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Charlemagne_III
Guest
You could let him hang on to the side of the boat, or throw him a life saver.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I’m not following this. Can you refer me to the particular case Kant gives, because he certainly couldn’t have been talking about the Gestapo! Different century. You knew that!
Even if Kant was talking about the Gestapo, you would know that your house was going to be searched no matter what you said. So, on the chance that the Jew was hidden in such a place that he could never be found by the Gestapo, the lesser evil was to lie, and you should choose the lie. But if you knew the Jew was not well hidden and would certainly be found during the search, the lesser evil is to turn him in. If you did not turn him in, both you and he would be arrested, which is the greater evil.
Personally, I have never much liked Kant’s philosophy. Too often too obscure.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Your statement of the case is not my recollection of Sophie’s Choice, which was to choose between two of her own children, or else both would be executed.
Anyway, Sophie’s Choice is not an easy one, because she must decide who is to live and who is to die. But in reality, by making the choice, she is saving the life of one of her children. She is not taking the life of the other child. The butcher is doing that. So she has opted for the lesser evil.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I have been talking about individual moral axioms, not group morality.But people disagree on which, so it is only absolute in a relative sense.
No person disagrees with himself, unless he is mentally troubled.
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Oreoracle
Guest
The original scenario that Kant addressed was the question of what you would do if a known murderer asked you for the location of his next victim. I wanted more than one life to be at stake in the question, and the Gestapo example is a classic, so I went with that. I doubt that has any impact on Kant’s answer.I’m not following this. Can you refer me to the particular case Kant gives, because he certainly couldn’t have been talking about the Gestapo! Different century. You knew that!
And to address Nihilist’s concerns, the following is from Wikipedia. I would just quote the passage from Kant’s work, but alas, I only own Critique of Pure Reason:
I emphasize the bolded portion. Kant truly believed that lying was absolutely, irrevocably wrong in every conceivable scenario. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Since it’s always wrong to lie, even to prevent murder, then for all intents and purposes, Kant effectively believed that lying is just as bad as murder. There is no “lesser evil” that becomes permissible in the presence of a greater evil in his framework. I will remind you that Kant has a considerable number of fans.
So you have a choice: Either your morals lack universal assent, or you need to invent an ad hoc reason to dismiss Kant and his fans.
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Charlemagne_III
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Moral axioms do not describe; they recommend. Definitions describe. Let’s not conflate the two.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I’m not buying into this. In matters of morality reason should be consistent with revelation, because both should arrive at the truth. Plato was not a Catholic, yet he condemned sodomy on the basis of common sense. Aristotle also, not a Catholic, found sodomy to be rooted in some kind of childhood anxiety.
But it’s true that religion discourages moral relativism, depending on the religion.
Anglicans, for example, seem to be highly relativistic.
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Aloysium
Guest
If the only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, to be complicit in murder because of self-interest would be worse.
Thus if being arrested or collaborating with evil are the two possible outcomes resulting from the choice, lying would appear to be the lesser of evils.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
How do you think Kant would address the dilemma of Sophie’s Choice. Would he tell her to shut up because there is no lesser evil?
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Oreoracle
Guest
If possible, Kant would probably just advise that you avoid making any choice at all. If a choice is necessary, I’m not familiar enough with Kant to know how he would deal with such a problem. Thus I will give you a possibly oversimplified “Philosophy 101” sort of answer: Kant famously asserted that “ought implies can”; that is, you cannot be morally obligated to do something that you are incapable of doing. So, just by taking that idea at face value, my guess would be that Kant would consider such dilemmas to not be moral issues at all. We cannot be morally obligated to save two people if it’s only possible to save one. In other words, inevitable things cannot be evil.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I think the point I was trying to make is that if you cannot overcome the greater evil, you should act accordingly. If you believe you cannot enter a house on fire and exit saving the person within, you have no obligation to save the person within.
Otherwise, your quotation should be followed. If you can fight evil without doing yourself in, you should. That’s another absolute moral axiom. But if you are willing to fight evil, knowing you will do yourself in, that’s heroism for which few are capable.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
But we can be morally obligated to save the one if saving the one (but not the two) is possible.
