will die anyways, with the rest of the people. Its really about if you have the meddle to be able to suffocate a child to save not only your own life, but others as well.

[trish]

1) just burb the damn kid.

2) perhaps after a brief conversation the victim may volunteer to be sacrificed.

3b&c) no train is going to be stopped by a 200 lb bag of water and guts.

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

1 was easy for me because as a child i watched repeats of this tv show called Mash, and that was an episode. The star had issues with his decision to tell the parents to silence the baby that he re-envisioned the child as a chicken at first.

[Leverage87]

trish its not about stopping the train, you have to choose to through a switch to change the direction of the train

[MacShreach]

1) no train is going to be stopped by a 200 lb bag of water and guts.

Glad you spotted the trick question too.

[Jericho]

Depends.
Do i know the *one*, do i like him?
If not, fuck him, he's gone! :P

[trish]

Parts b and c of the third question ask you to block or slow the train's progress by tossing a man onto the tracks, either with your bare hands or by catapulting him with a lever mechanism.
All these scenarios presume you can know the future; that the consequences of actions are fixed in time. Perhaps a crying child will placate the soldiers. Perhaps a human body won't stop a train. In real life there is no certainty and so there are no real answers to these cheesey dilemmas. When life presents you with a problem, all you can do is use your brain, use it quickly ... and handle the law suits later.

[MacShreach]

Apart from that one, they're all too clear-cut to be a challenge.

Here's a better one:

You get pissed at a party and screw your best friend's wife in the spare bedroom. It's the best sex you ever had and she says the same. The next day you call the girl and say it must never ever happen again. She agrees but you both know if you keep meeting it will.

Two weeks later you go fishing (or whatever) with your pal and he tells you he thinks his wife's had an affair with someone and he's so upset he wants to leave her. He says he's telling you because you're the only guy he trusts. He is desperately in love with his wife (and you can see why) and you are concerned for his safety.

Do you

a) tell the guy, end his marriage and your friendship, and possibly send him into a tailspin he'll never recover from

b) don't tell the guy, knowing that some day you're going to fuck his wife behind his back again, trusting he'll never find out?



:D

[Leverage87]

Thats an extremely tough dilema Mac, especially given just the 2 choices...

If you choose A theres the chance he could go berserk and kill you, or himself, as its just you two fishing, no one else is around.

If you choose B, he could catch you, and in a fit of rage kill you both, or if he doesn't catch you who knows... I know I would feel pretty bad about it.

[trish]

No brainer. When you fry up the catch, give him the fish you "forgot" to de-bone. With any luck he'll choke to death.

[MacShreach]

yea a speeding train is not going to be stopped by a single person. we know that. the question is not about physics it's about ethics.

Hypothetical


Definition: Hypothetical
Hypothetical
Adjective
1. Based on hypothesis; "a hypothetical situation"; "the site of a hypothetical colony".



Yes but if the hypothetical proposition is absurd, then it totally negates any ethical response-- in other words you can give any answer you like because you damn well know it's an impossible situation. The response becomes as hypothetical as the proposition. The baby one was much better thought out.

[MacShreach]

No brainer. When you fry up the catch, give him the fish you "forgot" to de-bone. With any luck he'll choke to death.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[trish]

here's a dilemma: a girl, who should be working now, is pissing away her time chatting online on a forum called Hung Angels. Should she a) get the fuck back to work; or b) find a page of hard bodied men with huge cocks and get on with some serious salivating.

sorry to disappoint, but i'm going with (a). thanks for break...catch ya'll later.

[MacShreach]

sorry to disappoint

You never do. :D

[biguy4tvtscd]

Yes but if the hypothetical proposition is absurd, then it totally negates any ethical response--

You're reading too deeply into it. The gist of the question is that you have to directly (or indirectly) throw someone to their doom. The train is just filler. If you really need plausibility, replace the train with a bullet, or a falling piece of heavy equipment, or anything big enough to kill someone, but not big enough to continue on unabated.



I had no problems answering A & B, and was with the majority both times.

The baby, of course, would be the most difficult. However, I think that in that actual situation, the act would be nowhere near as difficult to grapple with as it is from the comfort of my office chair. Self preservation kicks in, and self preservation is as strong as it gets.

One reason the crying baby is used in these morality questions, is that there are recorded instances of this occurring. It's not totally made up.

The train is harder, because no matter what you do, someone dies. Concurrently, your life is never in danger. With no self-preservation to fall back on, you have nothing but the logic of lives of many >> life of one to go on.