Therefore we can be morally obligated to choose the lesser evil.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Even when we choose the lesser evil we cannot escape the fact that we have chosen an evil. Sophie will have to live with a sense of guilt for having chosen the life of one child over the life of the other. But she also should remember the fact that she has chosen a good, which is to save the life of one of her two children by making the choice required of her by the warden.
I think that if Kant’s ethics prevailed in her thinking, and she had remained silent, both of her children would have died. So “We should always choose the lesser of two evils when we cannot escape making such a choice” is a universal moral axiom. Even if Kant would not have assented, that would only prove that he had the defect of being an armchair philosopher who never much experienced the world. That is to say, he was being unreasonable and lacked common sense.
I think that if Kant’s ethics prevailed in her thinking, and she had remained silent, both of her children would have died. So “We should always choose the lesser of two evils when we cannot escape making such a choice” is a universal moral axiom. Even if Kant would not have assented, that would only prove that he had the defect of being an armchair philosopher who never much experienced the world. That is to say, he was being unreasonable and lacked common sense.
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Oreoracle
Guest
Kant answers Constant’s question in an essay called “On the Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives”. After reading it, I’m not so sure Kant would agree to participate in making Sophie’s Choice at all.
Consider this defense he made for his position on lying (I unfortunately can’t copy and paste it from the PDF file): He argues that, even in a civil court, you would be responsible for all of the consequences of a lie you tell. Suppose you lie to the murderer about the location of your friend, but unbeknownst to you, your friend sneaked out of his hiding spot to find a better one. Because of your lie, the murderer may happen to find your friend inadvertently and kill him. According to Kant, no matter how unlikely this consequence is, you are responsible for it. If you had told the truth, you wouldn’t have been responsible for anything.
Anytime we are in a scenario in which we choose which life to save, thereby killing the other, a person like Kant could argue that, in a perverted sort of way, we are indirectly responsible for the death. So to be consistent with the “hands-off” approach that Kant uses for the issue of lying, my guess would be that Kant would allow both to die of their own accord.
That leads to worse consequences, but Kant’s morality is deontological, not consequential. He would point out that at least you aren’t responsible for either death this way, because, by his conception of responsibility, you can only be responsible for consequences if you act against the Categorical Imperative.
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
In what sounds like a modern version of the trolley problem a related question came up at a university recently and was mentioned in the article “Should Robot Cars Be Programmed To Kill You If It Will Save More Lives?”
I get the feeling that entities developing such vehicles would prefer simply not handle this scenario so that he or she can just leave it as an accident in which no active role has been played. One could question whether or not this is the socially responsibly thing to do.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Well, in the case of Sophie’s Choice, it would not be a matter of Sophie killing the other. It was the butcher who killed the other. Her principle motive would not be to kill either son, but to save at least one of them by choosing. Would Kant be so cold-hearted as not to see that it was in Sophie’s power to save one child, and so she righteously (but sadly) did?
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Tomdstone
Guest
I said it was a slight modification of Sophie’s choice. I don’t think that my modification in any way affects my contention that there are cases where some people would choose the action which results in the greater of two evils.
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Tomdstone
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So according to you, if she does kill her own child, she would be choosing the lesser evil. However the question was whether or not there would be a case where someone would think that it was better to act in a way that the result would be the greater of two evils. I still contend that there will be strict moralists who will say that it is wrong to directly take the life of another, even if the result would be a good one. They will invoke the moral rule that a good end does not justify an immoral means. For such a person, she will perceive that it is better to do nothing and not to take the life of her one child, which will result in the greater of two evils occurring.
And this is pretty much the same dilemma posed by the lifeboat problem and the conclusion is the same for both - namely that** there are situations where a person would see that the greater of two evils is the better choice and the most moral choice**.
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Tomdstone
Guest
People often debate issues in their own mind and at one point see A as the best choice, but at another point see that it is better not to choose A.No person disagrees with himself, unless he is mentally troubled.
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Tomdstone
Guest
I believe that the example of Sophie’s choice shows that these axioms do not have universal assent.
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