[alphanumeric]

The train is harder, because no matter what you do, someone dies. Concurrently, your life is never in danger. With no self-preservation to fall back on, you have nothing but the logic of lives of many >> life of one to go on.

they forgot option C) with the train scenario, you sacrifice yourself to save the other people...

[Night Rider]

the baby is getting knocked out at the very least

:lol: :lol: :lol:

The only person I could kill was the guy who was going to die anyway. But I'm not saying it would be wrong to kill the other people to save more lives, I just couldn't do it.

[biguy4tvtscd]

they forgot option C) with the train scenario, you sacrifice yourself to save the other people...

Well, actually with scenario 3a, you don't have that option. It's track a or track b. one person or five. You cannot save all six lives.

3b and 3c could (and probably should) offer your option c. The problem, is that true altruism like that is more theory than reality. The only example I can think of where altruism truly happens, is the ole "soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his platoon"
Other than that specific example (of which there are recorded instances) self-preservation almost always wins over altruism.

[trish]

biguy suggests
You're reading too deeply into it. The gist of the question is that you have to directly (or indirectly) throw someone to their doom. The train is just filler.

I tend to disagree, respectfully and with reservation to be sure.

The problem with these classroom and psychology lab exercises is they aren’t deep enough. They give the impression that in every moral predicament all the choices are clear and all their consequences are known. They do not encourage creative problem solving or risk taking.

Perhaps we should risk taking turns swimming along side the boat.

Perhaps we only need to muffle the baby’s cries and burb her. Wouldn't it be worth the risk?

Perhaps there’s enough time for people to dodge the train if we shout a warning. What do the odds against it have to be to justify killing the other guy? Five to one?

My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that not only are these scenarios too sterile to uniquely determine a justifiable course of action, they encourage people to think in formalistic and static ways about morality and ethics, subjects that are organic and dynamic in their very nature.

[justatransgirl]

Thought you were going back to work Trish... yeah you are as addicted as the rest of us...

Giggle,
TS Jamie :-)

[justatransgirl]

Oh yeah.... the answers.

Gosh it must be the hormones. I surprised myself. What a sissy girl I am...

The Crying Baby - no - but I would take as many of the enemy solders with me as I could.

The lifeboat - no, but I would give up my seat.

The Trolley - I don't think so, but in real life I might make the split second decision of the one for the many.

Trolley 2 - no again I don't think so.

Trolley 3 - no - my answer above notwithstanding, I will risk or trade my life to save anothers but in general I don't think I could atcively end someone's life.

Jessica's response - No on all counts. She says if you can rationalize the killing of one to save the many, then you can rationalize killing anyone for anything.

Hugs,
TS Jamie :-)

[CORVETTEDUDE]

I'm cold blooded...I did all of them. Time for a beer! :shrug

[MacShreach]

biguy suggests
You're reading too deeply into it. The gist of the question is that you have to directly (or indirectly) throw someone to their doom. The train is just filler.

I tend to disagree, respectfully and with reservation to besure.

The problem with these classroom and psychology lab exercises is they aren’t deep enough. They give the impression that in every moral predicament all the choices are clear and all their consequences are known. <snip>

I'm with you, Trish, on this.

The problem with these questions is that they attempt to present an ethical problem in a manner which suggests there is a black/white, yes/no, one way/other way answer.

That of course is absurdly simplistic, partly because there is no black or white, only shades of grey and partly because the questions are themselves prescriptive-- they don't allow the respondent to be creative, to think outside the box.

Furthermore it's immediately obvious that whoever made the questions comes from a dualistic philosophical POV where all questions have to be rendered into "right" or "wrong." This is typical of Judaeo-Christian, and (paradoxically perhaps) Islamic belief systems which are based on monotheist doctrine. That's not the only viable ethical framework.

(You're still influenced by the nature of the culture you are surrounded by even if you don't actually accept its theological or doctrinal precepts, eg belief in a god.)

[trish]

Thought you were going back to work Trish... yeah you are as addicted as the rest of us...

Giggle,
TS Jamie Smile

got me! i never work too long at any one stretch. that's how i keep my good humor :) all work and no play makes trish a nasty, horny bitch. (maybe i should say nastier and hornier than i usually am).

[whatsupwithat]

no on all of them.

i could only sacrifice myself, not others.

then again, as someone else pointed out, making the decision from the comfort of my home office is a lot different than actually being there and weighing in all the factors.

[LTR_Seeker]

i woud rather die than to kill a baby